Editor’s Note: This review is based on the “pre-release” 0.9.3 edition of the game. A version 1.0 update is supposedly in the works that may address concerns in this review.

Publisher/Developer: Kalio Ltda.
Genre: Tower Defense
Price: $0.99
Verdict: Wait for them to finish making the game before buying it.
Pros: Nice animations and sound.
Cons: Controls are not precise, enemy paths can be a mystery, only one level.

Tridefense enters a crowded genre and really doesn’t do anything to make itself stand out. In fact, much of what it does only makes it look worse.

In this tower defense game, you are placed into the game’s only level, with a vague hint that the enemies are coming from the north, but you should also watch the water. You have a giant base that the enemies are trying to walk to. You must keep them from doing so, because if they touch your base, you lose lives. Lose all your lives and it’s game over man, game over!

First off, the enemies can come from almost anywhere. The foot soldiers come from the top of the screen, but they seem to be able to come from any point along it. Ships can come from the left or bottom of the screen, planes however, seem to always come from the same spot on the right. The short tutorial explains that enemies have varying weaknesses, but in practice this is pretty ambiguous. Planes die quickly to missiles, but soldiers and ships seem weak to everything. Occasionally “miniboss” type units come through, which seem to resist everything. You get three types of towers, each upgradeable. Gun towers shoot one enemy, Missile towers have better range and do splash damage to surrounding enemies, and Freeze turrets slow down advancing forces. Upgrades can improve damage, firing rates, and range, but you’ll have to experiment to find out what anything does.

What’s that? Do you hear a loud sucking noise? Oh, that’s the game’s controls. To build a tower, you tap anywhere on open ground. You can then choose a tower from a menu on the right, but it defaults to the last one you built. You tap on the ground again to build it. It is very easy to accidentally tap twice in a terrible spot and it will start building a tower. How annoying. Zooming in helps a little, but when you have one form of interaction with a game, you really can’t afford to mess it up.

This is one of those tower defense games where you have to build a maze for your enemies to run through. However, you have no idea where they are going to come from, so you end up building arbitrary walls around your base. Also, you cannot build towers in some places and you never know why. You can also build towers on water, it will put land beneath them. This can accidentally ruin the paths for ships. Place a tower in the wrong spot and you’ll connect to nearby land and enemy ships will end up going around – and out of the range of your existing towers.

There is only one level. This is like an elbow to the teeth considering you are basically paying a dollar for an unfinished demo. Sure there are 50 waves of enemies and two difficulties, but only one level? I shake my mental fist at you, sirs.