Four great tower defense games for Android

Although tower defense games might be, on a videogaming scale, pretty new, they are perfectly fitted to grow and spread throughout a friendly ecosystem as Android is. Game mechanics are quite simple: you have to build towers and these towers you’ve built will destroy incoming enemies. Player has a passive role, because he or she isn’t able to shoot to the enemies, or even choose which enemies are attacked by his or her towers. Everything decays into an arms race when enemies are faster and take less time to cover the distance between their camp to your flag or heart or whatever you have to protect; but your towers have a better fire rate, then they have heavier armor and you have to upgrade your attack power. Game can be interrupted by casting a spell or throwing a nuke, but enemies have special abilities or immunities. Nobody knows how, but what it was expected to be a game about strategy and resources management has become a stressful struggle for survival, and a handful of indie games shaped a new sub-genre within arcade games: tower defense.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s Lair Defense: Dungeon. It wasn’t the first, it isn’t the most complete or the more complex. Indeed, it’s as easy to catch that we rather recommend it as the perfect rite of passage for those who want to introduce themselves to defense games. Being as easy to be learnt doesn’t mean you have enough of it quickly: at the inverse, Lair Defense offers you the chance of not only play for the dragon’s side but also tens of hours of gameplay divided in stages six or seven minutes long. Once you arrive home, or if you have a long trip forward, check the survival mode out. Lastly, if you beat all 48 levels (three difficulty levels, so you have to multiply by three for a final amount of 144, which seems fine) you can download, also for free, Lair Defense: Shrine.

OK, it’s fine, so thou hast raught the upper levels of Defense-ology and want more difficulty, more levels, more enemies, more towers, more upgrades, more mores and much more? You’ve made it easy.  Grave Defense has it all, and allows itself to add zombies, mutants and a post apocalyptic scenery to the game.  You know, world has crumbled away and you have to be there to safeguard the leftovers. Game is quite complex yet linear, paths are winding and, overall, if we have to explain what defense games are and what can they become, Grave Defense would be our choice. Don’t forget to check GD Holiday version for more stuff.

What if instead of just defending ourselves we could try to conquest the enemy’s towers? And if we add to the mix something beyond upgrades and we season it with some RPG elements? If we all turn crazy and there was a plot? Moreover, be forewarned about Arel Wars’s addictiveness. It may seem to start too step by step, but don’t worry. Once all its range of options is fanned you’ll be able to add one more term to defense games unknown till now: replayability. If you still have forces to play it again from the very beginning, of course. It’s a feat only at the reach of the most daring and audacious, oh, you defense-game-player who aren’t afraid of tautologies.

Lastly, let’s turn everything upside-down and let’s give defense games their latest twist. I imagine you will wonder why no one had thought of it sooner, but here it goes: why don’t we attack? Not just defend and defend and defend and, when we can, attack a little and then defend, defend, defend, no; I’m talking about a merciless fight, attack your enemies without a retreat plan. Are you joining? This could be the non official synopsis for Anomaly Warzone Earth. However, it fortunately has its own which is far better. For better or worse, you have to make use of everything you’ve learnt so far to get those ugly aliens back to their homeworld and leave Iraq to those who bombed it first.

Hope you enjoy them. If you have any suggestions, or we have missed any tower defense game you’d like to recommend, point it out in a comment.

Peter Warrior

EiC at AndroidZoom at least, until some unlikely prophecy is fulfilled.