Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Vector TD (Tower Defense)

Vector TDVector TD is another tower defense game from the programmer who brought you Flash Circle TD and Flash Element TD.

Each round sends a rush of creeps around the map you chose at the beginning. Place your towers carefully around the map to shoot down on the creeps as they pass by. If you choose poorly, they will overrun your home base, taking one life each time they do. you start out with 20 lives (you can purchase more with the bonuses, although I wouldn't recommend that).

There are four normal maps and four hard maps to choose from. The normal maps give an easy introduction to the game. If you've played any other tower defense game, don't expect a challenge. You can always try for a high score. The harder maps are very challenging. It's very hard to balance your build up of towers vs. the conservation of the money in your bank account.

The latest tower defense creation builds off the old ones while simplifying at the same time. Also, as with his other tower defense games, the money you don't spend may be more important than the money you do. Since you can earn interest on the money in the bank, you need to conserve the cash as much as you can. This also means you should sell the towers back when they become useless.

The best tower is the third red turret. But each color has its strengths and weaknesses. Also, keep in mind the yellow creeps are very fast. If you only have one red turret on the field, they'll blow past you. Also, you can focus your towers in three ways. Either target close, hard, or weak creeps. This can make a big difference. If you have some green lasers, focus them on the weak creeps, while using the third red tower to hit the 'hard' targets. Or just go for the closest target.

I'm not crazy about the music (too repetitious) and why not put in sound effects? Also, the numbers can be hard to read sometimes. There are definitely some improvements that can be made.

Play Vector TD at candystand. First seen at JIG.

If I ever beat the hard map, I'll come back and tell you about it. What's your best strategy?

Update: I beat the first hard map Elemental-ish by getting through the first few levels and then building several red three towers in the middle. Eventually, I had five of them (I sold off everything else) and had them upgraded to level 9 for the last level.