Evilot [Syrenaica] - $0.99

Since Plants Vs. Zombies hit the AppStore there’s been a whole slew of lane based defense games. There are a few that have stood out among the crowd, Total War Battles: Shogun, Defense Of Fortune: The Savior, Hero TacTics and others are pretty good examples of this. Well, last week another title hit the store, and it’s mechanics and the strategy involved make it another Lane Defense game that’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of the genre; Evilot, from the development team Syrenaica. 

Evilot puts you in the shoes of the ‘evil’ mastermind, Count Dolfus. With adventurers and knights trying to come and steal away his gold and treasures, he’s forced to use whatever methods he can in order to keep from succeeding. Now, what really makes Evilot interesting is the way that you can combine your defenses in order to level them up. Placing 3 like-defenses on the gameplay area will make them all merge onto the area where your last piece was set. This can be done horizontally as well as vertically and while that in-itself is a pretty cool mechanic, if you’re not careful, you could wind up accidentally placing a defensive piece next to two others in the heat of the moment and wind up letting a group of knights through your barricade. However, once you get use to it, it’s something that definitely winds up setting Evilot apart from most of the games within the genre. 

As you progress through the game, you’ll be given more and more defensive pieces to work with. Starting off you’ll only have rats, but as you move on you’ll be given wooden barriers, skeletons, frogs, green blob things and more. While you’re not able to choose which pieces to use in each stage, they are mixed up from stage to stage, and depending on what you’re given, the strategy for each stage changes as well. 

The game contains 50 stages spread across 5 different areas with a boss battle at the end of each area. The graphics, while at first kind of seeming a bit dull when compared to other titles within the genre, have really grown on me. The gothic type look and feel of everything is something that’s not seen too often in the gaming world, and here, Syrenaica has done a great job of not going overboard with it, but still keeping it graphically appealing throughout the game. The comic-book type cut-scenes between each territory are very polished and well done, helping to add to the overall feel of the game while also injecting a bit of humor.

The user interface is simple to use as well. Placement is done by tapping on the piece you want to place on the bottom of the screen and then selecting the tile you want to place it. When a piece is selected, it’s icon at the bottom of the screen will be highlighted in green, making it easy to quickly glance down and know what piece you have selected. Defeating an enemy or having one of your own pieces defeated will drop a ‘card’ which you can pick up by tapping on it and then use again by placing it anywhere in the gameplay area. 

Unfortunately, there is no GameCenter support, so there are no leaderboards or achievements to go after. There are also no in-game achievements, all of which kind of takes away some of the replay value that can be found with other titles that do incorporate these features. But, with the difficulty of the last 30 or so levels, there’s always a nice sense of accomplishment once you do complete a stage and area and this does help drive the game along. It would also be nice to see some sort of additional gameplay mode, maybe something where you control the knights and adventurers and try and steal the treasures, or an endless mode, maybe even a hardcore mode where you can just jump straight in to some insanely hectic gameplay. With these things not found here, Evilot can, at times, feel like it’s lacking the overall fullness that would make it totally stand out within the genre, but the core gameplay is solid and the main campaign that can be found here is definitely worth the $0.99 entry fee. Even if more modes were only made available through IAP, I’d love to see this game grow in the future, and sincerely hope that it does. If you’re still on the fence about purchasing it, there is a lite version available for free in the AppStore. 

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Agricola [Playdek + Look Out Games] - $6.99

If you’re a fan of board or card games, there’s really nothing like playing them on the touch screen. Having everything organized perfectly, wonderful interface, no mess to set up or clean up and, sometimes, even some enhancements to the original games. There are a couple of fantastic development teams creating some wonderful card game experiences on the iOS, but one of our favorites here at The App Shack is Playdek. Their previous titles; Nightfall, Summoner Wars, Fluxx and others are games that will never leave our iDevices. Most recently, working with Look Out Games, they’ve expanded on the card game formula to bring us an interesting and addictive new game; Agricola. 

The background for the gameplay is this: Europe is trying to recover from hard times and you’re placed in the middle of a farming community with your wife. You’ve got to try and build up your land to make a productive farm by growing and harvesting crops, breeding livestock and helping your family to grow. You’re given 14 stages to build up your house, crops, livestock and family as much as you can, earning points for each. While the game sounds pretty simple, there is quite a bit of depth in the gameplay. Starting off with the incredibly well done tutorial is highly recommended. 

