After enjoying several tower defense games in 2023, I've been playing another one in January 2024. Dungeon Defenders originated as a mobile game but was later ported to consoles and computers. It is primarily a tower defense game with role-playing elements. The RPG aspects include character classes, character levels, and an inventory to manage a variety of equipment. I played through the main story missions with two characters I created. The first was an apprentice named Thoben and the second was a squire named Osburn. The goal of each mission is to defend Eternia Crystals from destruction by enemy hordes. The enemies come in a sequence of waves. Each wave includes a build phase and a combat phase. You set up your defenses and then have to survive against a fixed number of attackers. Every so often there is a mission with a boss battle at the end. As expected, the boss is much more powerful than the typical foe. I completed most of the missions with both characters. Thoben is a spellcaster with ranged attacks while Osburn is a melee based bruiser. Each character class has its own set of tower defenses and special abilities so that is an incentive to try multiple characters. Solo play was pretty fun but I think the game would shine best with multiplayer. Playing side by side with your friends would be a great way to play. It can be a challenge for a single character to run around and defend the entire map so additional players would definitely help.


Apprentice Thoben and Squire Osburn at Level 21

My first computer game of 2024 was … Costume Quest. The game is a hybrid of adventure and RPG styles. It certainly would appeal to younger kids but I enjoyed it as well. You control a group of children trick-or-treating on Halloween. The story begins with the brother and sister twins of Reynold and Wren. I chose to play as Reynold. When Wren is kidnapped, it becomes Reynold's task to rescue her. Along the way, Reynold is joined by other kids, Everett and Lucy. A lot of Costume Quest plays like a point and click adventure game. You have items to acquire and puzzles to solve. It also has RPG elements with character levels, ability scores, and inventory of equipment. A lot of the fun is in the acquisition of costumes, battle stamps, and creepy treat cards. Costumes included robot, knight, statue of liberty, space warrior, unicorn, ninja, pumpkin, vampire, french fries, black cat, and grubbin. Each costume provides a different set of special attacks and abilities. Battle stamps can be assigned one per party member and confer additional abilities or bonuses. I enjoyed trying out as many combinations of these as possible. The combat is turn-based and pretty basic. It grew repetitive as the game progressed but not so much that I wanted to stop playing.

Eventually I completed the main game and moved on to the Grubbins on Ice DLC expansion. It served as a sequel with the same characters. This time, Wren joined the party and Lucy was missing. The setting was wintertime in the monster land of Repugia. A few new costumes became available: pirate, eyeball, and yeti. There were new battle stamps and creepy treat cards, too. Characters were capped at level 10 in the base game but rose to level 14 in the expansion. Overall, this was a fun little game and a nice start the new year.

I'm still slogging through my enormous backlog of computer games. Last year, most of the games I played were released around 2011 or so. Here is a top ten list of my favorites played in 2023.

1. Dragon Age II - A BioWare RPG earns top spot on my favorites list for the third straight year. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition was #1 in 2022 and Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition was tops in 2021. It isn't a big surprise given how much I enjoy the quality of BioWare's games.
2. Panzer Corps - I enjoyed this one way more than expected. I went into it expecting something similar to the old classic, Panzer General. What I got was a game that perfectly captured that old magic in an updated package. Panzer General is my favorite wargame of all time and I think I had just as much fun with Panzer Corps.
3. Anomaly: Warzone Earth - Tower defense? This game was actually tower offense. You command a small force of units investigating anomalies around a downed alien spacecraft. Your convoy has to be navigated around the landscape, destroying alien defenses and using power ups along the way.
4. Out of the Park Baseball 24 - I've been playing OOTP Baseball since version 2. It has always been an excellent sports sim. With version 24, however, I feel it has finally arrived graphically with its on-field depiction of baseball. The animations aren't cutting-edge but they are convincing enough to provide decent immersion while managing the action. My Brooklyn Knights returned to the NALB World Championship Series after a two year absence. Unfortunately, we lost 3-2 in the 12th inning of game 7. There's always next year.
5. Defense Grid: The Awakening - This game is my top pick for favorite traditional tower defense game. I really enjoyed all of the tower defense games I played in 2023 but this one was particularly well done. There were a lot of units from which to choose, which added to the depth of strategy and fun factor.
6. Bastion - Here was a very nice indie game blending action and RPG elements. It had nice graphics, music, and voice acting. You control "the Kid" through the fractured city of Caledonia after a catastrophe known as the Calamity. A lot of the fun and challenge of Bastion involved managing a diverse set of weapons and upgrades. I'm definitely looking forward to playing more from developer Supergiant Games after this one.
7. iBomber Defense - What can I say? It was the year of tower defense games for me. This one was a mobile port that lacked the depth of Defense Grid: The Awakening but I still enjoyed it.
8. Tropico 4 - It may be the best game in the Tropico series. However, the newness of the Tropico series has worn off for me. I enjoyed playing it but I can't place it any higher than #8.
9. Total War: Shogun 2 - I've played several Total War games and they have all been excellent. As with Tropico, however, my enjoyment seems to be decreasing over time as the gameplay of the series has become too familiar. Still, the quality of Total War: Shogun 2 cannot be denied.
10. Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition - Before it was released for Windows, Galactic Civilizations was originally made for IBM's OS/2. It was my favorite game of all time for that operating system. Like Panzer Corps, GalCiv II provided a blast from the past experience. It felt like an updated, more polished version of my old favorite.

Honorable mentions

1. HOARD - You play as a dragon in this action strategy game. Burn villages, loot gold, capture princesses, and cause general mayhem. I played it single-player but it would be even better playing against your friends.
2. Edge - Roll a cube through a maze in this puzzle-platform game. The concept is simple but effective.