The term 'Real time strategy game' was born with the game Dune II (1992), which - as usual - wasn't the first real time strategy in history but it was the most refined one at his time, defining the foundations for the future titles of the genre. For sure the declared influence of computer desktop interfaces for the interactions and the consequent use of the mouse as input device had a key role in its success, compensating the complexity of the performed tasks with a faster access.

The 'Tower defense' subgenre is now considered the 'dumb brother' of real time strategy games, mostly because of its tight bond with mobile and casual gaming. But history tells us another story. The first recognized tower defense game in history is Rampart (1990), labelled as combination of shoot'em up and puzzle games. Each round was split in two repeating phases: an attacking phase, in which enemy units attacks the player structures and a repair phase, in which the player builds new structures in order to defend himself. These well splitted phases are genre-defining for tower defense games and gives them its simplified gameplay, but we've to consider that Rampart was a game usually played on an arcades with a joystick, two buttons and no scrolling, at least 2-3 years far from for the wide spread of graphic user interfaces on computers.

So the tower defense genre is more a precursor of the RTS genre that cleverly worked around the limits of controls and the lack of familiar human user interface elements instead of a stripped down version of 'hardcore gamers'!

Now, plot!

The evil Red Team is trying to destroy our headquarters! We can't let them pass! Build, repair and evolve defense towers around the battlefield, take down enemy units, earn money and try to survive! Use UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT for moving your cursor around the battlefield, hold down the A BUTTON while on a buildable area for opening the build menu. While holding the A BUTTON use the LEFT/RIGHT button to choose a structure and release the A BUTTON for building it. Hold the A BUTTON down on a structure of yours for seeing its stats and changing them: hit UP for upgrading it, DOWN for removing it and earning some money and LEFT or RIGHT for repairing it. Hold the A BUTTON down on your base for seeing its stats and hit LEFT or RIGHT for starting immediately the next wave.

(Want to share something? You can find me on Twitter!)

Install / Add to home View game sources ...or play it online below!