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Game of th Month: Tower Defence - Excellent Skill Game

jeannettevejarano.com — The creator of this game scored 90. Can you beat that?

Who dugg this? Made popular Dec 5, 2006

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  • maiku00, on 10/12/2007, -6/+78and.. you need an school
  • davodavo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34Hacked version:
    http://data.lepouya.com/data/src/Tower_Defence_Hacked_2.swf
    * You start with 60,000,000 cash
    * Highest level ice tower does 77,777,777 damage
    * Highest level living tower does 90,909,090 damage

    No more *****-range "Ultimate Flower" towers.
  • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34Hold down the space bar.

    I"m at level 105.

    I actually discovered this by accident, when just trying to get throught he levels faster. Hold it down, and wheny our level ends, your level rank will skyrocket.
  • slushpuppie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25 I got this weird feeling the "an" was intentional.

    erm... "schoolboy"
  • silverfire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22List of towers and their stats in the following format:
    Cost(total cost) - damage @ range [(damage * radius^2) / total cost - "total damage"]
    Damage is from 'real' damage stats after selecting tower. There are big differences from the 'advertised' damage.

    Fire:
    18(18) - 5 @ 100 [2778]
    20(38) - 12 @ 100 [3158]
    30(68) - 36 @ 100 [5294]
    50(118) - 108 @ 100 [9153]
    80(198) - 300 @ 100 [15152]
    600(798) - 2056 @ 110 [31175]
    1500(2298) - 7021 @ 120 [43996]
    ****

    Water:
    10(10) - 5 @ 100 [5000]
    20(30) - 15 @ 150 [11250]
    40(70) - 45 @ 150 [14464]
    80(150) - 135 @ 180 [29160]
    160(310) - 405 @ 200 [52258]
    320(630) - 1215 @ 200 [77143]
    730(1360) - 3342 @ 200 [98294]
    1000(2360) - 6684 @ 215 [130919]
    1000(3360) - 7335 @ 300 [196473]
    ****

    Nature:
    15(15) - 5 @ 100 [3333]
    20(35) - 10 @ 100 [2857]
    40(75) - 20 @ 110 [3227]
    80(155) - 90 @ 150 [13064]
    160(315) - 300 @ 170 [27524]
    320(645) - 1013 @ 190 [56697]
    640(1275) - 1458 @ 200 [45741]
    1100(2375) - 9000 @ 215 [175168]
    ****

    Storm:
    40(40) - 40 @ 100 [10000]
    ****

    Flower:
    3000(3000) - 9090 @ 150 [68175]
    5000(8000) - 15050 @ 100 [18938]
    15000(23000) - 909090(?) @ 90 [320158]
    ???

    The numbers in the brackets are intended to give you an idea as to the relative effectiveness when compared to other towers of similar 'level'. As you can see, at the highest level, the flower tower is the most damaging, despite being prohibitively expensive.
    The range is squared since the effective area of each tower is a circle. It's fuzzy math, but for the purposes of just comparing one versus the other, it should be accurate enough.

    My guess is that bar any mishaps resulting in early deaths, the maximum level you can attain while only using a single type of tower in the same positions would roughly correlate to these

    @mypancakes:
    You'd need to pass level 76 to be able to buy practically only the "fully" upgraded flower tower. I don't know if it's really fully upgraded, since I don't know anyone who has actually accomplished this [foolish] feat. Unfortunately, without it, I think somewhere in the upper 70's would be the highest attainable level. The highest I've gotten to is 77.
  • Me1on, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Full-screen: http://www.jeannettevejarano.com/tower-defence.swf
  • 4bit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19I wouldn't say NO strategy. Doing things differently does increase your score. Postion, quality vs quantity, etc.

    It's a fun little time waster
  • sersdf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17pause button please
  • Jowe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1711 no cheating, talk about 1337.
  • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Even with that hacked version, I still can't beat level 352.

