Darwinia? More like Creationinia!
February 22, 2009
As I cleaned up my office the other day I found my copy of Darwinia and that got me thinking about why I didn’t like the game. I remember seeing all the previews of the game and really liking the unique art style and presentation so when I saw a copy at Wal-Mart for low price of $8.77 CND I jumped on it.
The problem started after the first couple of tutorial levels. As I went through the tutorials it felt alot like a standard RTS game but with stick men and drawing commands instead of clicking buttons. As soon as the tutorial levels are over then the evelolution (Darwinism) part will kick-in, or so I thought. I can’t wait to see the weak Darwinias will die out and the stronger ones, with their unique traits, will live one.
Unfortunately that never happened. The Darwinia’s stayed exactly the same and continued to walk into the electric fence thingy and die in droves. You needed to create units and upgrade (evolve) as you would any standard RTS game.
In summary, Darwinia is just your standard creationist RTS God game with a cool art style.
Desktop Tower Defense Review
March 7, 2007
What simple but amazing game. It follows the golden game design rules of easy to learn but hard to master.
The point of the game is too stop creeps that enter from the left/top of the play area from exiting out the opposite side. You do this by placing towers that block the creeps’ path (except flying ones) and also shoot at them. The big catch is that the creeps will always follow the shortest path to the exit. This means they will not simply run directly into your guns unless you are smart with your placement.
An example of the type of maze you can setup is shown below.
Likely simple to code and simple graphics, it is by a company called Hand Drawn Games. Most of the time was likely spent trying to figure out the stats for the enemies the guns. Lots of trial and error.
If you get stuck (the end creeps have a lot of health) you can view mazes other users have created or watch a video of a maze being built. Yes, I did steal his idea for my own maze when I did the screen shot above.
Fantastically addictive game I would recommend it to anyone.
