Villainous

Nice game, but I don't quite get it. One can accumulate various non-raiding (i.e. to some extent useless) beasties, but their areas of effect are so low that it barely seems worth it. My simple strategy:

About tortoises:

I've gotten bronze (not gold) on all levels now, through a slight modification of the above:

The main hotkeys are 1,2,3 for the spells. It would be nice to be able to cast a spell before the wave begins (once one has unlocked the mana to do so), insofar as there seems to be no pause button.

My strategy is

Works really well.

You can actually cast spells before the wave. When the text for the next wave shows up, there's a few sec delay before your guys come and the next wave started to get your stuns in.

Though stun is the most powerful, as costs increase per cast, using heals and quake to substitute for it will help in the long run. Quake is also good in the later levels where there are 2-3 towers grouped together + against fast towers with their tiny range (you really just have to get the first guy across if you have a healer).

Casualty's format is similar to what I use to (tghrrrrrrhgt) and its good enough that with most of the hp upgrades you can win half the game on auto.

Bugs/Notes:
Bog right now ignores mage 3/4 of the time. It's better to just use a healer to reduce the effect until you can stun it (and you should).
You actually use mage for something: it can nullify holy tower's attack who otherwise is really strong against your turtles. Though without reading, you probably won't realize that.
Infamy orbs should just be autocollected after the round ends. Or just have a end game button and don't end rounds auto- there's not much infamy to be gained just through raiding oddly enough (they should raise infamy gain every wave just like tower damage) and on the earlier levels it can take a long while for the towers to kill your guys (and you don't get bronze/gold until they die).
If you didn't notice, the player is the same as the black wizard in "you have 1 day". Bunch of things in the throne room indicate that.
What's with the coconuts? Some injoke I don't get?

Mind == blown

amazing game

Just finished getting a gold medal on every level, excellent game. While I'll admit a good 50% of my play time was being addicted, and aware of it, the game was still fun the other 50% of the time. There were a few minor issues with muting sounds (should be able to press m), no pause, and a few other minor ones. Overall, one of the best flash games I've seen yet, extremely polished, addictive, and fun.

for those that used their own strategies earlier, youll find as you progess through the game that if you dont use the turtles anymore, switch around the formation and substitute in golems in their place, it works MUCH better my current scheme is this(i have rainbow and circus, and fully upgraded healer and raider) A team of 8 goblins, 2 healers, 2 shieldgolems (2g,s,h,4g,s,h,2g)im sure you can figure out the letters, can raze everything.

My strategy for all gold: raibow, heal auras,golem shield and:
2xgoblin,golem,healer,4xgoblin,golem, healer,2xgoblin

One flaw in the game, I think, is the gradually revealed skill tree. I almost quit when I had bronze on 16/20 levels and it looked like the rest would be grindy and/or super hard. On a whim, I put a skill point into a skill I had no intention of using (Elemental HP) and, boom, I realized that there was tons more to unlock.

It might be better to have the entire tree visible but grayed out at first, or at least to have each skill tooltip indicate the number of new skills it will reveal.

Wow.

I jammed this one among my favourites a couple of days ago thinking "neh this might be worth playing once or twice", and when I finally get down to it, I'm baffled by its brilliance. The concept is sublime in its simplicity, and the way it's put into practice leaves little to be desired on all fronts.

Tower defense has been forever ruined for me, and I'm loving every second of it. Yay!

So, what's the right name for this (currently) mini-genre? I've heard "tower attack", but "tower offense" is definitely better, though not perfectly descriptive of the gameplay. "Creep offense" is the polar opposite of "tower defense", but isn't as punchy...

Oh, and about the game: extremely well thought-out and balanced; your immediate goals always seem within reach, just a tactical approach or an upgrade away. Even the skill tree shows great balance, with unlocks and rising cost moving apace with your progress. Appealing, easy-to-discern character/tower design and flavor art, and of course ho-ha-hah cackling-evil aesthetics usually can't miss. The interface does need work, though; this game really needs proper ffwd/pause buttons, the tooltips really need to be always available, and perhaps worst of all, the spell buttons need to be color coded. But really, those are just nitpicks on a really strong, deep, addictive, and smart game, and whatever you call the genre, it is now the gold standard.

@staramalpa
GOT DANG! That was easy! Struggling with level 30 til I read your tip

THANKS!

it lacks the satisfaction one gets from really eradicating your foes off the map

That kind of killed it for me, I'm afraid.

