In the field of stand-alone tower defense games, it has been difficult for many years to have a rookie who can shake the status of the "Big Three".
The so-called "Big Three" actually refers to "Plants vs. Zombies", "Kingdom Defense" and "Balloon Tower Defense". The reason why they have been able to thrive in this area is actually due to the smooth accessibility difficulty, the distinctive gameplay features, and the depth of the game.
For example, the most well-known "Plants vs. Zombies" is famous for its creativity, and the various routines and playing styles in it are still studied by players today, while "Kingdom Defense" is based on the inherent tower defense gameplay and incorporates "reinforcements" and other characteristic mechanics, with generations of continuous polishing, so that players Xi and like its gameplay and art style.
In contrast, although the popularity of "Balloon Tower Defense" in China is not as high as the first two, the reason why it can compete and become a three-thirds of the trend, in addition to the solidity of the core of the gameplay, I think its secret is still in the coolness.
Stick with something
In fact, as a game series born in 2007, "Balloon Tower Defense" has been moving closer to "improving the coolness" for more than ten years. As the developer of this game, Ninja Kiwi is only a small development team based in New Zealand, with only a few dozen employees combined, but it has been working hard in the series for more than ten years.
Perhaps, we have played this series in our childhood, but we didn't know that it was called "Balloon Tower Defense". Because the first generation of the series entered China on the east wind of the Internet at that time, most of our exposure to it was through the web game platform, but no one could have imagined that such a simple monkey balloon game could always be innovative, and it still shows strong vitality to this day.
The original Balloon Tower Defense was built on the Flash platform, and the rules it set have continued to this day
Therefore, although "Balloon Tower Defense" and the other two have no amazing ideas, nor have they invented any new mechanics that are enough to inspire those who come after them, they continue to add bricks to the game base, and finally make the richness of the series increase year by year with the change of the subsequent serial number.
Take "Balloon Tower Defense 6" that we are going to talk about today as an example, from the days since the birth of the game, the official has been persistently creating new maps, adding new heroes, and conceiving new enemies......
Balloon Defense 6 is still the main character on Ninja Kiwi's official website
Ninja Kiwi may not have any magic tricks, but the addition of these contents will undoubtedly bring enough freshness to the game, and the tower defense gameplay of the game itself has been polished and perfected, so it can indeed continue to gain positive flow of play.
So far, "Balloon Tower Defense 6" has achieved excellent reviews on Google, Apple, Steam and other platforms, and countless players have been impressed by its characteristics of "easy to use, difficult to master, many ways to play, and refreshing".
Monkeys, balloons, and new tricks
If you want to explore where the coolness of the "Balloon Tower Defense" series comes from, you have to start with the introduction of the game.
Like many good games, Balloon Tower Defense doesn't have a dogmatic how-to instructions. Even children can understand the logic of "monkeys throw darts and balloons are popped", and all players have to do is spend gold coins to place the monkeys on the side of the road through which the balloons pass.
From the perspective of gameplay, "Balloon Tower Defense" has not made too many innovations, but the tower has been replaced with a monkey and the monster has been replaced with a balloon. However, the official has persevered in innovating on this basis, bringing a variety of heroes, distinctive maps and more interesting modes to players, and now in the sixth generation, the basic content of the game has become quite rich.
At present, there are four types of monkeys in Balloon Tower Defense 6: primary, military, magical, and support, and each type of monkey has three branching growth paths, which allows players to send them to the game according to the time and local conditions in the game, constantly trying new ways to match the lineup, and continue to output enough freshness for players.
Take the military "helicopter pilot" unit as an example, its three growth routes are very distinctive, namely the Cruising Apache helicopter gunship, the Chinook transport helicopter that can airdrop resources, and the Comanche gunship with both control and strike functions.
While it can be resource-intensive to upgrade a unit to a powerful level, no matter which of the three routes you choose, it will be effective enough to help you shoot down a variety of balloons quickly and effectively.
The example I gave is just one of the units of the military type, in fact, the total number of monkey units in "Balloon Tower Defense 6" has reached 23, in addition to 14 monkey heroes with different shapes and abilities, just to familiarize yourself with all their growth paths, it will take players more than ten or twenty hours, not to mention studying coordination and tactics.
In addition to the abundance of freshness, the biggest feature of Balloon Tower Defense 6 is that it is not restrictive.
As the player resists for a long time, a variety of large airships painted in invisible camouflage and equipped with rocket thrusters will be accompanied by various balloons, and the player's monkeys will grow enough to pour fire on the battlefield.
At this point, you'll find that from the moment the balloons appear from the screen frame, the entire game will be filled with rampage balloons, exploding fires, and scattered missiles...... But, it's just cool.
In fact, longer cycle feedback and relatively lower decision-making frequency are the characteristics of this type of tower defense genre, and Balloon Tower Defense 6 requires players to be prepared before the enemy strikes, and when those tricky balloons are shot down by the players one by one, the joy of strategizing emerges, and the player can stay in a positive flow for a long time.
Take on new challenges
The rich game content and very cool battle scenes make Balloon Tower Defense 6 easy to play and easy to play, but the reason why it can be loved by players is far more than that. In fact, in order to keep the game alive, the game also features tons of mission levels, maps with unique mechanics, and most importantly, online features.
Each of these three points is very good.
For example, in the quest level, there are many hero-specific missions, such as unlocking the "Lord of the Beast" requires the player to complete three levels, that is, domesticating dinosaurs, piranhas, and falcons to fight enemies. This kind of customized level not only presents the fun that is different from the normal level, but also allows the player to understand the hero's combat style in this way, without having to try a little bit in the normal level.
As for the maps with mechanics, they are an important part of the glory of Balloon Tower Defense 6.
The game divides the map into four categories according to difficulty: novice, intermediate, advanced, and expert, but this division of difficulty is not to weaken the player's strength or brainless enemy blood and quantity, in fact, almost every map in the game has unique mechanics and gameplay, and the higher the difficulty, the more unfavorable factors, which can be said to bring challenges to players from the creative level.
One of the things that stood out to me the most was the mid-level map "Garden of Tranquility", which has three moving skylights, and the player can't command or place units in areas blocked by the skylights, which makes me often have to plan ahead.
On the other hand, on the Expert difficulty map "Vault", there are very few stone piers for the player to place, and they will move around in the event of a war, which makes it difficult to prevent balloons moving along multiple vines.
While entertaining quests, levels, and fun map designs with mechanics make Balloon Defense 6 extra fun, the addition of online opens the door to a new world. In fact, it's the only game in the Big Three that supports up to four players, which is undoubtedly a favorite feature for social gamers like me.
Therefore, on the whole, "Balloon Tower Defense 6" not only continues the core tower defense strategy elements of the series, but also brings players more long-term happiness with the support of various exquisite designs and online functions. Now, this well-known game will also be available on mobile phones, allowing players to take out their mobile phones to play a game anytime and anywhere, and they can also play "Balloon Hunting" in fragmented time.
What's even more commendable is that the game officially said that the basic content of the game will be the same as the international version, not only will there be no gameplay magic content, but also provide more stable servers, more favorable ontology prices, more complete localization translations, and more convenient optimization feedback channels.
In addition to these, the official will also bring exclusive benefits to players of the national server mobile game from time to time, such as the exclusive skin "Flying General Quincy" in the national server after downloading the game and passing the novice guidance, and then there will be more linkage customization benefits and community attention benefits to players!
So, if you want to play tower defense games in your spare time, or shoot down balloons online with friends, then Balloon Tower Defense 6 is a pretty good choice in the near future.