Thursday, May 15, 2008

TD Games Fix

My latest Tower Defense game fix comes by way of Canyon Defence .

I think its definitely one of the best looking TD games out there.
You can pick up the game instantly, Easy Mode is joke but a great way to get beginners into the mix.

One of the elements that I found fun and unique in Canyon Defense are the "Quest's" you need to complete to unlock new weapons, buildings, and abilities.

Great game overall.

On a side note: Its funny how I still play a little Desktop TD when I get the chance. It still hasn't gotten boring yet! Now that I've completed Medium a few times I've moved up to Hard Mode. One word: Yikes!

Friday, April 11, 2008

wikipedia

At one point I had a link pointing to my site www.TowerOfDefense.com on wikipedia specifically on its Tower Defense page.

I added it directly below the only other link(which I won't mention, now gone just like me) in the "external links" category. The link before me had a text description along the lines of "a forum to talk about Tower Defense Games".

So I ever so politely did not touch this link and entered my link www.TowerOfDefense.com below it with the text description: "The Ultimate Tower Defense Games Portal". My site traffic got an instant boost! But after only a few days it was gone. So I figured the person who posted the link just above me didn't like having some of his traffic diverted.

I went and re-entered it again. But this time I thought maybe I'm stepping on a few toes when I wrote "The Ultimate Tower Defense Games Portal" so I instead put something along the lines of "Free Flash Online Tower Defense Games". This time a few days goes by and I'm thinking great its going to stick this time.

But no I was deleted again! But to make things worse this time instead of just being deleted, the above link added a 2nd link in place of mine pointing to his collection of TD games!

So now it was war! I had been super polite and always posted below others and seemed to follow all the rules and this guy just keeps deleting me! So I go back and delete him and post my link with the original text description. Guess what happens next. Boom were both gone. Wikipedia removes us both. Isn't that great instead of sharing a little and he gets nothing just like me.

What have I learned from this? 1- People are greedy. 2- Wikipedia is taking control over its content. Is less user input and stricter control a good thing or bad? You tell me?

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Flash Element TD 2

My latest tower defense game addiction comes in the form of Flash Element TD 2.
As you know from previous posts I like my Tower Defense games to be a good challenge to complete. A game that's frustrating but keeps you coming back to try on new strategies.

So when I first heard about Flash Element TD 2 I was chomping at the bit to play it. Part 1 was one of the first online Flash tower defense games and its still one of the best today. The 2nd installment ups the ante on the cute graphics and sounds. The new element towers are cool and upgrade well.
But the biggest innovation comes in the form of the elements you need to protect. The elements sit at the end of the usual path enemies travel down and once they reach them they pick them up and begin traveling back the way they came. If they escape with all the elements its game over!

I really like this game but here's my beef: level design.
There are only 3 levels. And only the first 2 are free to play. (Easy) is way too easy. Next level is (Harder) and yes its insanely harder. I can't beat it for the life of me. My highest score is 34864. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong? Upgrades get expensive and it seems powerful enemies give out the same amount of money as the enemies from the first level???

Well at least this time I won't go spoil my frustration by checking out a youtube.com video. ;)

Monday, March 24, 2008

Desktop Tower Defense Triumph

I finally completed Desktop Tower Defense. (on medium)

For those of you who haven't played it at all or much, this might not seem like a big deal. And for those of you who are pros this isn't much of an accomplishment either right? But after hours and hours of trying different strategies, creating different paths for those evil but cute little creeps to travel along the longest distance blasting them with multiple weapons along the way. I finally did it.

A friend of mine was over watching the hockey game and with the PC close to the TV we were taking turns trying to complete Desktop TD. After several frustrating turns Kevin says "That's it I'm going to youtube to see how to beat this game!" I first protested saying I want to figure it out on my own but it was to late the video was playing and I couldn't turn away.

So I finally beat it, but I feel cheated, I didn't figure out the strategy on my own. I don't have that satisfaction that I kicked mediums ass with my cunning.
Maybe I can redeem myself by completing it on hard. Oh no the hours that will be wasted!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Traffic p.1

"Hello World"

Interested in seeing how many visitors www.TowerOfDefense.com gets and where they come from?

This section will be to show what progress and/or lack of progress I achieve in promoting www.TowerOfDefense.com in hopes of greater traffic. First post of many like this I hope.

I can say that I am pleased that traffic so far has been slowly increasing on a daily basis. The 3 main sources of traffic are in order:
1. referring sites = 51% (sites like digg.com, neatorama.com and paid traffic like Adwords )
2. Direct Traffic = 30% (people that have me bookmarked or type the url and go directly)
3. Search Engines = 19% ( Google 59%, MSN & Live.com at 39%, the rest 2%)

As of yesterday I am averaging 2500 page hits / day. That translates to roughly 600 visitors / day hitting at an average of 4 pages viewed per visitor.

Hopefully through word of mouth and increased rankings in search engines my traffic will continue to grow. :)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Mini Dilemma

Hi again,

Two posts ago I talked about getting people to vote for games on my site: www.TowerOfDefense.com And how this is important at ranking the best games and I will in turn put them in the appropriate order.

But here's my mini dilemma. The most played game on my site is Vector TD. Its sitting #1 on my top 5 online games which is shown on every page. It even knocked down Desktop TD for top spot as voted by the players. This is a great game to have as a #1 game because it looks and plays great. Perfect for TD fans and also a great introduction for new players.

But recently Flash Element TD surpassed it in its ratings. I should of course move it above Vector TD but I'm having a hard time because it doesn't have that polished look like Vector TD, and I want the #1 game to represent my site well. I want to make the best impression on new players that for the most part try the #1 game before any other game.

UPDATE: Oddly the ratings got reset somehow (I didn't do it I swear) for Flash Element TD. And so far all the new votes have been much lower than Vector TD. Well I guess my mini dilemma fixed itself. :)

Monday, March 10, 2008

More Games

Hi,

More content is always a good thing.
I've added a 3rd page to the online games section at:

www.TowerOfDefense.com

Enjoy.