Desktop Tower Defense

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Desktop Tower Defense
Desktop Tower Defense in play
Developer(s)	Paul Preece
Distributor(s)	Kongregate, Handdrawngames.com
Designer(s)	Paul Preece
Version	1.5
Platform(s)	Adobe Flash
Release date	March 3, 2007 (Version 1.0) March 21, 2007 (Version 1.2) June 22, 2007 (Version 1.5)
Genre(s)	Tower defense
Mode(s)	Single player
Media	online Flash game
System requirements	Flash-compatible web browser, Adobe Flash
Input methods	keyboard, mouse

Desktop Tower Defense is a Flash-based browser game of the tower defense game genre created by first-time game designer Paul Preece in March of 2007. In the span of a few months, the game had been played over 15.7 million times as of July 2007.^[1] The game was one of Webware 100's top ten entertainment web applications of 2007.^[2]

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Towers 3 Enemies 4 History 4.1 Development 4.2 Distribution 4.3 Updates 5 Reception and impact 6 Bibliography 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Gameplay

Like other games in its genre, the game's basic premise is simple. The game is played on a set map, in this case one resembling an office desktop. The player must stop a set number of enemies, known in the genre as creeps, from reaching a set point on the playing field. This is accomplished by building and upgrading towers that shoot at, damage or somehow hinder the enemy creeps before they are able to reach their objective. Unlike many tower defense games the path of the creeps themselves is not set; instead, they take the shortest path they can find to the exit, with the towers you can build blocking their way. (The game will prevent you from making an exit inaccessible.) One tactic is "juggling" in which the player removes a tower to create an alternate path to the exit and then closes off the other path, forcing the creeps to travel back through the maze. Juggling becomes more difficult as the game progresses, since the time required to remove a tower increases each time a tower is removed.

The player has a set number of lives that diminish every time a creep gets through the defenses he or she has built and reaches its objective point. Upon loss of the last life, the game is over and the player is defeated.

The game can be played in three difficulty levels, named easy, medium, and hard. In addition, there are several "challenges" available in the challenge mode for those seeking more from the game. Challenges range from "The 100," where the player must defeat 100 levels of successively difficult creeps to "3K Fixed," where the player has to build a fixed set of towers (including the upgrades) with just 3000 dollars. There is also a fun mode with various sub-modes quite different in gameplay from the other, harder ones.

The game is available in English, Spanish, German, French, and Italian.

[edit] Towers

Towers found in all versions:

Pellet - Basic tower that upgrades into a Sniper Tower. Mostly used as a cheap way to make walls and mazes that lead the creeps around your stronger towers. Land + Air

Squirt - Quick firing tower. Upgrades to the Typhoon Tower. Land + Air

Dart - Attacks ground only with splash damage. Upgrades to the ICBM Tower. Land Only

Swarm - Can only attack air units, but does so very effectively. Upgrades into the Storm Tower. Air Only

Frost - Freezes multiple opponents, slowing them down. Upgrades into the Blizzard Tower. Land + Air

New Towers found in version 1.2.

Bash - Attacks every enemy around it simultaneously, and has a small chance to stun, holding an enemy or enemies in place. Upgrades to the Quake Tower. Land Only

New Towers found in version 1.5.

Ink - Has both a minimum and maximum range. Ink damages opponents that walk over it. Upgrades to the Inkblot Tower. Land Only

Snap Tower - Can only be fired once and damages the area around it. Upgrades to the Spike Tower. Ground + Air

Boost Tower - Boosts the attack of adjacent towers by up to 50%. Can be upgrded up to four . Will Not Attack

[edit] Enemies

Normal - No specific strengths or weaknesses.

Group - All of the enemies are spawned at once such that they stack on top of each other.

Fast - These creeps travel much faster.

Dark - Slow moving, stingray-shaped and invulnerable to most attacks; can be destroyed by certain upgraded towers. They distract towers from launching effective attacks on other enemies.

Immune - Unaffected by the frost towers/blizzard towers. Bash/Quake towers can damage but not stun them.

Spawn - Splits into two smaller creeps when killed, sometimes spawning them on the other side of adjacent towers.

Morph - Every few seconds they become a new creep kind. The cycle is as follows: Dark, immune, fast, normal, repeat

Flying - These creeps will fly right over your towers towards their exits; they cannot be forced through your maze.

Boss - There are various kinds of bosses, corresponding to the different kinds of creeps, but they always come two at a time. Stopping these creeps yields significantly more gold than stopping regular creeps.

[edit] History

[edit] Development

Paul Preece got the inspiration for Desktop Tower Defense sometime in 2006. He noticed a lack of tower defense games that allowed proper “mazing” (controlling movement of enemy forces by placing towers in their path). Preece did not immediately start work on Desktop Tower Defense because he considered Flash to be too difficult to learn. It was only after an acquaintance created Flash Element Tower Defense that Paul started work on the game. Starting from the Autumn Tower Defense map created for the RTS game Warcraft III, Paul Preece created a simple tower defense game that could be played using only a browser.

[edit] Distribution

Originally, the game was promoted through the web service StumbleUpon. It eventually found its way onto several flash game sites such as Kongregate. The game's popularity was further increased by exposure on the internet pop-culture websites Digg and I-am-bored.com.^[3]

[edit] Updates

The original release version of the game, version 1.0 was released in early March 2007. On the 21st of the same month, version 1.2 was released introducing a new tower type, a new creep, and a new challenge mode among other updates.^[4] Version 1.5 of the game was released in late June 2007.^[5] Among the many cosmetic changes include new types of towers, creep types and challenge modes. A multiplayer version is on Casual Collective. While the changes diversify the overall gaming experience, some reviewers like Duncan Riley of TechCrunch and Jason Kottke reacted negatively to the update.^[6][7]

[edit] Reception and impact

This game was featured on Attack of the Show and the Lab with Leo on G4TechTV. It was also in the march issue of Game Informer, with a positive review. As of July 2007, the game had been played more than 15 million times since its inception in March of the same year. The game has made over $12,000 in ad-revenue and donations according to its creator. Most of the revenue generated by the game is through the online ad-service AdSense.^{[1][8][9][10]}

The game itself has been billed as extremely addictive and thus time-consuming to the point of unproductivity by many reviewers, including those at TechCrunch. Reviewer Michael Arrington commented in jest that the game "should be banned" because of its highly addictive nature.^{[11][12][13][14][15]}

Due to success of the game, Paul Preece decided to leave his programming job to focus on making online games as an independent game developer. Together with fellow game maker David Scott, they formed their own game development company named Novel Concepts.^{[16][17][18][19]}

It has been covered by publications like the Wall Street Journal.^[1] Desktop Tower Defense was ranked second within the top five games within the tower defense genre by Just-Whatever.^[20] The game was picked in a survey involving over 400,000 voters over 5000 other web apps as one of the top 100 best web applications, one of ten in the entertainment category for 2007 by Webware.^[2][21]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Desktop Tower Defense at Handdrawngames.com
• Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 at Kongregate.com