Pyra Tower Defense

In a market that seems swollen to bursting point with tower defence titles, finding a new way of making the genre exciting must be a daunting exercise.

Do you play it safe, throwing in some cuddly little creatures and a cartoon art-style and hope that no one points their litigation cannon in your direction? Or do you try and put your own stamp on the genre and create something unique?

Local Space, the developer of Pyra Tower Defense, has gone for the latter option. Or at least, that's what it looks like at first glance.

The game is a stripped back tower defender, starkly presented, with none of that annoying narrative stuff trying to get in the way. Taking place on a grid-based map, the game tasks you with stopping coloured balls from reaching your hallowed red square.

Colouring in

You start with a limited arsenal of towers, but each ball you destroy gives you extra points to spend on newer and more destructive structures. Blowing things up is a strictly hands-off affair, and while you can survey the battle your towers will just attack anything that comes into range.

You can also spend points on upgrading the towers you already have, extending the distance their shots travel, increasing their destructive power. Or you can spend them on specials, which unleash devastating attacks or allow you to manipulate the scenery.

The twist comes from the colour system. Weapons are more effective against attackers of the same colour. A bar at the top-left of the screen shows you what coloured balls are coming in the next wave, allowing you to re-plan your defences accordingly.

Tower you doin'

It's an interesting idea, although in practice the gaps between waves are so small that you'll find yourself throwing up whatever towers you can and hoping for the best.

With a stark colour scheme and a retro, angular take on the battlefield, Pyra Tower Defense is certainly one of the more unique looking titles in the genre. And with 25 levels to unlock and play through, and 20 different difficulty setting on each, it isn't exactly short on content.

What it does lack is a driving force. After a battle, there's never a push to go on and fight another. You never feel fully in control, so you never feel a particular sense of achievement.

Faulty towers

Part of this is down to the level design. In the early skirmishes in particular your tactics are entirely dictated by the map. There's only one, obvious route to your base, so you build your towers there and wait for the slaughter.

As you unlock the more complex battlefields, with multiple spawn points and ways for the balls to roll into your base, things do get a lot more interesting, but there's never that overwhelming urge to keep playing that the best games can create.

Pyra Tower Defense isn't a bad game by any means, but it needs a killer idea - something to set it apart from the crowd. As hard as it tries to be different, it's still tied to the basic tower defence formula, and that keeps it from greatness.