App Army Assemble: Countless Army - "Does this reverse tower defence bring something exciting to the genre?"

Countless Army is a tower defence with a twist. Rather than setting up fortifications to fend off hordes of invaders, you're the one sending waves of skeletons, zombies, and other unsavoury beasts towards the enemy. So, does flipping the script make for a compelling experience? We handed the game over to our App Army to find out.

Here's what they said:

Countless Army puts a spin on the popular tower defence genre by having you play in reverse. You’re the bad guy, and where normally you’d be defending, this time around you’ll be trying to break through. The concept is great, but unfortunately, the port from Steam (which garnered above-average reviews) to mobile needs a lot of work. I like the pixelated graphics, and the music makes you feel like something awesome is about to go down.

The problems arise when you realise you aren’t really sure how to get started. I did a lot of poking around and eventually triggered a tutorial, which helped a bit, but even the text was taken straight from the PC release, directing me to move the cursor where there isn’t one. I do think there’s a good game in here, it just needs more time (and love) to come out. I can’t recommend Countless Army in this current state, but I’ve seen firsthand many games come back from premature launches.

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I’ve tried it, and I like the idea behind it and the presentation, but it just jumps from ok difficulty to extreme within two Campaigns. I'm not sure if the strategy I’m using is correct. But it seems more like a puzzle game than reverse tower defence. I also had to pay it on my Mac as the UI on the iPhone 15 was cluttered, and the screen looked like it was cut off. I’m sorry it didn’t feel intuitive enough for me to get. Maybe it’s my age, maybe it's the game?

Countless Army is a reverse tower defence game whose cool concept is rather let down by execution and poor conversion to mobile. You play as a Necromancer who is trying to take over the world by invading provinces with an undead army. That army has to run the gauntlet of the defenders to capture buildings and win the level. The concept is great, but the retro graphics don’t look very good, the in-game text can be hard to read and selecting the cards to deploy your army at the bottom of the screen is difficult to select on an iPhone. The game is also hard, and I soon gave up in frustration. Not recommended.

This is a game I went into with enthusiasm, but the very small text and hit-and-miss touchscreen effectiveness don’t make for a great experience. Often tapping the cards on the bottom of the screen activated Siri on my phone. Really, it could be a good game, but these issues made it hard to want to try it for too long. These issues could probably be fixed with updates, but as it is, I was disappointed.

Imagine you are a passionate gamer who has tried a ton of games over the decades, with a library that grows each year and a pile of shame with countless items. But you do it because you're interested in supporting great and passionate ideas. Now you read something about a reverse tower-defence game, you apply immediately, and you're drawn. You think of being a winner right away.

You boot the game, and the bummer is there right away: aspect ratios of a current-era device are not supported at all, and I had to check an almost 15-inch device to find out it's properly displayed. That's not very handy for on-the-go sessions. Furthermore, the game is poorly designed, barely readable, and I had to look up a YouTube video to have any clue how it actually works. If we are talking about reverse tower defence, there is exactly one game on my mind: Anomaly Defenders!

I love tower defence games, and way back when reviewing games over at iPhonegamesnetwork/TouchGen, I gave one of them a 5/5 out of 700 game reviews. I only gave out 2 5-pointers. Countless Army would get a 1/5 score back in the day. The premise is cool with a reverse TD, but the execution is truly poor. Hard to read text, poor presentation overall and a general lack of love for the product. Sadly not recommended to anyone.

I'm a big fan of TDs, especially the Kingdom Rush series. This game is poorly executed, confusing, and the controls should be more interactive. It has very small font that I'm unable to read. The reverse TD idea is great, but the developer has to do some serious work on the UI and tutorial.

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Countless Army Mobile Edition