Steam's "Fest" events are a way to get more eyes on upcoming titles; today, we're going to be looking at the Tower Defense Fest that is currently running, July 29th to August 5th. This is the second Fest in a row that might struggle with a lack of gameplay diversity, after the Fighting Game Fest two weeks ago, so it's up to me to peruse through the curated games to find the diamonds in the rough! Hopefully some will make their way onto your Wishlist - and mine - in the near future.

Remember you have until Monday (August 5th) to play what you can!

These are presented in alphabetical order.

Emberward

Release Date:  June 25, 2024 (Early Access)
Developed by:  ReficGames
Published by:  ReficGames

Emberward is a Tower Defense game with roguelike elements: by placing Tetris tiles on the map, you change the landscape for tower placement and enemy travel lanes. You can then upgrade the tiles themselves with boosts for whichever turret you build on top of them, such as increased range or bonus attack power if it uses the correct type of damage. The game follows the layout popularized by the roguelike deck-builder Slay the Spire, wherein you travel along randomized routes on a map, leading to each individual level or other benefits like a Shop or a healing Altar.

For being in Early Access, the gameplay was incredibly enjoyable and worked rather well. Towers consisted of usual fare, utilizing slowing ice, chain-lightning, fire, cannons, etc.; but missile launchers, dice towers, and poison dart shooters implied some hidden spice as well, for those looking for it. Variety will also come from the roguelike elements changing up how you'll proceed through each run, and additional personas you can presumably unlock beyond the basic starting character.

In my demo run, I went with ice towers to slow down the enemy and bunch them up for my lightning, missiles, and boulders to hit the group. I did quite well...up until the end, when it was all undone by my poor decision-making. I chose a passive bonus that halved my preparation time to give me bonus gold if I finish quickly, but in disrespecting that safe-time I started to make poor choices in the heat of battle. Enemy werewolves have a stun ability to temporarily turn off towers, and thus did they get past my huddled defenses. Right before the final boss of the run, too!

All told, the game seems very promising: an easy Wishlist for me. With more maps, towers, and upgrades in the future, this could become a fan-favorite in the Tower Defense genre; the "Overwhelmingly Positive" score suggests it might be already!

Grit and Valor - 1949

Release Date:  2025
Developed by:  Milky Tea Studios
Published by:  Megabit Publishing

Grit & Valor - 1949 asks the question: "what if the Axis seized Europe with a bunch of mech units?" It also asks "why is my title spelled two different ways?", but I digress. Tasked to lead a Resistance to stop them with a couple mechs of your own, the game isn't exactly a true "Tower Defense" game. For one thing, your "towers" can move freely around the grid-like battlefield, and the only thing you're really "defending" is yourself, with a little helpless command vehicle thrown in for good measure. You proceed through an area like the British Isles or Scandinavia in roguelike fashion, surviving as best you can until faced with a boss (that was not available).

Grit & Valor seems straight-forward at first glance, so it's really a question of how well it executes this. Combat is in a real time, but also a rock-paper-scissors affair, with Ballistic mechs beating Fire, Fire beating Explosive, and Explosive beating Ballistic units. Enemy units are air-dropped onto the field via helicopter, and it's up to you to position your mechs behind what little cover there is and respect the RPS mechanics to maximize damage output. Unfortunately, without a human opponent to engage with on a psychological level, combat stylized after rock-paper-scissors is rather dull.

There are special pilot abilities you can use during battle, but only so many times per run, and your expenditures carry over until the area is complete. This led to a classic scenario: balancing the need to use something in the here-and-now versus saving it "because I might need it later". However, what I was ultimately balancing was the power to heal, so there could be no waiting on it: I reached the final battle with my mechs in tatters, save for the Fire mech with self-repair abilities. She could not handle the waves on her own, so I was defeated.

I love mechs and mech combat, and with various mechs and pilots to acquire to spice things up, maybe the game can be redeemed from the death-knell utterance of "it's boring". But at the moment, with all of that stuff locked out of the demo, I just don't know.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance

Release Date:  October 15, 2020
Developed by:  Ironhide Game Studio
Published by:  Ironhide Game Studio

Be the bad guy and utilize a dark army of minions in Kingdom Rush Vengeance. After returning from...somewhere (I presume one's defeat), Vez’nan discovers his evil tower has been taken over and become a tourist attraction! Not one to stand for such an insult, the wizard decides to recruit you the player as his mighty general in a campaign of...well, revenge.

