48-597: Star Fox Guard is a 2016 tower defense video game co-developed by Nintendo and PlatinumGames for the Wii U . The game was bundled as a separate disc for the first print edition of Star Fox Zero and as a digital download code on the Wii U eShop afterwards. Star Fox Guard is a 3D tower defense game in which players must protect various bases, owned by Slippy Toad 's uncle, Grippy, from oncoming attackers by monitoring security cameras. The television displays footage from all of
96-492: A "maze", which allows the player to strategically place "towers" for optimal effectiveness. However, some versions of the genre force the user to create the "maze" out of their own "towers", such as Desktop Tower Defense . Some versions of the genre are a hybrid of these two types, with preset paths that can be modified to some extent by tower placement, or towers that can be modified by path placement, or modifications that can be placed by tower paths. Often an essential strategy
144-452: A garden defense game, introduced new gameplay elements, including different enemy types as well as the ability to place fixed obstructions, and to build and repair the player's territory. Rampart , released in 1990, is generally considered to have established the prototypical tower defense. Rampart introduced player-placed defenses and has distinct phases of build, defend and repair. These are now staple gameplay elements of many games in
192-453: A profit of $ 100. Parker founded his game company, initially called the George S. Parker Company, in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts in 1883. When George's brother Charles joined the business in 1888, the company's name was changed to its more familiar form. In 1898 a third brother, Edward H. Parker, joined the company. For many years, George designed most of the games himself, and wrote all
240-629: A time when many companies went out of business, Parker Brothers released a new board game called Monopoly . Although the company had originally rejected the game in 1934, they decided to publish it the next year. It was a success, and the company had difficulty keeping up with demand. The company continued to grow throughout the next several decades, producing games including Cluedo (released as Clue in North America), Risk , and Sorry! Parker Brothers marketed its first jigsaw puzzle in 1887. Parker also produced children's puzzles, as well as
288-746: A tower-defense minigame in Final Fantasy VI (1994) and the Fort Condor minigame in Final Fantasy VII (1997), which was also one of the first to feature 3D graphics . Attack of the Mutant Penguins for the Atari Jaguar and MS-DOS was released in 1995. Dungeon Keeper (1997) had players defend the Dungeon Heart, a gigantic gem at the centre of your dungeon, which, if destroyed, would cause
336-958: A version created for the mobile phone by a different developer. Another significant Flash title released in 2008 was GemCraft . Handheld game console were not ignored in the boom and titles included Lock's Quest and Ninjatown released in September and October respectively. Bloons Tower Defense was first published in 2007, one of many in a series of balloon themed multi-platform games released. The genre's success also led to new releases on PC and video game consoles . Popular 2008 titles included PixelJunk Monsters released in January, Defense Grid: The Awakening and Savage Moon in December. Also released in 2008 were geoDefense Swarm , geoDefense , GemCraft , Fieldrunners , Harvest: Massive Encounter and Crystal Defenders . GauntNet
384-497: Is "mazing", the tactic of creating a long, winding path of towers (or "maze") to lengthen the distance the enemies must traverse to get past the defense. Sometimes "juggling" is possible by alternating between barricading an exit on one side and then the other side to cause the enemies to path back and forth until they are defeated. Some games also allow players to modify the attack strategy used by towers to be able to defend for an even more tantalizingly reasonable price. The degree of
432-416: Is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive structures on or along their path of attack. This typically means building a variety of different structures that serve to automatically block, impede, attack or destroy enemies. Tower defense
480-547: Is key to progressing. Parker Brothers' 1982 title Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600 was one of the first tie-ins to popularize the base defense style. The concept of waves of enemies attacking the base in single file (in this case AT-ATs ) proved a formula that was subsequently copied by many games as the shift from arcade to PC gaming began. Players were now able to choose from different methods of obstructing attackers' progress. Sorcerer's Apprentice for
528-449: Is seen as a subgenre of real-time strategy video games , due to its real-time origins, even though many modern tower defense games include aspects of turn-based strategy . Strategic choice and positioning of defensive elements is an essential strategy of the genre. The tower defense genre can trace its lineage back to the golden age of arcade video games in the 1980s. The object of the arcade game Space Invaders , released in 1978,
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#1733086316515576-596: Is the player's ability to strategically place, construct or summon obstructive constructions and constructive obstructions in the path of attacking enemies. In a tower defense, the player's main character is often invincible, as their primary objective is the survival of the base rather than the player. Some features of modern tower defense: Many modern tower defense games evolved from real-time to turn-based, cycling through distinct gameplay phases such as build, defend, repair, and celebrate. Many games, such as Flash Element Tower Defense feature enemies that scamper through
