Desktop Tower Defense illustrates that you don’t need fancy graphics or big budgets to build highly addictive online games. In Desktop Tower Defence, all of the main graphics are hand drawn.
I first discovered this on Jeremy Zawodny’s blog, where he warned “The lack of posting here in the second half of this week (especially to my linkblog) has been a direct result of attempting to beat this highly addictive game. Whatever you do, please DO NOT click the link and start playing that game. You may find yourself in the very same time warp that I did…”
So of course I clicked on the link and have been “testing” the game ever since. It’s free and Flash based, and very simple. Bad guys come at you in a highly predictable way. You build defenses that take them out. If any get through, you lose a life. I’ve gotten to level 72. Can’t get past it.
Until this, Kdice was my addictive online game of choice. Now, I have them both open in separate browser tabs.
If you do get hooked, and want some advice on how to get up into the higher levels, watch this YouTube video.
Hey Michael! Looks like a good one, I’m all game to “test” it myself. Also, I came across Techcrunch recently & must say you guys are doing great. I am a regular now!
Watch your RSS subscribers freefall to 50K as the whole world gets addicted. Reminds me of the ‘Killing joke’ sketch by Monty Python…
“Can’t get passed it.” Can’t get PAST it.
This is one hell of a game. It’s also being regularly updated with new features.
That fact that you have posted this means that probably GDP worth $10m will be lost to the economy this year …
Good fun though!
really! great to read about this articles
hello michael, I did not know that you are a gaming fan
I like this version better…
http://novelconcepts.co.uk/FlashElementTD/
realy addictive… if you have any junky predisposition keep out..
Hi Michael,
It made my day reading this post! I thought there was something wrong with me but clearly it’s not just me!
You’ve got to watch out for the flying ones… don’t underestimate them! They killed me at 3995.. gutted.
OMG that’s the next few days done the drain.
Reminds me of the week that the office discovered the bridge building game
You’re a bad influence, Mike.
I feel like a kid at recess who keeps getting offered drugs. Just say No
Michael,
I *hate* you for posting this…
… anyone remember Lemmings?
I absolutely love this game. I am hooked, I have coworkers hooked. It’s spreading!
The only thing I dont like is how the enemies always know which way to go, they should have some sort of intelligence and get confused and be able to go down dead ends
I agree with number 8 !!!
“Office Productivity in the Tech Sector fell 90% the week of April 16th…scientists are baffled…”
I don’t get it… Really… Techcrunch suppose to showing innovation about web 2.0. Now, I see addictive gaming and Flash. Why is this on frontpage?
Did Techcrunch went wrong way or Someone trying to put lawsuit on TC?
Are we going back to the old dot com day? I remember E-Trade monkey commerical — the dot com era.
I usually hate flash games but this one is great.
Is anyone else having a problem with submitting a high score? I get an error.
I love tc frontpage news everyday… This is one of worst news.
Is there star ratings around here… Can we vote which topic is best?
ok… it took me a day playing it trying to defeat those little things (specially the ones that look like Pitzas) and i kept returning to it… i got 5300 something…. and passed 50 levels… but it took me sometime to do it.
but yes it is addictive it made one of my friends keep playing it instead of studying for midterms
Hahahahaha. Suckered another one.
I have played this flash game more than any other in my personal history. I got the link from Jeremy too and its def. addicting. Hopefully their site will be slowed by all the crunchers, and everyone can get back to work:)
Have you noticed how small the Internet has become lately? Maybe we’re just all reading/using the same websites. Digg, Del.icio.us, TC… I saw this game as part of a collection on del.icio.us the other day. The next day I noticed it on Digg, and now again on TC (I played it every time). It seems like not so long ago I was surfing the amazing Yahoo! web directory (you know, the human indexed site) thinking I would never land on the same Internet page twice. In this age of instantly disseminated knowledge, why do I see the same stuff all the time?
LOL…Yeah, that game should definitely be removed from the internet, and the creator thrown in prison for attempting to undermine the global economy. I’ve been pounding at that game for the past two weeks, with no sign of getting bored of it.
Just as soon as I had that game out of my head, he goes and release a new version! I’ve wasted far too much time trying to beat The 100 Challenge mode. A pox on that game!
Oh no, this is tech start up news, lets hang Micheal for treason!
One of the most addictive games out there.. it’s number 2 in my list of Top 5 Most Addictive Games!
Typhoon towers for the win
mike…if you save the SWF file to your desktop, you can just drag it into a browser window to run it as well. BOOM — instant offline version. worked great on my plane flights to DC last week.
haha… awesome. I’m going to pretend I don’t know the origins of tower defense games.
Be careful with games like this — it’s a real “gateway game”. Next thing you know it you’ll be playing DotA in the CPL, or worse.
Jeremy Zawodny got me hooked on this too. I lost many, many days to this one.
If there’s one thing that can ruin your writing is bad grammar. If you had said “I can’t get PAST it” I would have kept on reading.
gmagana - i only hope you can forgive me, and someday come back to techcrunch. until then, goodbye.
Yeah dude…. way to destroy the clickthrough rate for all your advertisers. Now for the next week everyone’s going to be playing DTD
Kevin:
Maybe DTD *is* his newest advertiser?
Oh, wait… he’d have disclosed that I guess.
This game is very interesting. Become kid by these types of games. I was addicted to Y! Pool. Now to this.
~ RaJ
http://www.suggestusability.com
yeah simply a great game - and he got TC’D -
- Its time for him to dump it - somehow for atleast 500k …
honestly - he is at his peak with this …
-RB
Check out also Flash Circle TD:
http://www.candystand.com/play.do?id=17995
I played it obsessively since I could see all the crazy high scores people were getting on the hard level. Finally figured it out and it released it’s evil grip on my time.
I just want to know what your nickname is on kdice.
Finally got over the 1900 hump again after the new scoring system went live. I blame my addiction on TC, naturally.
Thanks for wasting my entire afternoon (and at the rate I’m going, probably evening too) Mike.
GUYS, THAT GAME IS NOT AS GOOD AS THIS ONE HERE. I DON’T KNOW WHO COPIES WHO. BUT THIS ONE IS DEFINITELY MORE PLAYABLE THAN THE ONE THAT MIKE POSTED.
SAME EXACT GAME, JUST COOLER AND BETTER GRAPHIC.
http://novelconcepts.co.uk/FlashElementTD/
I HATE you Michael!
Just what we need another game to waste our time! LOL!!!!
OK this is an addictive game and way better than meetings - a far better free online game though that makes me think I’m actually outside conquering the outdoors is ORDEAL - another FLASH offering - a good deal more challenging ( read keyboard smashingly frustrating - death to the frickin penguins!) I found it at http://www.irule.co.nz yep I’m sad, very, very sad
here’s another simple, but addicting, game to checkout:
http://tinyurl.com/56t9u
Damn yer eyes Samir, I thought I was rid of that one a couple of years ago! Between this, Tower Defense, Bacon Oracle & X-pipes, I reckon I could et through the next month doing no work whatsoever!
Flash Circle TD looks really good.
Tower TD is pretty simple on normal.
Ugh, I knew it would be bad. Why did I click?
I used to like Techcrunch… Now I really hate you!!!
Why did you do this to us??
Whatever you do, DO NOT START PLAYING THIS GAME! You’ll be addicted in an instant. Curse you Jeremy! (not really - I love this game)