It’s not enough to just throw tools into an empty sandbox.
Consider the limitations of day, night, pools, and fog in Plants vs. Consider the challenges in Toy Soldiers: Cold War.
Consider how Atom Zombie Smashers limited which tools you could use. Once you wrap your head around this, the challenge level pretty much falls apart, which didn’t need to happen. It mostly comes down to crowd management tools, which include blowing orcs back with wind, a springboard that flings them in the direction of your choice, and impassable palettes that let you define their path. What does it matter whether a trap shoots arrows at an orc or hits him with blades? What’s the difference between crushing him from above or spiking him from below? What good does a steam grate do if the orc isn’t wearing a skirt? There are some obvious combos early on, but as the game draws out and new tricks are introduced, I go from looking forward to them to wondering what the point is. Orcs Must Die unlocks a new trap or gadget every level, but it does a terrible job of explaining them to me, and the result is that I suspect many of them are useless. But the best battles have long-term context or variables you can fiddle with. The best games of this sort give you a reason to play, and a reason to replay, and different ways to play. Zombies, or Toy Soldiers: Cold War, or Defender Chronicles, or this week’s deliciously grindy Dungeon Defenders (which mostly renders Orcs Must Die redundant). To stand out, a tower defense game needs to tie it up in a package, like Plants vs. Moment-to-moment gameplay can only get you so far. But also like Trenched, it fumbles the crucial bigger picture. It looks great, it’s got charm, and there are plenty of toys to help you bring about the eponymous imperative. Like Trenched before it, Orcs Must Die does a good job with the moment-to-moment tower defense gameplay.
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