DTD

= General = There are 2 games of Desktop Tower Defence, (DTD)

Single Player, hosted on www.handdrawngames.com, but it is soon to be moved to the Collective as well.

Multiplayer Mode, hosted on the Casual Collective, which is the most popular of all the Collective's games.

Towers
The towers types are common to both DTD and MPDTD and are as follows:


 * Pellet -&gt; Sniper: Basic towers, usually used to build the walls of a maze. Sniper towers do high damage with the largest range of any tower.


 * Squirt -&gt; Typhoon: Fast-firing tower which fires at ground and air creeps, though isn't strong enough to handle the most powerful flying creeps.


 * Dart -&gt; ICBM: Missile-firing tower which damages enemies in a blast area around the initial hit.


 * Swarm -&gt; Storm: Anti-air tower which only fires at flying creeps.


 * Frost -&gt; Blizzard: Utility tower which slows creeps. Very cheap to upgrade.


 * Bash -&gt; Earthquake: Area-of-effect tower with a small radius which does incredible damage.


 * Ink -&gt; Ink Blot: Unusual tower with a minimum and maximum range which slows and damages creeps.


 * Snap: One-shot tower which can be destroyed to damage and stun enemies. This tower can be used as a quick (though expensive) way to juggle, and is also one of the only ways to handle super-high-level (90+) flying creeps.


 * Boost: Increases the damage of all surrounding towers. Best placed at the centre of a square of 8 other towers.

= DTD =

Single Player DTD has the following modes:
 * Easy: 30 waves of Creeps, one path.
 * Medium: 50 waves of Creeps, two paths.
 * Hard: 60 waves of Creeps, two paths, Creeps have 50% more health than in Medium.

Challenges

 * The 100: 100 Waves of Creeps.
 * Speed: The Creeps come immediately instead of stalling untill you press N or the Next Level button. Waves also come twice as often.
 * 15 Towers: You can only build 15 towers at the maximum, but you may Sell, Upgrade, or Buy anything at your wish.
 * Survivor: A game of only Boss Spawns. The last Generation of Spawnlets is argued to be killable by anything in a single hit.
 * No Splash: No Dart Towers, Frost Towers, Bash Towers, or Ink Towers.
 * Splash Only: No Pellet Towers, Squirt Towers, Swarm Towers, or Snap Towers.
 * Squirts: Just Squirt and Frost Towers.
 * 5 Minutes: A timed game of Normal, where you have 5 minutes to do your best.
 * 3k Fixed: A game where you are limited to 3000 gold to build your maze for 50 levels, and after the game begins, you cannot Sell, Upgrade, or Buy.
 * 4k Fixed: The same game as 3k Fixed, but with an extra 1000 gold. 4k Fixed no longer appears in the current version of Desktop Tower Defence.

Fun Modes

 * 10K Gold: 100 Waves of Creeps, Creeps have 50% health, and you start out with 10000 Gold.
 * Random: The type of Creeps for each wave is randomly picked.
 * Trickle: For every passing second, another creep comes from the next wave.
 * Boxes: There are boxes placed in the playing field, and the Player cannot build towers on them, nor can the Creeps pass through them.
 * Cross: There is a large + shaped cross in the playing field, dividing the field into 4 sections.
 * Spawns: A game entirely of Spawn Creeps.

Tactics
Since the key points are the points of the time bonus, you have to have a good tactic to send in the single waves as fast as possible. At the moment we have 2 tactics: Normal Mazing and Juggling.

Normal Mazing
This method is used by most newcomers in the DTD-universe. There are only a few people who really mastered it. You build up your maze, place your main damage towers and upgrade them. If you have your maze you tweak it over and over to get the maximum amount of points out of it.

Diagonal Mazing
This is where you place diagonal rows across the middle of the desktop (usually 3) so that the creeps have to go up and down several times. This is probably the best style of normal mazing because it requires so little towers for such a long path. Usually has better upgraded towers in the exact center so it affects flying creeps as well, but spawnlets can skip some of the path when they split

Spiral Mazing
This is where you place your towers so that the creeps have to move in a spiral to the center of the map and then in a spiral out to the exit. Usually the main attack towers are in the middle of the maze, where they have the most effect on Flying creeps. Be careful however. When using diagonal mazing watch out for the spawn creeps as they can split through gaps between towers.

Juggling
Many players are switching from the normal mazing to this method, where you build a maze with more than one exit. Then you block one exit with a tower so the creeps are moving to the open one. Before they can get out you sell the blocking towerand block the exit. Now the creeps are turning and try to get to the now free exit. By using this technique you can spend nearly all your money on your defenses against flying creeps and get a high time bonus, because you can send up to 7 waves at one time. A video on juggling can be found here.

= MPDTD =

In Multiplayer Desktop Tower Defence, up to 10 people can play at one time. Upgraded members can start games with up to ten people (and choose many more options compared to basic members), and non-upgraded people can create games with 5 people.

Main Modes

 * Medium: 50 waves of Creeps, two paths.
 * Hard: 50 waves of Creeps, 2 paths, 50% more HP than Medium Creeps
 * Minimaze: You can only build 15 towers at the maximum, but you may Sell, Upgrade, or Buy anything at your wish.
 * Randomizer: A random selection of Towers are chosen to use, the non-selected towers are not avaliable for sale.
 * Spawns: A game entirely of Spawn Creeps.

Additional Options

 * Arcade: Faster sell timer, faster upgrades.
 * SuperPowers: 5 powers avaliable.(see bottom of article)
 * No Maps: You cannot see other player's maze's.
 * HolePunch: Creeps come from all sides to the center, 5 creeps per path.
 * No Points: Nobody gains or loses any points.

The powers

 * Lights out: 4 or 5 points. Blacks out a targeted player's screen temporarily. they do know who did it.


 * Gold Lock: 5 or 6 points. Prevents a target player from buying, selling or upgrading temporarily.


 * Silence: 7 or 8 points. Prevents ALL towers for a targeted player from firing temporarily. Usually used on flying waves.


 * Defend: 4 points. Prevents Lights Out, Gold Lock, and Silence from working for 40 seconds.


 * Nuke: 12 points. Kills all non-spawns instantly. Spawns and in the later waves Spawnlets split.

Tactics
Unlike the single player game, in which high scores are achieved by containing waves within a large maze (possibly with juggling) and killing them slowly, MPDTD are usually won by the player who can kill creeps faster than their opponents.

This can involve placing towers closer to the entrances than a typical DTD maze; sometimes even separating the maze into two damage zones, one at each entrance.