I'm baffled by all the comments about the lack of pause and fast-forward buttons... clicking the menu button pauses the game... and clicking the fast-forward button increases your speed... so I'm not sure what the problem is. I guess maybe it's easier to take the time to comment than it is to take the time to understand what's available?

Great game, by the way. I've been playing it at work for a few days now. Just 3 gold stars away from completion.

The achievement for beating level 20 refers to 'your most powerful spell, the Spirit Swap.' Has anyone found this spell and used it?

I have gold on all of em and max everything (max everything was little harder - grinded for 10 mins) my set up. Turtle, shield,goblin,medic,gob,gob,gob,gob,gob,gob,medic,gob (you need radius of 3 for aura and prefferably inclusive) this set up works for all - use stun on smog things and use stun quake and heal to maximse ure efficency - i dint use magic peeps or anti smog peeps as not worth it - trust

What works very well for me is

My Combination is Turtle, Golem, Healer, 6xGoblin, Healer, Golem, Turtle

Turtles at beginning and end take all damage, Golem reduces the Damage and The healer heals them(rly? O.o).

Use Stuns at beginning on mostly Bog Towers and holy Towers, heal from time to time and you can do all Levels with Gold easily..

@Chunk Daddy: I made it till wave 14 with my combo ;)

I use the same as JIguest and staramalpa but with an elemental on the end instead of a raider. Then use one stun in the first round and 2 every round after, on the towers that do the most damage each round. Throw in heals on corners when you need them but obviously only when you need them.

@HowardTheDuck

Thanks for the tip worked great for me after stuck missing 2 gold levels. I'll share my loot with you... not :-)

ha, 113 raiders into 1 city (#2), i think that the city should be a little more than "razed" also, shouldn't there be an achievement for getting 100 raiders in or something? Anyway...5 out of 5 really addicting :)...one more thing. Level 13 is way easier than level 12 which really pissed me off >:(... give yourself a pat on the back if you played villainous on Kongregate. And if you do the levels in order than level 18 is revealled before level 17..? and another thing the quote under the kingdom of bacon says "hope you like coconuts"..? another thing, why is level 19 so freiken easy when 16, 17 and 18 are really hard >:( even level 20 is easier than them.

my strategy was to go through and keep trying every level until i got gold, all the while collecting the various upgrades. i have 4 areas left, and i have all the upgrades.

all you have to do for the first 17 levels is send all goblins, btw, as long as you upgrade your unit count, and goblin health sufficiently

Best game I have played in a long time. A lot of people here say that the quake and heal spell are useless. I disagree. At first it doesn't seem like much but when fully upgraded both towers are more useful than the stun spell. Because of these spells I have gotten gold on all levels and even have surpassed 100 raids on several different towns.

So, does getting the Spirit Swap achievement do anything? It kind of implies you get to use some awesome spell, but I'm not seeing anything.

how does a throne look like? i am curious.

The Spirit Swap is a reference to another game, as is the Dragon Water you earn once you beat every level on gold. If you do happen to beat every level on gold, you will notice that you can click on the Dragon Water, and in doing so, it takes you to the game it references to, "I Have 1 Day", in which you are transformed by an evil wizard and need to turn back into your real self, another game which is fun, though hard to beat without help.

And by the way, my method to get gold on level 17 and 20 (the last two I had left) was to use 5 goblins, 2 elementals, then another 5 goblins. Take out the most dangerous tower with the stun spell, then use quake and heal whenever necessary on the remaining towers. I only did this on level 17 and 20, though I suspect it would work great on the rest of the levels. Just be sure to have your elemental's aura power up, and have your mana cap up as well. I had already bought everything before I did this, so it was made easier. Good luck, all.

If you get all the achievements there is a little "modification" to the title screen.

The starting tutorial for the game was one of the best I've ever seen.

I hate how you have enormous turtles and giant golems, but only the tiny little goblins can pillage. Really stinks when your goblins die off and all that's left is junk units.

God, dude, I know, it's like they expect you to strategize in order to avoid that very outcome. Life is harrrrrd.

I liked this game, being a TD fan myself. This was fun, playable, easy to learn and cute.

However, I soon found that some units are quite unnecessary, and I would have liked it better if the levels were designed in a way that would make you use the different units more, after playing a few levels I realised that the same strategy basically worked on every level, and if you upgrade in the right order you could actually play through all the levels without loosing once. You kind of loose the point of strategy when you don't have to modify your strategy in the different levels. I also think you earn to much replaying the levels you have already compleated, you can basically "play it safe" to get all the upgrades.