624-474: The American Greetings franchises, Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake . The branch published twelve titles by February 1984; sales of these books totaled 3.5 million units. Parker Brothers also operated a record label around the same time; one of its releases, based on Coleco 's Cabbage Patch Kids and involving Tom and Stephen Chapin titled Cabbage Patch Dreams , was certified Gold by
672-458: The Atari 2600 featured Mickey Mouse and was first published in 1983. Nintendo's popular 1980s Game & Watch handheld games featured many popular precursors. With their fixed sprite cells with binary states, games with waves of attackers following fixed paths were able to make use of the technical limitations of the platform yet proved simple and enjoyable to casual gamers. Vermin (1980), one of
720-717: The Milton Bradley Company . Following the acquisition, Parker Brothers continued to have its corporate offices in Beverly, but production of the games were moved to Milton Bradley's headquarters in East Longmeadow . In 1998, Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley were consolidated at the new Hasbro Games campus (based in the former address of Parker Brothers' headquarters) to merge together and form Hasbro Games. Milton Bradley and Parker Bros. subsequently turned into two separate brands of Hasbro before being retired in 2009 in favor of
768-582: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in July 1984. In 1985, General Mills merged the company with their subsidiary Kenner ; this new company, Kenner Parker Toys Inc., was acquired by Tonka in 1987. In 1988, Parker Brothers struck a deal with Martindale/Gilden Productions to develop television game shows, such as Boggle . Tonka, including Parker Brothers, was bought in 1991 for about $ 516 million by Hasbro which also owned
816-435: The "Hasbro Gaming" label, with the logo shown on Monopoly games. Parker Brothers was founded by George Swinnerton Parker . Parker's philosophy deviated from the prevalent theme of board game design; he believed that games should be played for enjoyment and did not need to emphasize morals and values. He created his first game, called Banking , in 1883 when he was 16. Banking is a game in which players borrow money from
864-468: The "simple campaign" and "bland graphics". Jonathan Harrington from Nintendo Enthusiast praised its gameplay, variety, and online sharing, but criticized the lack of humor, low budget visuals, and music. Stephen Totilo from Kotaku stated that despite it having "just about nothing to do with the aerial shooting gameplay people associate with Star Fox ", it was "one of Nintendo's most distinct games in years". Tower defense Tower defense ( TD )
912-519: The Climax, Jig-A-Jig, Jig Wood, and Paramount lines. According to Jigsaw Puzzles: An Illustrated History and Price Guide , by Anne D. Williams, Parker Bros. closed the Pastime line in the 1950s and their die-cut puzzles were phased out in the late 1970s. Even after George Parker's death, the company remained family-owned until 1968 when General Mills purchased the company. After this, Parker Brothers produced
960-876: The FPS genre into a fully 3D environment and went to have several sequels. Anomaly: Warzone Earth released in 2011 introduced a variation of gameplay which has been described as "reverse tower defense", "tower attack", and "tower offense". In the game, the player must attack the enemy bases protected by numerous defenses. Sequels and other games have since experimented further with both styles of tower defense. Tiny Heroes , Army of Darkness: Defense , Iron Brigade , Rock of Ages and Trenches 2 were also released in 2011. Defender's Quest , Bad Hotel , Toy Defense , Strikefleet Omega , Unstoppable Gorg , Defenders of Ardania , Orcs Must Die! 2 , Fieldrunners 2 , Dillon's Rolling Western , Oil Rush and Elf Defense Eng all came out in 2012. Around this period
1008-462: The Hasbro brand. Parker Brothers had a reputation for quality family-oriented and licensed games. The company released Merlin in 1978, and sold 700,000 units before Christmas and had a sales total of $ 100 million in 1979. It began to produce electronic versions of popular Parker Brothers board games in the late 1970s. The company ventured into the toy market with the electronic action figure , Rom
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#17330863165151056-600: The Parker Brothers name since 1883. Among its products were Monopoly , Clue (licensed from the British publisher and known as Cluedo outside of North America), Sorry! , Risk , Trivial Pursuit , Ouija , Aggravation , Bop It , Scrabble (under a joint partnership with Milton Bradley in the United States and Canada), and Probe . The trade name became defunct with former products being marketed under
1104-579: The advent of social networking service applications, such as the Facebook Platform , tower defense has become a popular genre with titles such as Bloons TD and Plants vs. Zombies Adventures making the transition to turn-based play. Recent releases include Star Fox Guard and McDroid which came out in 2016. On the platform Roblox , many Tower Defense games have been created, the most notable being Tower Defense Simulator ("Paradoxum Games", 2019) and Tower Defense X (John Roblox, 2023), as well as
1152-451: The app store automatically triggers a warning that the submission is likely to be rejected for use of the term; however, writing the phrase in lower case is still acceptable as "tower defense" is a valid description of a game style. Parker Brothers Parker Brothers (known by Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro . More than 1,800 games were published under
