Crush Link TD

Review

You use a dating app called Crush Link and your profile is very popular, receiving hundreds of messages a day. Personally, I get more messages than most being such a suave, sophisticated, well-cultured and damn good-looking Englishmen. In fact, I had so many messages that I broke the game and had to get the developers to sort the mess out so that you good people could play the game on its release. I did mention that I’m also modest, didn’t I?

Anyhoo, it is the evening before St. Valentine’s Day, and you have just found someone who piques your interest on the Crush Link app. However, in the morning you have lost the chat with your crush amongst the countless messages you have received throughout the night. You must clear all the useless spam and find the messages from your crush so you can arrange a date.

Before starting you will have the choice to choose your avatar and your crush. There are three female and three male options for both your avatar and crush. Once you have made up your mind the first level of the game will begin. At the start of a new level there will be some instructions on how the game plays. You can also skip the information once you know how things work and play through the levels again later.

You must protect your base which is found somewhere on the screen at the end of a pathway. At the other end of the pathway is where the spam will start. There could be multiple starting points on a level, but they will all lead back to your base.

Your objective is to stop the spam messages from entering your base. There are multiple types of spam which will try to reach your base, and every few levels you will have to deal with a boss. The enemy spam will come in waves of attack; as you progress, the number of waves slowly creeps up.

You delete the spam by placing various towers on certain points along the route between the enemy start points and your base. To begin with you have three types of towers but you can unlock another five towers as you progress. However, you can only take four of these towers with you as you enter a game’s level; you get to choose which ones. It may require some trial and error choosing towers if you start having any problems dealing with a certain level.

At some point in a level the route from the enemy start points to your base will change upon the completion of a wave of spam. This could render some of your towers useless if they are out of range of the spam that’s making its way to your base. You can delete and recoup some of the resources it has cost to build the towers. If you’ve upgraded a tower, then you can move that tower to a new position along the route to your base. However, if you do move a tower in this way, it will downgrade the tower to its previous level.

Each tower can be upgraded in two ways: there are three upgrade packages which will increase the bonuses for Damage, Health Points and Respawn in each upgrade. You can also upgrade the tower type itself, which could increase the power of the tower and give it new abilities. There are five levels of upgrading for each tower. The type of damage that the tower can deal will depend on the type of tower; the damage could be Physical, Laser, Thermal or Electro. Some will work better than others against the enemy spam.

Once you defeat the waves of spam in each level, the messages from your crush will make their way to your base.  You’ll then be able to read the messages and receive a hit of dopamine. You also earn dopamine by deleting spam, earning achievements, reading your crushes’ messages and looking at your enemies' details in the spam archive. You’ll earn stars in accordance with how well you did on each level. Dopamine can be used to upgrade your towers, while the stars can be used to unlock new updates for your towers via the update tree.

There are twelve levels to complete and they become steadily more difficult as you make your way to them.

At times the game will stop and you will be informed of something new entering the fray, usually a new boss or minion on its way to your base. You’ll see a bit of information about it. There are other times when you’ll be stopped from performing on screen, but I’ll leave that for you to find out.

The graphics are great, and the game has run very well so far. The levels are not very big and don’t take long to complete, but they still give you a good challenge. You can also change the style of gameplay by using the different types of towers.

I played a version of the game prior to it being released and did have one problem with it, but the developers jumped right on the problem and got it sorted straight away, which was great.

In the settings you will find Sound and Music Volume Sliders, Effects tick box and Languages - English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

Crush Link TD Steam Store Page