Geo Defense
This is my favourite tower defense game. App store link.
In a tower defense game, you place different kinds of firing towers on a field to eliminate waves of attacking enemies. For every killed enemy you get money that you can use to build new towers or upgrade the ones you already have. Typically the towers vary in range, strength of bullets and firing frequency. Additionally there is a tower type that slows down enemies. The enemies vary in strength and speed. You loose a game, if a certain amount of enemies breaks through you chain of defense and you win a level by defeating a certain amount of attack waves.
In Geo Defense, the enemies will move on a pathway and the towers can be placed freely around the path. A special kind of tower is the laser tower: its beam can damage several enemies at once. In later levels you see another tower that collects the energy from explosions and transfers it to other towers as a power up.
The levels look similar at first sigth. What changes are the pathway, the kinds of available towers, your initial budget and the enemies. Soon you realise that these different parameters demand completly different strategies to win a level. You need to think about the types of towers you use, thier combinations and exact placement, whether to upgrade single towers or to build lots of towers. I failed almost every level playing it for the first time but it was always very motivating to try one more time. After winning a level I can’t wait to see and try the next one. There are 34 level in total of which I’ve seen 23 so far.
The graphics are abstract, clear and in a retro vector style. The objects are small – so there is a lot of space for the levels. All animations are vivid and the explosions look like fireworks with lots of particles. When the screen gets busy with objects and the defense is working I fall into some kind of rush with all the explosions, all the money and all my towers.
This is the first “serious” game I played on the iPhone and I spent a lot of time with it. Check it!
App store link, lite version and developer link: Critical Thought Games
