Freebie Friday: GemCraft: Labyrinth

Genre: Tower Defense

Developer: Game in a Bottle

Publisher: Armor Games

Release year: 2011

Freebie type: Flash

Paid option: Premium Edition upgrade: $5 US.

Zolgar paid: $5

Beaten: No

Zolgar's rating: 8/10

Replayability: High

So after bashing Sanctum a bit a couple weeks ago, I decided for the next Freebie I actually needed to do what I feel is one of the best Tower Defense games on the market, especially for the price.

GemCraft: Labyrinth is the 3^rd in a series, unlike many Flash game series though, it's not a case of “it's the exact same game just reskinned”, yet the developers managed to still keep the feel, style and playability, but simply improve on the design.

Now, if you've played a lot of Tower Defense, you're probably sitting there wondering what is so great about GemCraft: Labyrinth (and the rest of the series, in fact), because after all.. all TDs are basically the same game. Honestly, that's kind of true, they're all basically the same game.. but saying that is like saying “All first person shooters are basically the same game.” They all use a predefined formula, but those that stand out are ones that find a way to deviate from that formula.

Take Sanctum, as a TD is follows the formula to the letter, but it then lets you take part in the action in FPS mode. It's not, however, the first TD give you a 'player character' that assists the towers. I forget what it was called, but there's a Platformer TD that you have a gunman in it as well as the towers.

The GemCraft series deviates from the formula quite a lot, and Labyrinth shows it the best.

First, the game actually has a story! We're not talking a generic “OMGz0rz the Creep(tm) is attacking your Convenient Plot Device(tm) following a set path, use these nonsensical weapons you shouldn't have anyways to protect it!” Especially Labyrinth gives you an actual story progression as you play through the game. The gist of the story is that you are a student of the GemCrafting school of Wizardry (not taught at Hogwarts, no), which is the discipline of creating weaponized gems. You discover the source of the creatures that have attacked, and nearly destroyed, the village you were protecting.. and go after it. I know, I know it sounds generic.. but it gives you a lot more than that as you play through.

Then, there's a bit of an RPG element to the game, or more to the point what the game industry calls an RPG element. Because clearly “Leveling Up” makes an RPG (you know, instead of things like.. choices and consequences.. OK, I won't start ranting about that). As you beat a map, you gain experience, this XP is determined by how good you do, as you gain XP you level up. Levels grant you skill points, skills have passive effects on the game, anywhere from granting you more mana, bonus to damage, bonus to Gem attributes, reduced creation costs, etc. Also, it allows you to reset your skills at will, to try something else.

The number of Towers (“Gems”) you get is, in and of itself rather impressive. This isn't the classic TD fodder towers (slow high damage, fast low damage, explosion damage blahblahblah), no sir. While some of the Gems have standard TD tower attributes, others are completely unique to GemCraft, and their 'special' always improve as the gems get higher in level.

• Chain Hit: Moderate base damage with a chance to hit multiple creatures, damaging all of them.
• Multiple Damage: Decent base damage and has a chance to add a multiplier to the damage the gem deals.
• Blood Bound: Low base damage but takes a percentage of the total kills a gem has and adds that to the damage of the gem.
• Mana Gathering: This is your standard 'extra money tower', it generates mana (your 'money') with every hit, deals low damage of course.
• Poison: This one is pretty self explanatory, slightly low 'hit damage' with a DOT (Damage Over Time, for you non-slang-savvy folk.)
• Shock: Fair base damage and has a set chance to Shock (freeze in place) a foe for a set amount of time.
• Slow: Also fairly self explanatory, decent base damage.
• Armor Tearing: A semi-common one in TDs, this one reduces the armor of it's target, making it take more damage from towers, deals low damage on it's own.

You might be thinking “Well that alone isn't much.” and you know what? You're right. You can also combine gems, not once but twice. (Well, you can actually combine gems as much as you want, but after 3 type gems they get weaker, and only the dominant 3 gems work.) When you combine gems, the multi-type gems gain a bonus to damage, range and attack, but also gets a penalty to it's specials. To counter that? It has multiple specials. So you can do things like:

• Chain Hit/Multi Damage/Blood Bound: This gem is honestly broken. It deals multiple damage, hits multiple foes, and for every kill it deals more damage.
• Slow/Mana Gathering/Armor Tearing: These are the perfect companion to the above-noted brokenness. Slows your foes down, makes 'em take more damage, and give you more mana to boot. Especially if you happen to use them in Traps (I'll explain later).
• Slow/Chain Hit/Poison: You can't tell me that's not a killer combo.

And that's just scratching the surface, you can create .. well, if my brother-in-law and I are correct: 129 different towers. (Please feel free to provide me with math that shows I'm wrong, but don't say I have it wrong if you don't have the equation to back it up.)

