Game Review: Hex Tower Defence

Hex Tower defence is available on several websites, including the programmers main site hextd.sourceforge.net

Unlike many other tower defence and browser games, Hex Tower Defence is written using Java instead of Flash. While Java might be more processor intensive for some things, including graphics, it has many features that enable it to provide better game play and more possible game modes.

In the game there are four classes of tower. Each class, green, red, yellow, and blue, is available in three levels. The green towers are chain hit towers, the red are missile towers, the yellow are high power, and the blue are slowing towers. Each tower can also be upgraded ten times to improve the range and damage of the tower. One of the great features of this game is the way in which upgrades are calculated. Each upgrade costs half the value of a new tower, and increases the damage of the tower by 45%.

However, unlike some games where upgrading towers doesn't make sense because building another tower is cheaper for the amount of more damage can be done, it is actually better in this game to have fewer towers that are upgraded. The 45% increase is compounded, meaning that if you perform two upgrades on the base tower, each one costing half the purchase price, the actual increase in damage ability is 2.1 times greater for only 2x the price. And as the tower keeps getting upgrade the benefit increases. For example, upgrading a tower five times cost 2.5x the initial purchase price, but provides 6.41x the initial damage.

Also, in the game there are tower modifiers that can be built to increase damage, range, and speed of the towers in a certain radius. They each cost one bonus point that you get every seven levels. However, for every bonus point you don't spend, you gain 3% more in interest on your cash per level. This means if you can get away with not building any bonus towers, don't, because it will help you in the long term.

The game also includes a map editor that allows you to build your own levels and maps for the game and play them, as well as quite a few different maps to keep you busy for hours.

Overall the game is extremely simple to learn and play, but requires a lot of strategy to really get to the higher levels.