The first Flash Element Tower Defense was a kind of revolution. It single- handedly brought tower defense games out of the realm of Warcraft mods and into the world of free online gaming, kick-starting a new genre practically overnight. If you're interested, Dave Scott has published a blog entry about the technical issues and history of his seminal creation.
But Flash Element TD1 wore its influence on its sleeve, with sights and sounds ripped directly from Warcraft III. Now that Dave has teamed with Paul Preece to create Novel Concepts, he has built Flash Element Tower Defense 2 according to the Casual Collective aesthetic — the audio/visual style pioneered by Desktop Tower Defense and perpetuated by Buggle.
In other words, it's totally cute.
In case you've never played a tower defense game before, your job is to stop waves of creatures, or "creeps", from reaching the end of a twisty path by buying and constructing defensive towers. The towers fire upon the creeps as they pass by, each kill earning you money to buy additional towers and upgrade the ones you already have. The creeps get tougher each wave, forcing you to continually strengthen and re-evaluate your defenses.
In FETD2, the enemy is after your "elements", a group of colored orbs that permit you to build towers of specific types. If a creep gets past your defenses, it will grab an element and take it back along the path, giving you a second chance to destroy it. If you manage to kill the thief, it will drop the element right where it died, and future creeps won't have to transport it as far. If you lose all your elements, the game is over.
Several different species of creep will assault you, each requiring a different strategy. You will be forced early on to use cannons that can damage whole groups at once, and if you don't spread out your towers, the Shifters — who can disappear intermittently — will devastate you.
You only start out with two elements, and thus can only build two basic types of towers, but you can purchase more from the store once you earn some tokens. Every seven levels, the game grants you ten tokens, and besides the new tower types, you can use them to reset the positions of your elements, or to buy bonuses that will increase your score.
FETD2 is hosted exclusively at The Casual Collective, and those of you who are allergic to registering for things will be happy to know that you don't have to be a member to play. If you do have an membership, your score will be saved on the official leaderboard, and you'll earn medals based on your performance. If you drop five bucks for an upgraded membership, you'll have access to the "hard" map, as well as a bucketful of perks in the other Casual Collective games. Future modes and features are planned.
As always, if you register on the Casual Collective, be sure to join the Jay is Games group to chat about JIG behind our backs and get news about future JIG reviews on Casual Collective games.
Analysis: Flash Element TD 2 isn't a show-off. It doesn't add many gameplay mechanics to the tower defense repertoire, but what it lacks in innovation and flashiness, it makes up for in sophistication and personality. The ultra-clean interface gives you all the information you need about your options and upgrades, and the game graphics have a crisp efficiency that is easy on the eyes. An adorable little "creep cam" lets you select a creep or a tower and get detailed stats on it. Keyboard shortcuts make switching between different tower types a breeze, and for the first time, you can select multiple towers to sell or upgrade by dragging a box around them.
The creeps have tons of character, way more than I've seen in any other tower defense game. Their little legs wiggle as they weave back and forth across the highway, yelping with dismay as they perish. The best part is possibly the voices. Each species has a different library of quips that they shout out at the beginning and end of each round, and some of these are pretty amusing. My favorites are the gloomy gray ones.
(Alert: One of the voice clips involves some light cursing, so preview the game before letting young 'uns play it.)
The game itself is rich in strategy. You can always build, upgrade, and sell towers (for 80% of their cost) on the fly. But in-between rounds, you can sell your towers for 100% of their total cost, which makes each wave sort of like a puzzle, if you want to completely re-position everything. The more money you have left over at the end of a round, the more money you gain in interest, so you will be rewarded for matching your firepower precisely to the resilience of the incoming creeps. But when you leave a tower in place, it gradually becomes stronger, gaining experience by making kills. So there is a constant tension between maximizing your efficiency and your overall power.
Though casual gamers will enjoy FETD2's lighthearted style and quick play time (there are only 50 levels, and you can press the Fast Forward key whenever you want to speed through a round), there is plenty here for the hardcore tower defense strategist. There are many effective tower combinations, and the shop is mostly devoted to different types of score bonuses, so if you're into the math, there are near-limitless options to max out your points. It's not hard to beat the game, but the competition for a high score will be fierce.
