Desktop Tower Defense
Encyclopedia
Desktop Tower Defense is a Flash-based browser game
of the tower defense
game genre created by first-time game designer Paul Preece in March 2007. The game had been played over 15.7 million times as of July 2007, and was one of Webware 100's top ten entertainment web applications of 2007. DTD is available in an English
, Spanish
, German
, French
, or Italian
interface. As of May 2009, a commercial Nintendo DS version exists and is heavily based on the flash game.
The creeps come in waves at set intervals. Each wave of creeps has different characteristics, such as immunity to certain towers, extra resistance to certain towers, and the abilities to spawn new creeps, move faster than normal, or fly over the towers instead of following the maze. For each wave, the game rotates among the types of creeps. Several times during gameplay, boss waves will appear. These waves consists of just one or two large creeps each, that are extremely difficult to defeat.
The player begins with a set number of lives, and loses one for each creep that survives to reach its goal (the edge of the grid opposite its entry-point, on most courses). The game will end early in defeat if the player′s lives reach zero, and it provides no way to regenerate lost lives.
The game can be played in three difficulty levels: easy, medium, and hard. In addition, there are several challenge modes available for those seeking more from the game. Challenges range from "The 100", where the player must defeat 100 levels of successively difficult creeps, to "3K Fixed", where the player has to build a fixed set of towers (including the upgrades) with just 3000 gold. There are also various fun modes different in gameplay than the other, harder ones.
The voice when a player is asked to enter a score for the high score table is sampled from Ivor the Engine
.
game Warcraft III, Paul Preece created a simple tower defense game that could be played using only a browser. Because of his lack of skill with computer graphics, he named the game's site HandDrawnGames.com
, getting further boosts from popular bloggers such as Michael Arrington
. It eventually found its way onto several flash game sites such as Kongregate
. The game's popularity was further increased by exposure on the internet pop-culture websites Digg
and I-am-bored.com. It is now available on MySpace Games, and as part of the MindJolt collection on Facebook
.
and Jason Kottke
reacted negatively to the update.
In December 2007, Preece and David Scott also created the Casual Collective, whose flagship game was a multiplayer version of DTD.
On October 13, 2008, version 1.9 was announced on the game's homepage. It was released to the Casual Collective and is both multi- and single-player.
On April 1, 2009 a beta version of DTD Pro, which is the 2.0 release of the game, was launched to the public on the Casual Collective. It contains a sandbox mode to allow granular customization of the game.
. It was also in the March issue of Game Informer
, with a positive review.
As of July 2007, the game had been played more than 15 million times since its inception in March of the same year. The game makes approximately $100,000 per year, according to its creator. Most of the revenue generated by the game is through the online ad-service AdSense
.
The game itself has been billed as extremely addictive and thus time-consuming by many reviewers, such as those at TechCrunch
. Reviewer Michael Arrington commented in jest the game "should be banned" because of this.
Due to success of the game, Paul Preece decided to leave his programming job to focus on making online games as an independent game developer. He and fellow game maker David Scott formed Casual Collective, a game development company. As of 2008, at least $1 million has been raised by the fledgling company mostly from venture capital firms such as Lightspeed Venture Partners
.
It has been covered by publications like the Wall Street Journal. Desktop Tower Defense was ranked second within the top five games within the tower defense genre by Just-Whatever. The game was picked in a survey involving over 400,000 voters over 5000 other web applications as one of the top 100 best web applications, one of ten in the entertainment category for 2007 by Webware. In 2008, the game won a "Gleemie Award" and the developers received $5000 in prize money at the 2008 Independent Games Festival
.
Browser game
A browser game is a computer game that is played over the Internet using a web browser. Browser games can be created and run using standard web technologies or browser plug-ins. Browser games include all video game genres and can be single-player or multiplayer...
of the tower defense
Tower defense
Tower defense is a subgenre of real-time strategy computer games.The goal of tower defense games is to try to stop enemies from crossing a map by building towers which shoot at them as they pass. Enemies and towers usually have varied abilities, costs, and ability costs...
game genre created by first-time game designer Paul Preece in March 2007. The game had been played over 15.7 million times as of July 2007, and was one of Webware 100's top ten entertainment web applications of 2007. DTD is available in an English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, or Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
interface. As of May 2009, a commercial Nintendo DS version exists and is heavily based on the flash game.
Gameplay
The game is played on a map resembling an office desktop. The player must stop a set number of enemies, known in the genre as "creeps," from reaching a set point on the playing field. This is accomplished by building and upgrading towers that shoot at, damage and kill the enemy creeps before they are able to reach their objective. Unlike many other tower defense games, the path of the creeps themselves is not set; instead, the towers built determine the path of the creeps, who take the shortest path they can find to the exit. The game does not allow the player to make an exit completely inaccessible, but key strategies revolve around guiding creeps into lengthy, meandering corridors.The creeps come in waves at set intervals. Each wave of creeps has different characteristics, such as immunity to certain towers, extra resistance to certain towers, and the abilities to spawn new creeps, move faster than normal, or fly over the towers instead of following the maze. For each wave, the game rotates among the types of creeps. Several times during gameplay, boss waves will appear. These waves consists of just one or two large creeps each, that are extremely difficult to defeat.
The player begins with a set number of lives, and loses one for each creep that survives to reach its goal (the edge of the grid opposite its entry-point, on most courses). The game will end early in defeat if the player′s lives reach zero, and it provides no way to regenerate lost lives.
