Desktop Tower Defender - addictive game

[RandyC]

http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/game.asp

How many points can you get?

[doublezero_si]

210 on medium and double digits for hard. Those small guys passing through sound like Ewoks.

[Mazda_Gremlyn]

923 on medium :)

[dwkfym]

1362 on medium

I'm working on setting a score so high that it wont be beaten by any SDR autocrossers in a long time

[Mazda_Gremlyn]

Oh... its on.

[Andrew]

1362 on medium

I'm working on setting a score so high that it wont be beaten by any SDR autocrossers in a long time

*Throws gauntlet* 5012

[RandyC]

I won't tell you my scores yet, but to make this more fun, when it asks if you want to send your scores to the group, type in SCCA.

:)

[Andrew]

I won't tell you my scores yet, but to make this more fun, when it asks if you want to send your scores to the group, type in SCCA.

:)

Well, crap (http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/GroupScoreboard.asp?group=scca&submit=View+Group+Scoreboard+%3E%3E%3E). Time for a new strategy...

[RandyC]

Did I mention is it addictive?

The key to a higher score is juggling. I started out following this strategy and have since moved to a diifferent one I think is more effective.

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[rodger]

On Normal:
6824 14 lives
6668 full clear

But I've know of this game for a few months. I use a similar build to Randy, but vertical instead of diagonal, and no juggling (which I do not enjoy.)

Randy, how did you make the video?

[RandyC]

For a while I was not going to juggle and just wanted to see how far I could go with out juggling.

The product that captures what is happening on your screen and makes a video of it is called Camtasia, but I did not make that one. I just like the background music a lot (Love and Rockets) and I started out developing a strategy based on that diagonal stair stepping. Now, I have a different one which works pretty well. I can easily do the entire hard without losing a life and with a lot of bonus points from sending lives early.

Some key points. Use the keyboard for
S=Sell
U=Upgrade
N=Next

You can rush certain waves and not others. Watch out for FAST because they are. Watch out for DARK because they are hard to kill. Watch out for the ones that split off, they can leak.

One of the hardest stages where you have to be careful is the very early ones. You have limited money and weapons.

The important thing to always know, is which flyer level is coming next and what it will take for swarm towers to kill it. I don't like relying on the other towers, I just want to have enough swarm power to kill off the flyers.

[RandyC]

This will work on MED or HARD modes or even other CHALLENGES.

Start out by placing the pellet towers as shown. You will have 10gold left. Hit N to start the first wave. Hit it twice to get 2 bonus points. :)

You can start the second wave right away in MED mode or wait a second for HARD mode.

[RandyC]

Your first goal is to get 15gold and place a squirt tower top under the 4th tower from the left on the top row (see image). This happens pretty quickly. Then add another squirt below as per the pic and then the pellet towers as shown.

You can not place as many pellets and instead do the first upgrades to the pellets (12gold each). This seems to work well. But the goal is to get the squirts upgraded and the pellets placed as far as in this pic.

Also, note the two points where pellets only touch at corners. The SPAWN creaps will leak out there, so try to plug that with a pellet tower.

This is what the desktop will look like with the first set of waves-
NORMAL IMMUNE GROUP FAST NORMAL

By the end of that second NORMAL wave, you should have upgraded both SQUIRTS to 2.

[RandyC]

This is what it looks like when the first SPAWN wave hits and I am blocking off their path along the top.

MAKE SURE you don't spend all the gold at this stage, you need 5! Now the SPAWNS come.

Just right after I block off that one pellet tower, I then sell it and block off the bottom left escape path. You can't ever totally block their escape, so you have to wait for the top left blocking tower to go away. As the game progresses it takes longer and longer to sell off towers.

That right there is the essence of juggling at its most basic. You place and then sell the pellet towers to force the creeps to change direction.

3 or 4 blocks should be enough to kill off the SPAWNS (it also keeps them more concentrated by the more deadly SQUIRTS).

Do not send the next wave (FLIERS) early as the towers will be concentrating on the SPAWN remnants and not shoot at the FLIERS. Note that this first FLIER wave, we are relying on pellets to kill them. They should be able to. But be prepared to sprinkle an extra pellet or two in the middle (which you can sell once the FLIERS are gone).

[RandyC]

Upgrade one the SQUIRTS now.

As the FLIERS are being killed off, send the next wave. You can even send two waves at once now. The BOSSES and IMMUNE. You may have to juggle once or twice. Maybe.

As these are nearing being killed off, you will have over 100 gold. Now sell off and then replace the PELLET tower with a BASH tower. This is critical to happen now.

[RandyC]

As the waves progress, they get stronger. As you get gold, upgrade the other SQUIRT to a level 2 and add PELLETs to make the paths longer.

Next is GROUP and then FAST. You want a longer path when FAST comes so you can more easily juggle and most likely not need to juggle. Make the paths as long as the image below.

