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Simply put, it is a clicker + tower defense game. I have played most of the first campaign, and there are many more campaigns once you complete. Like others have said it is pretty repetitive; although, there are new unlocks every couple levels to keep it somewhat engaging. I think there is a story... Overall I picked this up because I saw a friend buy it during a sale. It is nothing special but if you can pick up discounted it is definitely worth an hour or so.
Such an odd game, but in a good way. As a fan of tower defense games, or as this game calls it pathdefence or pathspace, this is a refreshing one. The towers or weapons have personality and say things throughout the level. Like most other tower defense games you gain points, or cache, by killing enemies and use them to place more towers or upgrade them. Probably the most important feature of this game is how you kill, or mostly slow enemies down later in the game, by shooting them with your cursor. It will shoot the enemy closest to your cursor but you can click on specific enemy once to lock on to it. Awesome visuals, great characters, dank story. A refreshing twist on tower defense that I recommend.
If there's one strong positive that Immortal Defense nails in the tower defense genre, it's tower placement attack pattern/uniqueness. By that, I mean that most tower defense games have the fast-attacking tower, the slow-firing AoE tower, the speed-decreasing tower, etc., and the towers are very one-note and samey to all other tower defense games' towers.. In Immortal Defense, however, the towers attack in different literal patterns, sometimes apply different status effects, and all seem to have some use, depending on the map layout. In my original review, I mentioned that there were a limited number of each type of tower you can place per level, and that you sometimes get more of the same tower, but there was no way to know if you would get them at all. The developer has been attentive and responded, informing me that most of the towers, upon getting a bunch of kills, will spawn new towers of the same type(s) getting bunches of kills, which you can then place. Also, this information is technically available in and in-game tutorial/information section, but that section was something like 15-19 pages long, somewhat buried and not pointed out as well as it should be. I think it should have at least been mentioned in one of the early levels quite clearly, since this can be a crucial strategy for certain players, depending on play-style. I turned many losses and poor victories into very big successes. Tower defense games often give the player something to do since the towers do much of the work. In Sanctum 2, your towers do their thing while you run about in first person, shooting at enemies inside and outside your maze. In Deathtrap, you're killing enemies Diablo-style (action RPG) while your towers do their thing. Unless you build the perfect maze and/or tower placement, or have incredibly good skills, you won't succeed with only towers or only attacking yourself, but each technique is very good and useful from the beginning of each level to the end. To continue that line of thought into less "hybridized" tower defense games, you're kept busy in those by upgrading your towers and placing others, keeping the strategy element going strong, often with "waves" of enemies with a few seconds in between to give you a breather. There is no breather on each level of Immortal Defense, upgrades are so costly that earning enough cash to buy them was rare for me, and the player interaction after hitting start, for me, solely consists of moving my mouse around pointing at enemies, and firing charged shots on occasion. This would be alright, except that enemies' health increases the longer you go in the level, which in my opinion, is a no-no in tower defense games. Why? Imagine you're playing a tower defense where there are very specific enemy types which, at the beginning, you know how much time/how many hits it takes to kill them. If one leaks through, you can quickly go "Oh, I need one archer tower," and place it, or whatever would kill it in time. In Immortal Defense, I'm pulling a number out of the air, but an enemy might have 100HP at the start of the level, but by the last minute, it has thousands of health. You lose the ability to easily gauge how easy/hard each enemy is to kill, which is the kiss of death for dealing with leaks, and this game encourages you to get as close to leaking as possible. What do I mean by that? Well, in each level, you keep the best cash you had from the previous level, with a modifier based on how many enemies got through. That means that if you build a really good defense, you are losing out on your money for the next level, decreasing your odds of winning and getting better money. So the idea to play the game the "best" way is to build the bare minimum you need to succeed, and hope it's enough. By the time an enemy leaks through, chances are it's too late to stop it, because it's late-game and you have no quick way of finding out how many hits of the shots from your cursor will kill it, or if you have time to place a new tower near the end and upgrade it, and then there's that hesitation of wondering how much money it's going to cost you to upgrade it enough to kill the baddie, and then wonder if you spent too much money doing that and if it will make this attempt at the level completely wasted because you spent more money than you did the time before. This adds a level of hesitation for me that a game of this pacing simply does not accomodate, and removes that euphoric feeling of knowing you hit the sweet spot on the towers you need, watching for a little while as your towers lay waste to incoming baddies. Instead, I found myself sitting there initially nervous, wondering if my defense was enough, giving me less enjoyment. However, I eventually stopped worrying and just felt bored, shift+tabbing to watch YouTube and talking with a family member in another room while the game played itself. I'd come back, see if I had success or failure, and if the latter, I would just do the same tower setup, pay for one more upgrade, hit start, and walk off again to come back in a few minutes and see how things went, because the cursor shots (player interaction) were so meaningless in my experience after the first couple of levels, even when charged. Although I ended up with a more positive outlook on the game than I did when I initially reviewed it, and I played through to completion of the first of six campaigns this time around, my experience was not a fun one, because I was barely playing the game, with my level of player involvement genuinely being less than a clicker game upon hitting the start button each time.
