Towerix91

Towerix91 is a short and sweet tower defense game that took me approximately three hours to complete all stages and get all achievements.

Players can unlock both run-based upgrades with gold as well as permanent upgrades by gathering rare materials (crystals) from killing creeps. The upgrade system is straightforward and there are even abilities you can unlock by spending crystals. Upgrades are felt immediately and increase your chances of surviving all waves and reaching bonus rounds. Sometimes enemies drop treasure chests that trigger a slot machine risk/reward mini game. For example, if you choose to spin the slot machine, there may be a chance of destroying a tower or upgrading it. Even if a tower was destroyed, it never ruined my run as I was able to recover or improvise another strategy. This made me actively want to engage with this risk/reward mechanic.

This game will likely appeal to those who have played a decent amount of tower defense games and are looking for something new. I also think this could potentially be a good introductory tower defense game for newcomers who have nostalgia for older interfaces or retro graphics. The graphics may be simple, but that's what's exactly appealing about it to me. You can play it in windowed mode or in full screen for the full effect of having of navigating on what appears to be a long-lost operating system. I will say that the UI could be optimized so that it would easier to see how many resources you have and where the upgrades are. However, once you become acquainted with it, it's easy enough to navigate so you can optimize your build and murder all the freak enemies the game throws at you. I don't love the music but can imagine it coming out of an old internal PC speaker which would probably be the best way to experience it.

Towerix91 is a short, yet fun incremental Tower Defense game. As noted by the dev, it is inspired by PC games from the 80’s-90’s - giving it a notably unique look for modern games. There are 10 different areas, or as the game calls then, sectors - with each becoming harder than the last. As you play you will also collect gems to do multiple things like increase the damage of your towers, and unlock new abilities.

The gameplay is nothing crazy or overly complicated. There are 5 different towers you can place on specific map points, with the tower type only being limited by gold. The later the round - the more money you receive. Enemies will also constantly drop different gems as they die. There are seven different gems and each tower needs a specific combination of them. The amount and how to obtain are under the “R&D Upgrades tab” where you can also convert gems into other types. This is something I had to do often for rubies and sapphires, since in the later sectors they don’t seem to drop much. Yet there is an abundance of emeralds to easily trade them for.

Each of the five towers have their own specialty. Knight has large range and general attacks, with good damage. Berserker has attacks that hit rapidly with good damage, but in turn suffers a short range. Magic shoots out lightning that can chain to enemies. Frost slows enemies, and in later upgrades can freeze the map to slow the whole wave. Inferno leaves a fire AOE on the ground, dealing damage to all who pass by.

The best early towers to me were Knight and Berserker. But as you start to unlock the permanent upgrades I would suggest getting a lot of use out of the others, especially Inferno - that tower is very strong later. I was getting to round 50+ on late sectors with those carrying. I’m pretty sure all of my late/long runs purely ended from choice, since I felt like I was so strong it would never end. In a typical TD I would probably recommend nerfing some of these towers and their abilities. For example, there is one ability that gives the enemy an 8% chance to teleport back to the start. Once you clear a wave of the smaller enemies, the elites are impossible to fail as they just teleport back and are guaranteed kills. But incremental games usually want to make the game become trivial for the player, so it is not really a complaint to be made. Although I do think some of the skills are a little *too* strong. But I am also someone who has played a ton of incremental games, therefore I have spent a lot of time at the point of “I have nothing to do but watch”, so maybe it’s just me being picky.

Based on the above, if you ever struggle, genuinely just start farming and focusing on upgrades. If you struggle early it may be best to prioritize something like the Knight since they are the cheapest and you can always start with two of them. If you struggle in the later waves, I’d recommend both Inferno and Frost together and focusing on their upgrades. But do use a range of towers! I always make sure I have at least one of each since they all have strength in different departments. You can also temporarily upgrade towers with gold, but also gems relevant to the towers colour. Ruby for Knight, emerald for Berserker, etc. Gold has 3 upgrade levels, with gems having two. You can make the towers do several different things with gem upgrades. Those are buffs like more power (strength), more gold drop on kill, or higher gem chance on kill. Enemies also have a chance to drop chests which can contain stuff like gold or tower upgrades, or if unlucky - can destroy your tower. Each chest rarity shows the chance of failure before you roll, and you can choose to skip opening a chest if you’re unsure.

For an incremental game, I found Towerix91 fun and refreshing enough to recommend. It’s very easy for a genre to become repetitive and a lot of the same but I feel this one has done enough to stand out. I can’t say I’m familiar with TD incremental games, after all. The only other complaint I could make is once again, justified by the game’s genre. I wish there was more, that the game was longer and there was more to do since it really is fun. But then you would have to start stepping away from its roots, maybe adding mechanics, fancy bosses… You would just have to go too far into the TD side, and abandon the incremental part of the game. The game was fun nonetheless. I just want more… MORE!

Overall, Towerix91 is pretty simple and easy to understand. If you like incremental games, especially those that add something unique and fun to the category, I would suggest you put this one on your radar. The start is genuinely a little tricker than expected so it will take you a bit of time learning the tower strengths and weaknesses, as well as making sure you genuinely worry about the permanent upgrades. I hope this game does well, and that the developer might even go more in-depth with this game, or at least a similar idea, in the future. Regardless, this is a solid, fun recommendation.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank MrArcivorum for providing a free review copy for this game.

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Simple Clean fun short if you like Vamp Survivors than you understand what you are buying here its not as complex as titles like VS or gnomes but for 3.99$ its very fun 7/10 i like this game could use more units to play around with and more than 10 levels but i like the idea and hope to see more of this or other games like this one