GemCraft - Chasing Shadows

Having came to Steam years ago after pursuing a particular Flash game from the graveyard that is Kongregate and the many joys of modern PC gaming that I'm now getting to truly experience after hearing so much about it, Gemcraft is another of those excellent titles that originated during the Flash days way back in 2008 when the first game 'GemCraft Chapter One: The Forgotten' released and showed the relatively young but growing modern PC audience consisting of many a new gamer what it means to be a tower defence game which, given the competition from the well-established Bloons Tower Defence series, is certainly not an easy feat!

It is why I am quite glad to see that the fourth entry of this series, Chasing Shadows, has made its way onto Steam here alongside Frostborn Wrath as I quite fancied revisiting what was a stable of the growing Flash gaming scene back in its hayday whilst also being keen to look at it from the matured lens of an adult rather than that of a still-young gamer. (Although I can't quite explain why the fourth entry here is labelled 'Chapter Two' nor why the first three games have yet to make their way onto Steam, that will be a question for Game in a Bottle to answer!)

Though to briefly touch upon the Gemcraft series itself, the gameplay primarily sees you taking the role of a wizard who utilizes various coloured gems that can be placed in towers to destroy a variety of enemies and gain mana from them, each gem having a special effect depending on the colour and the potent of which being upgraded when combined with other gems using said mana that also allows for various hybrid gems to play out a wide variety of tactics.

Taking this at its most basic elements, the game gradually expands by introducing traps that enemies can walk onto which greatly reduce damage and range for a significantly-enhanced special effect and amplifiers which render the gem incapable of dealing any damage or effects to enemies directly but give a big boost to gems right next to it in terms of damage and special effects. Other entities, such as mana shards that allow nearby gems to extract mana and beacons which give buffs/healing to nearby enemies until they are destroyed and even scepters which target your highest-grade gem unless killed or are lured with a cheap low-grade one, randomly appear on the map periodically to help give Gemcraft an extra level of complexity and strategy to a degree not quite seen in even the latest Bloons Tower Defence.

One of the most striking aspects of Gemcraft, for me personally, is how it depicts the world through its visual artstyle. Not so much on the graphical fidelity side of things, with how the many maps on offer are unfortunately all appear fairly low-resolution even at maximum visual settings, but rather the careful choices made when designing the world and the main entities on display (that being the gems you build and the hordes of enemies you will be fighting against) with how visually pleasing it is to the eye when seeing the colourful gem projetiles in action. Even though I value gameplay above graphics, it is appreciated that Gemcraft has stuck to its own artstyle that is easily distinct from that of the more cartoon-like Bloons series.

On the note of content, there is quite a LOT when it comes to how many levels there are on offer, 191 Fields to be precise, and that isn't forgetting about how every level (asides from a few that I'll touch on shortly) has three segments to its emblem, each of these glowing when you have beaten a specific difficulty on it, as this is what both encourages replaying older levels to either grind up XP for harder levels or pursuing specific achievements that are essentially impossible to get without vastly upgraded skills and talismans, so it helps to also have a higher difficulty which affects many elements relating to monster stats, gem costs and other random events.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, essentially this game's method of helping the player out and encouraging them is by providing you with a variety of skills (new abilities to attack monsters and enhancing tower types alongside the nine individual gems) and talismans (three types of equippable emblems which grant various small buffs) that can both be upgraded with different currencies. The former uses 'Skill Points' earned by levelling up and attaining the game's many achievements whilst the latter makes use of 'Shadow Cores' which can be acquired naturally by killing regular monsters as a rare occurrence but are dropped in bigger numbers and consistently by such entities as shadows and the scepters I spoke of earlier.

Though to address one concern in relation to the 'traditional' difficulty side of things, seeing as these types of games which allow and encourage more 'extrinsic' progression, the rare few levels which highlight a singular fire emblem are designed more in line with the mindset of giving you specific skills/abilities to work with and forbidding any upgrades that the level itself does not give to you. This ensures that each player whenever they reach these levels will all be on an even playing field and will be heavily pushed into actually learning some of the more in-depth mechanics of the gems and how they synergize with other gems and traps/amplifiers, as is to be expected as far as the more 'intrinsic' progress goes.

