This game is ridiculous. I love it. If you’re a fan of tower defense games you’ll love this real time strategy game. Wikipedia describes it as a,
mix of real-time strategy and tower defense, where there is only one enemy and it can only be repelled rather than destroyed. The player must hold back a purple mass called the “Creeper”, which has already destroyed most of humanity and is now attacking Odin City, humanity’s last bastion. This is done by placing towers onto the battlefield which shoot at the Creeper. The main goal of the game is to connect the player’s base to energy totems through the use of energy collectors and relays; doing so opens a jump gate which allows Odin City to teleport to a new planet and attempt to escape the Creeper again.
Steam says I’ve played close to 100 hours in the game, many of those hours in frustration or getting overwhelmed before figuring out how to defeat a level.
It’s like tower defense except that the enemy is a liquid that comes at you from all directions so you have to build towers to protect your assets everywhere. I find most levels have an initial “OMG Moment” at the start where it all seems too much, but by building up your batteries, and your towers you’ll soon be fighting back.
Sometimes it’s a slog, and the last level I just played is one such map. Fortress Siege by Blaze in the Alpha Sector is one to leave until you’ve had plenty of practice. 4 emitters spew out vast amounts of creeper. It’s hard enough just keeping it back but advancing is on another level of difficulty altogether!
I did eventually defeat the map and once one of the emitters fell it was plain sailing. I earned two achievements playing this one:
- Build 25 shields in a mission.
- Build 25 Berthas in a mission.
Maybe a little excessive, but I swear they were needed! For a taste of what it’s like have a look at this video.
Disappointingly only one of my friends on Steam has the game. Check out the reviews on Steam. Recent reviews are “very positive” while all reviews are “overwhelmingly positive”.
Creeper World 4 is on the way too, but there’s no release date for it. It’ll be done when it’s done to paraphrase the developer but I’m looking forward to it already. It looks great!
I’ve not played it (though I might, now, off of your recommendation), but it seems to me that the obvious mechanic to add to a tower defence game against an encroaching liquid would be 3D fluid dynamics! I can’t tell whether that’s a feature in the new, seemingly-3D, version, but I like it as an idea: you’d be able to hold “high ground” for longer even as it became an island, which means that you could “claim” a spot and then come back and reinforce it later, but on the other hand you’d have to watch out for cascades as the enemy breaks over a local maxima and pours out of an upland lake into the valley beyond… there’s something in there, I’m sure.
Dan, Take a look at this video of the next Creeper World game. It looks great!