We’re delving deep into the catalogue today. All the way back to 2011, in fact, where I found “Orb Tower Defense”. It has some innovations that I appreciate. For one, the attacking forces, and your weapons, are tied to one of four elements (fire, water, plants, and electricity… not sure what happened to “air” or “earth”). This adds an unexpected level of strategy, such as fire attackers are most vulnerable to water defences, for example.
Another thing I thought was cute was that some enemies get smaller as they’re hit, finally disappearing after they receive enough hits (and, in some cases, certain elements will knock them down in one hit, whereas other weapons would take multiple hits). It’s a nice touch and works well with the simplistic (yet strangely appealing for me) presentation.
Another unexpected part of the game was that the path of the oncoming enemies changes each attack, but on the same map, meaning the next wave might walk right *over* some of your defence weapons, forcing you to move them (lest they become inoperable). Now *that’s* a feature I don’t recall seeing in a tower defence game in the past.
It’s all wrapped up with online play and costs a dollar, and I find it to be a compelling package.
Here’s what the developer (Daniel Cary) has to say about the game:
“Orb Tower Defense is an elemental-based tower defense game featuring an online game mode with up to six players and three different singleplayer game modes. The towers and creeps can be one of the following elements: fire, water, plant, electric. Each element has strengths and weaknesses to each other. Every type of tower has a total of six possible upgrades.”
Writings of Mass Deduction 