Outside of graphical issues and the odd framerate performance when dealing in the three-digit waves at fast speeds and on high visual settings, one of my biggest gripes comes with a particular game-breaking glitch found in this particular entry of Gemcraft here on Steam. However, it may come as a surprise that it is not one that is actually 'negative' in the normal sense and is entirely a bug that, should the player utilize to its full effect, pretty much renders any difficulty in the game's many levels essentially non-existent. (Hence why this game's rarest achievements currently sit at a surprisingly high 3.4%, save for 'I Have Iron Skills')

I'll put this section in spoilers for those not wanting to know about it, however if you prefer to learn about this 'dark and arcane' knowledge as it were, essentially you buy 2 grade-one gems, placing one on a tower and another in your inventory. From there, you point the cursor over the gem on the tower and keep it there followed by holding the shift button and alternate pushing the B and U buttons. This seems to override the normal upgrade cost with the cheapest upgrade to a grade-two gem, meaning you can go straight from a grade-one gem to a very strong grade-thirteen with just the cost of 12 grade-one upgrades. Considering I found out about this after roughly 25 hours of gameplay and struggling with Field V15 when looking up a guide on how to complete it, it's safe to say that the fault is largely on myself for making excessive use of it, however I will leave this forbidden technique with you to decide what to do with.

Regardless, Gemcraft - Chasing Shadows is a fairly decent addition to the series overall, with how Gemcraft has a much bigger focus on its system of combining gems and how each of the different tower types interact with these gems alongside the more dynamic opportunities and threats that generate randomly on the map compared to Bloons Tower Defence having a bigger emphasis on tower placement and having a more defined approach to its cast of enemies in the form of various coloured bloons that are more distinct in their roles and threat levels compared to Gemcraft's cast of monsters.

Naturally this game won't be for everyone, although if you are on the look out for a more gritty and in-depth tower defence game featuring its own kind of challenges for fans of the genre then Gemcraft - Chasing Shadows has you covered and it is one series from the old Flash days that is thankfully still going strong to this day, one that I am happy to support alongside its more lighthearted monkey/balloon brother!

very unique as far as tower defence goes: combining money and health into one thing is cool, and the combination mechanics are really interesting. really long

It scratches that itch.

used to play this all the time on armor games this was so fun and im happy to say it maintained its playability on this port to steam and is still very fun :)

I shouldn't find this fun but apparently my brain will always be a fan of numbers going up and oh boy do they go up in this game

One of the better tower defense games I've played in my time. Has enough variations in maps/weapons/upgrades to keep things interesting for long periods of time.

Classic tower defense that I can not beat, but i don't want to stop trying.

Having sunk around 100hrs into it, one might think I recommend it... While it is addicting, it is also frustrating. I've beaten most of the levels, and most challenge levels. A couple of the challenge levels I've determined to be completely luck based and not skill based. In one I had 1 tower and one trap both leveled to 6 I think, barely beat the waves and then I lost because it spawned 6 slow moving mobs with a few thousand armor and half a million hit points. I think the base mana regen you get from your level is about the only thing that makes the challenge levels easier, but not even sure that is taken into account. The game has modifiers built into talisman pieces that don't do anything, or at least doesn't explain what they do. The skills aren't balanced well. Example: lvl 1 poison tower does 14dmg, skill increases this 4% per rank VS mana tower of the same level yields .1 mana per hit but still has 4% per skill level increase. Given that a level 1 gem costs 60 or so mana to even make, the odds of getting your mana back is nil and 4% of almost nothing is still nothing. This is not a game for casual players, it is a game for hardcore players who will memorize all hotkeys and be willing to grind levels. It does have the same system as the first Dungeon Warfare where you must beat your old experience gained to gain more. All in all, the game isn't the worst I've played, the story was probably the one of the most interesting I've seen in a TD, but this isn't a game where placing a lot of towers is an option, in fact the best strat is 1-3 towers. I will say that you do need to understand the tower/trap types and their uses, because you have to at some point use them at their best. All in all, a frustrating time sink that gets points for the story, 4/10 for balancing, 7/10 strategy. Also I think the only game I've ever played where the music is off by default.

