Such a bold proclamation! Not really. Tower Defense is the worst non-financial trend in video gaming in a good long time. So in lieu of going outside and getting exercise, here's an exercise where I exorcise this demon from many hit Indie and not-so-Indie games in recent memory, regardless of eggs or size. I'm so glad no-one reads these blurbs.
This is simple enough, because the Den Defense was shoehorned in so crassly that it easily lifts right out. Instead of getting the prompt that your HQ is under attack, you instead get: Nothing. Just keep the territory forever. Problem solved.
Another game that is mostly not Tower Defense. It does appear heavily but only in an optional mini-game capacity. Instead, we can replace it with another block-based mini-game to match its palatable Breakout companion. Tetris? Too obvious. Klax? There we go! Everyone remembers Klax!
So moving up in difficulty now. Sort of like starting with an ulcer operation in Trauma Center and then having a guy with a giant steel bar through the torso, it'll take some amount of medical wizardry to fix these ones. With Rock of Ages, just don't have the parts where you put down traps. Instead, roll over power-ups that disturb the other player in some way. Or just turn it into a direct race with all the crazy traps and NPCs generated by the game for both players in equal amounts! Simple! No more game-halting terribleness, just rolling and fun!
This is a half-RPG, half-Tower Defense game. How to fix it? Make it completely an RPG game! Instead of towers and turrets, give the little guys more potions to help them deal with the hordes. Or how about Robotron rules, where you steer antagonist forces that are chasing you over pre-existing traps and your own arrows? All sound like better alternatives to me.
This is a game about love. And what's a more loving gesture than helping the wonderful Brad Muir remove the tower defense parts that accidentally snuck into his game when he wasn't looking? Granted, it's pretty much taken over the entire game, so my solution is: Turn it into a sequel for Psychonauts somehow? Works for me!
Plants vs Zombies? How about just plants? Build your own comedic terrariums! How about a space trader type game, except you're a bee going to each flower "system" pollinating things? I'm just rambling now, as this whole list concept comes crashing down around me. Flower 2: Petal 2 Da Metal?
Must they die? How about a non-Tower Defense game where you talk out your differences in a dialogue-heavy diplomacy game? I got these Orcs in Skyrim a pair of magical gauntlets and they let me into their crappy village fort! Sounds like something you could build a game around.
It's a first-person, oddly graphically advanced Tower Defense experience. But instead of all the enemies plodding towards your base, how about they plod towards you while you run backwards and shoot at them? Isn't that a thing people like with other first-person games? If you want the name to make sense, maybe the player can retreat into their Sanctum for ammo and regenerating health, but the enemies will hammer on the walls until you come out to play-ee-ayyyy.
Every Final Fantasy game is about defending crystals, or a lifestream, or the time continuum, or your cache of magical dress-up balls. Why does it need to involve Tower Defense? Just equip the crystals and go pound on some vaguely effeminate villain with the magical career-changing powers they give you.
Now this might be challenging, since the Tower Defense infection has even spread to the game's very name. So instead, make it South Park Angry Birds and claim the title is some kind of ironic, topical statement about how ubiquitous Angry Birds and Tower Defense have gotten. You have to throw Cartmans at buildings full of Kennys. Eh..
I suppose if you took out the tower defense, you'd just be left with a 50s sci-fi spoof movie. I'd be down with that. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra wasn't too terrible. Funny how tower defense is the part of this game's equation that makes it hoary and cliché, not the saucerpeople invasion plot. 'Tis the miracle of TD.
What's not to like about a Sonic-esque spinning hero in a Wind Waker-looking Western world? Tower defense, apparently. Get that nonsense out of there and let him collect Chaos Emeralds in elaborate puzzle dungeons already.
