Defense Grid

I picked this game up on sale for $5 and at that price it's an incredible steal. My friend asked me, after having beat the story mode, but before starting the challenge modes if I would've bought it for $20. My initial response was yes but, having gone through the story challenge (and toying briefly with grind), I would switch my answer to no.

The learning curve on story mode was excellent and it kept me hooked the whole way through. One of the advanced levels was a cake walk right off the bat (it has four different spawn points, one exit, and no flyers) but other than that they were all challenging without becoming frustrating.

Then I jumped into story challenge which at first was pretty punishing. Which I liked. This is essentially a puzzle game, and harder is better in my mind. But having completed the story challenge (and racking up gold medals on most of the maps, silver on all but one) I now have disappointingly little use for the game. I discovered that the ease of the regular story mode allowed you to earn silvers and golds with suboptimal strategies. Which sounds bad, but it also afforded you flexibility and creativity which is good.

On the other hand story challenge kills you for using suboptimal strategies. If you haven't the stomach for elementary statistical analysis, or have only just purchased the game and don't want things spoiled, you should probably skip down a bit or quit reading altogether. Otherwise, I've opened up my steam stats window and my trusty desktop calculator to work out how much damage each of my towers did over the course of my defense:

[Sorry if it's hard to read I had difficulty with the formatting]

TOWER(#lvl1 built, #lvl2 built, #lvl3 built)
lvl1: Damage/Tower Damage/Tower/Total Cost D/T/Upgrade Cost
lvl2: D/T D/T/TC D/T/UC
lvl3: D/T D/T/TC D/T/UC
(ex: a level 3 gun tower's total cost is 700. Its upgrade cost is 400)

GUN (1,429, 344, 243)
lvl1: 766.97 7.67 7.67
lvl2: 1,527.65 5.09 7.64
lvl 3: 19,534.34 27.91 48.84

INFERNO (45, 25, 17)
lvl1: 350.22 2.34 2.34
lvl2: 2,261.36 5.03 7.54
lvl3: 69,580.64 66.27 115.97

LASER (96, 77, 50)
Total laser damage done: 2,960,736
(for whatever reason laser stats are given collectively)

METEOR (146, 100, 80)
lvl1: 1,070.49 4.28 4.28
lvl2: 3,981.12 5.31 7.96
lvl3: 9,6525.36 55.16 96.53

CANNON (114, 60, 40)
lvl1: 1,367.59 6.84 6.84
lvl2: 5,690.55 9.48 14.27
lvl3: 22,944.3 16.39 28.68

CONCUSSION (50, 22, 17)
lvl1: 1,538.8 6.84 6.84
lvl2: 9,011.64 10.92 16.39
lvl3: 32,606.82 16.94 29.64

MISSLE (69, 33, 15)
lvl1: 1,145.54 5.09 5.09
lvl2: 6,804.96 10.08 15.12
lvl3: 9,181.93 5.83 10.20

TESLA (2, 0, 0)
not worth reporting

TEMPORAL (105, 79, 54)
COMMAND (35, 25, 18)


Draw whatever conclusions from the data you wish, I'd be very interested to hear different points of view, but what I conclude is this: GUN TOWERS. A level 3 Gun tower is similar in price to the advanced level 2 towers and offers far superior firepower. Gun towers with a healthy dose of Temporal and Meteor towers in support is the only way to go. A single laser tower is frequently helpful because it prioritizes the Racers and the Rumblers who were often problematic for me. A single missile tower is also generally helpful (and in some cases required). Avoid cannon towers and concussion towers like the plague. This was my impression while playing and the evidence backs it up. You could argue that I don't know how to use these towers but I would see this as a very weak argument. Frankly the mechanics of the game are not complicated.

A minor surprise is the strength of the lvl 3 Inferno tower. I built so few because they're too weak at level one and too limited in their uses (being very short ranged, useless against shielded enemies and useless against single high HP enemies). So as it turns out Inferno towers are the best at killing Walkers and Swarmers but...who cares?

The biggest surprise for me is how ugly the missile tower looks on paper. In practice I thought it was too strong so I have to assume that the flyers have dramatically less health than the land units (and of course they never benefit from Spire's or Decoy's either).

Regarding the Tesla tower, I'm not sure why I never used it. The first two I built when they were unlocked did not impress me I guess and the roll of leak catcher is already so ably performed by the Meteor tower that I never looked back. I would be interested to hear Tesla tower strategies.



So tower imbalances is problem number one. Problem number two is level design. As stated above, the regular story mode afforded the player the flexibility to use whatever strategy he wanted. But the story challenge very much forces your hand, not only in terms of tower selection but in terms of tower placement as well. Some of the maps I found most difficult in my first go around became the easiest maps the second time around despite playing in challenge mode the second time. The last map is a great example here. I struggled to get bronze in regular mode because I couldn't figure out how to maze it so I had to brute force it. The second go around in challenge mode I instantly realized how I was supposed to maze it and I earned a gold medal with a laughable excess of resources. I very nearly got untouchable on it too. I guess long story short I would appreciate level design that allows for more variation in strategy on the players part.


Apologies if I come across harshly. I obviously really enjoyed this game otherwise I wouldn't have put this much effort into providing feedback. I simply thought a post like this one would be more helpful to you than saying "Good job your game rocks".