Sanctum: First Person Tower Defence

[Mr. Analog]

In a world where aliens rule, a hero must defend...

Ever want to help a space babe blast a horde of aliens using her heavy weapons and strategy? Then Sanctum is for you.

Classic tower defence with a twist, you're in it right on the ground. There are two distinct phases to this game, build and defend. During the build phase you design your obstacles, place and upgrade towers and upgrade your own gear. During the attack phase a wave of baddies will hit your defences and try to get past 'em, what baddies do get past you can chase after and blast on your own. Of course you have to pick your weapon and tower loadouts before you enter the scenario and that in itself is strategic, if a certain enemy type (like flying) is going to be hitting the scenario you're going to need anti-air towers, so pick your slots wisely!

The graphics are nice and clean, the action is smooth and fast, the controls are really intuitive and the art style is fun. I was really impressed how they handled the menus in the build phase, you can look up the next wave in your index and switching between towers/weapons for building and upgrading is really easy. After a couple of levels the controls become almost second nature after a while.

The only gripe I have is that I forget to look at the overworld map and sometimes lose track of where I am (though I'm usually up front where the action is), on the plus side if you build televators (teleporter + elevator = convenient) you should be able to zip around the map to fallback positions.

This game supports up to 4 players and is $10 on Steam

[Mr. Analog]

Also, I should mention that this is my first tower defence game ever...

[Melbosa]

If you like this game, you should really like Dungeon Defenders, as it was the first to do that style of tower defense, and is more mature in design.

[Mr. Analog]

If you like this game, you should really like Dungeon Defenders, as it was the first to do that style of tower defense, and is more mature in design.

That exactly why I like this: simplicity

Also lasers.

[Melbosa]

Dungeon Defenders, Defense Grid, and Sanctum are all simple and yet require good sense and strategy to win

[Mr. Analog]

Dungeon Defenders, Defense Grid, and Sanctum are all simple and yet require good sense and strategy to win

It's the graphics mostly, there's a lot more junk in DD, I can't tell wtf is going on.