Great "Tower Defense Game". Has a lot of neat quirks and things to discover about the game. It's a lot at first but once you get the hang of it, the mechanics become easy to master.

I grew up playing GemCraft: Chapter 0 on Armor Games, so finding it has full-fledged, quality sequels is just a massive dose of nostalgia.

This series as a whole has the best Tower Defense games of all time, and Chasing Shadows is no exception. Exquisite.

fantastic

Fun game. Some levels are frustrating but overall lots of interesting gameplay.

ii

A very mechanic-rich and content-heavy tower defence game, not much story or visuals for what its worth and the learning curve is a little wonky going from explaining everything to stretching out new lessons later into the campaign. I enjoyed it a lot but I had the constantly feeling I was doing things slightly wrong or ignoring game mechanics.

Probably my favourite ever tower defence game.

I remember playing the earlier flash versions of this years ago on the Armor Games website.
Good times. I love the GemCraft games, and Chasing Shadows is particularly deep and interesting in its mechanics.

That said, it is quite difficult...

The tower systems have an unimaginable level of complexity, and the skill ceiling for their use and design is so high that people have designed scripts to automatically craft optimal gems with upwards of 50 different components. I am not one of those people.
In order to reach those ridiculous heights, you first have to get through the game casually, and the difficulty of the middle section of the game is punishing, requiring a decent amount of grind, and grind, and grind.

It’s not for the faint of heart, but it is an incredibly enjoyable game despite its difficulty.
Also, the post-game content, for example redoing stages in Endless is very fun and rewarding.

Definitely a hidden gem (pun intended)

Candy Crush Saga for 30-year old virgin wizards

2/5 (parts worth playing once)

Obviously from playtime, I liked it enough to finish the main story line, but that's not the same as being able to recommend this.

In the lower difficulty settings, you have a variety of usable strategies, but as you move closer to completion (requires increasing the difficulty modifiers), you are increasingly constrained by the managem/killgem+amplifiers meta, so you end up having to do the same thing every time, which is not very interesting.

If you like "hard" tower defense that requires the same min/maxing strategy for every level (or over-leveling so it doesn't matter), this might be for you, but on balance, I'd say that some parts were fun and some were not. I don't plan to put more time into this one.

Excellent game for TD fans

I remember playing the flash version of this to 100% completion years ago on the Armor Games website. Good times. This is such a good tower defense game, it has been my standard since back then!

It's okay. I'd give it a seven. Not the best TD game out there, but not bad either.

I wish you could rate games out of 10.

fun TD, long playtime and great replayabilty, lots of strategising ^^

This game is a good TD game

Tower defense - with depth

30 FPS LOCK

frostborn wrath is better, but this is fine.

Such an amazing game I love the ability to change the path easily and the combinations are endless.
I have a mere 60 hours and barely made a scratch in the meta with endless options for wave modifiers.
Absolutely love it so far and can not wait to hit some really good upgrades to make it a little easier.
I would recommend this if you love Tower Defense games, a must play!!

who the fuck uninstalled my game

Probably one of the best TD's out there! Thanks for showing how enjoyful TD's can be.

Great Game, graphics are fine. Gameplay is steady. Definitely has replay ability.

Gemcraft - Chasing Shadows is a wonderful little tower defense game that is simple to start and gives a plethora of options to learn and expand upon as the game goes on.

Highly recommended for a cheap tower defense game to hop in for a few minutes at a time. Eventually there will come a tipping point where everything meshes together and it is a crazy ride all the way until the end.