First off, the number of actions you’re given in each round is dependant on how many family members you have, so it’s always a good idea to try and grow your family right off the bat. To do this, you’ll need to collect the materials required to build another room onto your farmhouse. To acquiring wood, you’ll need to assign one family member to pick up wood from in town. You’ll also need reed to build your room, so using another family member to pick that up from town, you’ll have enough resources to build a room by the end of your second turn. To finally build the room, you’ll need to use a family member to select the ‘Build Room’ option in town. From here, you can get that room build and ready for another family member. However, you should keep in mind that the more family members you have, the more food you’ll need to feed them, but the resources in town also stack upon one another, so say you don’t select an extra food option for a couple of rounds, you’ll be able to select it and receive 2, 3, or more rounds worth of extra food to help you out. 

Also, more food can be cooked/produced by upgrading your fireplaces and stoves, as well as other features in your house. The same goes for other aspects of your home, which you’ll get into while going through the tutorial and just experimenting while playing the game. While it all might sound a bit confusing, the tutorial being split up into different sections makes it very easy to go back and revisit some of the more complicated mechanics in the game, and once you play a couple games you’ll have a pretty decent handle on what’s going on. 

The user interface for Agricola is very easy to use and is surprisingly accurate, even on the smaller iPhone/iPod screens. While it can be kind of hard to see exactly what you’re hovering over in town when trying to place a family member on a resource, you can always use the question mark in the top left corner to show you what each resource is, making the selection process a whole lot easier. Graphically, Agricola is pretty basic, though with a card/resource game like this being able to clearly see what you’re doing and what different stats and cards do is of utmost importance, and Playdek has nailed it here. Graphics are crisp, clean and clear and text is very easy to read. 

As for gameplay modes, you can either play a single player game or play on one device with up to 5 players. You are able to change each of the other 4 players to either an actual person or the game’s AI. Alongside this, you’re also able to play online, through Playdek’s servers, choosing either a Quick Match, where you can select the gameplay settings you’d like and be notified when another player joins, Create Game, where you can invite a friend to play or join up in one of the already created games on the server. This expanded amount of gameplay options gives players quite a bit to explore and will hopefully keep the online gameplay active for some time. 

With Agricola priced at $6.99, it might be a bit steep for the casual iOS gamer, but those who know the depth of mechanics and great support that comes along with any Playdek title or know how much an online component can add to a card/resource game like Agricola, know that the price is beyond justified. GameCenter is also supported with 11 achievements helping to push the gameplay along and give players more than just points to aim for. And while some gamers might not see it, we here at The App Shack can’t help but love this game so much that the chances of it winding up on our end of the year GOTY list are fairly high. We really can not recommend this one enough. 

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Kingdom Rush: Frontiers [Ironhide Game Studio] - $2.99/$4.99 [HD]

Last year the Tower Defense game Kingdom Rush took the iOS strategy gaming world by storm. Fans of the genre couldn’t get enough of it and many consider it the best TD game on the iOS, some even consider it the best on any gaming platform. That’s some insanely high praise right there, especially considering the high number of quality Tower Defense titles that are out there. Now fans of the very well received original can experience the sequel and it’s everything you’d expect a sequel to be. Kingdom Rush Frontiers takes the original’s gameplay and adds quite a bit to it while keeping the basic mechanics and gameplay in-tact.

If you’re not familiar with the original Kingdom Rush, it’s a cartoonish/comic looking hardcore Tower-Defense title that strives to put strategy and player involvement over anything else, unlike most TD titles where it’s basically ‘place your towers and watch the level for the outcome’. You’re given 4 types of towers, Archers, Knights, Mages and Cannons, each of which can eventually be upgraded and turned into a ‘super’ tower; Knights can become Assassins, Archers can create a Crossbow Fort, Cannons can become a DWAARP, a Dwarven supertower that slows all enemies down and the Mage tower can be upgraded to an Archmage tower with charged bolts. Each of these ‘super’ towers also has special abilities which can have devastating effects on the opposition. 

