The Tower Defense genre in the gaming world had a golden age several years ago and is still on the rise with the arrival of mobile games like Kingdom Rush or Arknights. Isle Of Arrows comes to add its stone to the genre by offering an original way to play Tower Defense based on tiles and a mixture of genres with Roguelike / RogueLite.
Even if the game remains a Tower Defense where you will have to protect your nucleus against enemy waves, Isle Of Arrows offers gameplay alternatives through 3 distinct game modes. The campaign mode first of all will offer a classic defense where according to your evolution you will be able to unlock new cards and therefore improve your gaming experience afterwards. The Challenge mode will allow you, thanks to your unlocked cards, to offer you a very specific challenge and finally the daily challenge will be somewhat of the same ilk as the Challenge mode but with the possibility of seeing your prowess with the other players in the game.
One of the strengths of the game is that the islands where the player evolves are procedurally generated which will allow players to have a unique experience at each game play. In addition, at the start of the game, you can play a specific guild with very different gameplay. For example, the first guild will earn you a heart every 10 rounds while the second, the Architects, will have no tiles to extend the latter (so no more defense or utility towers).
The gameplay of the game is basically quite simple. Invaders spawn from a specific point and will want to march to your core to destroy it. For each character that passes you lose a point of view (10 at the start of the game). To help you, you will be able to play tiles on your island with different effects. The first tile of each round is free to play and subsequent ones will cost two coins.
Another point to know is that if you keep coins in reserve, your profits between rounds will be increased. For example between 10 and 19 coins, you will get 2 coins at the end of the round and 3 coins if your reserve is between 20 and 29 coins. This mechanism is quite interesting because it allows you to increase your income quickly at the start of the game to face the difficulties arriving towards the final waves. For example, you can choose a lot of tiles at the end of the game if you want to find the perfect piece or try to counter an enemy wave that is too big for you.
After a certain number of waves, the enemies will arrive from other randomly generated points on the map. On the one hand, you will have to defend this new position and it will also not be possible to join the two roads to make one. However, it will be possible to bring them closer together to try to optimize the effects of your tiles, but this is easier said than done as the game can sometimes be tricky in generating the tiles it can give you.
The tiles you may have at your disposal can be divided into three main families: roads, towers/traps and utility tiles. Roads will allow you to enlarge the paths of your invaders to allow you to lay more tiles to counter enemy waves. Quite simply, tricks and traps will be your favorite tiles to stop your opponents. There are different towers with very different effects ranging from a simple tower shooting a single enemy to one throwing bombs over an entire area. Finally, utility tiles will have very different effects depending on where you place them. For example, some will require to be completely surrounded to activate an effect or to gain a certain amount if it is adjacent to watercourses.
With more than simplistic graphics, Isle Of Arrows will make you spend a significant number of hours whether it is to understand all the mechanics of the tiles as well as to unlock the different tiles offered by the developers. The different game modes will allow you to have a more than certain replayability as well as to be able to measure yourself against other players in the game.
The game is available since early September on Steam for a price around 11 Euros. I highly recommend it if you like TDs without the fuss.