This has been a joy to play and a fun turn at the genre. Just remember, check your controls on the menu, not much of a tutorial on controls to be had (but really, you shouldn't need one, just be sure to RTFM, so to speak).
Immortal Defense is one heck of a tower defense game. It has a fairly well-written story, interesting towers, and psychedelic visuals. It seems to have some trouble with balancing difficulty for the 6th chapter. It also suffers from becoming a visual mess at times when enemies and bullets are all over the screen. Still, it’s far from a traditional tower defense game which makes it worth a look if you enjoy the genre. Let’s start with the story. It’s delivered with character portraits and text at the beginning of a level. It covers a wide range of different themes including loneliness and finding purpose in life. The villains are as interesting as the protagonist’s own character development and oh boy, do you develop. You see, you were a person once, but a gargantuan invading force became stranded and started to wreak havoc in your space. You sacrificed your humanity to become an immortal “Path Defender” in order to protect your family and planet from all threats by placing towers to interfere with enemy space travel. Only after becoming a path defender do we see the kind of toll it takes on an individual and it’s an interesting and long journey to behold. The characters that you meet along the way grow with you and the events that unfold take place on a grand scale. It’s not a Disney movie and aims to be a more thoughtful, sobering experience. It’s like a very long fable. All unlocked story bits are filed under History, just in case some of the longer levels cause you to forget what’s happening. I just wish the writing didn’t keep on driving the point home towards the end after becoming fairly obvious. It felt like the writer was saying, “Do you get it yet? Do you? Well!?” Other than that, it’s probably the best story I’ve experienced for a tower defense game. I enjoyed the different towers (Points) this game had to offer. Some of them were strange and took some learning to use. Each tower has seven levels and the last one tends to act as an ultimate form which can drastically change its behavior. For example, the Circuit Point draws a line to another Circuit Point which damages enemies that pass over it. They can also connect to your mouse cursor if it’s in range. At level 7, they have virtually infinite range and can attach to each other across entire levels. In addition to that, the medals (Achievements) that you unlock can enhance specific towers or make other changes like a faster charge-up time for the mouse cursor abilities which include bursts of bullets or gathering the bullets of your various Points into a specific enemy cluster. In the Circuit Point’s case, it’ll connect to Love Points for half-damage which can result in deadly laser grids for enemy spaceships. As another example, the Limited Point targets the highest HP target available with a rapid fire barrage. The medal you can earn by completing a side-quest causes the projectiles of other Points to home in on targets within the Limited Point’s range. The Courage Point fires a piercing projectile with each level adding another projectile except for the seventh which causes it fire rapidly instead. Its projectiles can also wrap around the screen. These towers make you think about placement differently than other games in the genre which usually results in a fun time and one eye-melting light show. The bullets fired from all Points, the mouse cursor, the enemy ships and projectiles, the Path lighting up, and the level being near the end all contribute their visual effects which can make upgrading towers or just seeing what’s going on difficult at times. The pause button takes you to a pause screen instead of letting you look at the map which I didn’t like. Even if you tone down the visual effects, it can still be a mess, but more manageable. Keep that in mind if you’re having trouble seeing what’s going on when there are hundreds of things on the screen. Since we’re on the topic of settings, did you know the game has an easily adjustable difficulty slider? You can make changes between levels and the game is set to 50% by default which provides a pretty smooth experience for the campaign. I had to make some severe adjustments when I started nearing the end. The last 6-7 levels of the final chapter were very difficult, even with the slider all the way to the left at 0%. Some of the side-quests were also brutally difficult. I had more trouble with those than anything else. On the bright side, there are dozens upon dozens of levels for you to conquer which resulted in around 18-19 hours to beat the game. Finally, I’d recommend hitting up the Confused? section to read the backstory. There are plenty of helpful tips in there about the game’s mechanics too which is great since some of them aren’t very obvious. I’d definitely give it a look periodically while going through the first chapter. I’d also like to revisit medals and say that I definitely enjoyed the impact they had on gameplay. You can only activate a limited amount of them at a time though which made me sad since I love obtaining obscene amounts of power, but the developer seems to favor “balance.” Psh, whatever. I should also note that the developer has been making careful updates to the game to make it more balanced and better over time which I appreciate. I was going to mention that the Endless levels were taking so long to resolve that I had to sabotage myself, but then a recent update was pushed out that solved that problem. Very nice. If you’re looking for a non-traditional tower defense experience, Immortal Defense is a strong pick. It’s not a perfect game and the visuals might be an acquired taste, but I enjoyed the wildly different towers and the game’s plot. I hope Saturated Dreamers turns out just as well.
