TailQuest Defense

This tower defense game with its stunning and pleasant graphics is an absolute delight to play. Its attention to detail, addictive gameplay, and positive atmosphere make it a standout title in the genre. Whether you're a fan of tower defense games or simply looking for an engaging and visually appealing experience, I highly recommend giving this game a try. It's an absolute gem that will keep you entertained for hours on end.

It initially feels like two separate games, even though it's switching between the two modes on the same map. There's an exploration platformer with a fairly lenient time limit before each tower defense wave, and a tower defense that relies on the gold collected during the platformer. Some parts of the platformer require keys which are dropped during the tower defense waves, which works well as a mechanic so that replaying a level with knowledge of where the pick-ups are doesn't result in you getting all the gold before the first wave. You can trigger the next wave early if you want. During the defense, there's some platforming action to trigger traps, collect gold dropped by the enemies, and push enemies with the bubble gun. There's also a weak stomp attack which feels as if it was added for use in the platforming part rather than the defense. The later levels do integrate the two modes more, but the combination of the two feels like artificial difficulty, rather than complementing each other. The camera of a platformer doesn't feel good for a tower defense. Platforming can make major changes to the enemy's path, but these changes reset on timers, meaning you look round to see the red enemies are now following the path that's built to defend against blue enemies. The bubble gun feels as if was initially overpowered and was then nerfed by having limited shots which can only be recharged by standing in specific places. The keyboard controls are rebindable, which is a welcome feature. I'd still recommend using a controller.

Yes it does have a simple presentation, which kinda gives it a first game/college project feel, but it is alot more nuanced than that. The design is simple, but there's added complexity just by it being a 3D world you move around, having to upgrade the towers manually with the character. Those who like their tower defense games would get a nice refresh with this game, certainly something I haven't seen before with a tower defense game.