Barely. Its more of a puzzle tower defence that requires a lot of restarting to see what works. Boring after an hour or so

I am a TD junkie -- 700+ hours on Bloons TD 6, Orcs Must Die (all 3), probably 1k... it's the most relaxing genre to me... well defined rules, restricted boundaries, predictable progression... however it's really tricky to successfully capture a threshold of difficulty where success turns on a small set of variables, wherein the player can win or lose based on minor changes. This is tricky because as the player you want it to feel possible to win, but not easy. If it is easy, all the fun completely evaporates. If it is too hard, it can become frustrating, particularly if the difficulty feels irrational and the result of bad game mechanics. Good TD games make you feel like you can win via lateral thinking, and have enough variables that success can be attained through almost countless paths (like chess).

I've only been playing this for three hours or so, but I can already see this one is a great TD game, with excellent mechanics. I don't think I'm even a third of the maps complete, and I can see more game mechanics will be unlocked the more I move forward.

100% recommend if you're a TD fan! Thank you to the makers -- great job!

UPDATE after nearly 50 hours: This has become one of my favorite TD games... I'm close to reaching the final map, but still not there yet.

A few observations:

- When I started playing it the camera, and the inability to move it freely and zoom in and out at will bothered me. You can zoom in and out in a static way, but it's not incremental. Now this doesn't bother me, as if my mind adjusted to it. After putting some hours in your "vision" of the maps changes. An odd phenomenon.

- This is certainly not a set it and forget it TD game... you must tweak and plan every single wave until you reach a point of stability. Some maps are MUCH harder than others, but in general the difficulty stays relatively stable. I was stuck on one map in particular for a long time, but since then perhaps my learning curve flattened and I just got better at it.

In short, I'm totally hooked.

A few recommendations to the developers, some of which I'm sure they've already considered:

- it's quite limiting that specific towers will only attack the weakest, strongest, or first enemy in its sight. If this was a adjustable variable I think there could be more variability (although perhaps this was specifically disallowed because it might disrupt the balance).

- When you start a new level there is a paragraph or a few sentences on the lore of the game, with some description of a new innovation or tower; there is a disconnect between the description and what is obvious in the tower selections. For example, the tower that sprays ice until it is fully upgrades, in which time it sprays fire: this is not clear without actually doing it. I believe they attempt to explain this kind of thing in those opening texts, but it really isn't always clear.

- To create some more variability in the game play, you could have tiles which appear or disappear as the waves progress. For example, the island could be crumbling and tiles could fall away, or lava/water could erase a tile and destroy any developments on it. Inversely, perhaps a boulder could fall between a crack on a wave, opening a new path.

- It took a long time to be able to distinguish between some of the enemies... I know there's limited pixels to design on such a limited space, but better character design would allow distinguish-ability more easily. It's not terrible, but just a minor note.

Just some thoughts. Overall, A+. Thank you!

The game is not bad, it is a fun puzzle TD game. However, do not be fooled into thinking this is a Warcraft 3 TD.

Bought this game because people said it was similar to Warcraft 3 TDs. It is, but only on the surface (i.e mapping your own paths). As many people have pointed out, this game is more of a puzzle tower defense. If you do not use a specific pathing, with a specific combination of towers, you have little chance of "perfecting" a map. You don't get a enough gold to scratch the itch of creating a large maze, and watching you tower hit hordes of enemies with the bliccy, and by the time you have anything the map is over. Overall its an interesting TD so positive review, but I'm not sure where other people are getting WC3 TDs from.

Awesome game, similar to the old Warcraft 3 TD mod.

Great accessibility with the 3 difficulty levels, and you don't need to perfect each level to progress.


Lots of fun and reflection!!

Minmaxing the Maze

It’s pretty much impossible to recollect Warcraft III without remembering the custom map frenzy in Battle.net’s early days. Of all the genres it popularized, tower defense and MOBA are certainly the most prolific, with countless iterations developing and perfecting its formula. Most of these games appeal to a gimmick, be it inverting the premise (Anomaly), adding roguelike and deckbuilder mechanics (Heretic’s Fork) or letting the player actively partake in the slaughter (Orcs Must Die!). It’s become almost a trend to enrich a tower defense with either mechanical or aesthetic layers to elaborate on its simple essence.

