Quote: Original post by Halifax2
I'm conducting a survey for school, and I would just like to gather a little bit of information with regards to tower defense games:
1.) Do you like them?
2.) What are your reasons for liking them/disliking them?
3.) If you could guesstimate, how many hours at a time do you spend playing a TD game?
4.) What improvements would you make to current TD games?
5.) Do you see a future in the mainstream market for them? If not, what market do you feel they fit into?

Thanks to anybody who answers the questions. I would be very grateful.

I think you missed something. I mean a question.
Why there are so many? I only played with the one in Frozen Throne, I played it a lot, but the tons on games just annoy me. I don't really get it, it is interesting, but an own genre for it? My wild guess, that they are easy to develop.
So I would add a question: How many different TD games do you play with, or do you stick to one?

Quote: Original post by Halifax2
I'm conducting a survey for school, and I would just like to gather a little bit of information with regards to tower defense games:
1.) Do you like them?
2.) What are your reasons for liking them/disliking them?
3.) If you could guesstimate, how many hours at a time do you spend playing a TD game?
4.) What improvements would you make to current TD games?
5.) Do you see a future in the mainstream market for them? If not, what market do you feel they fit into?

Thanks to anybody who answers the questions. I would be very grateful.

1.) They're ok, more of a play once and never again game.
2.) Instant action, challenging towards the end usually. Always in 2D though with very simple graphics and gameplay elements.
3.) 2 or 3 maybe the first time and hardly ever again.
4.) 3D. Imagine placing towers to shoot into a valley or down hill or to a mountain etc.
5.) No, they're too simple. Also, with good free alternatives, who would pay?

Quote: Original post by Dave
1.) They're ok, more of a play once and never again game.
2.) Instant action, challenging towards the end usually. Always in 2D though with very simple graphics and gameplay elements.
3.) 2 or 3 maybe the first time and hardly ever again.
4.) 3D. Imagine placing towers to shoot into a valley or down hill or to a mountain etc.
5.) No, they're too simple. Also, with good free alternatives, who would pay?

Check out dungeon defense. It's 3d. Made in UDK.

I think one could argue that tower defense games are a sub-genre of real time strategy. If you took out your own units and only allowed buildings, any RTS would be pretty much a tower defense game.

@szecs: You are correct, that would have been a great question. Sadly I already submitted my study questions to the supervisor and he approved, so I cannot make any modifications to the actual survey questions. Not to mention, I have surveyed people in real life along with people online, therefore doing it over again is not that much of a feasible option. :
I would like to thank everyone once again though for their great cooperation! I didn't think I would get this many responses. :D

1.) Do you like them?

Yes. First time I played them was in StarCraft (custom maps online), probably almost 10 years ago. I think they originated there.

2.) What are your reasons for liking them/disliking them?

They're challenging and addictive, at least, if they have an upgrade path.

3.) If you could guesstimate, how many hours at a time do you spend playing a TD game?

Really depends on the game. Sometimes I'm tired of one after 10 minutes, others keep me hooked for up to a whole day (Gemcraft Zero comes to mind).

4.) What improvements would you make to current TD games?

Some good ones could really use more levels. Others need an upgrade system and medals.

5.) Do you see a future in the mainstream market for them? If not, what market do you feel they fit into?

They fit in the Flash games market on Newgrounds.com.

---

P.S. check out my own TD game.

1 - Kinda
2 - It is a very simple design staple, the kind of idea you can use on every new engine you get your hands on (including starcraft II's engine for example)
Sadly, it gets quite repetitive, and they don't feel very different from one another...
3 - Less than an hour. Possibly 30 mins, although some great ones got me addicted, but I think its really a casual game made for desktop use while doing something else.
4 - Actually, I am currently using TD games ad an improvement to other genres. I think their metrics, logics, etc, is something you can export and use in other genres. It is very rock-paper-scissor oriented and could do with helping flesh out say, an RTS for example. After all, they are static defenses! So I really think TD are a staple to design that can help think other genres differently. They can't seem to self expand on their own.
5 - Like I said, they do well on casual players, and as anyone could tell you, casual market has boomed significantly (facebook app users are slowly shifting to 40+ female... mostly casuals of course).
Now, could it be used for mainstream players? Asking the question hints at, can there be such a thing as skill-oriented "pros" to tower defense?

I suppose it could, for example, if towers need to be user controlled. This would increase micro by a lot, but I'm not sure it would be fun of its own accord.
There was this popcap game i didn`t particularly enjoy (with zombies in a yard) it had this whole different approach where money was not gathered from kills but from "towers" and rather than increasing normally, you had to catch suns as they passed over your screen (they appeared at the rythm imposed by the amount of resource-towers). It added a bit of skill to the game as, if you miss-clicked and didn't get your resource, you were disadvantaged.
Re-thinking resource and control is one way to get it to mainstream market... I guess.

Quote: Original post by Halifax2
I'm conducting a survey for school, and I would just like to gather a little bit of information with regards to tower defense games:
1.) Do you like them?
2.) What are your reasons for liking them/disliking them?
3.) If you could guesstimate, how many hours at a time do you spend playing a TD game?
4.) What improvements would you make to current TD games?
5.) Do you see a future in the mainstream market for them? If not, what market do you feel they fit into?

Thanks to anybody who answers the questions. I would be very grateful.

1.) No
2.) Usually no skill or strategy other use trial and error to figure out what order of build/upgrade is the most cost effective.
3.) 5-12 minutes
4.) Add a new game play element or combine it with another game to give it more depth.
5.) Probably going down hill as more advanced games become available on flash and smart phone platforms.

1): I don't really hate them, but I don't love them either
2): They aren't exactly those really amazingly interesting games, but I can play them if I have time with nothing but my iPhone to use
3): Very little. When I do play them (which is rare), about 30 minutes
4): I really don't see too many improvements.
5): Not really, they're more like casual gaming, not hard core