This is a worthy successor to the game that launched a thousand imitators. Play Flash Element Tower Defense 2.
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Comments (may contain spoilers)
wow Its out, cant wait to start playing it
Posted by: Anonymous | January 14, 2008 11:20 AM
cool TD game...might be a tad to easy
Posted by: tresr | January 14, 2008 11:32 AM
I just finished level 50. The real challenge seems to be getting your score as high as you can. Actually completing all 50 levels took very little effort. Very fun, though.
Posted by: AdamM
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January 14, 2008 11:39 AM
Yeah, the game was really easy to beat, did it on my first try with no problems at all, only had to reset the elementals once. I just had 3 chain gun towers by the first curve, a splinter tower right at the start, and the path lined with slowing towers.
Posted by: Blarrrg
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January 14, 2008 12:04 PM
Ok, now to work on perfecting my scores! =D
Posted by: Thomas
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January 14, 2008 1:58 PM
Great review - I love the game. So many strategies to get into the high scores - I need to work on mine to stay up in the top 10, I think I've dropped out by now. Hours of fun :) and more coming. It's well worth the 5$/month fee to be upgraded!
Posted by: Imok
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January 14, 2008 3:50 PM
just a little FYI, the "Jay Is Games" group link is broken. it should be http://www.casualcollective.com/groups/jayisgames
Posted by: EMDF
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January 14, 2008 4:26 PM
Thanks, EMDF! Fixed.
Posted by: Jay
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January 14, 2008 4:31 PM
whats fire rate? first i thought it was dps but then a sniper had more dps than an arrow and it was still firing 3x slower.
Posted by: andy | January 14, 2008 5:45 PM
I'm glad that I'm not the only person who knows where the TD originated. Now I think I'm the only person who plays Warcraft III.
Posted by: bufar | January 14, 2008 6:20 PM
I tried out FETD 1, but the graphics shooed me away... I'm glad the sequel is modernized!
Posted by: Cayal | January 14, 2008 6:25 PM
I got to level 50 on my first try. Too easy.
Posted by: Demogorgo
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January 14, 2008 8:56 PM
the tower defense began on starcraft and not in warcraft III (on the warcraft II it didn't exist). because i have been playing this tipe of game on stracraft years before the release of warcraft III.
Posted by: Quegak | January 15, 2008 3:27 AM
I was a bit disappointed, really. Just getting through the campaign took me two tries (one to see how stuff would work, one to test what I had learned) and after that, since I'm not interested in score, I was done. I'd definitely would enjoy seeing a bit more campaign depth, or a sandbox mode, something to keep me coming back. I also never spent my tokens except to buy the orbs once, reset a single time, and then I just had a pile of them at the end of the game. I think it would be interesting to be able to use tokens to increase cash flow or maybe tower attributes, perhaps by purchasing increased interest, or selling tokens outright, or using tokens to increase a tower's stats once it hits max level and upgrade status. I did kill an hour or so playing this and having fun, but I'd love to see the interesting and varied score-building options applied to money and towers so those of us not interested in getting the top score have a reason to come back.
Posted by: Anonymitosis | January 15, 2008 3:32 PM
Map 2 has more hp for all creeps AND 60 levels!
Posted by: Brandon | January 15, 2008 7:04 PM
Yes! I won!
That last level was insane. It had
Posted by: Trevor | January 15, 2008 7:22 PM
I, like others have noted above, am not a high-score person, and therefore the completion being so easy gave it very little replay value. Otherwise, I adore this game!
I did discover a glitch, though: In the mini-tutorial at the beginning, I could not move forward by hitting the "next" button unless I first moved the mouse off of the button, then back on again. Anyone else run into this?
Posted by: MadWithMuchHeart
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January 15, 2008 8:05 PM
I'm a collective member, but not an upgraded one. I joined a few weeks ago in anticipation of the release of this game, after it looked sweet on youtube. It took forever to finally come out, but it's worth it. The element idea is ingenious, I think, the towers are cool, the creeps are hilarious, the shop is really cool, the animation is really good, the creep cam is funny and nice, jigglets are amazing, the voices are doubly amazing, fastforward and group selects are SO convenient, the balance is really good, and the 100% sell back between levels is cool. Experience is also a great addition. To say it doesn't add much in mechanics is totally wrong in my opinion.