The game can be played in three difficulty levels: easy, medium, and hard. In addition, there are several challenge modes available for those seeking more from the game. Challenges range from "The 100", where the player must defeat 100 levels of successively difficult creeps, to "3K Fixed", where the player has to build a fixed set of towers (including the upgrades) with just 3000 gold. There are also various fun modes different in gameplay than the other, harder ones.
The voice when a player is asked to enter a score for the high score table is sampled from Ivor the Engine
Ivor the Engine
Ivor the Engine is a British children's animation by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin's Smallfilms company. It is a children's television series relating the adventures of a small green locomotive who lived in the "top left-hand corner of Wales" and worked for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway...
.
Development
Paul Preece got the inspiration for Desktop Tower Defense in 2006. He noticed a lack of tower defense games that allowed proper "mazing" (controlling movement of enemy forces by placing towers in their path). Preece did not immediately start work on Desktop Tower Defense because he considered Flash to be too difficult to learn. It was only after an acquaintance created Flash Element Tower Defense that Paul started work on the game. Starting from the "Autumn Tower Defense" map created for the RTSReal-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
game Warcraft III, Paul Preece created a simple tower defense game that could be played using only a browser. Because of his lack of skill with computer graphics, he named the game's site HandDrawnGames.com
Distribution
Originally, the game was promoted through the web service StumbleUponStumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a discovery engine that finds and recommends web content to its users. Its features allow users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests using peer-sourcing and social-networking principles.Toolbar versions exist for...
, getting further boosts from popular bloggers such as Michael Arrington
Michael Arrington
J. Michael Arrington is the founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in USA and elsewhere...
. It eventually found its way onto several flash game sites such as Kongregate
Kongregate
Kongregate is an online games hosting website owned by Gamestop Corporation, which allows users to upload user-created Adobe Flash or Unity3D games. It features an API that Flash and Unity developers can integrate into their games which allows users to submit high scores and in some games, earn...
. The game's popularity was further increased by exposure on the internet pop-culture websites Digg
Digg
Digg is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4, its cornerstone function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg's popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with story submission and voting systems...
and I-am-bored.com. It is now available on MySpace Games, and as part of the MindJolt collection on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
.
Updates
The original release version of the game, version 1.0 was released in early March 2007. On the 21st of the same month, version 1.2 was released introducing a new tower type, a new creep, and a new challenge mode among other updates. Version 1.5 of the game was released in late June 2007. Among the many cosmetic changes include new types of towers, creep types and challenge modes. While the changes diversify the overall gaming experience, some reviewers like Duncan Riley of TechCrunchTechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
and Jason Kottke
Jason Kottke
Jason Kottke is an American blogger and former web designer currently living in New York City. He designed the Silkscreen typeface and has won a Lifetime Achievement Award as a blogger...
reacted negatively to the update.
In December 2007, Preece and David Scott also created the Casual Collective, whose flagship game was a multiplayer version of DTD.
On October 13, 2008, version 1.9 was announced on the game's homepage. It was released to the Casual Collective and is both multi- and single-player.
On April 1, 2009 a beta version of DTD Pro, which is the 2.0 release of the game, was launched to the public on the Casual Collective. It contains a sandbox mode to allow granular customization of the game.
Reception and impact
This game was featured on Attack of the Show and the Lab with Leo on G4TechTVG4techTV
G4techTV was a cable and satellite channel resulting from a merger between Comcast-owned G4 and TechTV. The headquarters is based in Los Angeles...
. It was also in the March issue of Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
, with a positive review.
As of July 2007, the game had been played more than 15 million times since its inception in March of the same year. The game makes approximately $100,000 per year, according to its creator. Most of the revenue generated by the game is through the online ad-service AdSense
AdSense
Google AdSense which is a program run by Google Inc. allows publishers in the Google Network of content sites to automatically serve text, image, video, and rich media adverts that are targeted to site content and audience. These adverts are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google, and they...
.
The game itself has been billed as extremely addictive and thus time-consuming by many reviewers, such as those at TechCrunch
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
. Reviewer Michael Arrington commented in jest the game "should be banned" because of this.
Due to success of the game, Paul Preece decided to leave his programming job to focus on making online games as an independent game developer. He and fellow game maker David Scott formed Casual Collective, a game development company. As of 2008, at least $1 million has been raised by the fledgling company mostly from venture capital firms such as Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in IT companies.The firm is based in Menlo Park, California and has raised approximately $2 billion of investor capital since inception across eight venture funds....
.
It has been covered by publications like the Wall Street Journal. Desktop Tower Defense was ranked second within the top five games within the tower defense genre by Just-Whatever. The game was picked in a survey involving over 400,000 voters over 5000 other web applications as one of the top 100 best web applications, one of ten in the entertainment category for 2007 by Webware. In 2008, the game won a "Gleemie Award" and the developers received $5000 in prize money at the 2008 Independent Games Festival
Independent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of the indie video game industry. It was founded in 1998 to assist and inspire innovation in video game development and to recognize the best independent video game developers...
.
Sequel
In early 2010, a sequel, Desktop Defender, was made available on Facebook as application 113574023556. One should not confuse this with a malware package for Windows which bears the similar name “Desktop Defender 2010”.External links
- Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 - official site
- Desktop Tower Defense Pro - official site