Shad'O

I love tower defenses that is why I am so disappointed with this game. It's not a [i]bad[/i] game but it lacks some basic features of any good TD, e.g. the ability for the player to change strategy or to get empowered from failure; indeed in this game should you fail a level, you have no choice but to redo it with your current set of upgrades and spells. There is no mean to upgrade unless succeeding levels, no mean to respec... Should you have made unadvised upgrade choices you are stuck with playing again – or abandoning the game – without feeling better equipped neither more ready since the game mechanics lack depth and the right strategy is always straightforward. Yet the gameplay is generally balanced, monsters are consistent with towers, towers do their jobs... But that's all. At the third (and last) upgrade level it's still just a stronger version of the basic tower; no additional ability, no new mechanics. Towers don't combo so don't expect more than legacy TD – which nowadays means shallow – gameplay, aside from the spells which are the only things that can occasionnaly be triggered in sequence to have a little more useful effect. On the graphics side there are pros and cons: 3D modeling, animations, fog effect are good, but 2D graphics (used to illustrate the side story) suck, and the overall color choice/association is poor, leaving a dirty brownish atmosphere. The game terribly lacked art direction. The side story (that serves as a theme, don't expect any meaningful connexion with the gameplay) is a drama about a little boy... [i]again.[/i] So uninspired. The camera does not zoom out enough to allow for all the field to be seen and since there are usually more than one generators and monsters are hidden by the fog, good luck for knowing from which generator came those monsters you just heard spawning... because, no, in this 3D game the sound is not even spatially localised... Most one-man-made free Flash TD games allow for a better player experience & progression and deeper strategy, thus fun, than this game. There are many much better alternatives in free Flash games, and would you want to pay for a TD on Steam, go for real deals such as Kingdom Rush. Edit: I played once more after my review, unlocked the last 3 towers, to find there were uninteresting. Bored, I uninstalled the game. At first I wouldn't have said that this game doesn't deserve to be on Steam but now I would; it is a very shallow TD, eventually bad.

Requires you to install quicktime, but doesn't work with current version. So if you already have quicktime you have to uninstall it and then install QTLite to get this game to run. If you actually need to have quicktime installed for something else to function (iTunes), QTLite will break that. Even GFWL games gave me less problems than this game. IF you can get it to run, it's a decent tower defense game. But I'd take Pixeljunk Monsters, Kingdom Rush, or even Super Sanctum TD over this, since you can actually just install those and have them work.

Fun tower defense. Requires replaying some of the scenarios until the mobs' abilities are learned. Two minor cons are apparent: Quicktime installation is required and the poor English translation of a somewhat mediocre over-arching storyline detracts from the game slightly, however the basic concept of fighting inside one's nightmares is otherwise well executed and lends itself to interesting environments. - Skinny from the Fat B*stard [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/skinnyfat#](curator link)[/url]

[h1] You play as pajamas dude trying to protect kingdom of dreams. Place collectors to absorb the light sources and defend yourself from the shadow beings. Game plays like your usual tower defense but you can build only close to light sources. To be honest there isn't much strategy involved - just place as many allies as you can just works fine in most cases. Story is about boy in coma who lost his memory or something like that. Visuals are ok, you can zoom in and out if you wish to see your creatures from up close. Music and sounds are good just the gameplay is a bit shallow. Very casual TD with some story, play if you want. [/h1] If game doesn't work, run in compatibility mode with Windows 7 and 1080p windowed mode

I am a fan of Tower Defense, and while Shad'O doesn't necessarily bring much new to the genre, it's a solid and extremely polished offering with a wonderful surreal setting, and great sound design. The way maps are shrouded in fog, which must be lifted by placing 'companions' (towers) allowing you to see and defend more of the map is an interesting approach, and makes for some pretty intense scenarios, where monsters move in and out of the safety of the fog. Fans of the genre should definitely check it out.

Sucks, its broken and unplayable. asks for quciktiem which has been dead for years. and is from apple.