Remembered this game years later because of its unique presentation for a tower defense game. Came back to find an engaging game with intriguing narrative. Found it fun to work towards getting all the achievements and will likely play through it again in the future.
Goes all-in on being weird and fantastical to deliver a wholly unique experience. That includes the gameplay, which is a little too freeform and quirky to be satisfying, and made worse by an unintuitive interface. Despite this, Immortal Defense boasts a great plot, and is simply too special to not experience at least once.
I was in the mood for a tower defense game, and this is definitely a special one. There's a great story behind it and the "towers" and graphics are unique compared to other games in this genre. Sadly, the screen is often way too cluttered with bright bullets, making it very hard to see which tower is effective against certain enemies. There are also too many similar levels, making the game too long and repetitive after a few hours. Not my cup of tea.
I find it difficult to put into words how I feel about this game but here is my best attempt. In 2007 (2008?) I was beginning to gain interest in, "indie games." One of the games that I saw was the most highly acclaimed was Immortal Defense, reborn on Steam after 8 years. I was never very good at tower defense games, and to be honest I'm still not good at them. Back then I tried to get through as much of the story as I could (on difficulty 00 never the less) but I think my brain stopped being able to handle it around the half way point of chapter 3. The game is difficult and can take a lot of thinking to fully understand. Part of this is because there doesn't seem to be an, "optimal," strategy for each level. There are ways that don't work, but especially later on you can figure out many different ways to beat them. I ended up cheating my way through a lot of the game from that point. Sorry Paul, I did it back then and I might have to do it again. I'm just not clever enough for your later levels. The visuals, while simplistic, make up for it in terms of color, style, and how fitting they all are. The game looks really damn nice now. Still simple, but even more juiced up with all kinds of interesting effects. The music can range between infectious and grand with some great melodies but you can definitely hear that it was a bit of a budget affair. I spotted some midi bass that seemed out of place. But the real thing that makes Immortal Defense so special to me was its story and how it affects the gameplay. You play K, a person who has given up his body to defend his home world from invaders, detacting himself from the physical world to defend it from pathspace. K left all he loves physically - but not mentally. In pathspace, K uses parts of his being, mainly his emotions manifested into towers to destroy enemies in pathspace. They speak out in the middle of the game with character, making the battlefield feel alive. K's journey is a philsophical one that tackles a lot for a game: what matters to a person, what drives them, what the nature of reality is, what the nature of truth is, how powerful you can become and how it influences others, and how it would be like to live alone, forever in a place away from any mortal eye. The writing is very well done. It is never these huge philosophical rants, rather the characters give you information and story through the use of subtle phrases that you can put a lot of thought into. Not only that, the levels range from abstract to very purposely made symbols that represent what is happening in the game. The point is: The story and mood of Immortal Defense seems into every crevice of the game. Every element in the game seeks to bring you into the story of K. His story is a hypothesis on what might it be like if you, the player, were to embark on this grand journey a million years long. I finished the game long ago in 2007 (2008?) early in the morning. It made me think about my own place in the world, made me feel profound emotions and has given me a quote to live by to this day. Rethinking about the game gives me chills and to this day fills me with the feelings of...I can't really put them into words. Maybe it was me being naive and being sensitive. I'm a sensitive guy, what can I say? But this is my experience from the game. Even if no one else feels the way I did, this game hit me hard and inspired me in many ways. When you have nothing left, you must create your own reasons for existening. Some people cling to the past, others surround themselves in their own creations. Here are two quotes that have stayed with me all these years. "There's one thing you can rely on in this universe: being as wrong as often as you are right. So whether you're right or wrong -- Be exceptional at it. That's morality." and "I love you grandpa." Thank you Paul and the rest of the developers behind Immortal Defense. I'll never forget this.
