Gametrender

Tower Worlds : A crumbling mix-and-match

Tower Worlds is a Facebook game recently out of beta... but it could have stood a lot more testing. As it currently is, it'll just bog down your internet connection for nothing.

The tutorial is a slow, laborious slog. You have to trudge through every animation of your character moving around, and they are sure dragging their feet. I  don't know if it's because of the 3D graphics, the coding, or as part of the design, but everything takes a lot of time to happen and then to be acknowledge by the game. No chance of popping in just for a quick session.

These 3D graphics are supposed to feel realistic, but are badly pixelized and bland – in game, because the promotional material as zero relation to the finished product. Beyond that, the general aesthetics is horrid, lacking some unifying theme: palm trees and wooden watch tower, but Western-style house with red roof tiling? And of course, this whole visual disaster only slow down the game to the point of almost-complete unplayability. The music uses a little flute tune which is pleasant enough, but again, lacking a strong aesthetic direction.

The game is touted by its developer as a mix of tower defense, RTS, and RPG: I haven't really see any of that, just the usual Facebook fare of quests, resource collection, and building upgrade. Yes, there is a combat system, but I find it boring: just clicked on the “bears” (they look more like foxes or wolves to me...) to hack at them and click the combat button when you're tired of seeing the same animations over and over again. 

In conclusion, I find it an unimaginative game copying the same old mechanics, ideas, and more of hundred of other Facebook games, but with enough ambition to trip itself and fall flat – in extra-slow motion.