    That's because at level 352, they have

    12 951 634 500 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 times more life than they started with
  • Xanadude, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16... which is itself a ripoff of a bonus round in "Warcraft III." Incidentally, I once won that bonus round and got a perfect score.
  • malacor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1074 :D, leaf towers seem to be the best, 9000 damage with less upgrade prices than everything else, plus some nice range to boot.
  • Rodalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1070 is the highest I've managed. Is it just me or is it near impossible to get the 15000 ultimate tower?
  • olddirtycr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12cause the original isn't a rip off from starcraft/warcraft.
  • weprin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Quite fun and addicting. Full-screen through duggmirror:

    http://duggmirror.com/playable_web_games/Game_of_th_Month_Tower_Defence_Excellent_Skill_Game/43e45a28a440ce4976b63145ec2006ec_tower-defence.swf
  • jadenguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9it doesn't help, because the enemy just gets stronger and you never get the money for it.
  • sancho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I'd like to see the setup he used to get to 90.
  • jonesyhahaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I am fairly certain that storm towers blow.
  • dilbertland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yeah, the flower towers are basically useless now. The most effective strategy seems to be all nature towers. The highest I can reach with them is 78 and things usually start to quickly fall apart around level 75-77. As the poster above points out there simply isn't enough money gathered before that to upgrade the flower towers to the point that they would be usefull.

    However, I've still found it very addictive. With a few balancing tweaks it could be very good. Also, thowing in some dots that are immune to certain types of damage would be a nice twist. Lots of possiblities here.
  • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Unfortunately, this is a whole lot less fun than that.
  • Jimzo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9The game needs a reset button.
  • jacobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Level 81... http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=igualvu8.jpg from some guy in spain
  • weprin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I've done 77 w/ nothing but ice towers.

    I don't know if the flower lvl 3 is attainable...
  • SpazticChips, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It's F5.
  • shinynew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Damn you, i held it down for to long and went up 140 extra lvls.... i cant kill a thing
  • madtowner11, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Well I wasted an hour and I did it. I'm sure I could have packed more in there, but it's obvious there's a ceiling on your max level. 135 legit (legit hacked).

    http://123pichosting.com/images/912waste.JPG

  • OmegaNine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Click on your towers and you can upgrade them
  • mypancakes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10This is driving me insane. I know this much:

    There is a finite amount of money available in the game. You get level+1 money for each dot you kill. Therefore, if we arbitrarily say you can't get past level 90, you'll get 900+890+880...etc money to play with. It is clear you have to build the 15k tower to "win". The question is this: how much money is available to pay for nature towers, and is this enough towers to survive to level X, when you could in theory build the 15k? (alternatively, you can play with that upper limit). I don't know enough about math to put this in proper terms. and I'm not willing to play that game even one more time to find out if it is 15 nature towers or 16.

    To put it in critical terms, this game sucks. It doesn't involve refining a strategy slowly as you learn a complex system. It is a simple system, and one that ultimately has such a narrow range of solutions that it can be expressed mathematically.

    What does it say about your game design if half the features in the game are just wasteful traps? Fire towers? Storm towers? What for?

    But yes, it got me to play for an hour. Curses.
  • shinynew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The orginal D games were much better (sunken D was first on SC) They required you to build paths/mazes to slow them down enough to kill them, but these just require every simple upgradeing...
  • OmegaNine, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10I call bs - It took me most of the first game to figure out I could upgrade the towers
  • FinalDoom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Happened to me a couple of times. Nothing to do but say "Damnit!" and move on. D:
  • SoullessDragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+565 :) without cheating
  • sancho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5They're not traps, they're learning aids. Newbies place storm towers because they are effective for nearly 10 rounds. Then they realize that you have to do something else.

    I do wish the game had more replay value, though. Maybe dots with different vulnerabilities, forcing you to use different types of towers.
  • rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Not as good as a real TD.
  • Fipxop, on 04/27/2009, -0/+5I can't beat 78. Nature towers are best, but start out with one water tower to 146 to give you time to build them up. One stripe of nature right down the center was the best result for me.
  • davodavo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Hold it down and it skips waves. Fast.
  • 35mm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Does it make me a nerd if I made a spreadsheet for all of the different towers and their upgrade paths, then calculated the ROI for each tower and upgrade?


  • Wren5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I've confirmed it's possible to get a fully-upgraded ultimate tower, but you need to get lucky. The two leaf towers on top (before the start of the track) seem to pick a target to start with randomly. If they would start with the first one then they'd get the most firing time, but it doesn't appear to happen often. You need to get a few good firing rounds to make it over the breaking point and have the 20k in hand.

    Also confirmed that angle of fire makes a much bigger difference than distance. Particularly along 90 degrees helps a lot.

    The ranges of towers are not circles, they are squares. And there are two of them, one for getting into range and the other leaving it. Try putting a leaf tower to the left of the first corner and the right of the second, upgrade both a couple times, until they have a circle of dots around them. Compare when the dots come into range for the right and when they leave for the left. Also notice that both stop firing at the same time.

