In many cases, it's absolutely necessary, although most levels feel very different the second or third time around, because of those dimensions of difficulty. One very good peripheral aspect of the difficulty settings is that as the player levels up and is able to take on more difficulty, every single level (out of more than 100) will bear replay again and again. Clever application will result in the ability to power-level in an exciting-and often necessary-way. Number of invading enemies, type of enemies, strength of enemies, penalty for allowing enemies to pass, enemy speed, and other factors are all added together and then act as a multiplier for the amount of experience the player receives upon success. The adjustable factors are dissimilar enough that, depending on the player's style, there can be any number of combinations to maximize reward. Thus, it is always in the player's best interest to estimate the maximum winnable difficulty so as to maximize rewards. The upside of increased difficulty is that the end-of-battle rewards (in EXP) are increased significantly. The player is given control of a number of different factors that enhance the difficulty of any given level of GCL. Traps and shrines operate much the same way, the effect being very pronounced on the latter. This is doubly true of amplifiers, whose cost goes up markedly, so as to combat the relatively cheap cost of amplifying your firing gem with a number of basic gems. The towers would get prohibitively expensive as more are built, especially when the place a player really needs to spend money is on his gems. So it's not possible to build a million towers, and simply move the gem between them again and again. Every buildable structure except the gem itself costs progressively more than the last one built. One of the ways that the designers cause the players to change their strategy is by using accelerating costs. The other thing that GCL has done very well is to set up game situations that force the player to a broad variety of tower defense strategies, rather than relying on one. Additionally, although a gem of any type will enhance damage, only gems of the same type will amplify the unique special effects like hitting multiple targets, slowing enemies, or depleting enemy armor. Divided amplification has a decent economy of scale that is, it doesn't amplify 2 towers at 50% or 3 at 33%. One amplifier can affect several different firing towers at once, although not at full strength. ![]() These towers increase the damage and various special effects of adjacent firing towers. The towers are well-varied, and with the ability to make hybrids, there is a fairly deep roster of tactical possibilities.Īmplifying towers in particular have a considerable amount of strategy involved in choice, use, and cost effectiveness. All of these well-used features are fairly nuanced. GCL has done two things well, here, however. Amplification towers, traps, debuffs, moving towers between static positions, and meta-levels are not new. GCL is able to do this with the tower defense genre. That is to say, these games are able to innovate and seem fresh without ever straying from their core idea. One thing that many great games share is their ability to change a design idea without really changing it. ![]() Some of those challenges are quite intense. Don't let that intuitiveness deceive you about how deep the game goes there are more than 100 levels, each with its challenges. It's also got a playing field that's about as intuitive as any I have ever seen.Īnyone who has ever done a maze will instantly recognize the conventions and be able to maniuplate them. GemCraft Labyrinth takes this accessible genre, marries it to a level-up system, and builds a long and reasonable learning curve. Because of all these things, tower defense games are becoming very common clones are inevitable. ![]() Controls are simple, and it's easy to include a lot of instruction in the UI. Most tower defense games are plainly visual, so as to make learning easy. It's not a genre that requires quick reflexes, or pinpoint accuracy. It makes sense, from a design standpoint: tower defense is quite simple to play, with a lot of potential depth. ![]() Tower defense is a genre that has benefitted considerably from the boom of online arcade and casual games. GemCraft Labyrinth Game in a Bottle Studios / Armor Games, 2010.
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