Forest Guardians - RPG Tower Defense (Gemcraft meets Monsters)

Forest Guardians is an incredible new TDRPG that combines extremely cute characters with a solid plot, entertaining enemies, and hours of gameplay! Check out the trailer.

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[size=+1]NOTE: I'm still looking for about 5 more BETA Testers. If you'd like to BETA test leave a post in this thread.[/size]

Forest Guardians is a TDRPG with a stronger emphasis on the TD. In the game you can select one of three characters as you unlock them and utilize their upgrade paths to specialize your defense strategy. Each characters path is aligned differently to make them more useful in different situations.

Here's some current game stats:

• 27 levels
• Campaign and endless modes for every level
• Detailed upgrade system that requires a solid strategy
• Over 25 enemies and many bosses
• Each enemy is different, many have special abilities (e.g. healing).
• 5 Base towers with unlimited upgrade possiblities
• 5 Support Faeries
• 7 varieties of ECOs (Essence Combined Orbs) that can be mixed for unlimited possibilities.
• A large variety of stat tracking and achievements
• Multiple leaderboards for endless mode highscores with Gamecenter
• Nearly 20 hours of campaign gameplay depending on your skill level.

Here are a few screenshots:








And a (poor quality) YouTube video. I'm sorry about the quality, I still haven't figured out how to make the capture high quality yet. I'll try to upload another video soon.



You can read a few more things about the development of the game over at http://digitallybold.com in the development blog.

The current goal for release is early/mid September. The game is currently in BETA. If you would like to BETA test let me know, I'm looking for a few more excited BETA testers to really play through the game before public release.

 

New Walkthrough Video

Alright. I've created a quick video of an early level in the game. This video will give you a chance to see the game in action while I explain a few things about how the game works.

If you want to get into the level jump to the 2:10 mark.

There's a lot in this video that will show you the kinds of strategy you'll need to play this game.




@undeadcow, thanks you are definitely being considered. It will likely be another week before I add anyone else to the beta while I finish up a couple more details on the game.

 

1. It is a virtual joystick. I used joysticks in this game and my previous game Goomonsters. I must say, the virtual joystick in Forest Guardians is far superior to the one in GooMonsters. In Forest Guardians the joystick moves it's default position to wherever your finger starts a touch. From there, you drag your finger in the desired direction. For a screen with no tactile response, this style joystick gives you amazing controllability without ever needing to look at your joystick location.

2.1. The battlefield is about 4x the size of the iPhone screen. Because of this, there is a zoom out button that can be pressed at any time to see what's going on throughout the field. Enemies enter the battlefield with the goal of capturing seedlings (which look more like fat seeds). If they obtain a seedling, they start running it back out of the level. Other enemies can come along and pick up a previously ran seedling and continue moving them out. There are seven seedlings that you must protect. To protect them, there are starflowers that can be used to summon one of 5 towers. Each tower has a different base ability. These abilities are augmented by 7 different ECOs (Essence Combined Orbs) that enhance the towers abilities. You can mix ECOs to create any of an unlimited variety of towers. ECO abilities include: multihit, slow, burn, charge, range, pierce, stun.

2.2. The upgrade system is actually quite simple. As you play each level, you earn stars based on your performance like many other iOS games. You take these stars to unlock upgrades for your characters. The web works like this:
There is a character icon in the center of the web. From there each character has their own web layout. The abilities found on the web are the same for all characters except one which is special to each character. While many of the abilities are the same, they are not equally accessible. Each web has its own paths and some abilities are easier to access and unlock with a specific character.

The game is definitely tower defense but you do make a very good point. A lot of the iOS tower defense games that I have seen look and work significantly different than Forest Guardians. There's a few things that really make this game unique to me.

SOME THINGS UNIQUE TO FOREST GUARDIANS
1. With many tower defense games having only 3 to 6 towers in a level, Forest Guardians delivers much more with the 5 tower base and 7 ECO augmentation system.

2. The enemies aren't just health and armor moving through a level at different speeds. At their base that's exactly what they are, but it doesn't stop there. Many have special abilities like healing, limited haste, transforming, berserking nearby allies, resistance, etc.

3. The characters are adorable! LOL, there's a desire to see these guys win! And the story adds to that desire!

4. The style of the game. This one is pretty obvious, and I think it's a good thing. There's a lot of TD games that look the same with a different skin. This is definitely more than a skin change in the genre.

5. Oh yeah, towers are just part of your weapons. There are also Faeries. Faeries cost nothing but time. Once the needed time to charge a Faery summon is complete you can summon one of 5 Faeries. One helps you collect essence(the game currency) while the others are used to weaken enemies or strengthen towers.

6. There are many levels. I've seen a variety of TD games have less than 10. Forest Guardians has 27. There is literally many hours of gameplay here depending on skill level. (20+ hours is very likely)




Large post... I know. But I hope the details spark some interest

 

New Trailer added.

Just added a new trailer.