For each of the levels there are 3 different gameplay modes to try and tackle, each also having 3 difficulty levels to choose from. Classic Mode puts you up against the enemies with all of your towers in-tact and the ability to upgrade them to their full potential. You’ll also be able to employ your Hero who can run freely throughout the stage helping you take out baddies whenever needed. This is the main mode, and includes a great storyline along with it. Heroic Mode gives you 1 life (if one enemy breaks through the barrier, you loose) and puts you up against 6 waves of elite enemies while maxing out your towers at a lower level and no hero. The last mode is Iron Mode, putting you through 1 super wave of enemies with 1 life, a set limit to the max level of your towers, no hero and also only gives you 2 towers to work with. With all of this, including Casual, Normal and Veteran difficulties, there’s quite a challenge to be had by gamers of all skill-sets. 

Frontiers contains all of this along with new enemies, new terrains and environments, new heroes, new abilities and new super towers. Like the original, you’ll earn gems alongside hero and upgrade points which can be distributed among your towers and to make your hero an even stronger force to be reckoned with. Gems can be spent in the shop to purchase special items like extra health points, dynamite that can take out a very small grouping of enemies, a frozotov which can freeze a small group of enemies, a super bomb that can wipe out every enemy on the screen, a gold bag which gives you more gold for a stage and a chill wand which freezes all the enemies on the screen for a short period of time. You are able to purchase more gems from the game’s IAP shop, but this is not necessary to complete the game. The game is also not directly pushed towards purchasing these gems even though it might feel that way with the heightened difficulty of the gameplay, each stage can be completed without using any extra items. You can also purchase extra heroes from the shop with prices ranging from $2.99 to $4.99 and even a $6.99 hero. Just like gems, these are not required to complete the game, and you are given 3 free heroes to choose from while playing, but they are there if you’re interested in supporting the developers or just getting a stronger hero to help you through the game. 

While there will be some that are turned off the by inclusion of IAPs I feel that I should say this. There still is a lot of strategy involved. Going through a stage and getting your butt kicked and then changing your strategy and playing through the stage again and again is something that’s still here in KR Frontiers, especially if you’re striving to complete the game on Veteran difficulty with a 3 star rating on each stage and completing the extra modes. There’s a crazy amount of gameplay here for the entry price of $2.99 ($4.99 if you want the HD/iPad only version), and that feeling of completing the game perfectly is still a great reward within itself, especially if you do not drop extra money into the game to make it easier. The only reason you should feel the need to purchase any of the IAPs is to support the developer, to make the game easier (which is a tough one to say here, especially since Casual Difficulty is meant for first-timer TD players) or to experience playing the game in a new light with a new hero, kind of like a modified version (which it basically is when you unlock an IAP hero). So unless you’re totally against IAPs in your video games, it shouldn’t be an issue at all here. 

On top of all of this, there is GameCenter integration with a whopping 72 achievements to try and unlock, and believe me when I say that this will take a while and require some replaying of stages. KR Frontiers has definitely raised the bar for Tower Defense games and is easily one of the best in the genre. Even if you’re not a fan of TD games, this is still one that you should check out, as it might very well make you a fan, or bring you back into the TD gaming scene. I really can’t recommend it enough. 

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Alphadia 2 [Kemco & EXE Create] - $6.99

Well, it’s time once again; Kemco has released yet another top-of-the-pack Turn-Based RPG in the AppStore. Fans of Kemco know that just about every RPG that this studio has published carries with it some fantastic old-school gameplay, rivaled only by a few select developers, and able to hold their own up against the monster that is Final Fantasy. So, what has Kemco brought to the table this time around? How about a sequel to one of their previous games, the EXE-Create developed title; Alphadia 2. 

Alphadia 2, as you surely must have expected, jumps into the world of the original Alphadia, only 200 years after the events in the original. If you’re familiar with the original, you will be running into some familiar faces, as some of the characters from the original were designed clones, they are still around 200 years later. The Schwarzschild Empire is also still playing a roll and the Lightning Guild an even bigger one, and Energi is still a force that drives battles, assassination plots and wars. 

This time around, you’ll be following the story of Leon, a young Energi Guild member, Milfy, a researcher for The Guild who’s also connected to Leon’s past, Enah, who’s from the first Alphadia title, and Guildmistress along with others who will join your party along the way. 

All available members of your unit will always follow along with you, but you are only able to have a party of 4 enter battles. However, since other members follow along, you’re also able to switch out members for others if you so desire. Alphadia 2’s customization is almost exactly like the originals. Each of your characters will have a main element in which they’re proficient in, but you’re also able to level up other elements by equipping your characters with rings which you’re able to attach elements to. Once you equip your character with an elemental ring, they will start learning skills based in that element. Aside from that, Weapons and Armor are the only other items that you’ll have control over, and stats are increased on their own by leveling up your characters. 