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First of all the part that interests most buyers of this game: how to get it running. I don't know if you have to perform all the steps I performed, but it the end thats the way it worked for me. The second screen you will see when starting the screen most likely will say something like "an error has occured with quicktime. please follow these steps" or something like that. after klicking OK you will be directed to a website, that tells you how to get the game running. there you also find a link to update your quicktime version. quicktime is automatically installed by steam before playing this game for the first time, but I did it anyway. I tried to start the game-still failing. For some reason (probably quicktime) I find out that I have apples auto updater. Since quicktime is from apple I figured I might as well try that. it installed Itunes and Icloud. I deactivated all apple products I then owned from starting automatically to not ruin my performance. Then I turned my computer off and on again and started the game. it actually worked for me then. I have Apples junk as well, but hey the game is running. my system is windows 7, maybe its different for others, I dont know anything about computers. To the game itself: Before reviewing I have to admit that I am a large fan of the TD genre, so this game might be less appealing to those who arent. the mechanics are those of a standard tower defense game. there is a given path the monsters travel accross and you place towers along this path. what is a bit different is the fact, that you can only place towers in illuminated areas. towers themselves illuminate the area around them and there is some starting points at the beginning of each level that are already illuminated for you. aside from the towers there is also a bunch of spells that do damage or freeze the enemies and things like that. you get ressources for spells by killing monsters and ressources for towers by a special type of tower that collects the ressources neccesary to build towers. to build these collectors you start with some ressources already. there is a limited number of collectors you can only build of course. another thing that is a little different about this game is, that there is a lot of enemies that, while passing them, hurt your towers, up to the point that they die and dissapear. the "story" is ok, since this genre of games usually doesnt have any the story here is pretty nice. the game is divided into 3 parts. in each part you unlock new towers to a total of 10. for a standard TD game thats pretty decent. when you complete a level you get the possibility to unlock the upgrade of a tower. this means you can upgrade these towers to this level in every round you play after unlocking. towers start at level 1 and go up to 3. this is not really anything special, a lot of TD games for example kingdom rush, actually have more upgrade-possibilitys. you can also unlock a spell after a level instea of an upgrade. there is around 10 spells I think and you have acces to unlocking all of them from the very beginning. at the end of each of the 3 parts of the game there is a battle against a gigantic boss. these battles are pretty nice. at the end of each normal level there is a boss as well, which is just a larger version of the monster introduced in that level with more health. "introduced in that level?" yes this means, that for the first 2 parts of the game there is a new kind of monster added in every level. what about the third part? well there is only 1 new monster for the entire third part. I think thats the games biggest weakness. you can replay every level except for minigames and bossbattles in a harder mode, meaning the monsters have more life. this way you can have more possibilites for unlocking towers and spells. I was actually doing every level a second time in the first part. of course with towers from the second part included because I went on before going back. in the second part I did not repeat this. the fact, that in the third part there is only one new monster added, makes it dull with a single sudden strike. with only the paths changing with each level you only want to get to the final boss and be over with the entire thing. sadly the final cutscene crashed for me , but I looked what it was on youtube. there I found out, that if you complete every single level in the harder mode you get an alternate end. With the third being as boring as it is I had no interest in doing so though. and noone else uploading content did so either. not a SINGLE vid of the alternate end can be found on all of the internet. I think that says a lot. I wasnt even interested in finishing the last minigame. minigames are levels that are optional and dont give you unlocking possibilites but small bonusses like reducing the cost of spells or giving your towers more life. the minigames are brutally hard as well, because you cant cast spells and the upgrades you unlocked dont matter in them. there is only 2 types of minigames: 1 where you have a level full of already placed towers and have to click them to activate them. the challenge here is that there can be only one tower active at a time. 2 where you get 3 cards: 2 that show very weak level one towers and 1 that shows a question mark. this question mark either gives you a very powerful tower, or (and that seems to be the case 2 out of 3 times) does something bad, like hurting of freezing your towers. I often felt that it is rather a question of luck rather then skill to complete thus type of minigame. there is one of each minigame in every one of the 3 parts of the game. TL:DR: Its a nice Towerdefense game without being anything really special. the looks are good the music is good, the story is ok. the types of towers and spells and monsters brings a nice variet to the battle. the third part of the game is extremely boring though. the game will make you want to keep playing, even the minigames and the harder modes, for the first 2 parts, no matter how much time you waste and how often you fail. the third part will bore you and make you want to get done with the bloody thing. all in all this game has flaws, but is one of the best generic TDs out there.