Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: 9 out of 10

Day D: Tower Rush is a tower defence based strategy game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita. The task is to destroy waves of incoming pre-historic enemies before they are able to complete their journey to enter the time machine with the power of turrets and inventions at the player’s disposal across an entire campaign.

There are two campaigns with the first set in the Jurassic Period at 213,000,000 B.C. with a requirement of 40 stars to be collected in order to unlock the second campaign, which is set in the Triassic Period at 250,000,000 B.C., while the decision to have the second campaign unlocked upon earning two-thirds of the available stars from the first campaign is a positive design choice as it rewards the player for how well they are performing during the Jurassic Period campaign.

The basic premise of the gameplay is the same concept of the two Fort Defense games that have previously been released on the Vita prior to Day D: Tower Rush; as players attempt to destroy the various pre-historic enemies before they reach and enter the time machine, while the tactical positioning of turrets and turret upgrades is essential. Turrets can be positioned in certain areas for a particular quantity of fossils that players must spend to attain the types of turrets that are required to set up in areas of the level to help strengthen defences against the waves of enemies. Turrets are also referred to as towers in the game with the ability to create a crossbow turret for 50 fossils, whilst a cannon turret can be created for 100 fossils; and artillery turrets for 150, while there are phases of in-game upgrades to enhance the immediate performance of turrets from 200 fossils upwards, alongside many more turrets and offensive weaponry. Everything can be purchased through spending the fossils that are earned from destroying various pre-historic enemies with the harder, larger enemies providing players with more fossils in comparison to the smaller enemies as the smaller enemies will provide 3 fossils, the medium sized enemies will provide 6 fossils and the larger enemies will usually provide you with 10 fossils after they have been destroyed and even accepting the new wave of enemies within a few seconds of the 15 second countdown timer to the new wave of enemies, although players will have to progress a few levels into the game before they are able to unlock all of the turrets for purchase.

Alongside the barrage of offensive weaponry that will be used to protect the time machine; spells also make a return from the Fort Defense games, although they are now known as geo-charges as players can cast them upon the enemies as they are making their way towards the valued time machine. The geo-charges include a rain of meteors; acid; earthquakes; freezing and more besides, although the geo-charges are unlocked from the second level onwards, rather than being paid for using fossils, but there is a cool down period were the geo-charge will effectively have to recharge, which is a positive design choice as it is an additional reward for progressing further through the game and also helps to shake the game up a bit with another variation of strategy.

Players can purchase upgrades from the shop with i-volves that are earned through the quality of performance from each level in regards to how many enemies were able to manoeuvre past defences and into the time machine. The upgrades are split into 3 separate categories including: towers, geo-charges and common. There are no new upgrades, but the cost of the upgrades is certainly more balanced than the original Fort Defense as the costs of upgrades now begin at four i-volves and rapidly increase in the value of i-volves as players strive for more powerful and more effective towers, geo-charges and common upgrades in comparison to the previous starting point of 4 barrels and increasing to as much as 24 barrels in the original Fort Defense to maximise the upgrade; as the upgrades are based upon a 6 star rating system.

The towers upgrades include increasing the amount of damage the towers are capable of inflicting upon enemies and increasing the range of towers in order for them to be able to reach a greater distance with their ammunition, while also decreasing the cost of purchasing towers during a level. The geo-charge upgrades include increasing the amount of damage the geo-charges are capable of inflicting upon enemies and decreasing the period of time it takes to cool down before being able to use the geo-charge again. The common upgrades include an increase of fossils available as the budget to implement defences at the start of each level, more fossils and loot from every dinosaur enemy destroyed and increased durability for the time machine resulting in an increase of lives for each level that allows more enemies to attack the time machine without having to restart the level and therefore increasing the chances of completion, even in the most difficult of levels. Players will have some i-volves remaining when they have succeeded on every level to a three star performance rating, which is a great design choice; as the re-balancing of the upgrade costs not only allow players to upgrade everything, but to also use the i-volves to purchase additional areas to create artillery defences or mining facilities to increase the amount of fossils available to purchase further upgrades to your artillery.

There is a three star performance rating for each level with a total of 60 stars to collect for both sets of 20 levels. Collecting as many stars as possible from producing a higher level of performance is of real importance as the more stars collected; the more i-volves will be earned to purchase upgrades with. The three star performance rating depends upon how many enemies are able to attack and breach the defences with 1 star for completing the level even in the case that so many enemies have been able to attack and breach the defences that players only have one life remaining; 2 stars in the case that a lot of enemies are able to attack and breach the defences, while still retaining a fair few lives; and 3 stars in the case that none of the enemies are able to attack and breach the defences, therefore retaining all remaining lives.

The fast mode allows players to speed up the game in real time anytime they want to do so and on any of the levels that have been previously unlocked, therefore providing players with less time to implement their strategy and defence against the oncoming onslaught of dinosaurs and various pre-historic enemies for a faster and more difficult experience. The fast mode has definitely seen a further performance improvement in comparison to the Fort Defense games even when there are a huge amount of enemies on screen at once during the fast mode, despite Day D: Tower Rush regularly having just as many enemies entering the battlefield.