If you remember playing through the original Alphadia, one of things that probably stuck out above everything else was the amount of battles you encountered. Thankfully, the grind has been lowered in the sequel, and progression through the story flows a lot quicker because of this. Also, leveling up of characters and skills has also been tweaked so that you’re not required to enter as many battles as you were in the original in order to gain skills and become stronger. However, gaining of currency is something that you might find yourself needing to grind for if you’re interested in always having the strongest gear, though this is by no means necessary in order to play through the game. 

Graphically, Alphadia 2 follows the same look as the original, but adds a bit of polish on top of it. It still retains it’s retro feeling throughout, and environments are again maze-like in structure. Though, as mentioned, with the number of random battles that you’ll be thrown into, getting through buildings, castles and dungeons is done at a much quicker pace. 

The menus are fairly different than the original’s, with more polish and easier navigation. The battles are also easier to get through since you’re able to use the d-pad and action button to select actions instead of having to reach up into the screen to tap on the action you want to perform. Along with the Auto battle option, Alphadia 2’s user interface has been restructured to allow for quicker and easier selection throughout the game, which is a great inclusion, and pretty much takes care of what you would expect a sequel to take care of.

Like all other Kemco titles, the translation is near perfect, with only minor grammatical errors here and there, allowing for players to fully understand the story and plot. This also helps players to become fully immersed in the story and characters, who, like previous titles, will grow on you fairly quickly. 

With Alphadia 2 launching at a special price of $2.99 instead of it’s original $6.99, it’s a great RPG to pick up for fans of the genre. If you’ve yet to be exposed to Kemco, Alphadia 2 would be a great jumping off point, and one that you don’t need to know the ins and outs of the previous Alphadia in order to fully enjoy. The only negative thing I can say about Alphadia 2 is that the game is not Universal, which means that iPad owners will have to play in 2X, but with the iPad 3 and 4’s ability to smooth out the graphics of 2X gameplay, this is becoming less and less of an issue. Alphadia 2 is optimized for the widescreen of the iPhone/iPod 5 as well. Kemco has proven, once again, that they are capable of being named along with Square Enix , Quest, Beam and others in the old-school RPG category. 

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Review Rewind: Anthill

Line Drawing Base Defense titles quickly became a favorite genre of mine after playing today's Review Rewind title; Anthill. Originally titled Anthill: Tactical Trail Defense, the TTD was dropped in an update, and it simply took the name 'Anthill'. After I got an iPad earlier this year, Anthill was one of the first titles I moved over to the device, eager to find out how the game played on the larger screen. And it's fantastic. If you're a fan of the genre, Anthill is definitely a title you need to pick up, and now with it's added Infinite Mode that was included in the Version 2.0 update for the game, there's endless replay value, challenge, and ant controlling, bug killing mayhem to be had. Anthill is another title that can be added to the list of games that will never leave my iDevice. 

**Note: This review was written after playing Version 1.1

Line drawing and tower defense genres really seem to go together quite well from the couple of titles that merge these two genres I’ve been able to check out. Phoenix Defense Force, Boom Brigade, A.I.R. Defense, Into The Blue, and the ever popular Axe In Face come to mind, and now fans of the genre have another game to add to that short list of incredibly well done line drawing/TD games; Anthill: Tactical Trail Defense, by Image & Form International. 

To start things off, the graphics and animations. I&F has done an amazing job creating some very vibrant and layered environments. You get an idea of this right when you get to the main menu. The very well done environments match the equally well done bug models and animations. It’s actually so well done that you might end up finding yourself just staring at the screen watching them move around. The bugs are also very colorful, matching the vibrancy of the environments perfectly. It’s easy to tell that a lot of time and effort went into making the movement, look, and flow of everything within the game just right. To top it off, the music is Disney-esque, and almost like something that would have fit very well within A Bug’s Life. It compliments the atmosphere and feeling of the game perfectly.

Now onto the gameplay. You start out looking down at an anthill, surrounded by shrubbery. The tutorial is well explained, learning the basic mechanics in the first level, and then new mechanics when new units are added. You’ll need to draw a line from the top of your anthill to your desired location, and then decide what units to send out on that line. You’ll need to constantly collect food in order to send out more units, and there is almost always a leaf close-by that you can snag about 100 food points from over a short amount of time. So to start things off, you’ll usually draw a line from your anthill to that leaf, and then decide to send out your collector ants on that line. They will go out to the leaf, and start bringing the food back to the anthill. Now, to keep those ants safe, you’ll need to drag your finger across the screen, or pinch to zoom in and out, to scan the area for enemy bugs that will kill your worker ants and deprive you of food. 

