A few tips:
1-4 : Spam a single horizontal line of 6 laser turrets (3 left, 3 right) in the middle of the heavy lasers to hold off the enemy, then build and upgrade fusion cores and supply docks until you can build a starport with battle cruisers. If you manage to build at least one, you should win, even without a space station.
2-2: Build 3 more fusion cores, then upgrade them all. After that, build nothing but Thor missiles until all the yellow/alien structures are all dead. Use a single fighter bay to mop up tiny ships afterwards.
Seems like the game is pretty puzzle-like at the beginning -- once you figure out the right strategy, clicking rapidly becomes unnecessary.
In a sense, really simple to win -- think there are balance issues. I managed to build an unbeatable deck with just common cards.
The deck is:
9x Gold Mine
2x Parting Gift
1x Crystal Mine
10x Peasants.
Strategy -- spam peasants until getting at least 2 souls, deploy crystal mine, wait until parting gift can be used, and then just send peasants to their deaths one small group at a time. Wins against all opponents 100% of the time, even if the gold mines aren't in the initial hand.
Tips for new players:
1. Despite being an action game, it's still pretty much a RPG of sorts -- don't try to "win" the game initially -- just try to reach various achievements at first.
2. After getting about 5-10 achievements, then you can get a decent amount of starting income + museum income, which are good for starting out.
3. When hiring, try to get aiming speed of 8 or better and, if it's a class with party skills, teamwork of at least 6.
4. You can get decent money selling eggs.
5. Hire henchmen when halving your income will not impact your bottom line too much, at least until your normal characters are efficient at killing large waves. Always hire if you accidentally upset the enemy.
For those who think this is too hard... Remember to always look for a place that lets your towers hits the creeps multiple times while they are going "up," since that ensures the creeps won't speed up and run away from your towers. After the first level, always get as many upgraded splash towers as possible (up to 4) before buying anything else.
Seems like the game is geared more towards bullet dodging than shooting -- you'd have to dodge enemies in many cases and look for barrels to blow up to avoid being killed. However, since the gun *is* upgradeable, I don't see a problem with it.
I could only figure out one strategy for perfect completion, and it only uses only 3 gun types:
1. Raise the emancipation field 3 times. (Then, raise it more each time you can.)
2.Build Rapid turrets -- buy 4 with one in the middle and the rest spread about on the tallest towers. Make sure they cover the entire row.
3. Build 1 more rapid tower, just to be safe.
4. Upgrade middle tower to level 2
5. Build a missile on the middle tower -- upgrade to level 2.
6. Upgrade the rapid turrets to max.
7. Buy a slow tower in the middle and upgrade to max.
8. Upgrade your missile to max, then just keep building missiles on all the buildings.
No save is disappointing, (esp. for the achievements, which you need to re-unlock. Also, skipping a movie makes it remain locked? Unfair.) but unlike the others, I had no major problems with the movement -- jumping seems fluid once you get used to it. Being unable to combo is disappointing, but not terrible. I just thought the megaman-like "learn patterns and hit" final boss was more tedious than necessary, but that's just me.
Found a easy way to defend against the last boss army:
Place hospitals on the borders and buy all Samurai. Lighting thrower damage would be healed almost as fast as they come, and the soldiers will push the rolling enemy back.
Now, the way to beat them aside from Giants? Not sure yet.
While this game can technically be played like a normal adventure game, it would be exceedingly hard to succeed in that manner. Playing the minesweeper game is basically mandatory, at least in the first 6 levels or so. To sweep: Click on the corners first, then click on all the squares surrounding green squares. After all those are cleared out, try to figure out which ones are monsters and which aren't using normal minesweeper methods. It's pretty good, but is definitely easy if you're patient and sweep liberally.
It's fine as a game -- however, as a "business simulation," it's not as great. Main problem? Ingredient pricing is so random, it's actually possible to make money buying and selling ingredients exclusively.
Only major flaw is that, in addition to the usual way to play the game, there's also a pretty tedious, but possible strategy: 1. Build two trees. One in the upper right corner, and one in the lower right corner. 2. Let the apple grow as much as possible. 3. If any of the worms are getting close to the tree, click on the apple -- worms will go the other way, usually. If they don't, wait until they exit with the apple before building a replacement tree in that corner. (Saves money that way.) 4. Just keep farming your apples without caring about building turrets.
Weird physics. The key to greater distance is not to fling it like a ball and chain, but to send it sideways at a slightly upward angle, so the "worm" effect extends your range.
Well, the idea is to control the fish by blocking the path so it'd "bounce" at a different angle. If you time it right, you can get them to fire at enemies. Additionally, you'd drop spikes and heal your fish with bubbles. It's quite involved at later levels.
Huh. a defense RTS. Funny, that. Game is okay, but it's ridiculously easy once you get the hang of it. Basically: Stick a plasma mortar at the front of the given defenses, turn on auto repair for all turrets, then build a bunch of refineries and generators, upgrading the turrets as money allows.
Since so many comments mentioned Storm the House, I tried that one after playing through this game some. There are differences between the two:
1. This game has larger stick figures with hit location detection, so there are different death animations depending on where they were hit.
2. No maintenance costs for hiring people in this game.
3. Weapon upgrades are more important in this game than Storm the House, though not by much.
I disagree with those that thinks the difficulty is too high. It's just right. Unlike the other recent "space" defense games, the range of your weapons matter in this one. That is to say -- having 1 level 3 ion cannon is much better than having 6 level 1 ion cannons. Why? Because a level 3 ion cannon can hit and destroy the enemy before they can get in range to hit you, so you have less losses. If I were to complain about anything, it's the slow fade in/fade outs and seemingly unresponsive clicks during the upgrades.
I liked the premise of the game -- however, for the defense portion, the fact that the exploding rounds and/or weapons fire can knock you and the zombies through barriers instead of into them makes the defense via barriers almost pointless. Is that a bug, or is it intentional?
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