On the other end of the spectrum, Artisan TD proposes a barebones, minimalistic approach that emphasizes geometrical efficiency and a problem-solving mindset applied to every wave. Instead of levels, we have boards, and the fantasy-inspired aesthetics are a mere throwback to the game’s Blizzard-inspired roots, as there is very little lore and pretty much no story or dialogue. Coupled with its gridded map design and snappy, instant construction animations (like placing pieces on a board), the games gives off heavy chess vibes.

On that account, making mistakes or not thinking about the best approach will prove costly, especially if you’re aiming to clear every level perfectly. The three levels of difficulty and three levels of speed control widen the reach and accessibility of the game, but for the most part there is very little room for error. Building mazes, maximizing synergy while being cost-efficient with your tower selection are all key skills that veterans of the genre will recognise, and Artisan TD rewards the player for cultivating them more than most tower defense games.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3302088465

A Question of Firepower

Enemies come in three forms: walkers, burrowers and flyers. The former category simply follows whatever path you’ve laid out for them, while the latter two more or less make a B-line towards the exit portal. To complicate things are modifiers: purple enemies are worth nothing, armored enemies have an extra life bar, and yellow enemies are worth a lot of gold. As such, you must lay out your structures to cover all three categories, with the only warning being a color-coded composition of the next wave displayed in the corner of your screen.

Your arsenal is nothing we haven’t seen before, as most of what we’re working with are staples of the genre. We have fast-shooting ground-and-air archer towers, mage towers that chill and slow the invading hordes, catapults, which deal splash damage, ballistas, which pierce through enemies and even incremental damage beam towers. You can upgrade your towers at any time and sometimes you’ll even have to do it precisely in the moment when you have the money for it to perfect waves. As for selling them, you can recover their full cost only in the same build phase you placed them on (on the easiest difficulty level, this applies in any subsequent round). By slowing down the game, you can actually sell off and reuse obsolete towers and reinvest ahead of the monster waves, increasing your damage at the cost of infrastructure.

The developers are keenly aware, however, that the road to perfection is paved with failure and perseverance, which is why you can replay any wave instantly and course correct as you observe your mistakes. There are, of course, hints on every map (sand tiles slow down the mobs, while purple tiles heal them and cinder tiles burn them) that point you in the right direction, but also auxiliary mechanics that tend to complicate perfect trap setup.

For example, you can build farms on certain maps, which provide consistent income every turn. The money they generate is a lot more helpful in the early game, but their cost reduces your tower budget. Do you build early and risk being overrun, or do you build later and lose profit? Balancing these things and knowing how to build without succumbing to the temptation of overkill really makes a difference, and there’s a distinct feeling of satisfaction when you hit that sweet spot that solves whatever conundrum you’ve been stuck on.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3302087952

Cracks in the Wall

The sort of unforgiving tightness you’ll experience in Artisan TD engages you mentally and is at the same time the game’s strongest aspect and dealbreaker, depending on how you feel about puzzle solving. What’s less tight is the game’s optimization: even with a high-end rig, you’ll find that the resource usage is unreasonably high for the number and complexity of assets onscreen. What’s worse, the video settings are laughably basic, and the lack of customization prevents you from tweaking anything past its general level of detail.

The second weakest aspect of the game is its production value, or lack thereof. As there’s no story or driving narrative, your setting will be defined by its design and form. If you have a background in graphic design, you’ll notice a few glaring details: the fonts are divorced and suggest conflicting notions, gothic lettering for menu items, while the header glides over all with its unrelated stone age aesthetic. Furthermore, the Play button uses a different font than the rest of the items for some reason, and every single creep model or tower is derivative of already established tropes in the genre, which in turn diminishes Artisan TD’s individual identity.

Weak typography on its own might not be a world-shattering problem, but it’s indicative of a wider inconsistency in product presentation. As such, there is an observable discrepancy between the tightly-knit and equation-perfect mechanical design and the weak visual facade. If it solves its optimization issues and overhauls its UX, Artisan TD has the potential to become a storefront gem. In its current state, however, it’s still a cool puzzlebox, unfortunately diminished by superficial presentation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3302087081

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It's a good game. Great graphics, good layouts and a variety of enemies and towers. It is complete and polished. Here is more for those deciding whether to get it or not.

