Artsy Fartsy emo crap trying to disguise just how little gameplay and concept there is here. This sort of stuff drops a star in my estimation if only to discourage others from doing more of the same.
Excellent and elegant game. I'm giving 4 of 5 solely because of the lightweight AI. Teach the AI to monopolize energy better, and I'll add the extra star.
And once again, cutdown upgrades are useless. By the time you can afford to spend points on them, you should be headed toward bounty hunter anyway which is alot better, and by the time you've maxed that and dabbled in masteries to reduce upgrade costs (also better than cutdown) you'll have got the hard badge.
Ok, a good score should be all 'Gold' by level 15, all 'Brilliant' by level 25. Pushing down below that should be hard, and if anyone can do it, I'd like to know how. Otherwise, stick to my strategy guide. Dens at first, then temples in the middle and crypts on the backrow/high ground. Crypts are the strongest, and temples generally the weakest (though they rock in a few places especially when they can catch ninjas). For 14, you need max meteor researched, then reverse the usual strategy - crypts front row, dens back row. This will make the normal play trickier than usual, but by end 14 you should have a fully upgraded crypt that will unload everything on the boss ninja. Hold down shift and spam all 5 fully upgraded meteors. This combination should take down the boss.
Strategy Guide: In most cases, crypts in your high points. In most cases, temples are weak. When possible try to place 2-3 dens as close to the start of the path as possible, and have crypts in your second tier. Chilling Crypts are essential. Don't over build; you want your main defences to get alot of XP. Save mana to meteor large ninja waves. Save mana to frenzy large assassin waves (don't plan to meteor, because it will likely just miss, though meteor for emergencies). Cutdown upgrades are weak because you can't afford to waste the mana. Crypt upgrades and XP upgrades are strong. Your first goal should be 3rd charge for crypts, then +25% bonus damage to high points and +25% bonus to XP. Sixth gem is nice. After that, upgrades to meteors and fear, then upgrades to dens. By then, you'll overwhelm everything in the game except ninja bosses, so fully upgrade meteors save your mana, and then hold down shift and spam fireballs as needed.
I have mixed feelings about the game. On the one hand, it held my attention long enough to beat the game, but on the other hand it requires zero skill to beat this game. It's a skill free tower defense game. Virtually anything you do will be successful, and this is especially true of the fact that if your strategy doesn't work, you can always wait for an upgrade and then it will. The game has no balance. Most of it can be played while you are away making a sandwich, and about your only real interaction is waiting to see if you need to meteor something (usually ninjas) or start a frenzy (assassin mobs). Other than that, as long as you upgrade at every opportunity, the game practically plays itself.
1946 seemed the hardest to me. The last two were sorta anticlimatic after fighting through '46, '47, and '48. However, I never needed more than two attempts (and that only twice) and got 32 stars on my first pass through. So arguably, the difficulty level isn't high enough.
Good game. I'd give 1 more star but for two annoying 'bugs'. If you accidently move your command underneath a figher, you can't correct it. Also, if you accidently issue an order to move off the map, you can't correct that either. You need a 'reset all' or similar command.
This is not a game. The artwork is incredible, but it has neither an interesting story (this is a typical inverted fairy-tale, and victor Hugo told it better) nor any sort of game-play. The 'game' and the story actually detract from the art.
I really dislike games where 90% of the difficulty is learning the non-standard control system. Why doesn't the keyboard control movment and the most control aiming like every other game out there? Unlearning what I've learned in dozens of other games is hard, alot harder than the limited and repetitive challenges the game seems to provide.
zstick: This is a completely shameless rip off of 'Harvest: Massive Encounter'. The trouble with the game is that upgrading anything tends to make it worse. Unupgraded lasers are better in just about every fashion than any other laser. This makes the game play very one diminsional. Put the game on slow, build a bunch of unupgraded miners. Build a bunch of unupgraded lasers. Recycle and move them around as necessary. It's incredibly dull.
"annother great game thats been in the top 3 for months, yet STILL no badges? meanwhile some horrible games are getting badges AND cards. makes you loose alot of respect for this site."
1) The majority of people who play this game can't get their progress in the missions to save between sessions. This makes badges difficult.
2) The developer has to make his game play nice with the badge API. If the developer doesn't do that, Kongregate can't do a thing.
3) This game sucks. I gave it 4 stars when I first started playing it, but the more you play it the more you realize how screwed up the gameplay is.
4) The game is a straight up copy of someone elses game (set in space instead of on a planet), and yet both the THEL and the pulsar are useless. This renders the gameplay degenerate, which means the developer really needs to spend some more time on design.
MikeSF: Once you expand that logic to looking at upgrading anything else in the game, you'll have taken your first step both to getting good at the game and realizing it is a POS.
Specific 'realism' problems. 1)Governments lack the ability to close borders easily. Well people (or people that think they are well) will tend to flee out of infected regions, and will succeed at some rate. 2) It should be much harder to generate a truly lethal disease. 3) Governments panic too easily often closing borders before the first death has occurred. 4) A closed border ought not be particularly protective versus insect or rodent vectors, since mosquitoes don't know to stop at borders and spraying isn't 100% effective.
For the record, Hard feels like 'Creampuff' difficulty once I figured out that I was wasting money on upgrading lasers (or really, to some extent on upgrading anything). 'Madness' feels now like 'average', and the difficulty level the game was balanced at.
Dennija: When you can beat madness, come back and tell me how I don't know what I'm talking about.
Pulsars are for nothing. They are unnecessary, and building them is the sign of an inexperienced player.
Seriously, pulsars need a serious upgrade
pulsar level 1: 18 damage per shot (up from 12)
pulsar level 2: 24 damage per shot
(up from 14)
pulsar level 3: 36 damage per shot (up from 16)
Seriously, I'm just sorta getting a feel for how fast a laser can kill a foe, and I'm not sure by looking that a fully upgraded pulsar is actually out performing a single basic laser by all that much. It covers a wider area and seems to do a better job against several rockets at once, but that's about it. Three basic lasers always out class it.
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