I think Mr. Matt's review pretty much hits, in detail, all the reasons I don't think I'm going to keep playing this game, and why I wouldn't recommend it generally. I think the takeaway is that if you are *only* into Tower Defense games and want something incredibly technical, hard to read, hard to learn, and hard to play, then this is a decent very unique TD buried underneath (in my opinion) unnecessary obtuseness. A lot of the challenge is forcing you to go replay earlier levels for higher scores so you have more money starting the next level, but after 2 hours I still had no idea if the reason I did bad on a level was tower placement, mouse control, upgrade choices, or just starting money. And I didn't even do *badly* on most of the levels, but you really don't have clarity on what is working and what isn't. The same enemies scaling up as the level progresses is an issue too, because you have to remember how much every upgrade level of every point (towers) costs to quickly be able to upgrade them, as you can't pause and your mouse is crucial to many of the enemies and some of your points, so futzing around with placing new towers or upgrading existing ones is very punished. If you want a Tower Defense game you can (and have to) spend dozens of hours to get the fundamentals down, then yes I would say this is a good option. If you just casually like a good TD like me, this is a terrible choice.
Yeah, it's tower defence, and yeah, the trailer and screenshots are all kinds of 'I have no idea what's happening here' , but trust me on this: if you like TD, this is a no brainer. If you don't like TD it's still absolutely worth a look. It's not only my favourite tower defence game, but it's one of my favourite games, full stop. I loved it back in 2009 when I first played it and this new Steam version comes with a raft of improvements over the original, hence why I'm playing it again. It still holds up beautifully. In Immortal Defense, you have given up your world and physical body to become an immortal defender in 'pathspace', a dimension above phasewarp. There, you are but a ghost to the Bavakh, one of the most tyrannical races in the galaxy, who are using hyperspace to attack your home planet Dukis. As a path defender you focus aspects of your will -- fear, love, courage, pride, precision and others -- to form 'points' (the towers of ID) to stop the Bavakh. This is how the game begins, but it's far, far away from where it ends. So what makes it special? It's many things. It's the haunting story, the turns it takes and the themes it deals with. It's the hugely inventive and unusual towers. It's the way the mouse pointer is used as its own tower; shooting, charging shots and synergising with other towers in powerful and unexpected ways. It's the kaleidoscopic visuals, the warbling, droning sounds and the crystalline shattering of enemies as they bleed and streak light across the screen. It's the strange enemy designs and their unusual abilities. It's the rousing and understated soundtrack. It's the many challenging levels (and the new challenge stages which restrict what towers you can place, encouraging you to use them more effectively). It's the little things like kill counts per tower so you can gauge how effective your layouts are, or the recycle value of a tower degrading over time so a quick placement mistake won't punish you-- and mass end-of-level-selling won't help. It's your cache rolling over from one level to the next to encourage efficiency. It's the endless simulated assaults bookending each chapter, testing what you've learnt and ultimately determining how much cache you start the next chapter with. It's the level editor and the bundled fan levels, the detailed in-game manual, the leaderboards (if you're into that kind of thing), the ability to slow down time when things get manic (or speed it up if your line's holding)... and more. At £6.99, or $10(ish), it's an absolute steal for a game this unique, heartfelt, evocative, clever, challenging and brimming with content.
Very different than other Tower Defense games that I have played. It takes a little getting used to, but it is worth the effort of learning the game. Incredibly fun and very deep strategically. I have enjoyed it even more than Gemcraft and it is almost as good as Defender's Quest (the best tower defense game on Steam!! )
I have no idea what's going on, my eyes are bleeding, and I absolutely love it. 10/10.
