Comments on: Because you were getting too much done before.

Because you were getting too much done before.

BuddhaInABucket — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:45:17 -0800

From the Makers of Desktop TD and Flash Circle TD, comes the all new, all-addictive Vector Tower Defense! Goodbye productivity.

By: freebird

freebird — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:52:10 -0800

Besides the graphics, what makes this different from the countless other tower defense games?

By: furiousthought

furiousthought — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:55:43 -0800

Luckily for my productivity you have to sit through an ETERNAL seeming Orbit ad before you get to the video crack on this one.

By: hurkle

hurkle — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:59:10 -0800

@freebird: What makes it different are the countless subtle touches which one wouldn't notice unless one has spent entirely too much time playing countless other tower defense games.

By: Samuel Farrow

Samuel Farrow — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:01:04 -0800

I like everything here but the use of @username...

By: davejay

davejay — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:03:01 -0800

What Orbit ad? mind you, I opened it in a background tab, and probably won't go over to it for a few minutes.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:08:04 -0800

It's really easy until it gets really hard. For me, that was when the dudes started having ~200,000 hit points.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:08:43 -0800

Man, I'm loving this.

By: motty

motty — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:11:56 -0800

Oh no. Thanks.

By: Imperfect

Imperfect — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:16:09 -0800

...not a big fan. The 2-minute Steve-O Orbit ad at blaring volume did NOT set a good tone to start. The music was fun, and I normally like things with Tron-meets-techno feel to them, but this all felt so... arbitrary. Red towers do less damage to green, but they act differently than green do - why not give them names to spice things up? Spike towers, shock towers, whatever. Didn't play past round two. (Although - I was REALLY jazzed when the game added extra layers to the music during waves. That was cool.)

By: Benjy

Benjy — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:18:05 -0800

Ad-less and fullscreen.

By: infinitywaltz

infinitywaltz — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:25:01 -0800

Flash Circle TD is inspired by Warcraft, but Xeno Tactic applies a much needed dose of Starcraft-inspired science fiction to the genre.

By: demiurge

demiurge — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:33:50 -0800

Your link is old, Benjy, there's a new version that's at /games/vectortd2/vectortd.swf That's what the web page points to now, anyway. This is my favorite flash tower defense game yet.

By: the dief

the dief — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:35:46 -0800

Yup, I've played a bunch of TD games and I think this is the best one I've seen. I like that some towers do greater damage to some enemies based on color -- that puts on a welcome new twist.

By: Tlogmer

Tlogmer — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:46:06 -0800

applies a much needed dose of Starcraft-inspired science fiction The whole tower defense genre is actually based on a starcraft mod.

By: 517

517 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:53:25 -0800

I must not be in the target market for the orbit ads becuase I always hate them.

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:56:30 -0800

I hate you BuddhaInaBucket. Seriously, man, wtf? (favorited)

By: DU

DU — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:59:12 -0800

Too easy. Maybe I spent too much time on one of the other TD games, but I haven't lost on this one a single time.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:05:10 -0800

Why is DTD the only tower defense game that gets that the open design is better? I hate these pre-defined corrals that I have to design around. Being able to create the passage for the baddies to thread between is ~~half~~ ~~three-quarters~~ ninety-seven percent of the strategy.

By: majick

majick — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:11:13 -0800

Well, I made it all the way to level 39 of 40, was heavily invested in purple and cheap blue, and got slaughtered by the monstrous blue flowers. I suck at TD, but honestly getting that far wasn't hard. I'm very surprised I did as well as I did.

By: threetoed

threetoed — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:22:55 -0800

I'm horrible at this. I made it to level 43, but my red rocket heavy defenses quickly fell to what seemed like the only wave of green I had seen in ten levels.

By: Keith Talent

Keith Talent — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:35:15 -0800

Am I the only one that thinks this game is too slow. It won't let me unleash more waves while I wait for others to go through the maze.

By: yeoz

yeoz — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:37:07 -0800

Interest is accrued at the start of each wave, so, you should finish off the wave first, if you want to maximize interest...

By: yeoz

yeoz — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:38:21 -0800

In fact, for that reason, you shouldn't build stuff between waves, but, build during waves, just to make a little more interest.

By: Keith Talent

Keith Talent — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:39:08 -0800

You work in banking, right?

By: pokermonk

pokermonk — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:47:09 -0800

to create the passage for the baddies to thread between is ninety-seven percent of the strategy yes. open field td games are much more active. they have a long-term demand for creative problem-solving and a short-term demand for focussed execution. what i found particularly excellent about desktop td was the ability (indeed, necessity) to force feed your maze, which added a whole new level in that you needed to put your maze under as much stress as possible without crossing the threshold... you had to judge your own ability to design, and how well you judged directly influenced your final score. vector td, on the other hand, is like playing world of warcraft. actually, it's like playing world of warcraft after watching a half hour add for orbit gum.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:07:48 -0800

The whole tower defense genre is actually based on freakin' Space Invaders.

