For those of you behind on your caffeine intake today, Desktop Tower Defense is here to give your brain a kick-start. Similar to Flash Circle TD and Flash Element TD, place towers on a map and try to defend your borders from invading baddies. Created by HandDrawnGames, Desktop TD just so happens to sport a pencil-drawn look. Game elements such as towers and creeps are rendered with a rough charm that makes you feel like you've sneaked away to play a game when you're supposed to be working at your desk. Naughty, naughty.
Each enemy you kill earns gold which you can use to upgrade towers or build more structures. If a creep makes it through your defenses to the other side, you lose a life. Strike a balance between fast-firing towers and more powerful (but slower) units to keep your desktop free and clear. A good strategy is to funnel enemies around the screen in a twisted path, giving your towers more time to pelt them with weapons fire.
Desktop TD is more free-form than other popular tower defense games. For starters, in the main mode there's no set path for enemies to wander, you're free to place towers anywhere you please. There are also three difficulty levels to choose from and a number of challenge levels that restrict the conditions to force you to improvise. Recently, Desktop TD was upgraded to version 1.2. New challenges were introduces as well as a Fun Mode that adds walls inside your desktop area.
Analysis: What I most enjoyed about this game is that you don't necessarily win every battle. Sometimes the odd flying creep will slip past your defenses, other times a boss just stomps right on through your channels of death without even noticing the arrows hailing down upon it. The good thing is that in spite of these defeats, you go on. You learn, you grow stronger, and perhaps you even succeed at beating the game. With 49 levels to fight through, your technique is quickly honed, and even though those creeps are so darn cute, they must die nonetheless. And die they shall.
Cheers to Magnus, Kevin, Mraccidental, Brand, John, Hooch and Paul for sending this one in!