Hum... Mixed bag. This is a TD game with some interesting mechanics. Visually is original even if modest. The music is fine. The story is kinda weird but not that bad. No bugs or crashes. Runs fine on Win 7. Now, the game is fun to play but there´re many mechanics poorly explained. There´re some combos that might or might not occur depending on... who knows? The game can get insanely hard on some levels, even when the selected difficulty is the lowest. The game's length is good for the price, especially when on sale. It includes cards and achievements. This is a kinda original TD game but, as said, lazy explained. I don't appreciate games with unnecessary steep learning curves nor insane spikes on difficulty generated, most likely, for obscure combos that were never explained. So even when there are several good points, the very positive reputation for this game is a mirage. So let's try to help to fix that with a red thumb.
TL;DR: Immortal Defense is the one of the best, if not the best game in the tower defense genre. ID is extremely well designed, the towers (called points) are diverse such that each type fills a particular niche, and the gameplay is compelling and challenging. For example, you amass the resources you spend to build points by beating stages. When you start a stage, you can decide the difficulty at which you would like to attempt the stage. Increasing the difficulty makes the stage harder, but also increases the amount of resources you earn by completing the stage. Playing the stage at a lower difficulty is useful for advancing the story and unlocking new abilities. There is no strategic disadvantage to playing stages at a lower difficulty, as you can go back after the fact and replay those stages at a higher difficulty. Rewards that you earn will be retroactively applied to your current resources, if they are higher than your previous high score on that stage. The game has really interesting visuals, resembling some sort of psychadelic screen saver when all the effects are turned on. The soundtrack is similarly interesting. The background music is mostly a moody and dark orchestral score. The different types of points and enemies have unique sound effects when they interact. The combination of these causes particularly busy stages where you build a lot of points to sound like the product of some mad composer. The story is also compellingly weird, and there were times I found myself motivated to complete stages in order to discover more of the narrative (which trickles in bit by bit at the beginning of each stage). I don't know if Immortal Defense was a labor of love, but it definitely feels like a lot of time, thought, and effort has been spent on refining it. If you're a fan of the tower defense genre, you'll definitely enjoy Immortal Defense.
I must say this is good RTS but it is kind boring, the scenarios are the same everytime + the "go to sleep soundtrack", that is why it took me a lot to finish it ★★★☆☆ or 6/10.
I just can't continuing play this game. The graphics and UI design remind me games from 80-x. It hurts my eyes. Music is annoying. Sounds effetts are terrible. The sound of attack of the main unit which repeats every ~0.4s made my ears bleed. Probably there is a really good story. Probably, there are challenging levels and a nice level design. I just can't play this game anymore because this game makes me suffer. I don't recommend Immortal Defense. UPD. I gave it a second try. Anyway, It's not my type of the game because of visuals. But i appreciate involvement of the developer to players' feedback. He seems responsible developer. That's an important trait. So thumbs up!
Immortal Defense has become my new all-time favorite tower defense game. Why? It's totally original, got a great story (which never happens in this genre), and has a great indie game feel. I will also add that the music is fantastic, and there is a ton of replay value here. At five hours in, I think I'm probably through 15% of the content. I'm not even considering the level editor. Essentially, the core mechanic is the tried-and-true tower defense system, but there is a layer of abstraction that ties into the story line. Trust me that it plays *much* better than it looks in the trailer. Also beware that there is a learning curve to figure out how things work. After reading the detailed notes, you will find there is a bunch of stuff going on under the hood that you wouldn't expect (almost has that 'knowledge is power' thing going like in roguelikes). Pros: +Totally original take on the tower defense genre - and it's all done remarkably well +Mouse is the only thing you need +So much content that it's kind of mind boggling, plus a level editor +Story is fresh and engaging +Music is outstanding +Runs on a toaster +Part 2 is in the works!! Cons: -There is a learning curve; for the first hour I was pretty confused (and am totally still learning stuff) so I'd recommend clicking that 'confused' button in the main menu if you are scratching your head Any fan of tower defense needs this in their library.