By: wah

wah — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:13:16 -0800

hmmm, commerical sucked, hit the wrong button, was supposed to watch commercial again, closed window. I'll stick with the classics.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:16:51 -0800

Way too easy if all you do is increase your interest rate whenever possible, and don't overbuild. There's a point when you have way more money than you know what to do with.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:38:54 -0800

Funny, I just played played the original Flash Element TD and - my current favourite - Onslaught tonight, and I must agree this one is very easy. Fun, though.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:48:53 -0800

Hm, the "So the Switch" map is a lot more interesting.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:52:24 -0800

Huh - looks to me much *any* map is much more challenging than the default one.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:04:56 -0800

~~"So the Switch"~~ "Do the Splits"

By: verb

verb — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:47:45 -0800

the first twenty or thirty levels are cake. Once you hit 40 or so, it really depends on having a number of heavy-hitting multi-target clusters in locations that can cover the same wave from two or three directions...

By: Imperfect

Imperfect — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:53:19 -0800

Holy crap Xeno Tactic is basically an exact copy of Desktop TD. Which came first, I wonder?

By: infinitywaltz

infinitywaltz — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:13:52 -0800

Desktop TD came first. Xeno Tactic is pretty, though, isn't it?

By: jonson

jonson — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:22:07 -0800

This was pretty easy to beat, honestly.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:10:52 -0800

zsazsa has it. Get by with as little as you can as long as you can to crank up your score. If you can take the hit, it's better to let the guys go by instead of upgrading early. You get docked some points for losing life, but you make it back in points gained for not spending money. Towards the end, I find myself going for all red-3 and unupgraded blue-1. Purple is either totally irrelevant or I just don't know how to use them properly.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:25:06 -0800

You know, I adore Desktop Tower Defence and regard it as the best of the genre, but for those who don't know, Tower Defence is based on a map from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The idea of building your own map out of towers is completely novel and innovative, and it's going to be awhile before people pick up on it, since in the source material that they're emulating, no such thing exists.

By: imperium

imperium — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:54:14 -0800

This is excellent. Waaay better than the one with the AOL icons etc in it that came out recently. Let's hope they update it, and someone nicks it and puts it somewhere with no ads.

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:15:14 -0800

Anyone else completely unable to get it to allow upgrades to range / damage? I click, it does nothing.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:10:11 -0800

You've gotta crank the purple 3 up to 10...

By: asok

asok — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:11:09 -0800

You can see the Metafilter group scores on Desktop TD by clicking the Group Scores tab and typing in Metafilter.

By: Optamystic

Optamystic — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:15:28 -0800

This is good.

By: notsnot

notsnot — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:06:39 -0800

caution live frogs, you have to actually place teh upgrades on an open spot.

By: parallax7d

parallax7d — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:28:54 -0800

Hurrah, I just beat the first medium map without using any points on interest!

By: booksherpa

booksherpa — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:05:17 -0800

The ad-less fullscreen version mentioned earlier has changed links again. It appears to be an improvement update as opposed to a "those damn ad-avoiders!" update. The upgrade and sale money amounts are now actually readable against their backgrounds. BTW, the 3rd level of red towers with some 1st level blues will power through most stuff. Start with a Red 1, add a Green 1 with the first green wave, and add a Blue 1 before the first wave of yellows. Delay as long as possible before upgrading your first Red 3, as well as adding additional ones.

By: parallax7d

parallax7d — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 20:46:42 -0800

Has anyone beaten any of the hard maps without using interest? I've beaten the others but am finding the last 3 impossible.

By: booksherpa

booksherpa — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 21:02:50 -0800

Without interest? I haven't even tried the beginner ones without interest. Color me impressed. Do you use the bonus points on the other options?

By: parallax7d

parallax7d — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:59:07 -0800

Yeah, It's a lot more fun without using interest at all. I've been going with the attack powerups more than anything.

By: parallax7d

parallax7d — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:38:49 -0800

New Version

By: odi.et.amo

odi.et.amo — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:25:53 -0800

Any idea what is new in this apparent version 4, parallax?

By: odi.et.amo

odi.et.amo — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:13:19 -0800

I just tried playing without interest last night... My final score was extremely high, compared to what I usually get. Also, the damage bonuses more than made up for the lack of free money. It was fun to see how far I could go before making a red rocket!