Tower Defense variant: Immortal Defense

[Kasey Chang]

I like indy games, and this one has got indy game all over it.

This is basically tower defense with a twist... Instead of you deciding the path, the path is pre-drawn. Enemies move down this path, and you setup various "points" around the path to intercept the enemies. The less that make it through, the better your score.

The points are rather imaginative... as they are named for things you normally don't associate with games, like fear, love, ortho, courage, and so on. Most fire 360, but ortho only fires on orthogonal lines, and love points actually enhance firepower of nearby points, and so on.

To upgrade a point, just click and hold for one second. If you got enough energy "cache", your upgrade is almost immediate. It's one of the most intuitive interface I've seen... But I didn't quite figure it out for a while.

It's also wrapped around a very sci-fi storyline... Imagine this... pathspace is like a higher dimension of hyperspace. Enemies can travel in pathspace, but you can defend pathspace with these points. Thus, you are your planet's only hope against the invaders, blah blah.

The art is a bit on the abstract side, but ifyou turn up the effects it's definitely sci-fi-y and lots of fun to try.

Free for next 20 hours and 55 minutes at http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/

[Kasey Chang]

Further tries... interesting. I finished the first "campaign", which is like 20+ levels. Each level only lasts X seconds, and the idea is to prevent Y number of hostile ships getting through. There's an in-warp and an out-warp. And along the path is where you place the various "points". Different points do different things, obviously, and these points are a bit more interesting than your typical "gun, ice, fire, etc." turrets.

* fear point -- slows enemy down, respectable damage when upgraded
* courage point -- super long range fire, bolts actually wraps around the edge of the screen, upgrade will double/triple the number of bolts shot per cycle
* ortho point -- only fires directly up/down or directly left/right, but does splash damage
* cut point -- strews mines around itself in circular form
* love point -- enhances effectively of nearby points
* strategist point -- lowers enemy defense and increase your own offense

and more.

As mentioned before, your own "pointer" also shoots at the hostiles, and while it doesn't do THAT much damage, it's respectable, and needed in some cases to cut the horde down or to guard a spot

I'm replaying the earlier levels, trying to get 100% (i.e. no leaks) and some of those can be HARD, figuring out which combo to use at which bend. It's a breath of fresh air for those tired of your typical games.

[Kasey Chang]

Forgot a link to their homepage:

http://studioeres.com/immortaldefense/

[Nirvy]

Got it, kinda fun. Hate the pointer being used as a shooter. It REALLY hurts my wrist after 5-10 mins.

No where near as good as the original tower defence though.

[Kasey Chang]

The "fun" part is each mission is a little bit of the story, and each of the campaigns advance the story further and further. At the end of campaign 5, which I'm entering, the story should come to a close...

Right now, I'm starting to suspect that things are NOT as I've been lead to believe in the story, and there is a mystery to be revealed. Perhaps the thing that I've been "protecting" is not what I think it is after all...

[Hamsterball_Z]

Got it, kinda fun. Hate the pointer being used as a shooter. It REALLY hurts my wrist after 5-10 mins.

Are you using the mouse button to fire? You don't have to, it automatically shoots the nearest enemy when it's in range. You only need to use the button if you want to select a target for the turrets to concentrate fire on or to setup new turrets/upgrades.

[Kasey Chang]

You can use the mouse button to setup "charged shots", which are more powerful than the auto-shots.

Made it to level 93. It's important to setup the defenses to cover as much space as possible, and setup specific combinations to slow down the enemy units, not just annihilate them. Even that super point you get later can't annihilate all comers.

[Kasey Chang]

The "final" mission is a doozy... You have to survive for 20 minutes, yes, 20 minutes, against progressively tougher enemies. At the end I'm facing Brothers, Grave Ships, it ended there. And the field ROTATES, so you can't setup any points INSIDE, but only on the edges. However, was able to setup an overlapping field of fire that basically destroyed most enemies. A few got through, but compared to the number they sent, not that significant.

Then there's the extra chapter... Oh boy, this one is tough. No only is the mission long 5 minutes compared to the usual 2, the enemies are trickier!

[Kasey Chang]

Turns out the extra chapter should ONLY be accessible if you got 100% on all the previous chapters.

[Kasey Chang]

There are interesting philosophical story about existence and lack of in the story, and each mission in the six campaigns (and the seventh) reveal that bit by bit.

Spoiler:

In the first campaign, you are tasked to defend your home system, and you met this guy called Aa, who was there before you, also a "path defender", and he was worshiped on his system, so he boasts.

Eventually you stopped the Bavakh invasion, then Aa requests your help to defend his world against the Bavakh. After that, somehow he turned against you. One of the Bavakh brothers was destroyed, but the other guy made it through, and destroyed your home planet... Aa claimed he let the other one through, because your planet did not worship you and him.