Once you find out where those bugs are coming from, or where they might come from, you’ll need to draw another line starting from the top of the anthill to an intersecting point between the bugs and the worker ants, and then send out your attacker ants. These guys will kill whatever bugs are encroaching on your territory, and leave their bodies for your worker/collector ants to pick up and take back to the hill. So after your attacker ants have cleared out an area of enemies, you’ll draw another line to their bodies, and choose the collector ants to pick them up, and take them back to the anthill for some major food points. Once you’re done with a line, you hold down on it, and select the “X” that pops up. You are able to draw as many lines as you want, but the more you draw, the more spread out our available ants will become, so it’s best to erase the lines you no longer need in a timely fashion. You can also use bomber ants, who fly out of the anthill, and drop goo wherever you tap on the battlefield. A direct hit with the goo can kill an enemy instantly, but to do this, you’ll need to hit a moving target who has the ability to change direction at any point in time. Which brings us to the AI. Each of the bugs behaves differently. This makes learning how each of your enemies moves, and attacks essential in taking them out successfully.

After each level, you’re given a star ranking based on how many points you’ve collected throughout the level. This is more important than usual because you can then use these stars to upgrade your ants. The speed of the collector ants, brutality of the attacker ants, and more. If you don’t want to battle it out to gain stars, you can purchase them through an IAP, 20 stars for $0.99, which can upgrade your ants quite a bit, but it’s not necessary, and the game isn’t pushed toward you buying the stars at all. The difficulty is set just right, and you can replay levels to earn stars that you didn’t earn the first time through. You can not, however, re-earn stars, so if you got all the stars available in a level, you can not replay it and earn those stars to use for upgrades again. 

Anthill: TTD is GameCenter enabled, and has leader boards for all 21 of the levels that are spread across the 3 different environments. There’s also a leader board for your total score, which combines all of your best level scores. Having a board for each of the levels, as well as a star ranking that gives you stars for upgrades does add quite a bit of replay value to the game, especially if you’re a high-score chaser. With the game at $2.99, and on sale right now for $1.99, and being Universal, it’s a great buy for the amount of content and gameplay you’ll get. If you’re a fan of line drawing or tower-defense games, this is one that looks beautiful, and has an insane amount of strategic elements. The controls are nice and tight, and really, everything within the game is so professionally done that it’s hard to not call it one of the best, if not the best line drawing tower defense title available for the iOS.

**Note: Anthill is now priced at $1.99

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Blade Guardian [Mistwalker] - $0.99

Mistwalker. Now, I know that there’s some of you out there who did not enjoy Party Wave, but there’s no denying that Final Fantasy, and other RPG titles that came out of Square while Hironobu Sakaguchi was the Director of Planning and Development have had endless influence over video games for the past 20+ years. And with all of the experience that’s collected within the Mistwalker studio, there’s also no denying that there’s infinite potential there. Well, it’s been shown again. This time, with the release of the Real-Time Strategy/Arcade Influenced Tower Defense title, Blade Guardian. Now, I know that there are many of you out there that are kind of burnt out on the TD genre, but Blade Guardian packs some pretty interesting mechanics, gameplay elements, strategy and scoring, all making it a very unique title within the genre. 

One of the first things that you might notice about Blade Guardian after you start it up is that instead of having a set of levels which you need to progress through, with an end goal, it’s set up more like a high-scoring arcade game. The main goal of Blade Guardian is to get the highest score you can before the enemies take all of your HP. 

Starting off, you’ll only have access to the very first level, but once you complete that level and move on, you’re able to start off at level 2 or, depending on what level you reach, the last level you unlocked. Every time you start a new game, your score resets back to zero, but you’re able to keep some earned resources and HP. Kind of like the set-up in Space Tripper with your best score, most lives, and upgraded weapon loadout, each time you complete a level, you’ll be awarded a certain amount of HP and resources to build towers depending on how much resources and HP you ended the level with. In each new game, these resources will be available to you if you decide to start from any level other than the first one.

