Fun shooting mentally ill people in straightjackets

June 5, 2009 5:00 AM

Madness Combat Defense, an evolution of the tower defense game.
posted by XMLicious (42 comments total)

Non-full-screen link
posted by XMLicious at 5:00 AM on June 5, 2009

are you being attacked by a Ska band?
posted by From Bklyn at 5:25 AM on June 5, 2009 [5 favorites]

An evolution of the tower defense genre?

As a tower defense connoisseur I have to ask you to please explain how because it seems like the whole ordeal has no unique gameplay, no productions value and nothing different from a typical tower defense other than the target is the mentally ill.
posted by Talez at 5:36 AM on June 5, 2009 [6 favorites]

Yeah, I'm finding myself confused as to why this has been posted to MeFi. A few minutes of play revealed nothing different from every other tower defense game in history, other than terrible graphics and an annoying 15 second or so music loop.
posted by tocts at 5:41 AM on June 5, 2009

Yeah, I thought that having a non-fixed map was a novelty, but looking back through the entries under the towerdefense tag it's not. Sorry 'bout that. Though it does seem pretty well-balanced to me, though... I've played it a fair bit and haven't figured out yet how to get up anywhere near the 27-million-point scores that fill up the top records. There seem to be a number of different plateaux.
posted by XMLicious at 5:42 AM on June 5, 2009

It's like Desktop Tower Defense, only shitty.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:43 AM on June 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

damn you, now it's 6 AM, i lost a couple hours in there
posted by mafted jacksie at 5:49 AM on June 5, 2009

Fieldrunners for iPhone is an absolutely terrific tower defense game that looks astounding. One of my favourites simply because of the "play on the go" aspect and high production values.

Pixeljunk Monsters and Savage Moon for PS3 are also insane. Pixeljunk Monsters is a beautiful 1080p 2D experience while Savage Moon is just a great TD game.

Plants vs Zombies is one of the latest on PC and Mac. Kind of irregular (5 rows with no changes) but the sheer unit variety and selection is bloody awesome. The sprite design is incredibly clean and the animation is smooth and top notch.

Defense Grid is the gold standard of PC tower defense games right now and can be picked up for 20 bucks on Steam. Just buy it.

Crystal Defenders is garbage on the iPhone. After that experience I don't want to touch it with a 40 foot barge pole but the XBLA/PSN ports might be OK.

geoDefense has been out for a little while on the iPhone and is an interesting take because of pewpewpew lasers and Geometry Wars style graphics (hence the name).

So there are some rather excellent TD games. Don't waste your time on this piece of shit.
posted by Talez at 5:52 AM on June 5, 2009 [4 favorites]

Jesus, it wasn't that bad. It's a silly little computer game, I missed that the figures I was supposed to kill were the mentally ill, though. And it would have been better with a Madness soundtrack.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:15 AM on June 5, 2009

Plants vs Zombies is one of the latest on PC and Mac. Kind of irregular (5 rows with no changes)

That's not actually true. There's three layouts- front yard, back yard, and roof, and both day and night versions of both yards. All five play differently.

It's really a great game, and available cheaply here. If you use the "40phone" coupon code, you get 40% off, which means the game is $4.19- which is practically disposable.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:31 AM on June 5, 2009 [4 favorites]

By no changes I mean the mobs don't change rows once they start barreling down the row they start on.

But yes, Pope Guilty is correct with the layouts and yes, they do play completely differently.
posted by Talez at 6:32 AM on June 5, 2009

I'm glad you made this post, because it lets me mention Plants v. Zombies, which is excellent.

However, the game at this link is awful.
posted by Malor at 6:42 AM on June 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Another vote for Plants vs Zombies. In addition to the game itself with its three layouts and day and night versions, there's also mini-game, puzzle, and survival mode, each with twenty unique levels!