So you end up defending this dead system against Aa and Bavakh, as Aa tries to destroy on, but when even his greatest ship, the one containing his physical body, was wiped out by your defenses, he is... gone.

And you are requested by the remnants of a race conquered by Bavakh to stop the Bavakh remnants. At the end, you ended up annihilated the entire Bavakh race. Was it right? Was it wrong? Who's to judge?

And who is this granddaughter that you were defending? This race that you helped tried to investigate the path corruption in your sector, but you setup so much defenses that all incursions were beaten back. What are you REALLY defending? The planet is lifeless, yet you kept receiving messages from your granddaughter... Is it an illusion? Hallucination? Or a possible future? Does it even matter? What about all the ships you annihilated?

A thousand years later, the path in your sector has decayed into almost pure chaos. Paths have doubled, twisted back onto itself, and worse. The empire saw no choice but to get into the heart of the matter by sending more and more ships through, as they must find the cause, but you are the Great Star, the path defender, and you setup defenses that beat back even the latest technology can offer... Defending... what? Madness?

And finally, we get to the bonus chapter... Apparently Aa is not dead... but he's trapped in Gutei Space, which is another "level" of various space. Pathspace is above hyperspace, and hellspace is below that... and below that still... is Gutei. Aa is so mad, he's willing to send Gutei's finger through... and if Gutei's finger makes it through the portal, entire universe is doomed... So you must summon all your defense skills in making sure Gutei's finger do NOT reach the other end...

Gutei and Indra and various other terms are out of Zen Buddhism, which gives it one more layer of meaning beyond the obvious.

[Hipolito]

I just 99% finished this game. I thought it was 100% until I read this thread. Whoa, a hidden 7th campaign! But I would need to get 100% success on all levels to unlock it. And I was under 100% for a few levels, including that 20-minute final level.

I went back to the game and played a little more, trying to get all 100% successes. After about an hour of this, I decided, no más, I'm done. So I read Kasey's spoiler post and watched the bonus campaign on YouTube. Now I'll give my impressions of the game, along with some screenshots to add pizzazz.



Is There No Madness to Your Method?

In Immortal Defense, there's strategy not just in how you beat the levels, but how you go through the campaigns. When you get stuck on a level, you can turn the difficulty all the way down to zero. You'll earn much less money ("cache"), but at least you can beat the level. Later on, when you get better at the game or unlock a powerful medal, you can go back to that level, crank the difficulty all the way to max, and beat it. You'll earn extra money for beating it at max difficulty, and that extra money instantly carries forward to where you currently are in the campaign. That's a great way to make replay more rewarding.

Kasey gave a good rundown of some of the towers ("points") at your disposal, but he didn't mention my favorite one: the Pride Point. This little guy starts with a relatively weak weapon. But he gets stronger every time he scores a kill. If placed correctly, he can become your most powerful weapon by the end of the level, and it's a treat to watch this happen. His growth arc is like that of the Gadgeteer in Wizardry 8, though that's a slightly different type of game.



Can the Devil Do Anything that God Does Not Know About?

The interdimensional space combat looks like a 1980s arcade game, with simple icons and geometric shapes. As the action intensifies, the screen becomes a blazing, colorful lightshow, proving you don't need an expensive graphics engine to make a game dazzling.

There's not much to the sound effects beyond the popcorn-popping of your cursor's gun and glass shattering when you kill an enemy. The music is sometimes too tepid. You may want to turn it off and play your favorite rockin' MP3s in the background.



You Are a World Revolution in a Single Being.

For a game spanning 90 levels, you might expect more story. What you get between levels are a few lines of monologue from one of the characters. Often, instead of moving the story forward, the monologue just reinforces what the character previously said. Still, the overall plot is interesting and different. The writing style is weird, as if the author is struggling to grasp the scope and scale of huge events. (The headings in this post are lines from the game.)



The Path Can Be Anything at All, Which Means It Is Really Nothing at All.

As Kasey mentioned, the game has an intuitive interface. Before the start of a level, you can take all the time you need to place your starting towers right where you want them, and can sell them back for full price if you make a mistake. With the press of a key, you can learn all of your towers' kill counts and upgrade costs. The extensive help menu delves into the nuances of your towers and enemies. Even then, you might need a few hints, as I did. Fortunately, the developer has made a lot of helpful posts on the Steam forum for this game.



You're Not Half Bad! You're Not Even a Third Bad!

The game can be sedate at times. There is only so much variety you can squeeze from 90 levels when the enemies move along a fixed, two-dimensional path. I got a perfect score on many levels at max difficulty by using the same tricks again and again. But because of the hypnotic visual effects and far-out story, I had a good time doing so.