In the game you build your towers to create a path for your enemies to follow - a maze builder type of TD. The longer the path, the better your chances of winning. New towers are made available as you progress, to deal with new enemies. There are three modes translated to "easy", "medium" and "hard". The medium mode works quite well, but you can back down to easy and try again, if you have trouble. You get 1 to 3 stars depending on how many lives you have left at the end.

It is a somewhat simple game, which limits the enjoyment. There are no "heros", "research" or "emergency field weapons". The lack of "research" is particularly damaging (this is your ability to get more powerful weapons, or universally increase firepower, range etc.). The stars you get have no reward value. This reduces the motivation to do better. The in-game tower upgrades are also limited. It is generally "very difficult" even on the lowest level.

As to game play, because of the characteristics mentioned above, you have to use a different strategy. Each wave often requires a different set of turrets. You have to sell and re-configure almost after each wave. Worse, sometimes, you have to re-configure within a wave to keep your turrets moving with the enemies, otherwise you will lose. This can add some excitement at times.

AN UPDATE:

It seems that people liked my review, so I want to add more after having played it a lot longer. I affirm that it is a great game - "a masterpiece", as I said in my curator review. What I want to add is that it is a unique TD game with novel elements that are not the well traveled road. The rarer aspect is that it is very heavy on strategy. You get all the tower upgrades and all the "strength" possible very quickly. After that the difference between the "easy (adventurer)" and the hard categories is just how well you have learned the game and how good you are at strategy. I was able to figure out most of the maps at the hard difficulty with no enemies getting through, but it took quite a while and many tries. There were a few maps that I gave up on, but there were solutions on the web. I admired these solutions because mine were close but no cigar. I thought they were impossible, but they were not, and, using only the elements I always had they could be won. So the bottom line is that it is like a chess game - you can play it a long time and still have something left to learn.

Well, that would have been the bottom line, except the designers decided to add more content. Great! It was quick to solve on the "adventurer" part, but it is now a new challenge on the harder difficulties. I like "adventurer" for the easy setting. A lot of TD designers don't understand that what they label as "easy" or "casual" is very annoying - because it is neither. I like it in Kingdom Rush, where they have the "impossible" level. It is a real joy to make the impossible possible.

I have played maybe 100 different tower defense games. This one is well tuned and challenging. Devs did a good job. Most tower defense games try to get too clever and have lots of complications that cause it to ultimately be broken, usually by being too easy, or by having mobile-game/grind mechanics. This one keeps it simple and just does simple very well.

Good game, although I have some comments.

I don't see a significant difference between the difficulty levels.

The language translation looks like it came from a translator. There are errors.

There is supposedly a bestiary in the menu, but you can't deduce much from it. The creators should either detail the information about towers and monsters, or write directly which tower is effective against which opponents.

This game is a really cool Maze TD a bit more puzzle game than other TD and it's great.

It took me around 43 hours to complete the game with all the achievements but I've played a lot on the demo and was able to perfect the first few levels without any real difficulty.

The game is hard, especially at the start with small map and not a lot of different tower, if you want to perfect it on the hardest difficulty it need a lot of retry. However on the latest levels, map get bigger and you have a lot of tower available, it make a lot of different solution working.

But this game has a very cool feature where you can retry from any previous wave and you need to abuse this. Retry a wave and test multiple tower configurations until you get the perfect one.

Few tips for player that read that and want to try the master difficulty in perfect.

- Always try to pass a wave with the minimal amount of gold spent, this is to have more gold available for the next wave so when you retry the current wave you will have more gold available to test different tower setup.

- Don't hesitate to sell, sometime selling a tower can help pass a level especially on dolmen where they have more damage. On the last wave selling the farm or selling the towers that are no more shooting can help build new tower at the end.

- Your maze is very important, some monster like the Octoid are easier to deal with when removing straight line inside your maze. Something I like to do is wave 2 or 3, I sell everything and build the wall where I want them at the end then I take a screenshot of the maze.

- Be patient, sometime it's good to slow down a bit the game to be able to upgrade your tower at the right moment or when selling tower to replace them but better one for the current situation.

+ Great game for scratching that classic TD game itch
+Visual style
+Music/sound
+Easy to learn but challenging to master

-Not many options to do things in your own style. You have to place the exact type of tower in the exact spot a lot of times, which can make it feel unintriguing
-i had frequent crashes when playing. Game starts up quick, so not too bothered by it