Terrorhedron is one of the better surprises that I came across this week on the App Store. Terrorhedron is a minimalist 3D tower defense game. It completely freshens up this genre with a unique look and feel and with advanced gameplay mechanics that I didn’t expect to see in a tower defense game. The game was already released as a non-AR version for the PC on Steam at the end of 2011 with up to 8-player co-op support. This ARKit version of the game doesn’t have multiplayer support
What is Terrorhedon?
First of all, let’s talk about the name of the game. We all know what Terror is but what with the hadron suffix? Well, according to Wikipedia:
The suffix -hedron: (geometry) Forms the names of solid figures bounded by a certain number of planes (polyhedra).
The word hedron is derived from Ancient Greek ἕδρα (hédra, “face of a geometrical solid”).
Terrorhedron is a Tower Defense game that takes place in an abstract 3D grid landscape where geometric shapes travel through maze-like 3D tracks. The player needs to prevent the geometric shapes to reach the end of the path. He can do this by placing different defense turret, including a laser turret, slow turret, and bounce turret to eliminate them before they reach the endpoint.
Gameplay
Putting turrets on nodes and upgrading them is what you are going to do most in this game. Each defense turret can be upgraded two times. For example, the laser turret can be upgraded the first time for $250 which allows it to release 2 shot burst instead of just one. The second upgrade costs $320 that makes the projectiles travel faster and pass through targets. the last upgrade replaces the turret with a Plasma Turret that shoos high energy continuous beam.
Turrets can only be placed on certain pre-defined nodes. However, those nodes can be extended using a 6-way extender attachment that allows the player to attach turret to any facet of this extender piece. You can also attach an extender piece to another extender and build a very complex defensive structure that makes the geometric shape explode into a rainbow carnage.
At the first waves, one shot is all it takes to eliminate a shape. As you progress through the waves, each shape holds other shapes inside it and it takes many shots to eliminate the threat completely.
Two more important things to note is that each turret has its hemispherical firing arc that limits it’s firing are and range. Second, each turret can be adjusted the target priority, which targets you want the turret to aim first with options: First, Last, Weakest, Strongest, Nearest, Furthest,
Any turret you built can be sold and once purged, the player will receive the entire value of the turret back, except for extenders that cost money, but you don’t get anything back by deleting them.
When I first start playing this game, I didn’t predict that my turrets won’t be able to take out the next wave. Some shapes were able to pass through. The only thing I was able to do is to destroy a previously built turret and use the money to place a turret further down the line to take those shapes that slipped away. You lose one life for each shape that reaches the end of the line and you have a total of 10 lives available to you in each game.
It’s important for the player to place the turrets in a way that they can deal as much damage as possible to as many shapes as possible. There are 35 rounds for each level. When I got to level 30 and above, I already had 20 plasma guns and some shapes still were able to pass my defenses.
Let’s take a look at a game video, to give you more understanding how this game plays in practice.
The game features 6 different worlds to defend. Some or more flat, other are more vertical. Although it seems not a lot, it takes quite some time to finish each wave and there are 35 waves to survive in each world. There is a fast-forward button that allows you to speed things up, but I found out that you just can’t easily speed run this. You always need to take time extending the structures, adding and upgrading turret. For example, it took me around an hour or more to finish one of the worlds.
There is no way to save a checkpoint, so make sure that if you start to play a specific world, make sure you have enough time to finish it. We usually don’t get to play mobile games with such lengthy rounds and in this aspect, this game is very different from other mobile games.
This month I played quite a few towards defense games. Toy Clash AR was one of my favorites but Terrorhedron plays more like Tower AR. Both Tower AR and Terrorhedron are very similar: you have different points on the map which you can put turrets, you can upgrade and sell turrets and prevent the enemy from reach the end of the path. For me, Tower AR was too easy and I really needed more interaction to feel that I am actually playing a game (I yet o review the latest update though).
Terrorhderon answers my needs with advanced gameplay complexity that requires constant build of structures to deal with current and future threats. Its low-poly visuals don’t make the game less fun to play, on the contrary, it allows you to focus on the location of the moving shapes and makes the blasting color animations stand out.
Some people might feel that the game looks cheap, but don’t let the simplistic design of this game to fool you, it’s a very fun, challenging and addictive game.
AR Experience
The game allows you to select the size of the world and rotate it around its pivot point to make sure it’s perfectly fit the place you want to play the game on. You can also rotate the world during the gameplay, which is really useful.
I was playing it on the small table in the living room and it works fine without issues. OK, I had some jittering, but this is because I played it while sitting very close to the table, with strong morning light that reduced the contrast in the scene and the texture was probably not that good for ARKit to work with. When I changed to the floor it worked fine without any prominent issues.
I did have some problems with selecting an attachment point at the bottom of the extender.
Sometimes it’s hard to select a bottom part of an extender because it’s just a very small almost flat area. Because the arena is a complex 3D structure, you will sometimes want to put a turret at the bottom of an extender so its range reaches the bottom area. I tried getting really close with my iPad to the extender but still, it took me a long time to select it. This something that I want to see addressed.
The game features 8-bit rhythmic arcade-style music. That music didn’t sound fit for the game when I first start playing it. Once you get to the more intensive waves you see that it fits the rhythm of the gameplay perfectly.
Having said all that, there are some things that could have made my experience even better. For example: being able to unlock new types of turrets as you progress through the game. Having an option to rotate the game on the X-Axis to be able to easily place extenders and turrets in areas that are less accessible when playing in seated position. Have more types of defense structures. A local co-op option like the original PC title could be so cool. Just think about, having a large world where you can play with a friend in AR on the same map. A leaderboard would be nice, great for speedrunners who want to compete who can finish a specific world the fastest.
I have to admit that although that I have nothing against these type of geometric visuals, it did feel a bit boring at times. I didn’t experience any thrilling playing the next world because it’s more of the same, just a different structure. Maybe adding some more design touches and different colors can make each world feel different than the previous one. By the way, the world levels are not sequential, you can play them in any order you please.
Conclusion
I had a blast playing Terrorhedron. It’s a fun and challenging tower defense game that gave me the complexity, interactivity and challenging experience I was looking for in a tower defense augmented reality (AR) game.
The game has very simplistic visuals, but the complex structure and how the light is reflected back make the game blend nicely with the environment and make it looks really nice.
The game plays really smoothly thanks to the support of Apple’s Metal technology for lighting fast visuals. The game is easy to setup and plays nicely even in small places.
I enjoyed playing the game, although it felt unintuitive at times. The game is quite complex, more than many other games that I’ve played in this genre. I do wish there were more levels, but it will provide players with a few good hours of quality gameplay. I am still far from completing the entire six worlds. The game definitely worth its asking price ($1.99 as of the time of writing). If you love tower defense games, I am positive that you will enjoy this game a lot—Highly Recommended!