I have been playing this game for so long that I am pretty sure that it and I might be married at this point. A friend showed me it back when it was just a browser game that you could play for free (or at least I could, I don't know if anyone else could because I actually never asked and if they told me I probably would either not say anything because I signed a No Dialogue Agreement or I forgot - or both - honestly, all I know is that I don't remember paying for this game ever and since that's all I actually know I am gonna go ahead and go with that one for right now) and I cannot begin to tell you how many hours I played, how much it actually helped me through a whole lot of hard spots I felt stuck in back in the day.

And what a delight it was to find it here on steam again, or for the first time? Both? Neither? Everything and all of it and the rest that's in between and anything else that might be out there, its incredible that I even have the opportunity to play again at all. I thought it had been lost to time. Something from my past that I loved so much, but that just simply wasn't around anymore for some reason that can't be explained other than the simple passage of time is the march that we all sort of shrug and agree is the logical course of thing.

Anyway, this is a game that is basically bugs and some gems. Thats really it. The bugs sort of walk along a pathway, and then you click on these pretty colors and make them into differently shaped colors and sometimes you can then just sort of mash them together and its both the same thing and different but no matter what its always stronger. That's the good part. And what makes it even better is that you can mush them together and also pick and choose how the colors smash together. Its cool. Like, basically if you want it to be slow but also a little bit punchy that's sort of like saying its both purple and like either green or like maybe blue. Idk, I cant remember exactly because in order to write this review I had to close the game, but its ok because I am supposed to be eating my dinner right now and I am not because I was watching videos, talking to my friends, and trying to play GemCraft - Chasing Shadows at the same time, but I kept forgetting that I was playing the game and so the bugs kept going but I was like, oh its ok because at first the little color gems were going PEW PEW PEW at the bugs like they are supposed to and everything was happy and relaxed and I was really enjoying the taco I was having. Ok maybe at that point it was a burritoo. I don't know because I was also listening to music at the same time and kinda having an argument with myself.

This is kind of what I mean when I was saying that this game helped me get through a lot of stuff. I would just sort of have the browser open a lot, maybe I wasn't really playing the game in a very active way or antthing, but like even having the window open helped me feel like I was connected to something. Or like, maybe someone. Idk. I am fuzzy on that one. It doesn't really matter, because at the end of the day, this game is called a Tower Defense game. But I don't really see it working like that at all.

To me its a story about how a thing that is just made up of a bunch of colors and shapes but its all just one big thing had a whole bunch of friends who took one for the team by having the colors take a whole bunch for the team; but also kinda in reverse at the same time. Thats really funny because this game weirdly reminds me of a couple other games that I have played that are not at all the same as this game but at the same time they feel exactly the same. Like, they look totally different and the story or the characters or whatever is different but there is this underlying feeling that is exactly the same and its how I know that they are connected, and so when I was sitting there on my couch. I can remember how the sun was always filtering through the glass. It made the whole room look like this really pretty and shimmery version of clear but also yellow, but not in a gross way. So stop thinking about that and if you need this as a reminder to go to the bathroom, go for it; I am so proud of you. Now take a moment, if your hands are in that weird gamer position where you rest like your left hand (or whatever you use to move one side) and its sits in WADS or whatever you call it and then then other hand is just like, either on your mouse just like waiting around like it expects something to happen, but in reality you are just sort of reading this and wondering if you have chips in a drawer in the kitchen and if you do what kind are they and are they still OK to eat or are they stale at this point and now for some reason I am thinking about both lettuce and orchids at the same time.

