Player's Guide
touchDefense continues in the finest tradition of tower defense games, with an abundance of details and leaving the doorway open to improvisational gameplay strategies. After mixing those two factors together and let them stew for a bit, it can be a bit bewildering to get started.
That's why we put together this Player's Guide: to teach you a little bit about flying before pushing you out of the nest and strongly encouraging you to master that flapping-your-wings concept before you hit the ground.
Overview
The goal of games in the tower defense genre is to destroy creeps before they reach your tower, and touchDefense doesn't stray from that all-important agenda. Creeps begin their short lives somewhere on the left side of the screen and follow the maze until they reach the exit on the right side.
For each creep that reaches the exit you will lose one life. Since you begin the game with ten lives, if ten creeps reach the exit, then you lose the game.
Conversely, you beat a level by defeating all the waves of creeps without allowing ten creeps past your defenses. Your tools for accomplishing that epic feat are the skillful combinations of towers and frequent usage of the play again button.
Types of Towers
touchDefense has four types of towers, each of which has two upgrade paths with two tiers. Figuring out what that convoluted preceeding sentence means, there are a total of twenty types of towers to play with.
Each of the four base towers (gattling, cannon, missile and ray) has a speciality, and the different upgrade paths can either improve upon those specialties or go in a different direction entirely.
Because we believe in the small joys of discovering things on one's own, we wil only list the second level of upgrades for each tower, but not the third.
The infamous Gattling Tower I would be well-feared by creeps if they had any mental capacity beyond following extremely simple mazes. It has an extremely high rate of fire, and is very cheap to upgrade.
The Gattling Tower I can upgrade to:
- Gattling II Tower which is stronger, quicker, and shoots further.
- Dart Tower I which deals bio damage, which deals damage over time long after the creep has left your tower's range.
The second highly destructive (okay, okay, its more along the lines of moderately destructive) weapon in your toolkit is the Cannon Tower I. The cannon tower specializes in splash damage that hits creeps surrounding the target creep, as well as the target itself. If you're a coupon shopper, you'll also like that it's a bit on the cheap side to upgrade as well.
The Cannon Tower I can upgrade to:
- Cannon Tower II which takes splash damage to a whole new dimension (which is to say, it becomes useful), as well as upping the damage and range.
- On the other hand, the Howitzer Tower I skimps on the splash damage a bit to provide unparalleled range and cannon balls that descend upon your enemies quicker than a mule on oats.
Wielding fiery death from afar, the Missile Tower I is one heck of a strong cup of tea. It'll hit 'em at
The Missile Tower I can upgrade to:
- The Missile Tower II which kicks em harder and from further away (but is still manned by the slowest gunnery crew the we could find).
- The Chemical Tower I which doesn't pack the initial punch of the vanilla missile tower, but inflicts insidious damage over time to all those it hits.
The final variety of level one tower at your disposal is the dashing Ray Tower I. Its name is intuitive, because it shoots... rays. A bit less intuitive, the ray tower slows down creep movement. It's expensive, has a miserable range and attacks less frequently than a yeti showers, but it's a mighty fine companion to your other towers when the creeps start getting tought.
The Ray Tower I can upgrade to:
- The Ray Tower II which keeps the creeps slow longer and extends the range a couple of centimeters.
- The Stasis Tower I which stops towers in their tracks (except for the ones that are immune to stasis...) and tickles them with absolutely trivial amounts of damage.
Combining these towers and their upgrades is your sole defense against the maniacal creeps, so study their details well.
Kinds of Creeps
The cunningly named Arrow Creep is the gruntiest of grunts in the creep battalions. It has no redeeming qualities, other than being closer to being a golden triangle than any of the other creeps. Mostly because... the other creeps are not triangles.
The Flake Creep never studied much in school, and thus never learned that all snowflakes are supposed to be unique and beautiful. Instead they all look very very much the same.
It has a handful of special attributes. They move very quickly, but are rather frail and damage easily. Finally, they are immune to bio damage, so you have to be careful to keep some towers that deal physical damage.
The third variety of creep is the SawHog Creep. In best hog style they are slow and take a heck of a beating before their squealing finally stops (unfortunately our testers threatened our lives if we didn't remove their delightful voices from the game, so you'll just have to use your imagination).
They are also immune to slow and stop, but that shouldnt be too much of a problem since they're so slow to begin with...
Once in a blue moon you will be fortunate enough to make parlance with a Boss Creep. These moody creeps also travel alone, but are much stronger than a normal creep, in addition to being immune to all kinds of special effects and damage.
Unlocking Levels
Unlocking levels is a simple affair. Well, at least it's simple to explain the concept, even if it isn't necessarily a cakewalk to perform. You unlock a level by defeating all the creeps in the previous level without allowing ten creeps into your tower.
You'll have to discover how many levels there are for yourself, but we'll periodically add additional levels along with free bug and performance updates.
Gameplay Strategies
There are a number of strategies for playing touchDefense. As you play you'll begin to develop your own style, and your own build and upgrade orders to optimize your probability of survival (and score).
Here are some strategy tips to get you started:
- Start out with a Gattling Tower I and upgrade it to max as quickly as possible. It's cheap, quick, and ideal for eliminating early waves.
- You'll want some towers with bio damage. That means either Dart Towers or Chemical Towers. Having too many towers with bio damage doesn't help though, since bio damage doesn't stack. Also, weak bio towers can prevent stronger bio towers from afflicting their sickness, so be careful to have your strongest bio towers at the front of your towers.
- Cannon Towers are ideal against clusters of enemies, but you'll have to create the clusters yourself, by using either Ray Towers or Stasis Towers.
- If you're having trouble getting creeps to give up and die once you reach the later levels, you'll find that you need to use all the tools at your disposal. Slow, stop, bio are divine, but you can't neglect the pure damage potential of Missile Towers.
- Certain towers, especially Ray and Stasis Towers have extremely poor range, but you can maximize their chances to fire by placing them on corners or on thin islands where creeps are in range on both sides.
These are just some ideas to get your creative juices going. Use these strategies and prosper. Ignore these strategies and prosper. Be inventive and find your own style, therein lies the path to enjoyment.
For the time being this is the end of the Player's Guide. Feel free to contact us if we are missing anything important. Remember, though, there is honor (and more importantly, fun) in figuring things out.
Have fun!