1200-572: The arrival of Apple's App Store tower defense developers adapted quickly to the touchscreen interface and the titles were among the most downloaded , many of them ported directly from Flash. Kingdom Rush , first released in 2011, sold more than seventeen million copies both on App store and Play store . By the end of the boom, most tower defense games were still using side scrolling, isometric, or top-down perspective graphics. Iron Grip: Warlord , released in November, 2008 unsuccessfully pioneered
1248-404: The available security cameras while the Wii U GamePad features an overhead view of the base. To defend the base's core, players must watch the monitors carefully for any oncoming attackers and switch control to one of the available cameras in order to fire its weapon. Enemies are divided into two classes; Combat robots, which must all be defeated in order to progress, and Chaos robots, which hinder
1296-439: The bank and try to generate wealth by guessing how well they could do. The game includes 160 cards which foretell their failure or success. The game was so popular among family and friends that his brother, Charles Parker, urged him to publish it. George approached two Boston publishers with the idea, but was unsuccessful. Not discouraged, he spent $ 40 to publish 500 sets of Banking . He eventually sold all but twelve copies, making
1344-467: The difficulty for players. With two screens these games introduced basic resource management (e.g. oil and water), forcing players to multitask. Green House (1982) was another popular two screen game in which players use clouds of pesticide spray to protect flowers from waves of attacking insects. Despite the early rush of archetypal titles, ultimately there was a general decline in fixed-cell games, due to their technical limitations, simplistic gameplay, and
1392-414: The end destination, or enemies which prioritize different targets than their main destination. Some tower defense games or custom maps also require the player to not only defend their own board but send out enemies to attack their opponents' game boards (or opponent-controlled areas of a common game board) in return. Such games are also known as tower wars game boards. On June 3, 2008, COM2US Corporation
1440-456: The end of 2011. 2010 saw the release of SteamWorld Tower Defense , Protect Me Knight , The Tales of Bearsworth Manor , Revenge of the Titans , Arrow of Laputa , Toy Soldiers and Robocalypse: Beaver Defense . The 2011 title Sanctum , and its 2013 sequel popularized the first person shooter hybrid that was pioneered by these earlier games. Orcs Must Die! also integrated
1488-530: The first Nerf ball. In the UK during the 1970s, Parker Brothers sold the rights of some games to the games division of Palitoy (also a General Mills company), and produced a variety of releases such as Escape from Colditz . In 1977, the company built its headquarters in Beverly, Massachusetts . In early 1983, Parker Brothers spent US$ 15 million establishing a book publishing branch; their first titles featured
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1536-680: The first famous one being Tower Battles (Planet3arth, 2017). These games are mostly 3D and multiplayer based, with features like matchmaking and elevators being used to pair users up. However these are not the only tower defense games on Roblox. There are also a large number of other tower defense games: many spinoffs of Tower Defense Simulator and a few original titles such as Tower Blitz, Tower Heroes, Ready 2 Defend, Evolution Evade, Flavor Frenzy, and many more. The basic gameplay elements of tower defense are: What distinguishes tower defense base defending games from other base defending games (such as Space Invaders , or other games where bases are defended)
1584-525: The first person perspective shooter with the genre. The awkward combination of experimental tower defense mechanics with 3D graphics was not well received, but later titles refined its execution paving the way for a popular new breed of games. Dungeon Defenders , released in October 2010, was one of the first tower defense games to bring the genre to the third person perspective . It sold over 250,000 copies in first two weeks of release and over 600,000 copies by
1632-453: The first, tasked players with defending the garden (a theme followed by many later games) from relentless horde of moles. The following years saw a flood of similar titles, including Manhole (1981), Parachute (1981), and Popeye (1981). 1982 saw multiple titles with the primary object of protecting buildings from burning: Fire Attack , Oil Panic and Mickey & Donald . The later titles utilized multiple articulating screens to increase
1680-491: The game's lifecycle and had various versions evolve in parallel over time due to the open-source nature of maps. In February 2006, the custom maps for Warcraft III (2002), Element TD and Gem Tower Defense , which were initially created in Warcraft III World Editor , would also bring role-playing elements to the genre for the first time. Between 2007 and 2008, the genre became a phenomenon, due in part to
1728-567: The game, players could obstruct incoming missiles, and there were multiple attack paths in each attack wave. Additionally, in Missile Command , the sole target of the attackers is the base, not a specific player character. While later arcade games like Defender (1981) and Choplifter (1982) lacked the strategy element of Missile Command , they began a trend of games that shifted the primary objective to defending non-player items. In these games, defending non-players from waves of attackers
