Tower Defense games have become a new genre of game, and two of the pioneers of this genre have joined forces to create a new place to play online games: The Casual Collective. They are finishing up the site and it will be open to the public within a few days. The concept of the site is that you can make friends, who join your “collective” (buddy list), and then you can join groups with other people of similar interest. When one of your friends starts a game, you can see that on your screen so you can join in the fun. The site also has all the leaderboards and forums you would expect, making it very well-made.
The highlight of the site is Multiplayer Desktop Tower Defence (MPDTD). This game does to Tower Defense games what TetriNET did to Tetris. The basic concept of the game is that you have to build a maze out of towers, which shoot at creeps which try to get through or past your maze. The creeps come in waves, each wave starting as soon as any player finishes the previous wave. So if you fall behind in the game, you have to work to catch up, or start to overwhelm your maze. You get points for finishing a wave first, each creep killed, and how much life you have left, and the person who completes all 50 waves with the most points, wins. There are also many different options and variations for the game, and many players on the site have specialized in just one type. Personally, I prefer the Spawn Holepunch mode, and if you join the site, be sure to join my group, Spawn Holepunch.
The second game which was made available to us beta testers is Buggle. In this game, there are a hundred buggles, which bounce around the screen and look like single-celled organisms. They go in random directions, and then all stop, and each of up to four players puts a marker somewhere in the mix. Each buggle then turns a color for each player based on how close they are to the marker that’s placed, or to another buggle that’s changed colors. The rest bounce around until they get close enough to a marker or a colored buggle. Once all of the buggles are colored, each player places another marker, which they can use to cut off their opponents or go somewhere new. After both rounds, the number of colored buggles are counted and points awarded. There is also a SuperBuggles mode where bonus and penalty buggles appear mixed in for those who nab them.
The final game they launched before going live is Desktop Armada, a ship combat game for two players. Each player starts on one side of the screen and launches boats at the other player along one of several different routes. You spend money on ships and upgrades, earning money by controlling more of the screen and having more boats still alive. There are four different types of boats, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. You can also play with “Admirals” turned on, where you can pick a slant to put on your ships, such as extra defense, or making them faster.
Additionally, the original Flash Element TD, which is only single-player, is available on the site. Flash Element TD 2 is due to be released any day now, and will be on the site. The new upgrades today also include a single-player version of the MPDTD game for training. Also, a Desktop Armada: Missions single-player game will be released shortly. So the site is still expanding, and they are working on new games to entertain us all.
All told, this is a great site to sign up for, and is loads of fun. It offers several different games to chose from, and both single-player and multi-player games. I highly recommend it, give it two thumbs up, five stars, ten points, or however you want to rate it. Be sure to visit the site at www.casualcollective.com.
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