There is some downloadable content available for Day D: Tower Rush in the form of the Triassic Period unlock pack, which unlocks the second campaign for just £0.79, while the rest of the downloadable content is purchasing i-volves ranging from 100 i-volves for £1.99 all the way up to 2,500 i-volves for an expensive £39.99, although there are cheaper options, such as 300 i-volves for £3.99, 500 i-volves for £7.99 and 1,000 i-volves for £14.99, which allows players to purchase upgrades to thier turrets, geo-charges and more besides. The purpose of each of the 3 downloadable content packs is to enable the player too still be able to unlock the later levels and upgrades of Day D: Tower Rush regardless of skill or perhaps in the scenario that they want to skip ahead to a particular level that a friend may have told them about. However, it is important to state that these micro transactions are not require to complete the game as players earn 3 stars for each level completed with a perfect performance and they are only there for people who want to unlock levels and upgrades that they have not earned enough stars or i-volves respectively to otherwise do so.

The controls are simple and easy to learn as they consist of a purely touch screen based control scheme. The touch screen control scheme consists of tapping on one of the bases which will provide up to four building options for turrets and tapping on one of the turrets will allow the creation of turret of choice for the payment of the appropriate amount of fossils; tapping on the turret will allow the purchase of an upgrade for that particular turret, tapping on an enemy to instruct the turrets to focus the aim of their fire on that particular enemy; tapping ok on any of the on-screen prompts to move onto the next segment of information; tapping the cog icon to the top left of the screen to display the pause menu screen that contains shortcuts to everything that the player may want to navigate to; tapping the fast forward icon to the bottom left of the screen to increase the speed of the game into a fast mode; and tapping any of the icons to the right of the screen allows players to select a geo-charge, followed by tapping on whichever area of the level where a player would like to cast the geo-charge.

The graphics are just as well rendered as the Fort Defense games as the action is presented from an isometric perspective with a variety of dinosaur enemies, the turret defences and the time machine, alongside the surrounding environments are all looking great with a level of detail that may not be expected from a game of this genre or from an isometric perspective. It is also important to note that everything in the game performs very smoothly even when played in the fast mode.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great touch screen based user interface across various menus such as the main, campaign selection, level selection, shop and options menu, although there is no support for navigation via the left analogue stick, right analogue stick, directional pad, face buttons and rear touch pad. The background of the main menu screen looks very colourful and vibrant as it contains a variety of enemy dinosaurs being fired upon from turrets as they attempt to breach the defences to reach the time machine.

The audio is pretty good and consists of climactic and adventurous music, while the sound effects include the firing of turrets; the casting of geo-charges, such as meteors and acid raining down on enemies as well as earthquakes; and the destruction of enemies from the firing of turrets and the casting of geo-charges.

The trophy list includes 12 trophies with 7 bronze, 4 silver and 1 gold trophy. The majority of the trophies will be earned naturally through playing the game as some of the easier trophies include the Take Your Places bronze trophy for installing weaponry on every accessible base across the entirety of the defences on any given level; the An Old Ruin bronze trophy for completing a level without improving weaponry; the A Stingy Warrior bronze trophy for having sold 10 weapons on any given level; the On the Edge silver trophy for completing a level with the time machine’s health below 10 points; and the An Impregnable Fortress silver trophy for not letting a single enemy reach the time machine on any given level. However, the hardest trophy has to be the Butcher gold trophy for destroying 20,000 enemies throughout the entirety of the game. It is estimated that depending upon skill, a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips and applying your tactics appropriately that it would take between 5 to 10 hours to 100% the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, although the difficulty curve is as it was in the Fort Defense games as it naturally increases as progression is made further through the game with more enemies on screen at once to destroy. Players can also naturally make the game more difficult by giving themselves less time to think by increasing the speed of the game by tapping on the fast forward button at any given time during gameplay, which will see the enemies move faster and therefore forcing the issue to make quicker decisions to notice where the new wave of enemy attacks are originating from and implementing the defence to fight them off. Players can make the game easier by tapping the pause icon, as they are still able to view the positioning of enemies, meaning that pausing the game every now and then may be beneficial to provide additional time to plan the layout of your strategy.

Just as was the case in both of the Fort Defense games; there are no online multiplayer modes or online leaderboards, which is disappointing as this is the appropriate genre of game to have a full implementation of multiplayer and online leaderboards. Online multiplayer could have featured one player creating and manning the turrets, while the other player attempts to evade the fire from the turrets as the route is mapped for the waves of enemies that are attempting to attack and enter the time machine, therefore creating a direct form of head to head competitive multiplayer. Even without online multiplayer, there could have been a hotseat multiplayer mode in which the first player attempts to complete a level with as many lives remaining as possible, before handing the Vita over to the second player to attempt to beat or at least equal the achievements of the first player. The online leaderboards could have included leaderboards for the fastest times set on each level; the fastest combined time set across all of the levels; the most lives remaining at the end of each level; and the most lives remaining across all of the levels.

The replayability of Day D: Tower Rush is as excellent as that found in both of the Fort Defense games, despite the lack of any multiplayer features. The Jurassic Period and Triassic Period campaigns will both have players coming back for many hours of entertainment to be enjoyed in short bursts or even longer durations as there are 2 sets of 20 levels with a star ratings system and upgradeable turrets, geo-charges and items to enhance the chances of not only completing each level, but also achieving a 3 star rating for each one.

Overall, Day D: Tower Rush has been refined and rebalanced from both of the Fort Defense games, which builds upon the fun and entertaining tower defence genre with new pre-historic enemies that will have players coming back for many hours and it must be said that it is a testament to the game; that no matter how many times a level is replayed, it will always feel fresh, which is exactly why the low price of just £3.99 makes this a highly recommended purchase.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Day D: Tower Rush
• Developer: 8 Floor Games
• Publisher: 8 Floor Games
• System: PS Vita
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1
• Memory Card Space Required: 83MB