Next up on the list, you also get more than just Towers. You also get Traps, Shrines, Amplifiers, and Bombs.

• Towers: Are obviously what you drop the Gems in to in order to make them shoot at the Creep.
• Traps: Are akin to towers in that you place Gems in them to damage the Creep, but in this instance they are placed in the pathway and have a fixed, very small, range. The Gem has it's damage reduced, but it's special (or Specials, for multi-gems) increased.
• Amplifiers: Also get Gems placed in them, but they do not directly harm the Creep, instead any Tower or Trap adjacent (including diagonally) receives a buff to damage, range, firing speed and it's special(s).
• Bombs: Say something slips past your last tower, you can grab a Gem, turn it in to a Bomb and drop it on the Creep to do an AoE explosion for decent damage. The damage and number of critters the explosion can hit is based off the tier of the Gem you use.
• Shrines: Shrines are slightly strange. These deal damage in a predefined pattern (either an AoE, or straight lines on the N/S and E/W axises), based on the tier of Gem your sacrifice to them, in addition they have a cool-down time so you cannot simply spam them.

Now most TDs have like 10-30 maps, maybe 50 levels with lots of duplicating maps. Not CG:L, 165 (I think) standard story maps, plus 4 challenge maps that can be unlocked, and so far none I have found have been exact carbon-copies of another, though obviously there are only so many viable patterns before you start to run in to “this looks kinda familiar.” Each map also has default Gems 'unlocked' for it, but for a bit of Mana you can unlock additional Gems for use for that fight.

There are also your Battle Settings. Say the game isn't hard enough for you, or you want to get a bit more XP, as you level up, you unlock modifiers for battles. 20 modifiers in total (for the free version), which add more monsters, add more waves, make monsters stronger, etc.

Lastly, there's the Achievement system. By now, if you've read many of my reviews, you'll realize I like to mock achievements. GC:L is not exempt. It does have a lot of meaningless “Congratulations, you blew your nose!” achievements, I'm sorry “Amulets”. What it does well though, is it breaks them down in to different categories. One of which is actual honest to the FSM achievements! Radical concept, eh?

Now, no game is perfect.. CG:L is no exception to that rule:

The Creep is simply generic. A few models, 'tough slow' 'weak fast' 'swarm' 'normal' and 'boss' monsters. Not even flying monsters. Everything that went in to the rest of this game, I would have really liked to see a little more creativity with the critters.

The balance of the Towers is .. slightly skewed. Know that combo I mentioned back there? Blood Bound/Chain Hit/Multi Damage? While I was writing this, I was also playing GC:L, and I was on Endurance mode.. I got past wave 150 with one of those towers (surrounded by 8 amplifiers), not even any traps. By the end it was doing something like 20,000 damage per hit, and hitting at least 2 foes every shot. I've had other combos prove good, but nothing is as good as that.. and it's just insane if you pair it with mana/armor tearing/slow or shock traps.

I feel certain features are lacking in the Free version. In order to get Endurance Mode (unlimited waves), you have to purchase the Premium Edition, and most of the Challenge Amulets required Endurance Mode. The previously mentioned 4 unlockable maps? To get those, you have to get all of the Challenge Amulets.

It moves slow. I can comfortably keep up with the game on 'Fast Forward'. It really needs another tier of speed that makes things move even faster.

If you purchase the Premium Edition, you are still forced to play online, logged in to one website or another.

Not a lot of detractors though, especially not for a game you can play absolutely free of charge.

Finally, a word on the Premium Edition:

Honestly, I was on the fence about purchasing it for two reasons. First, it seemed it would slightly off-balance the game, and second.. it's a Flash game, which I have to play in my Browser on Armor Games. If I have no internet, or Armor Games goes down.. I have no game. The factor that made me decide to buy it was deciding that I had already gotten more than $5 worth of enjoyment without even paying for it, and I am a firm believer in supporting Indy developers.

The Premium Edition doesn't even throw the game balance off much, though it does make it a lot easier to level up, and start out if you buy it before you start playing.

It gives you 30 extra skill points (doesn't mean much after about level 30, before that it could be really useful though.)

It gives you access to 9 new skills (some are useful, so are not so much), none of which are exceptionally game-breaking.

Lastly: it open up an extra 10 Battle Settings, these include Endurance Mode, Tenfold monsters, Bosses Only, and 7 more almost as challenging.

TL:DR

“Jokes about The Sorcerer's Stone or Family Jewels will not be tolerated.”

Available from:
Armor Games
Game in a Bottle

Plants Vs. Zombies

Genre: Casual, Strategy (Defense)

Developer: PopCap Games

Publisher: PopCap Games

Released: 2009

Zolgar paid: $9.99

Beaten: Yes

Zolgar's rating: 7/10

Replayability: Moderate to High

Plants Vs. Zombies (PvZ) is one of those games which “real” gamers looked at and said “wow, that looks like an absolutely stupid game.” especially coming from PopCap (considered kings of casual gaming). However, once they downloaded the free demo and played it, they realized it was actually a very well made, fun little game.

