I do have a fondness or tower defence titles and I do like roguelikes too. So Road Defense: Outsiders from developer Minicactus Games and publisher QUByte Interactive should be right up my alley… it’s a tower defence game with a roguelike angle.

“Protect vehicles on the road and survive! Road Defense: Outsiders is a game that combines elements of the ‘roguelike’ and ‘tower defense’ genres. Upgrade the towers and your own skills to be able to annihilate all the life around you!”

The first thing that I want to cover with this game is the budget price of £4. I’ve spent more than that on a pint of beer that didn’t give me as much joy as Road Defense: Outsiders did. The visuals of the game are basic, but in a good way. The game kind of looks like a HD Gameboy title with it’s monochrome and limited screen display. I like it. Then there is the gameplay. The basic idea is that you control a little stickwoman who has to defend a convoy of vehicles against a load of other little stickpeople. You can buy and upgrade towers, along with your own numerous upgrades. That’s the tower defence gameplay covered. The convoy of vehicles go from one end of the map to the other. If one survives, you get a cash reward that can be used to buy and upgrade the towers.

As you slaughter the attacking stickmen, you earn experience points. Collect enough, and you’ll level up, which then lets you pick one of several temporary upgrades. Increase the firing rate of your gun, reduce the reload time. Improve your armour, or that of the convoy, etc. These upgrades only last for the length of your run. But, you can get permanent upgrades, and these are bought via the number of attacking stickmen that you’ve killed. Yep, deaths are a currency here. Permanent upgrades are just that, permanent and can be used for all of your runs. This does mean that you need to kill a lot (several thousands) to get as lot of the upgrades. My kill count in over 45,000.

There are only six maps to play on and you can get to the end in around 3 to 4 hours. But, you’ll have to play for many more hours than that if you want to get all of the upgrades. This does make the game a little “grindy” as you play and re-play the same maps over and over. You start off very weak and I’m willing to bet that you want even get past the first map until you have attempted a few runs and got some upgrades. Still several deaths later, and you can begin to last longer, build your death count and buy more permanent upgrades.

Yeah, Road Defense: Outsiders may not be a very big game, but I really enjoyed it and keeping that £4 price tag in mind, I think it is well worth it. I still have it installed on my Xbox and I can see this being one of those games that I will play now and again, for an hour or so, when I can’t decide what I want to play. It would be great to see this supported with some DLC in the future. More maps, new weapons and towers, etc. If you like tower defence games and enjoy the roguelike mechanic, I’d say give this a go. It’s only £4.