It's been the top game at Steam since it was released a month or so ago. It's charm is undeniable.
posted by WolfDaddy at 6:58 AM on June 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yeah, in PvZ, you start by playing through adventure mode- there's a few minigames and puzzles unlocked as you go, but you have to beat adventure mode (which anyone should be able to do) in order to unlock most of the puzzle and minigame modes, along with the harder version of adventure mode. The amount of content in the game is just staggering.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:01 AM on June 5, 2009

PvZfilter

I have beaten adventure mode twice, gotten the gold trophy, bought everything, and grown the tree to 100 ft. I wish there was more. So, so much more.
posted by TypographicalError at 7:11 AM on June 5, 2009

Defense grid was OK. After playing games like Forged Alliance I thought I would love the opportunity to setup defenses and watch them go to town, but I guess what I really like is bunkers. We need a new genre.
posted by adamdschneider at 7:16 AM on June 5, 2009

For the iPhone i liked Seven Cities.
posted by spicynuts at 7:39 AM on June 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Seven cities has better gameplay than fieldrunners. Unfortunately, it's not as fun playing the levels over and over again once you've beaten them.
posted by phaedon at 8:04 AM on June 5, 2009

This one seemed wildly unbalanced, just the little bit that I played. It keeps everyone roughly the same speed, and the HP goes 5, 6, 18, 16, 24… All for one coin each, which means that you're making enough for one extra gun per round… Just seems poorly made.
posted by klangklangston at 8:29 AM on June 5, 2009

I wish there was more. So, so much more.

There are more tree unlockables at 500 ft and then 1000ft. But by that point it's basically RPG grinding.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:37 AM on June 5, 2009

I beat Gemcraft Chapter I yesterday and am now done with the genre forever.
posted by The White Hat at 8:38 AM on June 5, 2009

Yeah, I'm still working on Gemcraft Chapter 0
posted by geekyguy at 9:52 AM on June 5, 2009

Beat it on the first try, and I'm really not that bright. Wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have me.
posted by bicyclefish at 10:53 AM on June 5, 2009

Tower defense games overview by the non-tract Chick guy.
posted by Evilspork at 11:08 AM on June 5, 2009

It's kind of lacking something. Or maybe many things. Polish would be one of them.
posted by Artw at 11:13 AM on June 5, 2009

Evilspork - I can't be expected to just twiddle my thumbs while the game plays itself.

But that's what i like about Tower Defence games!
posted by Artw at 11:15 AM on June 5, 2009

I'd love to read a Tower defense games overview by Jack Chick...
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 11:49 AM on June 5, 2009

I'd love to play a Jack Chick themed Tower Defence game. Look out here come the Doom Cookies!
posted by Artw at 11:57 AM on June 5, 2009

Talez, I'm little late to the game but I have to recommend also Creeps for the iPhone. The graphics are superb, the sounds are great, and the game is fun fun fun. The concept is that you are a boy hiding in bed from monsters in the night; your weapons are pewpew lasers, ninja stars made from folded paper, flashlights, bottles of elmer's glue, etc.

It's really, really great and fun.
posted by barnacles at 2:18 PM on June 5, 2009

This one seemed wildly unbalanced, just the little bit that I played. It keeps everyone roughly the same speed, and the HP goes 5, 6, 18, 16, 24… All for one coin each, which means that you're making enough for one extra gun per round… Just seems poorly made.

The cheap guns are easy to get because you have to build the maze, without a set map.
posted by XMLicious at 2:22 PM on June 5, 2009

About eight or nine years ago a guy who went by the name Krinkels started making flash animation. In 2002 he made a popular flash called Madness Combat, which included a lot of violence, Jesus, zombies, and bad music. This became popular, and he continued to make many animations with the same storyline, the same style, and with the same theme. Madness Interactive is a continuation of the storyline and is a flash game. Madness Combat 3 "Avenger" is a flash movie and a continuation.
There have been a bajillion clones since then and this is one of them.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:53 PM on June 5, 2009

Oh, cripes, I just so totally blew this post; at least I could've hunted interesting stuff like that down. Thanks P.o.B., it's awesome to see all of that.
posted by XMLicious at 3:21 PM on June 5, 2009

"The cheap guns are easy to get because you have to build the maze, without a set map."

