Tiny Guardians

Tiny Guardians is a twist on the tower defence formula. It doesn't break the rules so much as bend them here and there, and it borrows ideas from a wealth of other titles.

That's not to say it's not original, and the smattering of fresh concepts on show here ensure that it'll keep you playing just to see what it comes up with next.

Rather than protecting a base from a marauding army, here you're the one walking along the path. You're a sorcerer, with a small army surrounding you, beset at every stop by monsters and brigands.

To begin with you can pick three protectors, but as the levels progress you'll open up more slots, and more interesting attackers to fill them with.

You start with knights and archers, but you're soon juggling magicians, rogues, rangers, berserkers, and more. Each of these classes has their own strengths and weaknesses, and creating a well balanced team is an important part of play.

As well as your troops, you've got a series of spells. These let you set traps, fire out bolts of glowing energy, and heal your fighters. There's cooldown timers on all of them, as you'd expect, and you unlock more as you fight.

There's an upgrade tree that's based on the star-rating you get when you complete each level, you spend points you earn from slaughter on beefing up fighters and recruiting new ones, and you can call in waves of enemies early to earn more points.

While there is a twist here then, it's a twist that wraps itself around a pretty standard and familiar set of tower defence ideas. Everything is shiny and polished, and there's fun to be had, but it's a little step forward, not a big leap.

Don't get me wrong, Tiny Guardians is an entertaining experience, and if you're a fan of tower defence you'll find an awful lot here to like, but it's not going to be the game that changes anyone's mind about the genre.