The game starts you out with all of the towers you’ll have available to you throughout the game, which is kind of strange considering it’s genre. But, with these 4 towers, along with walls, you’ll need to build up a pathway for the enemies to make their way through in order to reach your base and steal your HP. It doesn’t matter how big each enemy is, or what type of enemy it is, every enemy that reaches your base will steal one HP point. The 4 towers you’re given are; Laser Tower - attacks enemies at a distance with a powerful laser, Catapult - attacks enemies at medium range with projectiles, Freezer - slows down enemies, and the Cannon - attacks enemies at close range. Each tower has two available upgrades, each making it stronger. The wall pieces are able to be placed together in order to help create pathways to guide enemies along, and can not be upgraded. 

Along with these 4 towers you’ll be able to release Blades. These captured mechanical constructs will appear at certain times throughout each stage. Your weapons will fire at the claws holding the Blade, and you can tap on the claw if you have the resources. Each tap costs 1 resource point, and helps to free the Blade quicker. Once it is freed, the Blade drops down and lets off a fairly large energy blast, destroying all walls and enemies that are within range. After that, the Blade will make its way to the nearest enemy spawning point, attacking enemies along the way, and start to destroy the spawn area. You are able to tap on the Blade, and activate it’s roll ability, which damages enemies by running into them. Once this is active, you’ll need to tilt your device in order to control the Blade. Unfortunately, right now there are no sensitivity or calibration settings available, and you’ll need to hold your device flat in order to control the rolling Blade, which can get kind of frustrating. Fortunately, the rolling ability is something you’ll be able to live without until Mistwalker (hopefully) adds these control options. 

Graphically, Blade Guardian is very well done, with a dark, dry/metallic grey color scheme for the environments and all of the towers, and a more organic orange and yellow look for all of the enemies, the two tones compliment each other nicely. The animations are also well done, though the environments do bob up and down, kind of like their treading water, which can disrupt the placement of walls and towers, especially on the smaller iPhone/iPod screen. Musically, the soundtrack is pretty dark, with a slower tempo, adding a sort of cyberpunkish feeling to the gameplay, and helping to add to the immersion quite a bit. 

There are two modes, but making it to Nighmare Mode is something I haven’t been able to do yet. There’s no option to play it from the main or options menus, and is something that’s most likely unlocked after reaching a certain level in the regular campaign. Both modes have leaderboards in GameCenter, but, sadly, there are no achievements. 

Being Universal and priced at $0.99, with Blade Guardian definitely being a large step in the direction that most gamers and fans of Hironobu Sakaguchi were expecting coming from the Mistwalker studio, it‘s a game that fans of the genre should pick up as soon as possible. The strategic elements combined with the Real-Time Strategy provide a fantastic challenge, and the Score-Chasing/Arcade elements of Blade Guardian provide loads of replay value and help to appeal to gamers who are not Tower Defense fanatics. If the couple of issues I’ve brought up are dealt with, Blade Guardian has the potential to wind up in the top 3 best hardcore TD games available in the AppStore, and coming from Mistwalker, I have complete faith that the issues will be extensively tested, and the best results will be implemented.

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Review Rewind: Jelly Defense

One genre that really seems to fit perfectly within the confines of the iDevice's touch screen is Strategy games. Real Time and Turn Based Strategy, Base and Tower Defense, 4X titles, they all feel right at home on the touch screen. Now, I will admit that there's not many TD games out there that really hit that spark in my brain. Space Station: Frontier, Sentinel, The Creeps, Elf Defense, Forest Guardians, Fieldrunners, E.R.A. and of course, Jelly Defense. One of the few Tower Defense titles to still be on my device a year after it's release, it's definitely got that spark that kept me coming back to it over and over again. Granted, it doesn't get too much gameplay out of me lately, but on occasion, I still do start it up, and try and better my scores. If you're a fan of TD games, you might find Jelly Defense a little too casual, though the difficulty does ramp up towards the end of the game, but for most gamers, Jelly Defense is a great Tower Defense game, and one that everyone should check out.

**Note: This review was written after playing Version 1.0

Most tower defense games really feel like they fit perfectly with touch screen devices. For many people, their iPod gave them their first experience with tower defense games, and have sense become hooked. But over the last year or so, it’s been pretty hard to find originality within the genre. Thankfully, there have been a couple of tower defense games that have really added something new, or expanded on previous ideas, instead of just re-packaging the same formula with a different skin. Infinite Dreams has shown, with previous iOS releases, that they know what it takes to put together a game that has substance, and with the release of Jelly Defense, they’ve proven once again that they know exactly what it takes to create an awesome game.