Now you need to save up some gold. Kill off the GROUP and FAST and then comes DARK. DARK will require a little bit of juggling. We need to be ready for the next FLIER wave by placing a SWARM tower in the very center of the desktop.

On HARD mode, level 14 FLIER requires one level SWARM (single 30 gold upgrade). You should have enough gold as that last group of SPAWNS were being killed to upgrade that SWARM.

[RandyC]

Send NORMAL and then upgrade the BASH (120gold).

Next is BOSS and GROUP. By the end of those two (you may need a juggle or two for the BOSSES), you can upgrade the BASH one more time (+145 gold)

The next wave of FAST is easy. And then comes DARK. You are again at this point thinking of the FLIERS which are coming soon. The Level 21 Fliers will require you to have two more SWARMS. They do not need to be upgraded, but if I have 30 gold each, I go ahead and upgrade each one to the next level. This should easily take care of level 21 Fliers.

Press N to send NORMAL and then N again for the IMMUNE.

[RandyC]

Send the next levels and extend the paths per the pic below. This is not critical, you are just trying to get the paths longer eventually (you will need it later).

You are also upgrading the SWARMS to level 2 each and the BASH is now upgraded once more to a level 3.

The highlighted pellet tower is one I am using to block as I juggle.

[RandyC]

Again, send the next set of levels. As your skill increases, you can send all the levels up to the next Flier, or maybe to the SWARM. Juggle. Your goal now is to increase the paths to their final length per the image below, to upgrade the BASH to level 4 and to upgrade all three SWARMS to level 3.

Your path does not have to look exactly the same, I often tweak it differently. The important thing is you have to leave room to block each end and NOT block the other end at the same time (it will not let you).

You can also see this pathways enables another trick which allows creeps that are a bit too far along the paths, to get back to the BASH faster than they go out. The downside of this map, is that almost all the damage happens at one point, and your can juggle creeps that never get back to that beginning spot.

[RandyC]

Again, send the levels. Juggle. Same thing. Now here is the trick if you get behind. When you place the blocking tower in the lower right, you immediately sell it right? Immediately also then, sell the pellet tower and the end of the 3rd row on the other path.

For example... if you place a blocking pellet tower where the one I have shown in this image is being sold. Look at the row in the upper right with three towers and some creeps going above them. The first tower, the one closest to the flier... sell that one!

As the creeps head out.. they take the long way around those three pellets. But when they go back towards the BASH, that pellet is sold and there is a shortcut. You can do this on the other path also and develop a sequence here. This allows you to pull in those escaping creeps and keep it more tidy.

Anyway... you don't have to do this, but it will save you some pain. :)

The goal here is again to send the levels and look at level 42 FLIER. These FLIERS are significantly tougher. To deal with them, I have upgraded the outer two SWARMS to level 4 and the middle SWARM is now maxed out at level 5. I also added two FROST towers to slow down the FLIERS.

Note that I also upgraded the BASH to level 4.

[RandyC]

Level 49 FLIERS just need me to max out the two end SWARMS to the final level.

As you can see in this image, I upgraded one SWARM and I am now upgrading the last one. You can also see what I was talking about before, I have the bottom blocking tower being sold, and that one tower at the top also being sold.

By the time I place the new blocking tower in the lower right, the "being sold" tower at the top will be gone and the creeps will has a faster route back. Then I close it off. Rinse, repeat.

[RandyC]

With the Level 49 Fliers dispatched, send the next set of levels. You may find about now that you can also upgrade the BASH to its final level. You should do so when it is a good time. Or later. It is not a big deal.

The main goal now is getting ready (in HARD mode) for level 56 BOSS FLIERS.

These are BOSSES meaning that they are harder to kill and their are only two of them. To make them more killable, I added two more SWARMS and upgraded them to level 2. I maybe should have done more... because this barely worked. :)

In HARD mode, we have these SNAP towers and you can see in this pic I added two of them and then upgraded them to level 4.

As the BOSS FLIERs get into range, like right over the SNAPs, select one SNAP and FIRE IT. This makes the SNAP go away but it fires paralyzing darts that freeze the creep. Once the effect wears off, fire the other SNAP. The effect of freezing the two BOSS FLIERS while their are being shot at by the SWARMS, should be enough time to kill them.

The difficulty here, is you were pretty busy juggling anyway, and now you are playing with those SNAP towers, so you have to coordinate everything.

[RandyC]

Once you get past the last BOSS FLIER level, the rest is simply grunt work. Send all the remaining levels, juggle, and upgrade the SQUIRTS and maybe add some things like DARTS, because the last two waves are hard to kill and I don't have all day... and you have gold you don't need anyway. Spend it.

Note also I sold off the middle of the desktop since I don't need it anymore. No more FLIERS.

[RandyC]

Last screen capture. No lives lost. A good bonus for sending waves early.

[Andrew]

Way too involved. I've moved on to the 3k challenge game, but even that's failing to hold my interest.

Time to go back to playing sudoku.