Immortal Defense puts you in the role of a man whose soul has been separated from his body and cast into higher dimensional space. There, you shoot things on a line, then achieve enlightenment.
It breaks down like this: there's the timespace we all live in, then there's hyperspace, that side-ways highway where you can break relativity's speed limit and not get pulled over, and THEN there's pathspace. So its kinda tight; instead of just throwing you at some generic, tower defense scenario of defending against inexplicable monsters who just gotta follow that dirt road, you're given a perfectly believable justification for this RTS sub-genre, and its kinda a trip. Follow through with crazy procedural effects, towers that are actually representations of your personality (Fear slows, Pride grows in power for every kill, Courage shots keep going in a straight line) and a storyline that makes you question immortality, interventionist foreign policy, and the meaning of justice, and you've got yourself one tasty trip.
As a game, ID is balanced as hell, and keeps variation going through 100 levels. It's meaty, and it's all white-meat chicken breast at that--except it's seasoned, it doesn't taste like the Flash tower defense chicken you can get for free. It tastes like... enlightenment chicken. New enemies, new paths (some of which require a total change to the defensive patterns you're used to), new points (what this game calls "towers") and the relentless tug of the story get you going. It's addictive, and when you finish it, haunting.
Frankly, the making of Immortal Defense could mark the "topping-out" of the tower defense genre, taking everything compelling about its gameplay and commenting on it at a basic level. "Then again, I run a shooting gallery."
Ah, but thats not the son of a bitch.
Because it also comments on the relentless human drive to do something, anything, whether it be good or bad, just to feel like we've made a difference.
"I love you, Grandpa."
I think this was maybe the second game where a specific piece of text haunted me late, after completion. "What can change the nature of a man?" was the first - if you know what game that's from, you'll like Immortal Defense. If not... well shit man, whats your problem? It's Planescape: Torment. Now you know, go play ID, you'll like it.
One of my favorite indie games of 2007
I was astonished that it didn't wind up as an IGF finalist.
Belief!
...okay, I guess I have to give this a try.
(Hm. The acronym is ID, huh?)
D:
Thanks for the review! I still feel bad about being so late in making its level editor. I even finished my next game's level editor before ID's :(
And thanks Costik! That
And thanks Costik! That means a lot to me. Not only was it not an IGF finalist, but it was one of only two or three games out of the 170 entrants to get no feedback at all. :(
wow, I absolutely loved the
wow, I absolutely loved the demo. Is it not possible to kill the second brother?
Im not sure id pay 22$ for the rest of it, although it is tempting.
I didn't think I could ever "get into" a tower defense game in such a way.
Yeah, that grame is amazing,
Yeah, that grame is amazing, I was able to grab it for free form GGOTD some time ago and this was possibly the best thing they ever gave out (it's mostly match 3 games with them to be honest). I have to agree with the review that the story gets positively freaky and it's sort of tragic in a sense. I mean, you (as a player sooner than as the protagonist) at one point realise what exactly you're doing but on the other hand you see what lead you into doing it and in the end there is but one choice for you...
As for the question above, far as I heard you're not supposed to be able to kill the second brother though some skilled gamers reputedly did manage to do it, it doesn't change anything in the following plot though.
Wasn't this made with Game Maker
I remember seeing this on the old game maker community, then almost a year later I see this here. I think this really shows that it isn't the program you use but the person using it. Keep up the good work and I expect more great releases from you.
Took me a while to warm to
Took me a while to warm to this game. It just seems way too easy when you start, and I didn't feel it was giving me enough feedback as to whether my tactics were any good or not, because I never died, and it's a little difficult to tell exactly what's happening on screen at times. Cranking the difficulty up to 100% and the screen effects down to 0% helped a lot, as did the realisation that I was carrying my money over from one level to the next, encouraging me to spend as little as possible (I've played a few TD games and this is the first time I've come across this mechanic!)
Apparently I'm the only one that hates it
Because yes, I hate it. It's confusing, and incredibly stressful, because of the varying speed of the enemies. The graphic style is interesting, but still, I couldn't play more than two and a half mission.