
I was first introduced to the world of tower defense games a couple of years back with the venerable Desktop Tower Defense. I do have to admit that I wondered if the whole idea of the game, placing various types of gun turrets to try and annihilate a group of small creatures/people before they can escape from you, might indicate some deep homicidal impulse on my part. But when I realized that the creatures where aptly named “creeps,” my worries dissipated.
When the iPhone came along it was immediately apparent to me that this was the perfect platform for tower defense games, with the touch screen an excellent way to place my maze of death. Sure enough the genre has sprouted no fewer than 49 different iPhone games for those who share my intense desire to keep creeps from crossing the screen. I’m not going to tell you which are my favorite, that will come later, but I am going to try and give you a complete snapshot of what’s available in the App store today. Because, let’s face it, if you don’t have at least half a dozen of these installed you’re not really exercising your homicidal instincts to their full potential.
geoDefense
Price: $1.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 4.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Futuristic Tron-like graphics, high-speed gameplay and path oriented maps.
geoDefense Swarm
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 4.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Same purposefully (I hope) unsophisticated, futuristic graphics as the standard geoDefense, but with an open field approach to maps.
TowerMadness: 3D Tower Defense
Price: $2.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: This games gives you a reason for your killing, to protect your sheep from aliens. Also you get a 3-D interface, although the graphics leave something to be desired.
Fieldrunners
Price: $2.99
Current Rating: 4.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Fieldrunners offers a relatively vanilla tower defense experience, but is distinguished by its extremely smooth interface and high quality graphics.
Star Defense
Price: 99 cents (free “prelude” version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: This space-based tower defense game has you playing on small worlds that you can rotate and zoom into. The graphics are definitely the key feature here.
Dungeon Defense
Price: 99 cents (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: In this version of tower defense you play the bad guys, in the form of skeletons, and you kill the heroes. I kind of like that idea. There does seem to be a limited amount of gameplay, however, with only three skeleton types to place.
Sentinel: Mars Defense
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: You place towers to defend Mars from aliens. There seem to be a good selection of tower types and the graphics look impressive.
Sentinel 2: Earth Defense
Price: $2.99
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: The same idea as its predecessor Mars Defense, only this time the alien buggers are invading earth. Impressive graphics are once again the highlight of this tower defense game.
Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense
Price: $1.99
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: Tower defense on the water, you place your navy to defend against an invader. Graphics are not overly impressive and the interface can get a bit cluttered, but gameplay seems to be deep.
The Creeps!
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: This time the creeps aren’t just trying to innocently cross the screen, they’re trying to get under your bed! This take on the tower defense genre offers cute graphics and some interesting features like destroyable terrain.
TapDefense
Price: Free
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: Solid graphics and gameplay seem to be marred by some user complaints about advertisements. Still, it’s hard to argue with free.
7 Cities
Price: $2.99
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: Coastal tower defense, you build towers next to waterways to destroy invading ships. Towers can gain experience to get more powerful. The graphics are impressive and you can even build your own maps.
Battle Field – Nuclear Bomb
Price: $2.99 (free version also available)
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: A wide selection of towers, with 10 different types. There’s also a leveling system and, of course, nuclear bombs.
TowerDefense
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: Not available
Distinguishing Features: Cartoonish graphics look decent but the description is strangely short and there aren’t enough ratings to merit a score. I kind of feel bad for the developer.
A Bugs Defense
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 2 stars
Distinguishing Features: The premise is pretty simple, bugs are invading the house and you stop them with various insecticides. The graphics are cute and cartoonish. Unfortunately there seem to be some game-play “bugs” that bother reviewers.
SG Tower Defence
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 2 stars
Distinguishing Features: Graphics are… unimpressive. There’s a strange wooden background to everything and the towers and creeps look like something out of 1985, and not in a good retro way.
Besiegement
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Interesting mix of graphics for a fairly vanilla tower defense game. The point of view is different from most, and you do have a good selection of tower types.
Port Defender – 2D Tower Defense
Price: $1.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 2.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Not a lot special here, the graphics aren’t anything to swoon over and the selection of maps and towers are pretty standard.
Warp Defense
Price: Free
Current Rating: 2.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: I was a bit curious to see how the “warp” in the title would be implemented in the game, but it turns out it’s just a path-based tower defense game with laser-showesque graphics.
Dragon Slaughter Episode I
Price: $2.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Fantasy oriented game with excellent graphics. Interesting tower purchasing system requires you to combine orb types, with various strength and weaknesses.
Ninja TD
Price: $2.99
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: OK, there are Ninjas, what else do you want? Well, there also seem to be some beautiful graphics here, along with magic based ninja powers. Unfortunately your enemies are not pirates.
