Sometimes a good story isn't necessary to make a good game. Case in point: Slab Games' new tower defense offering, Billy Makin Kid. Why Makin Kid, you ask? Because Billy is the last man left on the earth after super-evolved apes have taken over, and to defend himself against the hordes of flying monkeys and angry gorillas, he has to spawn children and turn them into defense units, apparently without the aid of a single female. Makes no sense? It doesn't matter, because the game features some great twists on the tower defense genre, from the way you create units to the types of towers themselves, which aren't towers at all, but Native American totems.

While the game lacks a coherent story, it has a clear objective. As Billy spawns new children inside his teepee, you're expected to defend Billy's spawning ground against a boss who is kept locked up in a cage. summon soldiers by clicking on their icon and then on a wooden totem to plop them into the game. You need a certain amount of kids as they spawn periodically to summon defenders, not to mention some gold, so keep an eye on your resources and mouse over any dropped gold to pick it up. Hit enough times by ape enemies and the cage will break and the boss will be unleashed. If you can't recapture the boss before it reaches the end of the map, you've lost. Fortunately, you can craft new kinds of units from raw materials dropped by enemies. Click on a dropped treasure chest to open it, and then on your inventory in the bottom right to open it up and drag items together to combine them. This allows for plenty of surprises along the way and describing them would only ruin the fun. Perform well on a level to get gems you can spend on upgrades between stages.

Like another game it most closely resembles, Kingdom Rush, you will have a wide variety of ways to upgrade units, abilities, and totems, all of which are well balanced. But, unlike Kingdom Rush, BIlly Makin Kid doesn't give you a choice of difficulty and there aren't any special modes to unlock. Still, the game's ability to craft bigger and better units as a group (freeing the player from the tedious work of upgrading individual units), plus its unique map settings and setups, will be enough to satisfy even the most jaded of tower defense strategists.

Play Billy Makin Kid