MadOwl is an independent game studio based in London and Cologne. Their first game Hex Defender, was recently released in the Google Play Store. It is out now on Android and iOS is to follow. MadOwl takes a tower-defense style game for a spin…literally, and it works.
It is always interesting to see what an independent studio chooses to create as their first game. MadOwl chose a genre that is popular, but at the same time, there hasn’t been a great deal of innovation with Tower Defense games in a while. I think they chose a perfect genre, because they chose to provide a unique twist to what we know and love about Tower Defense games. Every bit of action, strategy and resource building that goes along with these types of games, has been well-implemented with Hex Defender, but with a simple rotating mechanic, Hex Defender changes everything.
“Hex Defender is a tower defense game with a difference. With most tower defense games the turrets are placed and the position of that specific turret is fixed. With Hex Defender the six turrets are rotatable around a hexagon. There are six colors to choose from for your turrets which will all be effective against six different colored enemy ships; red destroys red for example.” – MadOwl
I appreciate the science fiction setting for the game. Commander Crash has retrieved the Crystal of Life from Earth’s enemies. He is attempting to return to Earth, when his warp drive fails. Now he must defend himself while still in enemy territory. The game’s narrative is told with simple text and images. It draws you into the game, and you are introduced to the primary characters, and the role they will play throughout the game. You pilot a ship that has six turrets available to you, to help keep you alive. Complete mayhem ensues, as you rapidly learn how to command this ship, to keep the enemies from stealing the Crystal of Life.
Brilliantly carrying the hexagon theme throughout the game, there are six worlds in the campaign mode. In each of those worlds, are six levels to play, so thirty-six levels. There is also an infinite/endless mode that you can play as well. There is quite a lot of game for a game that will cost you just over $1.00, and there are no in-app purchases. You can’t beat that these days!
The game walks you through how to play it through simple instruction panels. As is standard with tower defense games, when you destroy the enemy ships, you get cash. The cash allows you to build and upgrade your towers. What makes this game a little more complex, is picking the right tower, because you have to pick the right color. The color of the tower is associated with the color of the enemy ships. They enemy will be coming to you from all sides, so you need to pay attention to the indicator that flashes to tell you from where they are coming, and what color. Hopefully you already have a turret built of the needed color. If you don’t, you can rotate your ship so that the corresponding turret colored tower matches the ship to blast it out of the sky. This makes the game fun, challenging and full of strategy. You actually feel like you are commanding a ship and directing the outcome of the battle. This will make fans of Ender Wiggins quite proud.
The art direction in Hex Defender is good. It is more than appropriate for the game. The flat panels that help tell the story are rendered extremely well. The in-game graphics have been scaled back a bit. It gives the game a retro look without being dated. Heavy graphics don’t overwhelm the game. The game is about analyzing the battle, calculating your next move and successfully implementing it. Out of the gate it may not be the easiest game, but improving in battle is part of the joy of it.
Hex Defender is integrated with Google Game Play Services with 11 achievements to unlock and leaderboards to compete on. As a first game from MadOwl, color me impressed.
