If you can survive the first minute, then you can win.

[i am man 7555]

Most tower defense games increase the difficulty by having waves. This game has no waves, and the rate of creeper advancement seems to be the same in the first minute as it is after 2 hours. In other TD games, you need to keep building, because the enemy keeps getting stronger. In this game, the enemy doesn't get stronger, only you do. Thus, if you can survive the initial minute or so of play, you can build up and slowly win every time.

Maybe it's only because I have only played this game for a few hours, but it seems to me as time goes on, the game should get more difficult. (maybe it does, but I haven't noticed).

Still a fun game, but I think it needs more of a challenge.

[pawel_stopa]

Well yes and no, on let's call it "standard" type of map, it's indeed as you say(altrough you are supposed to comlpeate the map as fast as possible, that adds to the challenge) but sometimes surviving thoose first five minutes is the challange, and the maps compleates after another 5 mins. Then there are the CRPL scripted enemies that can scale to time/number of units build and so on. And then there are maps that give you only a limited amount of resources so it does get harder.

While the campaign( often considered to be the tutorial for custom maps) does indeed feature mostly standard gameplay, you will find yourself challanged by Farbor probably :P Also try the custom maps, try eduroams or MadMAgs maps, they seem to be what you are looking for.

And as you can script anytning you like using the inbuild CRPL laungage, it's really simple to add enemies scaling with time, and had been done numerous times. The main challange is to beat the map as fast as possible not to turtle trough the level^^

[75Karsten]

How much have you played? I think that's an important thing to know when formulating a response.

Note that this is NOT a tower Defence (TD) game as such. It's more along the lines of a Real-Time strategy game. THe objective is not to survive increasingly strong waves of enemies, but to build up to a point where you can defeat a deterministic emeny of some type. Score is based on time - the faster you win, the better your score. If you do nothing, the amount of creeper on the map will increase and it is harder to defeat the map. The concept of TD waves is completely absent from the Creeper World maps.

[i am man 7555]

I have only played about 4 hours, so I haven't gotten that far. At least haven't gotten far enough to notice if the game gets more difficult as time goes on. Thanks for the responses, I'll keep playing and check out the custom maps.

[Air Bear]

The game absolutely gets more difficult as time gets on. If you are a slower, more methodical player (like me) the campaign may have 20+ hours in it for you. Then hundreds of more maps unlock, broken broadly into 'easy mode' and 'hard mode' (Tormented Space, I think). The hard mode maps have some truly challenging maps using the simple mechanics you've probably already seen.

Some of the hardest maps in tormented space, you only get about 3 minutes of breathing room before the creeper gets to you, and then you have a very long hard fight to survival. The thing about the physics based mechanics of this game is that liquid pools up. You might be surviving and making a dent at the front, but all the while the creeper is getting deeper and deeper at the back. Eventually it pushes slowly into your base unless you've played really well.

The custom maps, which I believe are accessible from the beggining, it's one of the other 'planets' you can pick on the main menu, have really kept me playing this game more than anything. People are making new towers and specials for you to fight, and creating all kinds of interesting maps to play in. There's even a few where you play as the creeper!

Also you probably haven't encountered the enemy towers that shoot missiles into your base yet, and you definitely havent faced the super emiters in the custom maps which add a lot of challenge.

Sort the custom map by rating and explore for a while. There's good stuff there.

[sergeant_derp]

Games I might refer to as vanilla games - one with no CRPL - certainly do not have an increasing level of danger as in tower defense games, because as has been mentioned many times before, this is an RTS/tactical/tower offense game. The goal is not to build defenses, upgrade them, and see how long you survive; the goal is to survive and create a force and startegy that can be used to eliminate the enemy. The only advice I can give you here is to seek maps that have harder beginnings, such as the Tormented Space Maps.

Of course you could also look at CRPL maps. I have only one thing to say when it comes to CRPL - anything is possible. Who knows what you'll find if you look hard enough.

If neither of those satisfy you enough I would suggest designing your own maps/CRPL scripts that do make gameplay harder the longer you play. If you're lucky, people will appreciate the idea enough to make their own based on your ideas - like the play-as-creeper maps made by stewbasic.

TL;DR: You can look for harder maps, maps with CRPL that increase dificulty with time, or create your own.

[Slimurgical (Stormy)]

What KArsten said. Also...

Jovencoting. You need to be Creeper World God to beat that one even in 70 hours.

[Mr.Zombie]

The enemy may not get stonger, but if you don't kill it fast enough, it can overrun you.

[Gertjan]

there are many maps that give you about 5 minutes of setup, and then attack you full-front.
the maps i quit in tormented space... there's more abandoned then completed in there.
there are maps where i need to place 8 shields, 10 cannons and 3 mortars, with enough power to run them, in less then 5 minutes on a 50X50 piece of land; so aside from the weapons, another 20-ish reactors are needed. infrastructure like that takes 20 minutes to place...

also, it's easy to get cocky; thinking you are safe and attacking, only to realise you forgot a small bit of digitalis leading back into the base; killing you from behind

[Beibin]

Challenge comes with trying to beat the level in as little time as possible. I usually harvest as much resources as I can, maximizing energy only to aggressively overwhelm the waves of Creeper using multiple artillery and air units. In fact, aggressive use of Bertha units has let me beat even the apparently dreaded Farbor on my first attempt with only three minutes left before ship activation. It was my largest employment of them. However, this is a relatively safe strategy that costs time and lowers your score.

Speed running will stress your resources; it requires boldness to use them creatively and to place them in harms way to achieve implicit objectives -- an eye towards opportunity is needed to even establish those objectives. An example is that world with the orbiting satellite; it was my first experiment of the sort. I was able to destroy both spores before they were able to fire, drastically simplifying the map. I could have simply deployed a couple countermeasures and completely forgotten about their threat, but I opted to quickly destroy them instead. While I retreated back to safe strategy for the rest of the map, it taught me about opportunism and sacrifice for pay off -- maintaining the units on the lower levels became costly after some time and they had served their purpose.

Building up and sacrificing units to create a beach head on an island dominated by creeper before landing an orbital command unit and setting up a perimeter is definitely a strategy I must explore -- without artillery support from Berthas.

[RogueDeus]

OP, I agree. While the mechanic is highly addictive and I have played several dozen hours as a result, my #1 criticism would be the same... The name of the game should be changed to 'Foothold', because once you find one, its simply a matter of time before you win. The only real challenge, is to survive the first full wave, whatever that is, and then 'push' through, which is almost certain afterwards. This means that more often than not, 80% of the actual game time, is simple spent boringly trudging through and taking out each emitter/creator. Which might be putting off the majority. I am just thick headed enough to see each game through, if possible.

My second most significant criticism, would be the random maps generated in Tormented Space. Some of the small maps are simply IMPOSSIBLE to beat. And its seriously frustrating when those maps are the key maps that unlock the system.

[Harry]

I held alot of top scores on Creeper world maps. around 90% of the time my game is paused moving defences around trying to get the shortest time possible. Often times you want to get as many collector and reactors out with minimal defences to push out and achieve the shortest time possible. It's a habit i have and usually get in the top %5 of scores under the name F0R

[Bender]

I've got 213 Artifacts. If I can survive long enough to get a wall up, I can't lose. A mortar along the wall every little bit and the creeper will never get over. Throw down some berthas and get to work. But I find it relaxing.