Consolation Prize

Continuing a series of posts looking at free games for the iPhone, this second part focuses on Tap Defense, Maze Finger, Topple, and Space Deadbeef. If you’re interested in reading the first part of the guide then you can find that
here.

Tap Defense

As it is only the second Tower Defence game I’ve played on the iPhone, Tap Defense has a lot to live up to considering my last journey with the genre was with the sublime Fieldrunners, however, this game can more or less hold its own comparatively speaking.

In Tap Defense your role is to defend the gates of heaven from hordes of demons, all intent upon gaining entry into the Promised Land. As is the norm with the genre there are a variety of towers to choose from ranging from the basic Arrow, Bomb and Water towers; to more specialist varieties such as Storm, Ice, Magic and Earthquake, but unlike the basic towers these more powerful variants must first be researched – using awarded halos – before they can be picked from the build menu. All of them can, as you may expect, be upgraded for a price to increase both there power and effective range.

Tap Defense features a number of hellish creatures like Gremlins, Succubae, Hell Hounds, and of course the Devil, but it’s a shame they’re all quite hard to differentiate between and sometimes merge together like a muddy mess when swarming because of there minuscule size and lack of detail. Visually, Tap Defense is passable, and in no way does the average appearance detract from the overall playability, but it does compare unfavourably with Fieldrunners which is in an altogether different graphical class.

The levels in Tap Defense use one of three different maps depending upon the difficulty chosen. The path to the gates of heaven is predefined and knowing the route the demons will traverse leaves you free to concentrate on the strategic placement of towers, but personally I miss the freedom and flexibility of being able to design “rat runs” for the hordes to wander through. Speaking of the level design it must be mentioned that Tap Defense not only features a Classic mode, but it also offers five Challenges that alter the game rules dramatically like “Sudden Death” which gives you just the one life, and “Ten Towers” that limits you to ten towers - unsurprisingly.

In addition to the normal tower defence game mechanics Tap Defense also incorporates an interest rate - awarding you additional gold per round based upon the amount saved in the coffers. It’s a great little feature which promotes money management and strategic depth as you to balance spending versus saving – the more you save, the more you will have available during the latter rounds when the difficulty curve really spikes.

Although Tap Defense may not have the presentation and the overall spit and polish that Fieldrunners has to offer, it’s still a very playable and enjoyable tower defence game and is well worth investigating.

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Maze Finger

This little puzzle game from ngmoco has you navigating progressively more complex mazes before your power meter – which is in effect a timer – runs out. The meter is reset at the beginning of each level, but each level is subdivided into five mazes which must be completed in order to progress. Upon completion of each maze you’re given a rank, verbally shouted at you through the robotic cries of “Awesome!”, “Great!”, or “Weak!”.

Maze Finger, as you’ve probably correctly assumed, is played via the touch-screen with your finger being the direct link to maze navigation. It’s a very polished game for a freebie, with strong visuals and sound effects, and although the mazes themselves are drawn quite simply, the plasma-like trail and the sparks of lightning drawn towards your finger is hypnotic and reminiscent of the effect you would witness from a plasma-ball during a school science lesson.

Maze Finger is a pleasingly fun little game, with plenty of mazes (one thousand apparently), and it even has some achievements to aim for. But, it’s spoilt somewhat by the fact that you have to start at the very beginning of every new game – although you can at least resume an existing game until your lives run out.

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Topple

If you’re after a simple game of block stacking then Topple may be just your cup of tea. The primary aim is to stack different shaped blocks as high as possible, without the tower collapsing. Excluding the Tutorial, Topple has a couple of extra modes: “Levels” provides the main challenge as you work your way through a number of increasingly difficult stages aiming to reach a target height before the timer runs out, whereas “Free Play” is played just for fun without any time restrictions, just to see how high you can go.

Topple is another well presented and polished game from ngmoco. The cute cartoony artistic styling couples nicely with the child friendly colour palette, and the way that the blocks girn and grimace whilst being moved and rotated is very charming. Topple makes efficient use of the touch screen with a “two-finger” operation to rotate blocks in either direction, and even the accelerometers are used to good effect as the device can be tilted in either direction to counterbalance a precariously swaying tower of oddity.

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Space Deadbeef

Space Deadbeef is a visually impressive side scrolling shooter reminiscent of games such as R-Type and Space Harrier. You control everything via the touch screen, and although this sounds like a recipe for disaster it is competently handled. Movement is simple and kept within the vertical plane as the spacecraft follows your finger, whilst at the same time you’re able to lock onto multiple enemies as you pass over an enemy and then release a salvo of homing missiles as soon as contact with the screen is lost. In addition you can fire an energy blast whenever you tap your ship, or by remaining in contact with the screen over the ship you’re able to charge the weapon - although I never found much use for this feature.

As impressive as Space Deadbeef is initially, the longevity soon wanes upon the realisation that the same level and enemy types are recycled - only with increased difficulty - for each stage. There’s no doubt that it’s a good little game for free, and it certainly demonstrates the feasibility of creating old school style shooters on the iPhone, but it really won’t hold your attention for prolonged periods.

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