Moonlight Minions
Price: $1.99
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: Impressive graphics, with an underground path-oriented theme. Your “towers” are various fungal compositions, I’ll let you make what you will of that.
Garden War
Price: 99 cents (free version also available)
Current Rating: 4 stars
Distinguishing Features: A pest oriented tower defense game, in this one you defend your garden from various creepy buggers. Maps appear to be path-oriented and graphics are very good.
TriDefense
Price: $3.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: This version of tower defense offers decent graphics and some interesting features for example creeps can appear from anywhere on the screen and you can modify the terrain.
Bloons Tower Defense
Price: $2.99
Current Rating: 4.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: In this path-based tower defense game you want to pop the escaping balloons, but you get to use dart-throwing monkeys to do it, sounds good to me.
Booom Brigade
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: An interesting mix of shooter and tower game. You get three types of troops to fire at the incoming creeps, but they don’t do it automatically, instead you have to draw their attacks onto the screen. Reviewers indicate it’s a hard proposition.
Defender Chronicles – Legend of The Desert King
Price: $3.99
Current Rating: 4.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Fantasy oriented path-based tower defense game with a leveling system for your general that gives you bonuses for troop types.
Zombie Attack!
Price: $2.99 (free version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: There are zombies, you need to kill them…pretty self-explanatory really. The best part is the hand drawn (as in pencil on lined paper) tower picker.
Tribal Trouble Tower Defense
Price: $2.99
Current Rating: 2 stars
Distinguishing Features: Decent graphics and interface, but be warned that there’s only one level in this game.
Kill All Bugs!
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Basic tower defense game except the creeps are giant bugs. Graphics are nothing impressive, but there does seem to be a good depth of gameplay.
Hextop Tower Defense
Price: 99 cents (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Yes, it’s hexagonal, apart from that there’s nothing special here.
iDefend
Price: $1.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: A lot of gameplay with 36 levels, but you better be a fan of retro graphics.
Exal Tower Defense
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: Not Rated
Distinguishing Features: A basic open field tower defense games with mediocre graphics.
Mote-M
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Another basic tower defense game, this one with path-oriented maps.
Nemesis Defence
Price: $1.99
Current Rating: Not Rated
Distinguishing Features: Path-based tower defense game with a good selection of towers but only three different maps.
Circuit Defenders
Price: $1.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: The premise is that you’re defending a circuit board from viruses. The graphics are… not bad. The gameplay is endless, and by that I don’t mean that you will want to play forever (although you might) but rather that you keep on going until you’ve lost all your lives.
Retro Defense
Price: $3.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Retro arcade style tower defense game with path-oriented maps and 15 levels.
Sweetwater
Price: $2.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: This coastal defense oriented game features some very nice graphics and 3D effects. Be prepared, however, that this one is no pushover, reviewers rate it as one of the hardest tower defense games they’ve played.
Last Portal
Price: $1.99
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: The graphics are a bit simple, but well designed. The interesting feature of this game is that you need to defend a central point rather than a maze or a side of the screen.
Galactic Invasion
Price: $1.99
Current Rating: 2.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Your towers in this game are orbital emplacements to stop alien invaders from reaching earth. Unfortunately the interface seems a bit difficult to use.
INKoming
Price: $1.99 (free lite version also available)
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Interesting resource management features require you to turn towers on/off to make the best use of your capabilities.
touchDefense
Price: $3.99
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Simple but well designed graphics in this basic tower defense game.
Defense Station Touchable
Price: $2.99
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Average graphics and a pretty standard path-based setup without a ton of depth.
TowerDefend
Price: $1.99
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: Nice if you like old arcade graphics, but not much else compelling here.
Mars Defence
Price: Free
Current Rating: 2.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: Very basic from graphics to gameplay. Reviews indicate this is a work in progress.
Tides of War
Price: 99 cents
Current Rating: 3 stars
Distinguishing Features: A mix of real-time-strategy and tower defense. You have both units and buildings that you can deploy on the map to keep an invading horde of pirates from overwhelming you.
Power Towers
Price: $1.99 (free version also available)
Current Rating: 3.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: There seems to be a lot of depth to the gameplay, with nine tower types and eight different mission types. The graphics look like something from the DOS era, however.
StopTheBoxes
Price: $1.99
Current Rating: 1.5 stars
Distinguishing Features: The developer says it’s a tower defense game, some of the reviewers agree, but I sure can’t figure it out.
Defense Grid Companion
Price: Free
Current Rating: 2 stars
Distinguishing Features: The graphics look nice, but there’s not a lot of information from the developer, nor a lot of reviews. Of course it doesn’t cost you anything to give it a shot.
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