Jelly Defense sticks with the jelly graphics that Infinite Dreams have made popular with the past releases of Jelly Invaders, Jelly Clock, and Jelly Chronicles. Black and white backgrounds with colored characters giving the game quite a bit of personality, while keeping a very vivid yet minimal look and feel to the whole jelly universe. The animations and use of shadows give the world tons of life, and it really has turned out to be a graphic style that stands out and will soon be the first thing that will come to gamers minds when they hear “Infinite Dreams” from now on. Alright, enough gushing over the graphics, let’s get on with the gameplay and mechanics.

 To start the game off, you’ll see the jelly’s home planet being invaded by another race of jellies who are bent on stealing the precious gems of the residing species. Thankfully, you are pretty well prepared, and have exactly what you need in order to defeat these wild and crazy beings. Each of the 22 levels has different paths that the enemy can take in order to snag the green crystals, and make it out of the level alive. So you will need to place your attacking jellies on the sides of multiple pathways to try and minimize the amount of gems that get stolen throughout each of the levels. You’ll have 10 gems available, and once all 10 are stolen, or you defeat all waves of the enemy, the level is over.

There are two types of enemies; Red and Blue. Like Jelly Invaders, you’ll need to match the attacking jelly with the color of the enemy in order to take them out. You’ll start off with one red attacking jelly, one blue attacking jelly, and one red/blue attacking jelly that can take out both types of enemies. As you progress through the game, you’ll be able to use more types of jellies to take out your enemies, but the invading jellies also get upgraded enemies, so there’s never really a point in the game where you can just kick the crap out of the enemy with new and more powerful jellies. In order to use your newer and more powerful attacking jellies, you’ll need to grow them in a tree, first paying for the tree to grow them, and then paying again to place them on the paths. This usually takes about 2 or 3 waves to grow the characters before they are made available for use, which adds a bit of strategy as to when you start to grow them, and when you decide to use them.

As you kill each of the enemies, gold will appear; to collect it, you need to tap on it before it disappears. This gold is accumulated in the center of your green gem collection, and is used to buy attacking jellies, and to upgrade your planted characters. I say “planted”, because when you select a spot to place your jelly character, they will quickly grow from a small ball to the jelly that can attack the onslaught of enemies. You’ll need to keep this in mind while placing them around the levels, as deciding where to put them a little late can result in an entire wave of enemies passing by it before it’s ready to attack. This also adds quite a bit of strategy to the game, aside from the obvious strategy of Jelly Defense being a tower defense game. You can most likely count on restarting a level more than once before you beat it with all 10 gems remaining, learning what jellies to plant, and where, to start everything off right. One wrong move in the beginning can ruin the rest of the level. The game is also built around buying and selling a lot of your towers. To make it through almost all of the levels, you will need to constantly be buying and selling jellies in order to take on the current wave that’s making it’s way through the paths at that moment.

On top of all of this, there are power-ups thrown into the game. They are all pretty nifty, and require pretty good planning for when exactly to use them. There’s power-ups that upgrade all of your towers, drop gold from the sky, produce an earthquake harming all of the enemies on screen at the time, sending meteors down in a specific spot that you decide, and more. All of these need to be used at just the right time to make sure they are used effectively. If not, you could end up wasting a pretty powerful power-up, and risking your gems.

Infinite Dreams has, once again, given gamers a quality title with Jelly Defense. The graphics, animations, game mechanics, level design, it all screams professional, and well thought out. Even the soundtrack is great, and you’ll probably end up pausing the game just to listen to the catchy tunes Infinite Dreams have thrown into it. The launch price is $0.99, but the price after will be $2.99. It is Universal, and will provide you with plenty of gameplay. However, it is missing an Endless or Survival Mode, like most TD games have, which could have taken quite a bit away from the replay value; but there are GameCenter leader boards for each level, along with boards for how many coins you’ve collected, how many jellies you’ve killed, and a total global ranking leader board, along with 25 achievements, all filling that replay void that leaving an Endless Mode out of the game left. If you’re a fan of tower defense games, Jelly Defense is a must buy. Hours upon hours of your life will be sucked away, and the feeling you get when making it through a level, keeping all 10 of your gems, is great, especially in the mid and later levels of the game. Infinity Dreams has definitely helped raise the bar within the TD gaming genre.

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