1776-543: The genre matured, gaining recognition as a distinct sub-genre of strategy games and returning in numerous upgraded versions. Chain Chronicle and CastleStorm were released in 2013. Plants vs. Zombies 2 came out and Prime World: Defenders featured deck-building mechanics. 2014 saw a number of brand new titles including Space Run , Dungeon of the Endless , Island Days , Final Horizon and The Battle Cats as well
1824-512: The genre. It was also one of the first multiplayer video games of its kind. While Rampart was popular, similar games were rarely seen until the widespread adoption of the computer mouse on the PC. The DOS title Ambush at Sorinor (1993) was a rare exception from this era. Tower defense gameplay also made an appearance on consoles with several minigames in the Final Fantasy series, including
1872-690: The player by tampering with the cameras, such as obscuring the view or showing fake footage. The game features 100 missions and an editor mode that allows players to edit the behavior of enemies in levels and share them online. Star Fox Guard was announced by series creator Shigeru Miyamoto at E3 2014 as Project Guard . The game was rebranded and renamed as Star Fox Guard during a Nintendo Direct presentation in March 2016. Star Fox Guard received mixed to positive reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic . Jose Otero from IGN praised its "clever enemies", controls, and extra missions, but criticized
1920-568: The player to lose the game. Fortress was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2001. As real-time strategy games gained popularity in PC gaming , the easy proliferation of user-created scenarios on Battle.net expanded the genre rapidly. Custom maps for StarCraft: Brood War such as Turret Defense (May 2000) and Sunken Defense (November 2001) were early examples of the genre that retained popularity for decades. Both were released early in
1968-409: The player's control (or lack thereof) in such games also varies, from games where the player controls a unit within the game world, to games where the player has no direct control over units at all, or even no control over the game whatsoever. A common theme in tower defense games to have occasional "air" units which ignore the layout of the board (i.e. maze paths or obstructions) and travel directly to
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2016-597: The popularity of the tower defense mode in real time strategy games, but mainly due to the rise of Adobe Flash independent developers as well as the emergence of major smartphone app stores from Apple and Google. The first stand-alone browser games emerged in 2007. Among them were the extremely popular titles Flash Element Tower Defense released in January, Desktop Tower Defense released in March and Antbuster released in May. Desktop Tower Defense earned an Independent Games Festival award, and its success led to
2064-548: The return of Age of Empires: Castle Siege , Defense Grid 2 and TowerMadness 2 . Deathtrap and Krinkle Krusher were first published in 2015. More recent titles in the genre include Rock of Ages 2: Bigger & Boulder (2017) and Orcs Must Die! Unchained (2017), Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers (2018), Eden Rising: Supremacy (2018), Aegis Defenders (2018), Bloons TD 6 (2018), Arknights (2019), Taur (2020), Element TD 2 (2020), Buster's Tower Defense (2021), and Path to Nowhere (2022). With
2112-579: The rise of personal computers and handhelds the Game Boy ; correspondingly, this genre also declined. A rare exception was Safebuster (1988 multi-screen) in which the player protects a safe from a thief trying to blow it up. By the mid-1980s, the strategy elements began to further evolve. Early PC gaming examples include the 1984 Commodore 64 titles Gandalf the Sorcerer , a shooter with tower defense elements, and Imagine Software 's 1984 release Pedro . Pedro ,
2160-564: The rules. Many games were based on important events of the day: Klondike was based on the Klondike Gold Rush , and War in Cuba was based on the impending Spanish–American War . The game industry was growing, and the company was becoming very profitable. In 1906, Parker Brothers published the game Rook and it became the bestselling game in the country. During the Great Depression ,
2208-416: Was awarded the trademark for the term "Tower Defense", filed on June 13, 2007 – serial number 3442002. The corporation started enforcing the trademark: in early 2010, developers of games on Apple 's App Store received messages requiring name changes for their games, citing trademark violation. Adding the phrase "Tower Defense" (in capital letters) to the description of an app submission to iTunesConnect and
2256-498: Was released in April 2009. Plants vs. Zombies released in May 2009 was another highly popular tower defense which became a successful series on mobile devices. Also released that year were Sentinel , TowerMadness , Babel Rising , Creeper World , Sol Survivor , Comet Crash , Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord , South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! , Starship Patrol and Trenches . With
2304-402: Was to defend the player's territory (represented by the bottom of the screen) against waves of incoming enemies. The game featured shields that could be used to strategically obstruct enemy attacks on the player and assist the player in defending their territory, though not to expressly protect the territory. The 1980 game Missile Command changed that by giving shields a more strategic role. In
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