I just released a sequel to this game that features several difficulty levels and maps:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/frostytrees/omega-tower-defense-2
This game seems to play at a much lower frame rate on Kongregate than elsewhere (most likely because Chat is hogging a bunch of processor / ram). Play it at full speed here:
http://www.flashgamealot.com/game.php?id=75
phooltk: Showdown is intended to be impossible to survive. If you can kill even a single enemy once you get to showdown, that will be the farther than I got. I went with this option rather than having a 'You Win' message. In the next version of this game, it will be possible to play for longer before getting to showdown.
I think the problem is, I played it so many times while testing that I got too good at it to accurately judge how hard it would be for other people. Anyway, I just uploaded two videos to youtube showing two ways to get past the first wave of centipedes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4vFDf7k9nQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBgQp_AsF40
one good strategy: build 3 small artil. towers and upgrade their reload / damage. then, when you have enough money to buy a heavy artil tower (including money you can get from selling all but one of the light artil towers), sell 2 of the light towers and buy a heavy. upgrade its damage, then rate. time your upgrades during the brief period between waves.
DarkReality: Yes I wrote / tested it. I can get to wave 50+. It takes a few tries to learn the tricks.
Clearly, people find this game too hard, so I intend to release an update that lets you select difficulty level.
just scored 39200. it took about 6 minutes. ok.. so 10 is high. i agree this game is not perfect. but i don't agree with those who say it is not possible. as i said, it is hard.
its a hard game, but if you carefully choose the timing and placement of your towers, the amount of gold you are given is more than enough to stay alive for ten minutes or more. take a look at the high score list to see what is possible.
here are some tips:
- you can see the the path the enemies are going to follow. if you build two towers to either side of the path, enemies will be forced to go between them.
- start off by building the cheap cannon towers, then use the money you make from defeating the first wave to invest in a poison or money tower.
- putting a blood and poison tower next to eachother is especially effective, because enemies take more damage for longer.
good luck- you might have to play more than once to succeed.
when you are at the menu screen, it just rotates around, then starts wherever it was. you can rotate the map with the left and right arrows and zoom in and out with up and down.
If I showed you where they were going, that would make it much easier. Let me just say that they avoid the towers as best they can, and the path changes whenever you place a tower.
What kind of controls are you looking for? L / R rotate and U / D accelerate? Right now all arrow keys accelerate in that direction, and the ship points in the direction it was traveling. This is similar to Crystal Catastrophe, which was the inspiration for this game.
XIXs: i wasn't going for Mad Planets. as it says in the description, this game's mechanics are inspired by Mars Matrix. for those who are truly hard core about shooters, Ikaruga and Mars Matrix often tp the lists of most insane.
as for the difficulty issue, one of the failings of this game as it is now (and it might be improved ;), is that it does not put people into a "Flow" state, because the difficulty doesn't change over time. It starts hard and stays hard the whole time. It could still get harder though. It would be better if the difficulty gradually increased, so that player abillity and game difficulty remain comparable throught the experience.