PvZ has been called a 'gateway' game, leading casual gamers to playing “real” games. If you ask me, that's a very accurate definition of it, and it also got “real” gamers looking at casual games for entertainment (which makes it the perfect game for those of us who love both already). It's a quick, simple game to pick up, but it has a depth of strategy to it that actually makes you pay attention to what's going on.

PvZ is a form of Tower Defense game, though not in the typical sense that people are used to. The basic premise is Zombies have attacked! and you have an assortment of weaponized plants to defend your home with. Your yard is conveniently broken down in to 5 straight lanes, which the zombies are restricted to.

So as the Zombies shamble down the lanes, you place your various offensive and defensive plants. Things like Pea Shooters, Sun Flowers, Wall Nuts, Potato Mines, Chompers and so much more. Hopefully, you've built a defensive structure that provides you with an adequate amount of resources, and kills the Zombies before they reach your house. If they reach your house though, all hope is not lost! Each lane has a final line of defense, a lawn mower. If a Zombie reaches the lawn mover, it fires up and tears down the lane it's on, killing every Zombie in it. However if a second Zombie reaches the end of that lane, you're frelled.

Unlike the traditional Tower Defense, you do not get additional (resource) by way of killing the Creep, nor do you get it at the end of each wave.

There are two forms of resources in PvZ:

Sun: This is your 'building towers' resource, which comes in two forms. The first is falling from the sky in daytime levels, the second is from certain plants. When it spawns, you have to click it within about 20 seconds (I think) else it is lost forever.

Money: Money is used to purchase things like additional plant types, seed slots, etc. from your crazy neighbor. Money come primarily as random drops from defeated Zombies, as well you gain a bonus for each lawn mower remaining at the end of the level.

The game has 3 main 'stages', front yard, back yard and roof, each with a day and night phase as well. Front yard, daytime is the easiest and teaches you how to play the game, from there each one has certain special traits. Night time, of course, you get less Sun but you can use Mushrooms, which have a much lower sun requirement.. though this is countered by them not being usable during the day (without a special plant). All together totaling 50 individual levels.

If that's not enough for you, PvZ also features an assortment of mini games (such as 'Wall-Nut Bowling' where you use Wall-Nuts to bowl down incoming zombies), a puzzle mode (which I don't recall, it's not unlocked on the machine I'm playing it on now), Survival mode, and a 'Zen Garden' for if you just want to simulate a garden (with really weird plants). Meaning there's more than enough content to keep you happy for a while.

Also, PvZ has Achievements (at least on Steam), and for once we're not talking generic, pointless achievements that you earn for playing the game. Almost all the achievements in PvZ are ones that you have to do something special to get, like beating a daytime map with Mushrooms or activating Mustache Mode (which I won't tell you how to do).

As one might expect, the graphics are somewhat cartoony, however they're very well drawn, and I believe they will age well over the next few years.

Still not sure it's the game for you? Try the Demo. Remember, first hit's always free!

You can also get your fix on Android devices, iOS devices, Macs, Nintendo DS, and soon: LCD implants behind your eyelids, so you can play while you sleep. (OK, so one of those is a complete fabrication.)

(Screenshots shamelessly stolen from Impulse and Steam)

TL:DR

“Addictive, time-sucking games, and always a free trial version.. PopCap or PopCrack? You decide.”

Pricing and availability:

Steam: $9.99

Impulse: $9.95

PopCap: $19.95 (wait what?)

D2D: $9.95

Amazon (physical): ~$15.00

Sanctum

Genre: FPS/Tower Defense hybrid

Developer: Coffee Stain Studios

Publisher: Coffee Stain Studios

Released: 2011

Zolgar paid: $3.74

Beaten: Yes

Zolgar's rating: 5/10 (3/10 for the $15 regular price)

Replayability: Moderate

Not long ago I reviewed Prometheus, an indy game developed on the Unreal engine which took the idea of a FPS and twisted it much like Portal. Well now I bring you Sanctum, another Unreal engine driven indy game that's a major twist on the traditional FPS.

Everyone know what a First Person Shooter, or FPS is.. and if you don't, you can probably figure it out by the title. A shooter.. in the first-person perspective.

Meanwhile a Tower Defense, or TD, as most will know is a game where you have a 'core' or some other funky named thing that only exists for one purpose: lure baddies to it! You build towers to shoot said baddies. Simple enough, eh? If you've never played one you can check out DefendTheTowers.com

Now, on to Sanctum.. Sanctum tried to combine the fast-paced slaughter fest of a FPS with the methodical logic of a TD, and what they create is basically 2 games in one. You alternate between 'build phase' and 'attack phase', both of which are really self explanatory.

