Embarrassing Answers to Common Questions

[Beeskee]

Embarrassing Answers to Common Questions (by Rob Balder)
July 25th, 2011
People ask me all the time what games I play. I hate answering that question, because I don't play anything that I am really proud of playing. At the GenCon panel a few years ago, the question came up and I said, "I only play Hello Kitty Island Adventure." It got a laugh, and got me off the hook from giving a real answer, which wasn't much less embarrassing than that.

But I'll admit, I am hooked on browser games, especially tower defense games, and especially the ones at Armor Games. So because I said I would, here's a shout-out to Jesvar, a guy I met playing Shell Shock who has become a fan of Erfworld. His favorite characters are Wanda and the dwagons. Jesvar, I hope your friends believe you now that that's how you discovered the comic. Anyone else, if you ever see me on Shell Shock, my handle is pclips.

What? No Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp?

Seriously, don't be ashamed of the games you play. We ask because we want to know. Heck, I love Space Empires IV, The Sims (the first one, I'm not willing to buy fractional expansion packs), the Quest for Glory series, and Dwarf Fortress.

[Atomic]

I play Starwars Miniatures on a competitive level... If Rob thinks he's a bigger nerd than we are, he's sorely mistaken. Haha.

[BLANDCorporatio]

I like Twilight.

[Thunder]

thats because twilight imperium is an amazing game

[Sixty]

I like Magic the Gathering, Final Fantasy, and used to play Heroclixs.

[bob the 6th]

I am involved in a D&D arena.

[Squall83]

Why ist it embarrasing to like TD games? I also like TD games and I also like to play at Armor Games, but there I only found the three GemCraft games from the TD genre. They're very addictive and they take a lot of time to finish. Also you can freely redistribute your skillpoints any time you want. Is there another good TD freeware game?

But since I read that people think of it to be embarrasing to play Magic the Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons and Final Fantasy (all 3 of which I love, too), I guess I'm just another nerd then.

Anyone play Plants vs. Zombies? There's a type of TD game you've never seen before. I mean normally you place the towers somewhere beside the way, but there the zombies march towards your plants (i.e. towers) and eat them up if able.

[drachefly]

Other good TD games:

Desktop Tower Defense (archetypal)

Desktop TD Pro is basically a slight rules mod and campaign pack for the above game. Has some interesting challenge modes.

Bubble Tanks Towers Defense (1 and 1.5) (aside from one annoying bug) (EDIT: thanks for the correction)

The above games allow the possibility of juggling. Bubble Towers TD designed the game with juggling in mind, which is a good and a bad thing at the same time. It even gives you a juggling tutorial. The following games do not let you place towers on the track.

Ghost Hacker (very clever)

Bloons Tower Defense 2, 3, and 4 (the first is halfway decent too) (They all can break at levels high enough that your computer lags out and your towers stop firing)

Protector 1 or 2 (3 and 4 are too easy to be interesting with decent strategy; 1 and 2 avoid this totally. Somewhat buggy, but the bugs mostly favor you)

(Edited to add:
Cursed Treasure: Don't Touch my Gems!
)

I believe that being able to give such a comprehensive response is sufficiently embarrassing to be on topic.

[Squall83]

Thanks, I'm going to try them out if they're freeware. ^^

[drachefly]

You can play them all for free at kongregate.com. They are all of course available at the various developers' sites as well.

[Sixty]

They also have a reverse tower defense game where you decide the types of units and their order and upgrade how many units you can send out in a wave or strengthen units or buy new unit types, etc. I think it was called Villainous or something like that, on Kongregate as well.

[Squall83]

@Drachefly:
I played Desktop TD for a bit and it's nice, but after a while I just stopped. Maybe I'm too lazy to create to maze on my own on every single level. For the same reason I skipped over Bubble Tank Tower Defense (I'm assuming that you meant this by Bubble Tower Defense, because I can't find a game named BTD).

Ghost Hacker is great! This is the first TD game I played where the monsters have an actual purpose. They walk on the path towards your digital brain, take a part of it, walk back on the path and if they're still alive by then, they repeat the process. Also I love it when a TD game has a story. Doesn't need to be on the level of FF. As long as I see that the author was trying to be creative, that's enoug for me (and it's more than quite a lot of the recent TV seris - including Anime - can say for themselves).

@Sixty:
I'll try Villainous as soon as I've had enough of Ghost Hacker. Thanks for the info!

[Kreistor]

You know, I am kicking myself, because I completely forgot the nick pclips, which Rob used on Order of the Stick's forum, and I have been talking to him on the Gemcraft: Labyrinth chat completely unaware. It's one of those Armor Games, a Tower Defense, and possibly the best ever.