SteamWorld: Tower Defense

SteamWorld: Tower Defense is a simple tower defense game and the first entry in what would become the SteamWorld series. The player places auto-attacking robotic units along paths across fourteen different levels to try and stop shambling humans from entering the robot gold mines and cities. If five humans get past all of the player's units and to the end of the path, the player loses the level.

In the game the player has five types of units they can place: 1. Gunslingers: Basic towers. Cheap and weak. 2. Repeaters: Shoots many weaker shots quickly and has high health but costs more. 3. Bomber: Shoots bombs that do damage in an area of effect, but will also damage the player's own units. Heals itself automatically. 4. Sharpshooter: Extremely high damage, but will only shoot manually where the player taps and then requires a cooldown after. 5. Bartender: Very high health and does no damage but slows down enemies.

There are six types of enemies that the player must defeat in the successive waves across levels: 1. Hobos: Basic, weak enemies. 2. Explosive Hobos: Explode upon death, damaging all units and enemies around them. 3. Mavericks: Shoot back at units as they walk. 4. Crazy Mavericks: High health and damage, and will stop walking to fire at any unit within range until the unit dies. 5. Cow Riders: Move very quickly. 6. Walking Nuke: Walk very slow and behave the same as Explosive Hobos, but do massive amounts more damage in a much wider radius.

Every unit in the game can be upgraded to increase its damage and health, indicated by a smaller number under each unit. Enemies come upgraded in the same way. The game can be played on Easy or Normal difficulty. The level select screen will tell the player how many humans they let get by. If played right, each level can be completed with zero humans escaping.