Emberward

Emberward is a battle strategy game where you defend your land by tactically placing Tetris-shaped pieces to delay and destroy invaders. To play you design mazes from Tetris pieces to slow the advance of enemies and place towers to defeat them. It stands out from other tower defence games for the maze-building and the risky balance of offence and defence this creates.

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You play as a guardian tasked with protecting fire essence from hordes of monstrous creatures such as wolves, spiders and dragons. To do this you must build mazes from randomly drawn Tetris pieces to slow down the advance of enemies while you attack with towers. There is a wide range of towers that attack in vastly different ways. For example, some towers use lightning to kill, others drop poison and some even release drones to seek out enemies. Both towers and Tetris pieces can be bought with gold, which is obtained by killing enemies and enduring waves. This leaves you with the strategic choice between a more complex maze or greater attacking power.

As you progress you can buy larger, more powerful towers including Dice Towers that roll a number to determine their strength. Beating levels enable you to upgrade your stats and buy buff cards. These provide helpful perks such as increased preparation time between waves or greater gold drops. With practice, you can develop and perfect your strategy in understanding how to best position maze pieces, choose towers and manage your coins.

The result is a game that takes the well-known tower defence mechanics and blends them with puzzle and problem-solving elements. Tetris gameplay seems far removed from this genre but its implementation is well done and contributes to a satisfying and challenging experience.

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Our examiner, Jake Kendall, first checked Emberward 8 weeks ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 8 weeks ago.