next »

[st33d]

I'm working on a strange kind of RTS/Tower Defence game at work. That's about all I'm allowed to say on it at the moment.

The only RTS I've played though is WarCraft 3 and I've shyed away from tower defence completely.

The project I'm finding very challenging and interesting but I need some more experience playing some free or cheap indie games from these genres so I'm better prepared when it comes to the level building stage and can design the game better from the ground up.

Can anyone forward me some recommendations please?

[Sorano]

If you are investigating the current RTS space I would recommend finding some info on a few MOBA's (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) currently released or in production. League Of Legends, Heroes Of Newerth. Bloodline Champions is currently in Open Beta I believe.

League Of Legends as been making waves in that regards and is technically free to play. It's not a pure RTS per say, but it takes it rooks in them and develops interesting mechanics and gameplay. Plus it as terrific metagame that I quite enjoy.

Sorry for the bias, I'm just enjoying the heck out of it.

[sodap]

if you have warcraft 3 there are a lot of great TD maps to try. Just google for it and you get some answers to good td maps for warcraft 3, then download them and host in battlenet

as for rts, you should probably try age of empires series, command and conquer series, starcraft, warcraft series, company of heroes, praetorians

[Derakon]

I haven't played them myself, but apparently Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander do everything right that Starcraft et al do wrong (i.e. be more about the strategy than the tactics, not rely on having massive clickrates to be effective, allow arbitrary squad sizes, allow arbitrary levels of zoom, etc).

[biomechanic]

Some good TDs:
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/
http://www.ninjakiwi.com/Games/Tower-Defense/Play/Bloons-Tower-Defense-4.html
http://armorgames.com/play/1716/gemcraft
http://www.notdoppler.com/cursedtreasure-donttouchmygems.php

Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Tiberian Sun (free):
http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic

[Gorgoo]

For a more nontraditional tower defense (mainly because of how the enemy path system works), there's Plants vs. Zombies, but it's not free.

There's also Paul Eres's Immortal Defense, which also isn't free, but has a long enough demo that you could get to understand the design behind it.

[The_Flying_Dove]

Guys, I really appreciate the links. For I, too, am interested in understanding tower defense games and strategy games better. Before I am finished with college, my goal is to have experienced every single genre out there at least once.

[st33d]

Played through StarCraft 2 and started playing Plants vs Zombies.

Both are pretty good. What next?

[Core Xii]

Revenge of the Titans? It's pretty much both RTS and tower defense. Granted, it's still under development.

[J. R. Hill]

MARS TD PLUS

 

[Kinten]

You can always try out harvest
(oxeyegames.com)

If you have steam I might have an extra key lying around.

[RCIX]

AI War

An RTS+TD+4X+grand strategy... experience.