Cartridge Defense

I've played a lot of tower defense games and this one is really compelling. There are difficulty spikes that had me ragequitting, but here's some advice - don't be afraid to spread your towers out, and sponsorship mode is endgame. I love and I hate this game. The number of stages that you spend 30 minutes in, doing really well, and then the boss monster comes out and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ STEAMROLLS YOU is waaaaaay too high. Also there are only a handful of "winning" round 1 plays, I am restarting a lot and I wish there was a better system in place to make sure you have an actual play round 1. The single biggest knock against it are how few winning plays there are at present. There are so many times that it seems theres like a single "right" answer to a level. Like "oh you built 2 machine guns and 3 flamethrowers and 3 missile silos? Sorry the answer is 2 machine guns 2 flamethrowers and 4 missile silos! Sorry you just spent 30 minutes on this level and were doing absolutely great up until this point LOL!" Where's the fun in that style of play? Where its less about the creative control of building a cool base, and more about whether or not you built the EXACT number of "correct" towers. Some people might enjoy this style of play but I'm a casual and it takes a lot of the fun out of it. EDIT: OK I just hit a difficulty wall 20 hours in and I'm done. Spent three hours on a single stage but it's just too hard for me. 20 hours of gaming (15 of them fun and the other 5 were just frustrating) for 10 bucks? Meh. EDIT 2: 90 hours of play, this game is great, but be warned it might be dead. The creator has chimed in a few discussion threads, but its been almost six months since the last update. Worth it, but this might be as "finished" as the game is going to get.

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [i]Cartridge Defense[/i] combines DeckBuilding and Tower Defense genres that remains in Early Access, a little more than a year after it became available to the public, though the full release should be coming soon. It combines the two genres quite well and offers good fun gameplay. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The game is still currently in Early Access but should be getting a full release relatively soon. There is a nice interactive tutorial, with three playable game modes: Normal, Endless, and Roguelike. The way the cards play into the tower defense game is by allowing the cards to dictate your resources. You can use a certain number of cards in each level, and each card contains specific items, such as a turret or base blocks for building, in addition to abilities, such as allowing you to draw new cards, etc. Each level is a bit different and you will learn how to best use your cards. The turrets can all be upgraded 5 times. You can take your time to build up your defenses, making sure that everything is placed where you would like it to be. The game allows you to speed up time after you are done building, so that you do not have to sit and wait for everything to play out at one standard pace. It's good feature to have. The game features several different zones where you can play, and each zone has individual levels. Playing the game unlocks new card packs for you. So the game's repertoire and complexity grows as you play the game more. After each level, you can add new cards or delete old ones, depending on how you perceive the effectiveness and utility of your deck. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The game has some nice graphics and the cards look quite good. The levels are pleasant to look at as well. [h1]Music & Sounds[/h1] The music is fast like most Tower Defense games. It may be suitable for some people though it was a bit too much for me and I played the game with the sounds off. [h1]Controls[/h1] This game can be fully played with a mouse. [h1]Pricing[/h1] There is a lot of gameplay and also much to unlock. There are so many cards to unlock in this game. You can also try out different decks for different strategies, so the game has effectively unlimited gameplay. The price of €9,99 is quite reasonable [h1]Gameplay Video[/h1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sef0n6dgdk [h1]Verdict[/h1] [i]Cartridge Defense[/i] is a good game that gives a nice combination of DeckBuilding and Tower Defense genres. Neither side feels forced or ignored. It is fun to try to unlock all of the card packs and to tackle the same problems using different strategies. It is also rather fun to try to always improve the active deck for the subsequent levels. The game currently does not have any achievements, but according to the developer, those are coming. I can fully recommend this game in its current state. Verdict: 7.5/10. [quote]I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.[/quote]

Had to refund because game is currently 100% Nonfunctional for lots of players, Tutorial locks up, and can't be finished, and first campaign level can't even be started.

