Tower Escape

It's fine. The game does exactly what it looks like: reverse tower defense, where you get to pick your monsters (like deckbuilding) and path through each level. The screenshots and content preview seem entirely accurate. It is cuter than most games doing the same thing and not bad. If you haven't played a game like this, this is an entirely competent one. I just don't see anything especially new, original, or top tier in its implementation of mechanics in a very crowded marketplace for rogue-lites, "rogue-like deckbuilders," and tower defense games. Maybe the gameplay gets deeper or more interesting further in, but it seems like a relatively shallow puzzle. It is using the currently popular technique of procedurally generated content with rogue-like reward selection to extend the replayability of limited mechanics. If you like this sort of gameplay and want more of it, this seems competently executed, but there are stronger games attached to each of the tags for this game.

The game starts in 720p, which is a strange first impression. The second thing I did was turn off the music because it was so bad I couldn't stand listening to it for more than a minute. The gameplay just isn't fun. Instead of a simple reverse tower defense, you build a "snake" that serves as the path for your minions to follow. You can twist and turn it through the dungeon, but it only makes everything unnecessarily complicated. The art style didn't click with me either. I usually like pixel art games, but this one just looks bad. The upgrades don't feel impactful, and I got stuck on the same level because the enemy defenses just kept spawning for few times. On top of that, some objects I was supposed to carry out of the dungeon suddenly teleported back. The game also throws too much at you from the very beginning. There are so many races available right away that it becomes overwhelming instead of interesting. I was playing on the easiest difficulty and still couldn't make any meaningful progress. I wasn't challenged by game mechanics - I was just frustrated. The idea behind the game is decent, but the execution is terrible.

[h1]An interesting but very imperfect Reverse Tower Defense experiment[/h1] Tower Escape is a small indie game built around an interesting idea: instead of placing towers to stop waves of enemies, you send monsters through a tower-filled dungeon and try to make them reach the exit. Unlike [i]Anomaly: Warzone Earth[/i] (2011) that was marketed as Reverse Tower Defense but mostly felt like action/path-management games, Tower Escape does deserve the label. You are on the attacking side, you care about routes, enemy defenses, monster composition, and how to get your units through a hostile map. However, the game also shows how hard it is to make this concept really work. The main issue is that the strategic layer feels quite light. Before a wave, you choose your monsters and their path, but once the wave starts, there is very little to do. In my run, I only had one active card, a speed boost, and its use was almost automatic: wait until the last monster is out, then activate it. So most of the gameplay becomes choosing which monsters to buy and hoping the shop gives you something useful. The roguelike structure also makes experimentation harder than I would like. A run has 13 floo…

Yah

Extremely unique and creative concept with a great soundtrack! One of those hidden gems that makes you want to complete it 100%. I bought this game 4 days ago. What caught my attention was that it had very positive reviews, yet SteamDB showed that nobody was playing it at the time. I'm not going to lie, the achievements and the positive feedback were the main reasons I bought it. I had no idea it would be this challenging while still being so much fun. I've played it for 13.5 hours and earned all the 29 achievements. The last few achievements provide the real challenge, forcing you to carefully plan each level and be much more strategic about which minions you buy. After a few runs, you can learn pretty much everything about the game. Each difficulty level has a short description when you hover over it, and it's kind of funny that even the "Easy" mode already provides a decent challenge. What I really liked about this game is, first of all, its concept: combining the classic Snake game with a reverse tower defense. Besides the concept itself, I also enjoyed the variety of minions available. You can even upgrade them, which makes completing your runs a bit easier. Overall, I'd …

I wanted to play this on my Minisforum V3. Typically games that are steam deck verified work pretty well with a controller and tablet. Unfortunately I just couldn't play this no matter what I tried. I was a frustrating experience. I will have to try it on my actual steam deck but I don't expect much of a different experience. With that said, actual game play is a reverse tower defense. It has some interesting mechanics, but I don't feel they were really explored to their full conclusion. I feel like graphics and UI would be difficult to navigate even with a mouse and keyboard. Overall readability of the actual game elements requires a mouse over to activate popup context that is extremely brief.