The maps have medium and hard labels, which helps guide your progression, but they do not build upon one another. Gemcraft has standard progression through more difficult maps, with more waves of enemies and more gem types available the deeper you go.Ĭorrection: I should not refer to “progression” for Protector. Now it has a tutorial built in, with different tower and enemies types being added over time. It used to have just the one core mode, with some challenges. Desktop TD has its mazing, and Gemcraft has different abilities on its gems, a stronger version of the infliction/poison considerations in Protector.Īll three have progressions through maps. You also want to diversify “inflictions” (debuffs), and poison is more useful at the front than the back. The major question is how many enemies a “tower” can reach, with some consideration of leveling up on some maps. Protector is the least strategic in terms of placement. It also creates the option of “juggling,” in which you have multiple exits to your maze of towers with only one open at a time, selling towers and building new ones to keep the enemies walking up and down the paths as they try to get to an exit before you re-seal it. In Desktop TD, changing the enemies’ paths is a major part of doing well. Gemcraft and Protector use static paths for the enemies, where you must put enough damage of the right type along the way. Protector has fantasy graphics, with wizards and warriors instead of towers.ĭesktop TD is the only one that uses mazing. Its monsters are more varied in appearance, and while the appearance feels less related to the enemies’ abilities, the colors are related to how the receive damage. Gemcraft keeps the towers but powers them with gems. Desktop TD is minimalist: circles and squares, getting slightly more colorful and embellished with each edition.
They have different graphic and fiction approaches. The gameplay and graphics are largely the same between editions, but things have become more complex over time. These are all sequels, relatively recent ones, the latest editions of some of the more popular flash games around. So that makes my life harder to the extent that I do not use every flash games site. Desktop TD seems to have the most missing, in the items locked for choose your own TD. The difference is that they have some things disabled off the home site. I have the Kongregate links above, because my life is easier when I stick to a few flash games sites rather than checking all of them, but Desktop TD comes from The Casual Collective, Gemcraft is from Armor Games, and Protector III really is home at Kongregate. (Each is far longer than the last batch of flash games.)įirst, note that each game is “native” to a different site. Each has taken it in a rather different direction.
Consider as a case study three variations on the same type of game:Įach has that familiar gameplay that you know I love: building defenses that blow up armies of mindlessly marching monsters.