This needs work. Towers not firing is not acceptable.

Install game. Run Game. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE!?! " I am immediately assaulted by max volume sounds of an infinite number of monkeys flushing an infinite number of toilets. Go to settings. Disable ambient sounds and music. Not bad. Okay. Lets continue. Run tutorial. Stops progressing thirty seconds in. Can't click any buttons, cant exit tutorial. Cant progress. Alt+F4. Try again. Same outcome. Alt+F4 Run again. Try Campaign. Doesn't work. Can't click any buttons nothing happens and get stuck on this next screen of a hallway. Alt+F4. Uninstall. Refund. Maybe this worked sometime in the past, but it looks like there is some kind of corruption or damage to the major functioning of the game. Don't bother with this. 0/10

Cannot recommend this game. I am refunding it. Look at the discussions and there has been an issue with the tutorial for at lest 6+ months. I cannot get past it. Cannot recommend a game that has this big of an issue in which you cannot even complete the tutorial. Heck you cant even press escape to get to a menu. It is a fully Alt+F4 situation. Was really looking forward to this but have to say Buyer Beware. I am going to try on another computer but I don't think that will change what I am thinking. Edit: You can see i played more. (Forgot to refund). Still not that great. There is a wall around "World" 5 that just sucks. I had almost every single card available but there is no way to pass it. Think of just zerg roided out. Cannot recommend since there are other issues I saw thoughout like you cannot use more than one of each legendary card. Some cards are to give more cards and 70% of the time only give one instead of like 3 (yes I had other cards since after that I still got my round card). Again cannot recommend it since if you have not playtested your game then the developer is bad. And again making certain levels impossible to beat is ridiculous. If you look at the achievements you can see people cheated on the achievements since there are 3.3% who completed all zones but only 3.1% that completed zone 5.

Impressive Tower Defense game. The addition of strategic cards adds a lot of tactical options to each map. It combines old school make your own maze within a variety of map layouts that each have their own obstacles. If you like a more strategic tower defense that allows you to plan out each level instead of a twitch style experience then this is the game for you. My only complaint and it's a small one, is that there isn't anything to do during a wave to change the outcome if you planning wasn't good enough. Perhaps, the dev might add something like instant cards/cartridges to address this?

Bought this game on a whim and I am so very glad i did! I have only played about 5 hours of this so far but I am loving the gameplay systems and the setting. The game plays like a deckbuilder combined with a tower defense, and is rather addicting. The devs seem to be putting a lot of work in to make this game better and it looks like they are open to community feedback. This game is a true gem in my eye, i hope it gains more popularity!

Holy ....! THIS IS A GOOD GAME! WOW! Tower defense game lovers: GET THIS. Also if you like strategy! Target prioritization, building your own mazes, make your own deck of towers you choose from, replayability, tower unlocks (card unlocks), endless mode AND roguelike mode on top of the campaign. GREAT visuals and the UI environment is sublime. I love this one. A STEAL at this price!

Cartridge Defense is a slow paced TD game emphasising on the strategic aspects of the genre, so if you are looking for some fast paced action like Kingdom Rush this game is probably not what you want. For those who want to build strategies and then just sit back and watch, this is the game for you. This is the best TD game i have played in a long time. It has all features you could ask for, maze building, a good variety of towers (that can have special abilities like slow, poison, armor/shield piercing) and a good variety of enemies that force you to adapt your strategy. A load of possible prioritizing options for your towers. The deckbuilding adds very well to the strategic aspects of the game, but dont fear you have to try and try to finally figure out the right deck. there is plenty information on the pre-lvl screen, so you already know what kind of towers will be good. The roguelike mode is super fun too. I just whish to get cards as a reward. As is after beating the game, i am still far away from collecting all cards and i dont rly like grinding the same levels while slowly building the collection. So please add rewards for roguelike mode. Graphics and sound are fitting the atmosphere. I like it, but thats just personal preference i guess. TLDR: get this