Tower defence games have always been one of my favourite kind of games to play. I remember getting home from school, logging onto my computer and playing hours of tower defence games.
Summers for us were spent indoors for the most part and websites like XGen Studios or Addicting Games became a necessity to kill time while we waited for the school year to come back.
Tower defence games are fairly simple. You are given a map that usually contains many twists and turns. Each level mobs are released and you must kill them by placing turrets (or towers) with different skills and ranges. A number of these games are made by company Ninja Kiwi who has released a variety of the game type under the name Bloons Tower Defense.
I remember how long these tower defence games used to get when I was younger and there were some events where I wasn’t able to finish a level because we had to run to do chores or another task planned for that day. I used to get upset, especially if the level was difficult and I was nearing the end, similar to when it’s time to turn off the old NES when playing Super Mario 3.
At the time there weren’t many smartphones and every kid was rocking a Gameboy Advance, which didn’t feature any tower defence games. So what was a boy to do? Nothing.
Flash forward more than a decade to me finding out that I had an 8-hour flight and the plane wouldn’t have in-flight entertainment. Uh-oh. I began scavenging my phone for any game I would potentially find interesting and happened upon Bloons Adventure Time Tower Defense.
ABOUT BLOONS ADVENTURE TIME TOWER DEFENSE
Bloons Adventure Time Tower Defense is a game that can be played on both mobile devices and desktop computers. The game is Free to Play with In-App Purchases and can be downloaded through Steam, Google Play and most online stores.
WHAT MAKES THIS GAME DIFFERENT THAN OTHER BLOONS GAMES
Although I can’t claim that I’ve played all Bloons tower defence games (I stopped at Bloons TD 3), this game seems to have a very different play style than older Tower Defence games.
Instead of having monkey turrets, the player is given a select amount of characters from the television show Adventure Time. Truthfully, I’ve never watched Adventure Time, but truthfully that hasn’t affected my gameplay at all.
All characters can only be placed once, although you are able to give them allies which can be placed more than once dependant on their sub stats or character upgrades.
Characters can be upgraded a number of times throughout the level, though their base states slowly increase over time with upgrade items that are given to you after the completion of each level. Included with these upgrade items are in-game currencies such as Gems, Coins and Shards. Each is obtainable by completing levels, though more can be purchased from their in-game shops if you’d like to level up faster.
Rewards can also be obtained by doing daily quests. These quests give you 3 options to choose from and will give you rewards based on how difficult the quest is. 3 quests may be accessed per day, though you need to become level 10 to unlock the second slot and 20 to unlock the 3rd.
Bloons Adventure Time Tower Defense also follows a storyline which allows you to unlock more characters, though again this is something I am less interested in.
THIS GAME CAN BE PLAYED ON MULTIPLE DEVICES
One of my favourite things about this game is the fact that you can log into your account on multiple devices, unlike many mobile games. I find the most frustrating thing about many mobile games is the fact that you lose all of your progress when you switch devices or uninstall the game.
Bloons Adventure Time Tower Defense has the option to backup your gameplay in the NinjaKiwi cloud making it easy to switch between gameplay on your desktop as well as a mobile device.
So, between game sessions, I highly recommend clicking the “backup” button which can be found in the settings. That way you can easily select what savefile you want to access when switching between desktop gaming and gaming on the go!
MOBILE GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE VS. DESKTOP GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE
There are some major differences between playing this game on your mobile device versus playing it through steam on your desktop. Although the majority of these differences aren’t going to alter how you play the game, there are some quality of life perks between devices.
Mobile Ads VS. Desktop Ad Free
The mobile gameplay allows you to watch ads for extra rewards every so often. That being the case, I was teased time and time again when I wanted to reroll gear or wanted to double my rewards, but couldn’t because I wasn’t connected to the internet. If you want to level up faster, I definitely recommend you try playing this game on your mobile device.
The desktop version does not give you the option to double your rewards and actually costs you gems to re-roll the gear you were given. Truthfully, it doesn’t feel like much of a setback in my opinion. There are some times where I wish I could have gotten something better, but I think not being given the option to watch ads on the flight helped me see past the perk.
Loading Times for Options and Menus
Usually when things take a while to load it’s because of your internet connection or because your device is too old or slow to run things, that doesn’t seem to be the case with this game.
My phone has never dealt with any form of lag (other than when 20 people are raiding in PoGO and the servers are going insane.) Thing is, every time I try to open the character or achievements screen in Bloons Adventure Time Tower Defense it seems like it takes just a bit too long to open. This is especially frustrating when you click on the wrong menu and have to wait for it to load before you can close it.
The desktop version has absolutely no lag or loading times. Everything runs so smoothly it makes it a lot easier to enjoy and not want to close out of the game immediately.
Responsiveness of Maps & Turrets
I found the mobile version of this game a bit more difficult to maneuver about, just because of my fat fingers. This, of course, takes practice. However, there were some times where I couldn’t see where I was placing my characters or even times where I would try to click on a character and would select another. The gameplay is made much easier with a stylus, but I still find playing on the desktop a lot easier.
I’ve done the majority of playing this game on the desktop because of the responsiveness issues, but I am curious to know whether or not there’s a better phone to play this game on.
THE INTERFACE IS A BIT CONFUSING
Unlike many of the tower defence games that NinjaKiwi has created Bloons Adventure Time Tower Defense features an interactive, semi-3D map featuring different areas from the television show.
As beautiful as this map is, it made it a bit difficult for me to navigate my way through the game and find dungeons that I could defeat at my rank and I found myself clicking on the “Adventures” tab much more frequently. The Adventures Tab shows you which levels you’ve completed, what medals you’ve received, what characters you can unlock as well as the difficulty of each level.
Quite frankly, I would prefer it if this was the default way to view what levels to beat, especially because of the loading time it takes after you’ve clicked on it
What I do love about this interface though is when you’re in dungeons. You can easily see what upgrades you can get for your characters by clicking on them in the map, or view their whole powerup tree by selecting them from the far right.
That being said, you can also see a small description of the power by hovering over the upgrade, though I will say there are some with lots of information missing. Sometimes upgrades will mention things like being able to detect Camo Bloons, but will not include the fact that your range increases, etc.
IS IT EASY TO BEAT?
Yes and no. I would say that levels are fairly easy to beat initially, though if you want to play harder levels it will take you a bit of time to get the items you need.
Since the characters in the game require experience and items to level up a lot of the progression has to do with RNG. I will say I’ve gotten fairly lucky with my Wish Orbs, but I also had an 8-hour flight to try to grind out the materials.
There are some characters that feel much more powerful than others and will make you feel like you’re steamrolling through the game. That being said, I went from level 4 to 10 in a day, just because of lucky loot and power levelling.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
So far I love the game. I think it’s great to be able to have a game that I can access whenever I’m gaming on my PC, but can also take with me on my long commutes to work.
I will still say that I much prefer the desktop version of this game, just because of the quality of life, but the mobile version isn’t that inferior.
This game has a very “orcs must die unchained” feeling to it, so I’m enjoying it in that manner.
So I’m curious, how many of you have played Bloons Adventure Time Tower Defense? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below.
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