Preview
Platform:
PC - WindowsDeveloper:
Hidden Path EntertainmentPublisher:
Hidden Path EntertainmentPreviewed by
Lawrence Sonntag on 2008-09-26
As I walked from the Austin Convention Center to the nearby hotel where I was scheduled to attend a demo I catalogued all the things I intended to eat. With ten hours of hunger, a headache, and an aching shoulder from lugging around an antiquated laptop all day, any further souring of my mood would’ve probably resulted in several accounts of homicide. So, in this frame of mind, imagine a game that not only made me happy to attend the demo, but also made me perfectly willing to stay and keep playing.
That game is
Defense Grid: The Awakening – a tower defense game from Hidden Path Entertainment destined for both PC and XBLA platforms. Anyone with a curious mind and web browser has probably run afoul of a tower defense game already. For those lacking either, tower defense games allow the player to construct a variety of automated towers that will automatically attack a series of invaders. The goal is to defeat all of these invaders through smart resource management and clever tower placement.
DG:TA doesn’t do anything to radically shake up this formula, because, why would you need to? The basic mechanic is addictive enough that it doesn’t really need tampering. DG aims to provide a “definitive, polished, balanced experience” according to CEO and Co-founder Jeff Pobst. As my easily-marginalized stomach can attest, they’re definitely going to.
Most tower defense games come in two main flavors – those that offer a fixed track for monsters to travel, and those that have an open path allowing the player to construct walls to direct the monsters.
DG:TA sports ‘hybrid maps’ – a combination of both. The beginning of the game features fixed path maps which gradually open up as the game goes on. Players can place towers in such a way to force monsters to take longer paths through the map – introducing an addictive puzzle element to the game.
While the game is tuned so that most players will be able to clear the levels on their first try, but the game’s tower mechanics lead to a wealth of deeper challenge for those that look for it. During the demo, Pobst boasted a personal best of clearing a particular level with only seven towers – an accomplishment those in attendance tried to match but soon failed. I envision several “how is that even POSSIBLE” moments in the future when viewing the online leaderboards for the game. In addition, line of sight restrictions and height differences in the maps will keep puzzle nuts busy for quite a while when figuring out the optimal way to play the game’s maps.
Players are in store for several tense moments while attempting these challenges as well, thanks to
DG:TA’s power core mechanic. Each level has an entry point, an exit point, and a reactor filled with glowing power cores. Aliens enter the map, walk to the reactor and collect a varying number of cores based on the alien type, and then try to exit the map. Aliens that are killed while carrying cores drop them, and dropped cores slowly float back to the reactor. The game continues as long as the player has at least one core on the map. My time with the demo included numerous close calls as aliens were killed
just before exiting the map, or a core just barely floating past the path of an incoming alien to make it back to the reactor.
The game’s UI and controls are simple, focused, and functional. A scrolling meter on the top of the screen shows incoming waves, with different icons and colors representing the type and strength of incoming aliens. As a nice touch, if the player clears the map of all aliens the game actually speeds up the next wave to prevent the player from sitting around to long with nothing to do. With the exception of a single key on the keyboard that displays an overlay to show tower range (which isn’t necessary to gameplay), the entire game can be played with one hand. I was able to jump right in to placing and upgrading towers without the slightest instruction to the controls – something that will definitely appeal to some of the more casual game players out there.
DG:TA’s music fills out the sound without being repetitive and annoying - even after hours of play. The developers who have easily heard the music for over 200 hours have yet to get sick of it. Light and ethereal ambient music matches the on-screen action – somewhat relaxed between waves and a bit more active during an attack. The music feels tense and keeps the player on edge, highlighting the fact that even after surviving a wave, the next is not far off.
From a playability standpoint,
DG:TA hits a great balance between taking a low amount of input from the player and giving them plenty of feedback. There’s always something to do or to look forward to. It has that just-keep-playing aspect – “I almost have enough money to upgrade this tower! Now that I’ve upgraded it I just have to see it kill something. Oh another wave is coming, let’s see this bad boy get to work. Hey one alien from this new wave went to the left instead of the right. I bet if I build towers there I can get him to go somewhere else…”
DG:TA will be a great way to spend a few hours when it releases this November (pricing has yet to be announced) – first for the PC, then at some point for the Xbox Live Arcade. Just don’t make the same mistake I did – play well-fed, lest you lose track of time and pass out.
