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chuckroA creature called The Forgotten rises periodically and much be sealed with a Gem of Eternity. You’re a wizard who has felt the stirrings as she rises once more. You must battle your way across the land and unlock sealed powers as you defeat her minions and find a way to re-seal her.
I was expecting this to be a match-3 game, but no, it's actually Tower Defense. You build your towers and then power them with magical gems that you can create and combine to determine their strength. Initial difficulty is very reasonable, and you have the option to choose how strong the monsters/waves are by adding "traits" to your battles. Also, it has a gazillion achievements (419!) and you collect skill points to strengthen your wizard by accomplishing them. (And also by gaining XP by successfully clearing stages.) The later stages get pretty nasty; grinding XP, achievements and talisman pieces becomes somewhat necessary. Also, there are optional “V” stages that operate like pure tower defense, where you’ve given a set level, mana stock and selection of gems and have to win just with that.
Several tricks are useful: Put mixed-color gems in towers and pure-color gems in traps. Try to limit the mobs to a single path, and use walls to make that path zig-zag around your towers as much as possible so you can score more hits. Put Armor Tearing (purple) gems in unavoidable traps early in the path. Try to inflict status effects (poison, armor tearing, etc) early in the route and save critical and chain gems (yellow and red) for the end of it. Try to use as little mana early in the battle as possible to increase the size of your mana pool, then pull out the Poolbound (white) gems for the later waves. You rarely need more than 2-4 towers; many weaker gems are better for swarmlings; fewer stronger ones are necessary for giants.
The plot is fairly loose, but the atmosphere is delightful as it dribbles out details of the Forgotten and her minions and the history of the world. As you get closer and the stages get harder, they also introduce new monsters and a variety of stage-specific special items that keep things interesting. You also unlock new spells that can strike monsters to weaken them or enhance your gems. Most notable: The Shadow monster can move while the game is paused!
Overall: Even if tower defense isn’t totally your thing, this is a lot of fun and certainly addictive. I played nearly 30 hours of this and I got it as part of a $2 bundle--I think I got my money's worth! Apparently there's an online version of this you can play for free (or pay $5 to unlock more features of). I might recommend trying that out to see if you like the game, then buying the Steam version if you do.
I was expecting this to be a match-3 game, but no, it's actually Tower Defense. You build your towers and then power them with magical gems that you can create and combine to determine their strength. Initial difficulty is very reasonable, and you have the option to choose how strong the monsters/waves are by adding "traits" to your battles. Also, it has a gazillion achievements (419!) and you collect skill points to strengthen your wizard by accomplishing them. (And also by gaining XP by successfully clearing stages.) The later stages get pretty nasty; grinding XP, achievements and talisman pieces becomes somewhat necessary. Also, there are optional “V” stages that operate like pure tower defense, where you’ve given a set level, mana stock and selection of gems and have to win just with that.
Several tricks are useful: Put mixed-color gems in towers and pure-color gems in traps. Try to limit the mobs to a single path, and use walls to make that path zig-zag around your towers as much as possible so you can score more hits. Put Armor Tearing (purple) gems in unavoidable traps early in the path. Try to inflict status effects (poison, armor tearing, etc) early in the route and save critical and chain gems (yellow and red) for the end of it. Try to use as little mana early in the battle as possible to increase the size of your mana pool, then pull out the Poolbound (white) gems for the later waves. You rarely need more than 2-4 towers; many weaker gems are better for swarmlings; fewer stronger ones are necessary for giants.
The plot is fairly loose, but the atmosphere is delightful as it dribbles out details of the Forgotten and her minions and the history of the world. As you get closer and the stages get harder, they also introduce new monsters and a variety of stage-specific special items that keep things interesting. You also unlock new spells that can strike monsters to weaken them or enhance your gems. Most notable: The Shadow monster can move while the game is paused!
Overall: Even if tower defense isn’t totally your thing, this is a lot of fun and certainly addictive. I played nearly 30 hours of this and I got it as part of a $2 bundle--I think I got my money's worth! Apparently there's an online version of this you can play for free (or pay $5 to unlock more features of). I might recommend trying that out to see if you like the game, then buying the Steam version if you do.
