Electromaze Tower Defense

Electromaze Tower Defense is a 6 year old mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs. This mobile app is, just like it says on the box, a tower defense mobile app with an electronics/neon theme.

There's some depth in the array of towers and upgrades you have. There's a mechanism where you have to buy a tower base before you can buy a tower, I guess this is okay. It's nice that you can place towers pretty much anywhere you want, and the enemy route will change depending on where you put the towers. TD's where intelligent placement makes a difference are generally the better kind. Unfortunately the interesting elements of the TD design are completely wasted on a phoned in (geddit, phoned in, because this is a mobile app) technical implementation that will deter gamers.

From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

The mobile app features lazy minimalist/untextured low-polygon "retro" assets on a simplistic neon backdrop, very lacklustre visuals, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the early 1990s. The lack of textures is a method that lazy devs often use to disguise their lack of talent/interest in doing the graphics properly and trying to disguise it under the name of "art", or "We made it look bad on purpose", which really isn't something gamers should have to put up with. It's unclear why the developers weren't willing to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets and high resolution textures for the mobile app. It looks bad as a result of their decisions, and that's just another reason to avoid it.

The developers didn't design the mobile app for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at 1080p, a very low resolution that became mainstream back in 2006 and became obsolete when 4K entered the mainstream in 2014. The mobile app simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers.

Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone.

These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

The poor quality of this mobile app is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 5 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality mobile app is to be expected.

So, should you buy this mobile app? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $4 USD, on app stores, it's $1. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay a FOUR TIMES THE PRICE for an already overpriced mobile app just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this is a mobile app, is priced to insult and gouge PC gamers, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend.

Just who do they think we are?

Challenging to arrange mazes for optimal advantage. Pretty fun. I cannot get past Challenge Map 7. It freezes on level 10 of that map, with three enemies left on the map. Froze the same way....Challenge Map 7, level 10, 3 enemies left..... 6 times in a row.

As a cheap game, this is worth it for the TD enthusiast.

It is very difficult though, you really need to step your game up.

Bought it cheap, still regret the purchase. Crashed several times just getting through the tutorial level, and each level since. Only 4 tower types, audio is poor, visuals are poor. Not worth $1 if it was a mobile game. In the 0.5 hours I've played on record, it's crashed at least 7 times.

A true Tower Defense game as it should be. 4 basic towers with quite some upgrade choices, that inspire experimentation.
Building a maze is a must, no prebuild path here. Simple design, no unnecessary bs that no one needs or cares about like a crap story with stupid dialog u have to listen to all the time (im looking at u Defense Grid 2)
If u like TD games - this is probably one of the best u can get

The old kind of cyber feel in TD
Also, the freeze crash bug doesnt happen to everyone and was fixed for me after a while my pc got used to it. Def worth exploring if your into the TD near mythic feel

I keep going back and forth on this one, but it is a pretty darn good and creative game. I was having problems with crashes for awhile, but they have since gone away. Anyway, the bulk of the review follows.
This really seems like quite the Tower Defense game.
At first it didn't seem like much, but new functions and features are added each level so far, and it gets pretty interesting.
There are four core tower types, and they level up in the normal fashion to level three, at which point you can opt for one of two types. In addition you can bolster then with up to three utilities, which are additional abilities like making the enemy explode on death(hard to tell if this is worth anything), slow down (The slow seems pretty useless sadly) or damage over time.
You can also buy aura towers, which boost either damage or range of towers within it's aura.
The core game play is maze creation, which is a fun type of TD game, but on top of that there are numbered way stations that the foes much touch in order. This allows for really stretching their path if done right, making them go back and forth thru the maze to reach their next target.
The look is nice, kind of a vector-graphics sci-fi look, thought the towers are oddly large, which can confuse things, and don't change as they level up, making choosing where to upgrade towers a bit confusing.
There is limited target selection, which is always a nice touch as well.
The game lacks two features that are important for my tastes however, no strategic attacks, and no between wave upgrades. I would also say the lack of a story or any real fluff is a shame.
Without strategic attacks, it really does become about the maze and setting up guns, then just watching the waves go, which isn't as much fun as it could be. Luckily it does have acceleration up to 4X.
The biggest weakness I have found is frequent crashes, but that seems to have passed, for now.
All in all it feels original, and it has a nice variety up tower upgrades.

Far more frustrating than fun and I'm not convinced this game can be completed without cheating.

It's a tower defense with it's unique feature being that there are checkpoints the enemy must go through. The idea is you build a maze that forces the enemy to pass your towers numerous times. You don't get much resources to build many towers and your towers do very little damage, you rely on the enemies keep passing them to slowly whittle them down. I didn’t like this, I prefer a shorter route and my towers actually do some damage. There are 4 standard towers which can be upgraded to a further 8 special towers however, pretty much every tower is useless except for 2.

If you are aiming to 100% this game you need to beat 9 basic maps and 8 challenge maps on any difficulty and pass wave 50 of a random endless map on insane difficulty. This is where my issues start. One of the challenge maps is considerably harder than all the other maps. I beat it eventually on normal but I don't believe it can be beaten on hard or insane.

Next, I'm not convinced endless wave 50 can be legitimately beaten. My playtime shows 44 hours but I've spent around a further 20 hours off-line planning my layouts on a spreadsheet. I've put a lot of effort in to trying to beat it and I can't even get close. On the later waves your under powered towers have to contend with enemies with huge amounts of health and have incredibly powerful buffs.

At time of writing 4.2% of players have done this which is high and would suggest it's not that difficult. However there is a glitch where it is quite common to get a blank random map with no enemies and you can simply hit go 50 times to get the achievement.

Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious but it's not a very popular game so there is little to no help available. If anyone can prove my accusations wrong I'll retract my negative review.

The complete lack of guides makes this already difficult game even more so. I have gotten very frustrated, but I keep coming back, hoping for those last achievements. I doubt I'll ever be able to get to level 50 in an endless map, that seems nigh on impossible. There is not much depth especially once you figure out the best guns to use (hint: use the lasers that start weaker and get stronger exclusively, plus the buff towers. Everything else is a waste of cash).

I fundamentally love tower defense games but there are a few reasons that would prevent me from recommending this to friends.

1: The balance in this game is atrocious. Unless your maze is perfect and you have the best combo of towers possible while getting the perfect seeded map - the endless achievements are quite literally impossible. Even the challenges on the higher difficulties have to be played perfectly to complete them.

2: No real data on the game. There are no sources for information on this game and the walk through doesn't fully define everything in the game. EX: Some mobs evade attacks - what is that % dodge, are there towers that ignore the dodge, etc. There are no sources for help/vids/strats/advice.

3: Steam achievements are bugged/broken. The complete all missions and complete all challenges are broken and aren't awarded upon completion. I know everyone doesn't care about achievements but the fact that I can't 100% this game irks me deeply.

Overall, the game has so much potential. Fix the achievement bugs put a tower definition/enemy definition page on the start up page, and turn the difficulty knob from 150% to 100% and you got yourself a real 10/10 game.

It don't save the maps to well, if you leave the game and try to come back to it. Game wise you get far too little resources to enjoy it. if it gave you more resources or a level where you could play and relax a bit more it would be a lot more fun. i love tower defense games and played quite a few and i did try really really hard to like this game but couldn't. For most people it will be a game that just sits there not being played after a few tries.

There's no clear strategy beyond exploiting the path to extend the amount of times going through the maze you create. regular difficulty is still too difficult to complete. Meh.

Actually loved the game for the most part but the last 2 levels get insanely hard and frustrating . Seems like you have to upgrade your towers to the max which has an insanely high cost so you never have enough money to do more than 2.

Also there is no documentation with more info on tower type -such as which one is great against shields or what the sparkly tiles do. Do they boost the enemy or boost your tower if it's near that.

Pros
+Endless Mode
+A good variety of towers and mobs, all well-balanced
+Many choices when upgrading
+Ability to choose targeting priority for towers
+Randomly generated Endless maps with waypoints and player-created mazes turns this into an interesting puzzle game
+Great price. $4 is just right for this type of game, even a bit of a bargain, which is part of why this game has 100% positive reviews as of this review.

Excellent. I've bought nearly every tower defense game on steam, and played them for thousands of hours. This is one of the best. It's a great example of superior game design being more important than graphics. The graphics are simple, yet beautiful. Every aspect of the game is well thought out and balanced, so there are always interesting choices to make when trying to get to the next wave.

What the game's description doesn't make clear: Mazing in this game is surprisingly complex. You'll spend a lot more time perfecting your maze than thinking about tower placement. That means this is probably more of a puzzle game than a tower defense game. Just so you know!

Oh, and also: Avoid screenshots or videos of this game since they might spoil mazing for you!

Takes the good parts of good old Gem TD, back from the days of WC3 custom maps, and makes an actual good game out of it.

No luck, pure puzzle-solving.

Definitely worth the purchase!

I will start by saying that I normally don't enjoy tower defense games, I believe it's because I don't like just placing stuff on a set path. But this game is much more.

What this game gives you, is basically a sandbox into which you control both the path of enemies, and the defenses in order to vanquish them. You can also Upgrade, and upgrades are not merely stats based, they also branch into mechanic changes, changes that are not always appropriate depening on the situation, but once again, you have full control on everything.

Before I even realized I was playing a tower defense game, a genre I had no affinity with, I was already at level 3 and having fun.

I never felt once that something was broken or OP. It always goes back to: How could I have done better? Because as I mentioned before, its a sandbox, and with a sandbox you have full control.

I started the game with no expectations, and ended up doing 3 levels feeling smart until I did not feel so smart.. Then I had to think for real and I even thought about how to clear that level when not playing the game. It is that good.

For me, it's as much brain teaser as tower defense and you can't ask for more from a game, it's what they are supposed to be. There is no articifial level that is soo brokenly OP it's used as a gate for you to buy stuff in game such as on mobile games riddled with microtransactions. Here you have a full game for a very low price that is worth much more than any of those mobile titles.

There is no way to buy yourself out of a tough spot, you gotta think about it, plan, and execute, and can only rely on yourself.

It's great.

Cool tower defense game.

Enemies are on a set path, but you can change that path by adding walls and creating a maze. You then add towers on top of these walls to destroy the enemies before they reach the end of the path.

It's nice to see how the towers change as you upgrade them.

Nice clear visuals with an electronic vibe.

Chill soundtrack.

Definitely get this if you want a good challenge.

The start is a little slow, with a text-based tutorial that could have been more concise. But that's fine, it's an indie game.

Then you get into the more challenging puzzles. Those mofo are hard! Kept me playing for hours. The waypoint system is great, forcing you to think twice about your maze desing. You have to try several approaches before finally finding the victorious one. Then the song is stuck in your head for a day or two, haha. Nice song tho.

four bucks, pretty dang good!

Pros
+Challenge stages
+Three difficulties
+No OP towers (That I know of yet)
+Endless stage is seeded so its not just the same thing every time.
+Simple and fairly straight forward.

Cons
-Understanding the pathing changes might take a moment or two to uunderstand due to visual shifting when placing walls.