Of course, this is a Tower Defense game, so naturally as the good guys come a-knockin' you'll have to build structures to bring them down. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes, with various speeds, armor, and abilities of their own that you need to take into account: one armored dwarven unit, for example, could repair machine units nearby, making it a priority to kill the fixers quickly. Thankfully, after a certain point you can customize your tower loadouts; with 20 towers in the main game, each with their own abilities and strengths, it's up to you to mix-and-match to best counter opposing strategies.

The main thing I found different from the norm was the incorporation of special hero units, which reminded me fondly of Warcraft III. You can command one of 15 heroes (aren't they villains?) to freely move around the battlefield, using their own unique skills independent of the towers. As they deal damage and/or kill enemies they gain experience, which can then be spent to upgrade them. The starting hero could gain a stun attack, for example, as well as summon some goblins to help manage the incoming waves a little.

All-in-all it's a quirky experience, and I had a decent time with the game. I suppose my main concern is whether or not it does enough to truly sell me, when there are a frankly absurd amount of games in the Tower Defense genre. Apparently there's a whole franchise of TD games like this, too, so perhaps becoming the bad guy is enough to make it stand out.

Temporal Titans

Release Date:  "Coming soon."
Developed by:  Lost Tower Games
Published by:  Lost Tower Games

Before I even began playing Temporal Titans, I was reminded of Into the Breach, a great game with a similar concept of fighting off monsters with mechs that can rewind time. After finishing the demo, I was proven right...but in a good way. Assemble a team of up to three Time Walkers, lay down some suppressive fire with your towers/turrets, and stop the aliens from ravaging the planet!

Your mechs can be fully customized with salvage you acquire after each mission, allowing you to bolt on things like jump jets, burst rifles, and gravity hammers. You can then use special abilities mid-combat, such as demolishing buildings with a melee weapon to make room for more firing positions. This in turn could open up new strategies: clearing out a building doesn't just allow you to place your mech or turret there, but it also can clear up line-of-sight for other towers.

The main selling point, of course, is the Time Walk ability, wherein you can reset back to an older wave of enemies (usually the beginning of one you're currently struggling with). This isn't just a simple "undo" button, though: the mech you sent back in time will temporarily be available alongside their counterpart in the past! Thus you can double up on a particular Time Walker for additional firepower or more uses of an ability.

The game is still very much under construction, but what is there is shaping up to be a fun time. With more polish and content, I could see it landing on my Wishlist. It was a bit on the difficult side, but I guess that's what the rewind function was there for!

WARCANA

Release Date:  August 15, 2024
Developed by:  1000 Orks
Published by:  Team17

For whatever reason, from watching the trailer, I (erroneously) believed WARCANA was about outliving/outlasting your opponents against a third party wave of enemies. It's sort of true, but rather than be swept away by a common foe, you summon your own army to take it to the others, playing cards to recruit units whilst building towers, walls, etc. to defend your base against reprisal.

Projecting several thousand itty-bitty pixelated units on screen at once must have been a challenge to build and operate, but it works here rather well. There's a lot going on at once, both in the armies headed to everyone's doorsteps as well as what is being asked of you in preparation. That said, I don't know how well the strategy is sold in the early levels, as "play out your hand and hope for the best" was the name of the game for a time. All attacking units are destroyed each round when the timer ends, and your defenses are rebuilt afterward if you survived; it can feel like you're bashing your head against a wall, just waiting for something to break through and change the situation.

Each "devotion" comes with its own units, towers, and tech trees, but early in the singleplayer mode you again are just given what you're given and have to slam it home until the Victory screen hopefully comes up. There's seemingly nothing to change about your loadout, or a customized experience for each devotion: just a string of tutorial maps followed by more levels with preset circumstances. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I suppose, but it does mean WARCANA feels rather...hands off in its playstyle. The armies do their own thing, and you just kinda sit there waiting for it to play out...minus a pitiful "Smite" button that recharges every three seconds.

All told, I was disappointed with WARCANA's offerings. It could very much be "not a game for me", and maybe multiplayer is where the fun truly lies, with full access to one's tech trees and the like. But the campaign levels provided in the demo were slow, somewhat obtuse at times, and ultimately uninteresting to watch unfold.

Conclusion/Final Rankings

Now that you've read through all of the reviews - or if you're just looking for a "TL;DR" - I'll conclude with reordering the games based how much I enjoyed them. Any that found their way onto my Wishlist will be noted with an asterisk as well!

  1. Emberward*
  2. Kingdom Rush Vengeance
  3. Temporal Titans
  4. WARCANA
  5. Grit & Valor - 1949

And there you have it! Don't forget you have until next Monday (the 5th of August) to play whatever demos tickle your fancy, at least until the next Steam Fest event.

What do you think of these games? Discover any good gems in this month's Tower Defense Fest worth buying? Let us know in the comments below!