It was absent from the usual release schedules, and was therefore not in our weekly list of upcoming games, but Sydney studio SMG has just released their take on the tower defence genre: Over The Top Tower Defence, for iOS and Android.
I’ve been playing OTTTD as my go-to mobile time waster whenever I’m out and about and have to wait 5-10 minutes, instead of my usual standing uncomfortably close to strangers and breathing heavily. It’s quite the polished little thing, and while anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for anything tower defence, it’s still a genre rife with experimentation and OTTTD is no exception.
With fixed positions for towers, and some micromanagement required to control the on-field heroes, project head Ashley Ringrose describes it as “moreso an RTS with Tower Defence mixed in, rather than the other way around.”
Maps in OTTTD can get quite large, and you’ll be rushing your heroes to different hotspots to put out fires, but their overall strategy and upgrade paths need to work with your tower placement. I placed several rocket towers towards the back of my base – useless on their own in that position – and when combined with my Recon unit’s ability to mark targets and have rocket towers blast it from anywhere on the map, it was a good little combo.
Of course, it goes without saying that things get out of hand. Giant turtles or crabs wearing hard hats, undead flying mecha-sharks, and copious body parts as more and more mobs get blown apart are regular occurrences. The humour injected into the game is also most welcome (Fail screen: “Did you forget to read the mission brief? The goal is to win.”)
It also happens to be one of the first full games to be released with the help of the recent round of Screen Australia funding, coming out not only as a good game that will likely pay back a considerable portion of the money, but creating work for Australians in the process. But we’ll have more on that later this week, as we speak to more independent developers whose labour, supported by the funding, is just beginning to bear fruit.
In the meantime, check out OTTTD on either iOS or Android and see if it’s something you might enjoy:
Comments
14 responses to “This Sydney Studio Decided Tower Defence Wasn’t Over The Top Enough”
dodge quotes on all screenshots. I quit before i started.
It’s the doubledipping pay-up-front and premium-currency that’s making me avoid it.
Forgive the Dodge meme we thought it was funny. Obviously not. We’re changing it in the next update because it’s not worth it.
As for premium currency this is only there for people who like to “cheat”. The game doesn’t force it on you and if you read some of the reviews form people they state just that. We were very mindful not to make this a money grab. But also mindful not to limit all revenue opportunities.
Anyway I hope you guys can check it out instead of making decisions based on small things.
If it was free I’d check it out. If it was a single purchase I’d probably buy it. I just choose not to support apps that have both payment systems in place and I doubt there is anything you could say to change my view on that.
And call me old-fashioned but cheats for me are something you unlock or enter a code for, not something that you pay for.
“Indie gaming started out as games written with passion for people who embraced and loved them. Now too much of it is about churning out giant mounds of decent but undifferentiated product to be bought for pennies by people who don’t give a crap either way.”
Well, this was extremely relevant today.
Considering this game looks better than the other million tower defence clones I’d say that’s a pretty slack copy/paste job.
Considering that article used an image to display the quote and I expended energy to get the text on my clipboard, I’d say that’s a pretty slack observation.
We didn’t start this studio to make no money but we also didn’t start the studio to just make money grabbing crap. It’s a fine line though.
OK I just read the other article! ha! Well I’d agree with the main article that there is a bubble but it’s a bubble that only hurts people trying to make a living. For the consumer there is a wealth of awesome games being released. We are spoilt for choice!
How many other people, when they see a game that has the “bag/chest/trunk/massive pile of coins” in app purchases, instantly decides never to buy the game?
It costs $3.18 and also has in-app purchases? Uggh…
It has IAP as that’s how some people like to play. The game doesn’t force it and you can easily finish the game without buying any IAP. We worked really hard to make a game and then added some IAP not worked really hard to create an IAP mechanic and then make a game.
We also thought the $2.99 ($3.18) price was cheaper than the $4.99 we originally planned to charge.
You’re really kidding yourself if you think IAP is “how some people like to play.” Nobody likes to fork over coin for extra content, least of all when that content isn’t content so much as cheat codes. Here’s a rule of thumb; did you spend a significant amount of time and/or money adding that extra content to the game to warrant it costing more money? If you answered “no, we’re just charging money for people to use cheats,” then you’ve got a cash grab.