    Together these would suggest that the most efficient placings will tend to be right by a corner, branching opposite the way of the path. So for instance, to the left of the first turn and to the south of the second turn.

    You can do decently by stacking damage along one line. Put four leaf towers to the right of the second turn, then start stacking them to the left of the first turn as well (you'll have to go to a page with just the .swf and resize your window a little). You'll have so much damage in that stretch that it will keep the target in the "gate" and thus give all of them a longer stretch at firing at 90 degrees. Like all of these it eventually gets overwhelmed but I made it to 81.

    Pretty fun game, though. I'd like to see someone take this and add some more serious depth to it, like setting the tower AI to either fire at the lead or at what it can fire on fastest. Maybe give fire/ice/storm some special abilities so that leaf doesn't just dominate them. Or maybe send dots that are immune to a certain type of damage.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5shouldn't it read "game of teh month"?
  • arist0tl3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+482 also using nature towers only, similar to the spain guy, but more stacked in the middle - anyone else think that lining it up so that the dots walk into straight cannon fire produces a higher rate of fire?
  • loafnut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think nature towers are the way to go.
  • Rodalli, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Ice towers FTW.
  • bpwwhirl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5For real, Rodalli. Go go Ice Towers, GO! Made it to 67 w/o cheating.
  • wolfkeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I seem to get better results with the nature tower.

    I think it's because the nature tower hits harder; it looks like the water tower loses twice because it takes time for the water to travel the extra distance, so it hits less often, as well as hitting less hard when it gets there. So the overall damage is lower.
  • rgodfrey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+479. But I have now played this way too long.
  • onineko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+365 as well, varied towers, didn't have one of the 3000$ towers
  • JarekB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I guess it does, but I used a spreadsheet also, but not for that info. I was looking at how much money is made each level. What I found is that its not a clear cut amount each wave. Someone up top said you get level+1 money for each dot you kill. That is not true. I ran two simulations where I got to about level 62 and kept track of amount of money before and after a wave.
    What I found is that while the gold value of each dot is worth close to the level of the wave, its not always the same. Instead of increasing by one gold each level, the actual change can be positive or negative, ranging from one to as much as thirteen. And that can be either positive or negative.

    Here's an example of what i mean. Say at level 20 each dot was worth 20 gold, at level 21 each one should be worth 21 gold, but what i found is that they could be worth as much as 33 gold or as little as 8 gold.

    Like I said the increase each level followed almost a linear path with some bumps along the way, but most of the time the rate of change was withing plus or minus 3. I noticed that rate of change itself changed when I made a purchase, upgraded something, killed all the dots real quickly, let the timer run down to the next wave, or pressed space bar to skip to the next wave. I haven't found a correlation between these actions and a decrease or increase in the rate of change. What I suspect is that there's a random function that determines the value of the dots each level, following a positive linear path, that can possibly be affected by the players actions.

    Here are the screen shots of the graphs I made with the two simulations that explain what I'm talking about better.
    http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=graphsc9.jpg

    So money wise, there is a randomness that will effect how many towers you can put up.

    I got to lvl 80 with a similar setup that loremaster14 posted. I messed around with putting ice towers at the really long road's and nature tower's in the bottom middle since they can hit the dots on the left and right, getting that increased rate of fire at a 180 degree attack.

    I spent way too much time playing this game and analyzing it......damn game addiction..hopefully someone can figure out if there's a secret placement of towers to get lvl 90+...but then that would mean there's a cookie cutter way to do that and replay value would drop like hell...oh well
  • Lacitpo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The blue towers fully upgraded hit the whole map if placed almost anywhere around the center and cost .45 per point of damage.

    The green towers fully upgraded hit almost the whole map if placed pretty near the center and cost .26 per point of damage

    The red towers fully upgraded hit only about 1/2 the map and cost .32 per point of damage.

    It gets interesting at the flower power tower.

    lvl 1 = cost .19 per damage
    lvl 2 = cost .53 per point of damage
    lvl 3 = cost .02 per point of damage

    Haven't been able to get to lvl 3 flower power towers yet but it appears they are the way to go. Even though they have low range the mass damage output at lvl 3 makes them worth it.
  • pbanta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3got 71 without the spacebar cheat.. after that... i get schooled
  • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes, going BACKwards on the track, that second corner you encounter, the inside of the corner, place upgraded cold towers there. They should be able to reach ALMOST the entire path.
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