In the build phase you place blocks to form your maze, place towers on said blocks, upgrade towers and upgrade your guns. Oddly this is done entirely in 1^st person, instead of allowing you to use the overview (which is only used for teleporting).

In the attack phase, your defense grid goes online, and you run around using one of 3 guns to help your towers kill foes. You 3 guns are: Machine gun with rocket launcher secondary. Sniper rifle. Slow gun with AoE freeze secondary... here lies the first flaw of the game, the guns are horribly balanced.

• Sniper: Very powerful, most useful personal weapon due to foes which are invulnerable except for a weak spot. For critters like that you pretty much need the sniper, as a well built grid will defeat everything else.
• Assault: Useful gun to be sure, but only early in the maps and for one certain foe.. and even then it's not needed beyond maybe T3 upgrades.
• Slow: Awesome in theory, but it's firing speed is slower than the sniper, and it's slow duration is so minimal it's barely worth talking about.

There's also a 4^th gun, but you don't get it in the main playthrough: a full-auto shotgun, and just by the stats.. I'd say that thing is broken completely.

You also have 6 towers to choose from:

• Gatling Tower: You ever so basic ground tower. Full auto, low damage, cheap.
• Lightning: Most games would give this a long rang and call it a Sniper. It deals high damage at a slow firing speed.
• Laser: The only Ground/air tower, fast firing speed, low damage, targets randomly.
• Anti-Air: Air-only, slow firing explosive rounds.
• Mortar: Slow firing speed, arced shot, good damage explosive with a massive range.
• Slow Plate: A plate that slows your foes (and you, WTF?) as they walk over it.

These show a bit better balance than the guns, but still show a certain amount of favor, in general, to high damage. Unlike most TD, you do better with a few towers at higher upgrade levels, than a lot of lower level towers.

You have 12 enemy types, each with specific traits and weak points, most are standard TD fare. Slow tough foes, fast weak foes, flying foes, etc. They all have a 'headshot' zone though (conveniently glowing red), and some of them can only be damaged by being shot there, or otherwise take vastly reduced damage. This is what makes the Sniper so useful (seeing as a 'headshot' deals something like x3 damage).

So what we have established is that, as a FPS Sanctum is .. well.. it doesn't compare to even the most basic of FPS. As a TD Sanctum is.. generic, at best and lacks a lot of useful features that many modern TD players have come to expect.

Combine the two and you have a very fun game though, but one that I feel needs a little something more. First of all, I'd really like it to act like a normal TD and allow you to upgrade towers on the fly, and I'd like the resources to come per-kill instead of a flat amount at the end of each wave, with this mechanic they could have you get a hair more resources for killing the foes yourself, and thus giving you a reason to shoot things other than Bobbleheads.

Also it needs a plot. Even most generic TDs these days have some semblance of a plot. Sanctum? “Defend the core from the monsters.” Why am I here, who am I? Why do the monsters want to attack the core.. hell, what IS the core? There's NO story, no plot, not a damned bit of flavor text. Every map opens up with “you're here to defend the core.”

Lastly: it's short, if you read my Prometheus review you may remember me snarking a bit about how short it was.. well Sanctum is shorter and I paid for it. Six maps. Yep, six of them. Five standard and one endless. Seriously? Even free TDs have more than that.

So what it boils down to is them asking $15 for a ultra short, plotless hybridization of a mediocre TD and a lousy FPS. Someone somewhere is saying “It's got multiplayer, that's what games are about these days, the multiplayer!” This is true, it's got multiplayer, but I'm sorry.. only 6 map options, 4 gun options and 6 tower options, with 12 foes to fight.. that doesn't seem like it really lends itself to any kind of longevity in multiplayer.

Oh, and it has achievements! Well, that'll keep a perfectionist playing for a little while. Granted I didn't give much of a care about them when I got a fair chunk of them from my first (and only) play through and most of those I didn't get were 'Kill X of Y', most of the achievements are the ever-so-meaningless “Hey, you're playing the game, so let's give you a shiny badge every two frelling seconds!”

Of course, they're planning to release DLCs, to make you pay more money for content that should have been in the game from the start. If I had paid full price for this, I would be annoyed.

(Screenshots shamelessly stolen from Steam)

For today's TL:DR I'll bring you what I think the marketing meeting went like:

“Let's see guys, we have no plot, mediocre TD mixed with lousy FPS gameplay, minimal content.. let's charge $15 for it!” “OK, but we have to give them lots of achievements to make it feel like they've done something!”

Pricing and availability:

Steam: $14.99

Direct2Drive: $14.95

Gamers Gate: $14.95

Green Man Games: $14.99

(Note, while it's available from other sources, it has to be activated through Steam. As such it's been tagged Steam Only)