Yeah, yeah, I get that. And it could just be my old-ass computer here, but while I can beat something like Desktop TD (which also has no fixed map), I was getting killed almost immediately on this—either my guns were firing too slowly, or it's unbalanced as a game.
posted by klangklangston at 4:25 PM on June 5, 2009

Plants vs Zombies is the final word on tower defense.
posted by empath at 4:43 PM on June 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

meh.
It's not a bad TD game. Like, i still played it for about 20 minutes. But i've seen better.

(PvZ, like everyone else is saying, is the bee's knees.)
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 4:59 PM on June 5, 2009

Talez, I'm little late to the game but I have to recommend also Creeps for the iPhone. The graphics are superb, the sounds are great, and the game is fun fun fun. The concept is that you are a boy hiding in bed from monsters in the night; your weapons are pewpew lasers, ninja stars made from folded paper, flashlights, bottles of elmer's glue, etc.

It's really, really great and fun.

It's also on sale for 99c as I pleasantly discovered when I went to go take a looksee.

I've bought it and it looks like fun.
posted by Talez at 5:54 PM on June 5, 2009

I would actually put this in the bad category for Tower Defense games. It's severly unbalanced.

I just played Plants vs Zombies demo for an hour, and although it is a ton o' fun, it is most definitely not the final word on Tower Defense. It likes like there is more to it than traditional TD type game so it definitely gets the thumbs up.
posted by P.o.B. at 6:11 PM on June 5, 2009

I guess I must have the opposite idea of what "balance" would refer to in a game, at least a TD game; when I was describing this game as balanced I meant that there's a very precise combination of multiple tactics and other factors that are necessary to win. It appeared to me while playing it that you can't simply use the same tactic over and over again to win; each combination of tower types and routing patterns has a different "sweet spot" that enemies being stronger or weaker, or more tightly clumped or less tightly clumped, can disrupt.

In my (possibly only personal) concept of game balance, the more balanced a game is the more finesse is required to make headway, and so a more balanced game will be more difficult to win.

I recognize that this one isn't exceptional like the others mentioned here (thanks for all those btw) but I have a pretty hard time imagining that this is really a bad TD game because I have played some really really bad ones. Though I suppose maybe it's relative because the ones I consider really bad are the ones I can win the first time without at any point being challenged. (Which is what I would think of as unbalanced; the parameters of the game haven't been tuned to each other and so you can win by simply maxing something out.)

It might also be that I'm a software developer; merely the fact that this one is obviously fps-throttled (per the counter in the upper left hand corner) says to me either that more time was put into it or it was developed by a more experienced programmer than most of the TD games I've come across. (Unless Flash provides some subsystem that does all of that automatically but my impression from reading up on that sort of thing seems to indicate it's not that easy.)
posted by XMLicious at 8:28 PM on June 5, 2009

@ Talez
Thanks for the list; here's a few not mentioned:
Immortal Defense
Garden Defense
Xeno Tactic
Gemcraft Zero is teh ultimate.
posted by hypersloth at 1:35 AM on June 6, 2009

Whenever I see at @ sign, I pronounce it like the aliens in Burton's Mars Attacks
So from now on, anyone using that, I hope you are happy to be reduced to language averse, funny sounding, little green men.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:30 AM on June 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I haven't played many tower defense games (I think it's my third), but I would call this unbalanced simply because I discovered that, though it was really tough to get through the first several rounds, if I was able to build a path to the exit, I could then easily control the game from then on. If you build a path to the end; direct it away and then back, you can sell a tower to open the path after the attackers have passed it, block off the new path, and juggle them between those two points indefinitely. I don't know if this is common to tower defense games, but it did make things a bit boring once I built the initial maze.
posted by team lowkey at 3:35 AM on June 7, 2009

Basically it's not a game of tower defense (the patients are not causing any harm to your installations), it's more like goalkeeping or slaughterhouse design if you want to.

I liked the game, reminds me a little of the fun I had playing fire power or star goose which are in the genre of tower attack games. This game is the other side of the story.

Artwork might need some polishing and QA is lacking. For example the score suffers from a buffer overflow somewhere near 26 billion points.
posted by mbn at 3:54 AM on June 7, 2009