It is true that map one is pretty easy, although I think you guys are exaggerating a little (most people haven't played too many tower defences before). Map two, which right now is technically in beta testing and only out for upgraded members, is MUCH harder, from what I hear. It's nearly impossible to have all your elements left after the final boss.
You guys should register for free. Not to spam, but it's serious advice (and that's what this whole page is about, eh?) The other games are really cool, but this one is amazing. And it's not available anywhere else.
Posted by: Eebster the Great | January 15, 2008 10:01 PM
@ Trevor: I noticed it when upgrading my tower...
are you on a mac by any chance?
Posted by: jos bosmans | January 16, 2008 11:37 AM
For all of those saying that the game is too easy...
Many more maps of varying difficulty are planned.
A third map was released today. At the moment Wiggles (the easy map) is for unregistered players, Zig-Zag (harder) is for non-upgraded members, and Hook (I can't manage to beat wave 35) is for upgraded members.
Upgraded members will have access to new maps immediately, non-upgraded members will have access to a new map after a wait of a few weeks or so. So register, and you can get access to harder maps as they become available.
Posted by: Fredward | January 16, 2008 12:20 PM
Good little game, although i miss the interest multipliers. I also had a pile of tokens at the end of the game.
Is someone else mentioned, i too had the bug where i could not click the next button in tutorial, or the upgrade button, twice without moving the cursor off it then on again. I am on XP and firefox.
Posted by: mesh | January 16, 2008 8:32 PM
"Safety in numbers, my ass"...I hurt myself laughing while playing this game
Posted by: Chuck | January 17, 2008 5:53 PM
the sound effects are great.
Has anyone managed to beat the 2nd level. I've reached the last stage but have yet to survive it. I find that by about level 40 creeps start getting through no matter what I do.
Posted by: Sky
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January 19, 2008 9:24 AM
argggg. made it to the last level again, this time I had all five elements in play so I only had to kill one of them. And I nearly did. I nearly killed two. but because you cant tell them which one to attack they did not concentrate their fire. Think I know how to do it now though, but still now idea how to get the scores that are three times what I am getting.
Posted by: Sky
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January 19, 2008 11:22 AM
This is a great game... I'm doing well at it.
To Sky who posted just above me, for map 2 it is quite difficult to survive, however if you use money sparingly enough you will gain more money from interest, which makes things much easier in the late game. If you made it to the last level, i find that sniper II towers are hugely effective against bosses. Throwing in a glue tower can also help, but the sniper IIs gain a slow of their own once upgraded fully enough. Since you almost did it, I guess the idea would be to try again with just using less expensive towers earlier, so you'll have more money for those few extra towers to finish the creeps off.
Anyways, this is an awesome tower defence game, I especially love the fact that they have to steal elements and go by your defences a second time in order to actually steal an element, so it's unlikely to lose lifes because they were just the little bit too strong for you. Experience is nice, creep variety is nice, and towers are nice too : )
Posted by: Almost
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January 23, 2008 4:40 PM
I am totally addicted to this game!!!
Furthest level on Zig Zag (Level 2) I've managed is 56. (and takes a lot of hard work to get there!!)
Posted by: xadoc
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January 24, 2008 8:32 PM
now at level 59!! last level!
Posted by: xadoc
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January 25, 2008 4:51 PM
help me someone witha walkthrough for map 2 zig zag, can't get over 50... sad
Posted by: alex | March 6, 2008 6:45 AM
its a very adicting game.
Posted by: flamefart | March 16, 2008 8:43 AM
Fixer-Uppers:
Can't we just all get along?
LolLollooololll!
Posted by: Anonymous | March 24, 2008 7:56 PM
super game.
but i cant beat the boss on lvl59 on the zigzag maze :(
Posted by: divoga | April 2, 2008 11:06 AM
This game is a lot of fun. The last level is pretty hard though.
Posted by: Redigit | April 12, 2008 3:07 PM