Some of you have probably been waiting for this game to pop up. I considered about where to put it for a little while before eventually deciding to have it be at the very end. That's because, in my opinion, Immortal Defense is the best tower defense on Steam at the moment. The peaceful planet Dukis finds itself under attack by the evil Bavakh empire, a war-faring race of red, devilish aliens. Their armadas are vast, and with no notable army of their own Dukis is no match. However, they have one trick up their sleeve: Subject K, who has volunteered to be a Path Defender, a process that involves separating his soul from his body and sending it up into space. It's unclear whether K represents one of his names, or whether he's the eleventh person they've tried this with. Once up there, K gains the ability to see the Bavakh's ships as they move through Pathspace (basically hyperspace), and the power to attack and destroy them before they reach their destination. You control Subject K's essence in the form of the cursor, and bringing it next to an enemy will cause him to shoot at it automatically. You can also hold the right mouse button to charge up a bigger attack. That's all for the first two levels, but then you start getting access to Point's, this game's version of towers. All of them are some aspect of K's self - your first is Fear, for example, which shoots at enemies to reduce their defense and stun them. Simple enough, but that's about the only straightforward Point of the bunch. Courage will spray inaccurate, piercing shots which wrap around the screen; Pride starts off weak, but gains damage as it destroys enemies until it's powerful enough to one shot almost anything. Orthro is inexpensive to upgrade and deals splash damage, but only fires in the cardinal directions. The store description says you haven't seen towers like this in a game before, and that still holds up almost ten years after the game's release. All of them have some use, and in the late-game it feels like you're on the other end of a bullet hell shooter at times. Your enemies are also unique, and dangerous. Several of them buff others or mess with your Points' shots, requiring you to snipe them personally with your cursor's damage and other abilities. Some levels can be quite difficult thanks to them, but the game has a large difficulty slider; at zero things are pretty easy, while at maximum the levels show everything they're capable of. The game balance is designed to make you use the slider often, as the resources you have on hand to place points persists throughout levels. That's meant to encourage you to find more efficient ways of beating them rather than just spamming points everywhere, but if need be you can set a level lower and come back to it at another point; beating the previous level with higher resources changes the amount you start the next. Immortal Defense is split into six campaigns, each of which have fifteen stages, and tell a particular period of K's time as a Path Defender. I haven't talked about the stories each game has had in this series much, and that's because they're generally unimportant and not memorable. Immortal Defense's story, meanwhile, is shockingly good. In a lot of other games that premise would just be an excuse for the gameplay, but here it's examined quite thoroughly. Up in Pathspace, K has no-one to communicate with safe for brief messages from his home world, and other Path Defenders. All he knows is destruction, with the knowledge that if he fails, his home may very well be destroyed. What would an existence like that do to someone? Would they be able to stay true to why they came up there to begin with? It asks these questions with simple text at the beginning of each level, and does it well. In the audio-visual department, Immortal Defense also excels. While only made in Game Maker, the levels have a lot of special effects and touches to them to really emphasize how otherworldly Pathspace is; the path itself will appear to bend and stretch depending on where you move your cursor, and enemies will appear transparent until you move close. The game's soundtrack is quite varied, from heroic and uplifting to quiet and mournful, and will play randomly in levels, which is neat. Throughout levels your Points will also make commentary when they destroy enemies or get upgraded by you. With all the main levels Immortal Defense is quite a substantial game (the store says it's about twenty hours, but I think that's underestimating it quite a bit), and there are also several mini-campaigns featuring your Points which test how familiar you are with their strengths and weaknesses. Those, among many other things, unlock medals, in-game achievements that apply bonuses. Some are minor, while others, such as ones that affect Points, can give you a major advantage. I'm about finished with the game after I went back to redo levels at max difficulty, and I have about ninety hours, so it's quite a good value at ten dollars. Overall I'd say Immortal Defense is pretty close to perfect. The gameplay is enjoyable, it ties into an engaging story, it looks great despite it's age, and does a lot of unique things. I'm not sure how many people own it, but that number deserves to be much higher. Out of all the games I've talked about this month, if I had to pick one I'd recommend the most, it would be this one.
I played this game ten years ago, when it was originally released and I thought, this game is unique. I bought again, played and enjoyed it again as a brand new game. Is so original and the difficulty can be set from too easy to OMFG this is impossible. I don't understand why this game is not considered a classic. As another user said this is an art game. Just buy it.