Bloodtide Tower Defense

Great bang for the buck! Spent five hours playing this game before I realized it. Laid back gameplay but just enough to keep me actively engaged. Some challenging levels that make you think about your tower placement. Simple and effective. This is a perfect game to play when I just want to fill some time and relax.

got this game for a gift on my birthday it's a lot of fun

First impressions are very good. Fun! But I will start from the beginning. Only five regular towers and two support tower. In game, each tower can be buffed two ways, once each. There is a strategic upgrade tree that allows you to upgrade them as well. There is a real nice balance between spending money on a new tower, or an upgrade, an important aspect of a good TD game IMHO You can even move your towers, for a small price. I am as yet uncertain about something though, there are two kinds of upgrade points regular and variable I think. Each tower has two types of upgrades, regular (incremental improvements) and variable (variant?) It adds a special effect to a tower, for example with the poison arrow towers, I have one that also creates a gas cloud that damage others that pass thru it while it lasts. There are no tactical options, other than building and upgrading, which is kind of weak, but I didn't say it was perfect, just fun. There seems to be a variety of monsters, and they have an interesting mechanism. Some, when they die, turn into puddles of goo that buff the following monsters in various ways. I felt these puddles were a perfect opportunity for a tactical option, as the player could have had a way to remove some of these puddles. The monsters move rather like chewable vitamins, not really animated, but this did not make it less fun. Pacing is top notch, they move quickly enough to make you nervous but not so fast you can't think about what to upgrade or where to build next. There are a few levers at the start of a level that I think change things up, haven't tried them yet. Will amend when I do. (One sets difficulty) The game does have the ability to speed things up, always appreciated. There is a targeting system, but it is in the strategic menu and impacts all the towers of a type. Could be better, better than nothing. CORRECTION: That is just a default, but you can change targets for individual towers on the ring around the gun. Only played two levels, but so far the maps seem a bit on the small side, and there is no option for the player to affect their path. Not a big deal, but some players really want that. There are thirty maps though! Where they really feel short for me was the total lack of fluff. The critters have so much personality, I feel it would have taken the developers under an hour to create a story and lay some text to give the players something to draw them in. As is though, given the TD games I have been seeing recently, and easy recommendation. One thumb up, maybe one and a half. ADDENDUM: If I could make one suggestion, I would like longer games as an option, even run is ten waves. ADDENDUM: Over two hours in, and still having fun. I enjoy games where you have to figure out what level you should be on, going back and forth between the next easy and the older harder levels. And with six levels of difficulty, there is a lot of that here. Good stuff. ADDENDUM: About six hours in, and I am losing interest. It's a shame, because I feel like with a little work this could have been fun for a lot longer. It doesn't help that there doesn't seem to be any sense of progression outside of the strategic upgrades. The maps don't see the get harder as you go along, and the number of levels never go about ten. A real let down, I expect the number of levels to go up as the game progresses, and I like being about to build a defense that matures over time. Larger maps would also be nice.