So again, here is my point. Just having a point of connection, it doesn't really matter the context at all; well, ok so maybe context can matter a bit but like samesies with specifics and a whole bunch of other stuff, so its a lot easier to be like "OK SO THIS IS JUST AN IDEA BUT ALSO ITS A BIT MORE LIKE A HINT BUT AT THE SAME TIME YOU KNOW HOW IT IS JUST SMILE AND NOD IF YOU REALLY SIT AROUND AND THINK ABOUT WHAT WE ARE DOING RIGHT NOW ARE YOU AS HAPPY AS YOU POSSIBLY COULD BE" and then you can sit there and be like:

"I thought this was just a review for a tower defense game. This person is ranting about like 12 million different things at once but somehow I am still reading this. If you got this far, I would also suggest that you play a game called Something I Can't Remember Right Now Ring because you can literally leave little messages in the game and people can vote on them. I haven't gotten very far in the game though, but I kinda get whats going on because like the colors are basically gold and black and it looks a little bit like Lord of the Rings, but maybe not the multiplayer version because I love that game so much but I haven't been able to get out the shire really because the housing system in that game is absolutely the best thing I have ever seen and I used or maybe still do have like the best house in the whole game because it is right next to a body of water, and its all cute and pretty and wonderful, and like the inside is cool too. And for some reason now I am remembering that I have to play this Harry Potter game that I heard about but that I think my friends told me was made by like a BAD PERSON but really they were super cool to me when I talked to them on a video but I think they were hiding in disguise but that's fine because the point of this review is to show that you can spread joy wherever you are and however you want to. And if you actually seriously read every single world of this and understood anything I was saying, you will probably really love this game after all. <3 <3 <3

Best TD game, i keep coming back.

Updated Review:
I bought two other TD games along with this one.
I'm still playing this awesome game.

A ton of levels in this game. I like that you can construct massive tower clusters using amplifiers to boost other towers around it. There's also traps, spells and skills.

If you like defending with towers and don't mind the simple graphics
this one is a must have. Can't believe I missed this one, it may end up being my favorite.

im sobbing, this game is so good and im not even an hour in the game

Simple, yet fun. Graphics are good enough, gameplay is addictive. And its quite cheap.

Dont tell me you played this game without 100k wizard level

Played a version of this ages ago, Gem Craft is from a time when tower defense games had to actually be good to get published anywhere outside of flash game websites. The fact that I'm willing to pay money for a tower defense game speaks volumes about how much playtime I'm about to give this game.

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nice little game....smash it

Best TD ever, perhaps.

Absolutley, probably the BEST TD GAME EVER. if ur into that kinda thing...

Quite okay. Fun for plenty of time for an okay price. The game is fun at the beginning, then is pain called "getting to Amplifiers", then is fun again for a while. Not quite balanced, but pretty fun regardless. Worth checking out generally speaking, and definitely when on a sale.

Fun, and a little RPGish. I like tower games and this one is pretty addictive.

God tier tower defense game

This is a very difficult game to recommend, but I will still attempt to recommend it regardless.

As someone who grew up in the golden age of Flash browser games, this one always stuck out to me as one of the most consistently good tower defense games in the entire genre. Yes, even better than Bloons.

The tower systems have an unimaginable amount of complexity, and the skill ceiling for their use and design is so stupidly high that people have designed scripts to automatically craft optimal gems with upwards of 50 different components.

However, in order to reach those heights, you first have to get through the game casually, and I must say that this is one of the hardest video games I have ever played. The difficulty of the middle section of the game is bone-crushing, requiring exact precision, map knowledge, and at some points, seemingly just grinding for skill points to give a final push through the hex.

It’s not for the faint of heart, but it is an incredibly good game despite its difficulty. Should you conquer this game’s arduous challenges, you’ll be deeply satisfied, and the post-game content (that is to say, redoing stages in Endless) is very fun and rewarding.

Definitely a hidden gem, even if it is a bit rough.

This isn't a review. I just wanted to tell whoever read this that there is an enemy in this game that can not be stopped even if you pause the game and i think that is really cool.

Feels as good as ever. tasteful. no memory of it's flash origins can be felt but you won't mind

Gemcraft is a classic TD franchise and if you're looking for a tower defense game you really can't do better than chasing shadows. I have more hours in Frostborn Wrath but honestly that's probably from letting levels in endless mode play out for progression/high score reasons. If there's any 'web game' worth spending money on, it's this one.