Gnumz: Masters of Defense

In Brief

Gnumz: Masters of Defense is a Tower Defense game from the developers of Royal Defense. The difference it has an isometric viewpoint instead of the usual 2D viewpoint.

Introduction:

An enemy army is at our gates! Lead the defense! An unknown mineral has been found in the depths of the dwarfish caverns – more valuable than gold and harder than steel. But this find quickly turned sour... The Wicked King laid siege to the underground cities and ordered their inhabitants to give him their entire supply of the wonderful ore.

Anyone who wishes to lay their hands on the dwarfs' treasures must overcome hundreds of clever traps and powerful curses standing in their way.

Gnumz: Masters of Defense is a strategy game inspired by classical fantasy. Its new system of interacting elements will reveal your tactical talents, and brute force has its place as well. Each level in the underground caverns requires an individual approach. New players and hardcore gamers alike will enjoy its carefully crafted balance.

Build an ideal chain of traps. Use magic and the power of the elements: earth, ice, fire and shadow.

Battle in the depths of the Iron Mountain, in the cold of the Icy Halls, in the hellish fire of the Crucible and among the secrets of the Shadow Frontier. Defeat the army of the Wicked King!

Key Features:

Crush the invaders with the power of the four elements!
A mechanic new to the Tower Defense genre!
Play with tactics or with brute force!
A mass of refined traps and magical spells!
Destroy hundreds of enemy invaders!
A new fantasy world with dozens of underground cities, mines and catacombs!
Destroy the Wicked King's massive army!

Reference accessed HERE 1st September 2019

The Game

Tower Defense games are one of my favorite arcade genres, so I was pleased to see this today. I purchased it via Steam when it was released over 3 years ago. It's basically Royal Defense with a different viewpoint (i.e isometric instead of 2D) and the graphic looks nicer. If you don't mind playing a rehash of many of the 2D TD games around these days, then this is an enjoyable play through. I've played too many of these to be impressed and although I would give this a thumbs up, its got nothing new that we've not already seen in previous Tower Defense games given away here.

I said a few weeks ago that I would only be posting full reviews of games given away at the weekend if they were games I enjoyed playing. Despite TD games being one of my favorite arcade genres, this isn't one of them; though I would still recommend downloading it if you enjoy Tower Defense games and especially if you don't have many in your library as it 'can be' a lot of fun. I've just got far better Tower Defense games that I'd rather play, so won't be posting a full review of today's game. Instead I've posted a few links to some mini reviews and You Tube videos of game play.

You can see over 30 Steam community member opinions of the game HERE; in particular read the first two reviews HERE (-ve review by SocioPsycho) and HERE (+ve review by kumori). and more short reviews of the game HERE

Gameplay Videos:

You can see several videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Check out the following links for details of other free games HERE (giveaway forums), HERE (Indie Gala freebies - recently updated), HERE (Steam freebies) and HERE (Epic Games freebies). The latest Epic game is now Celeste (a super-tight platformer from the creators of Tower Fall. Brave hundreds of hand-crafted challenges, uncover devious secrets, and piece together the mystery of the mountain) and Inside (an atmospheric puzzle platformer).

You can also get a Steam key for the excellent Dirt Rally (time limited) HERE. This is still one of my favorite Rally games. It's not as technical as the World Rally Series of games, more arcade in game play Style, but the game is challenging and takes you to some beautiful locations arund the world. See my post over in the forums to see some images of the game HERE.

All of the following (in this paragraph) Tower Defense games are freely available via MyPlayCity, Gametop or FreeGamePick: Fort Defense, Garden Defense, Goblin Defenders: Battles of Steel 'n' Wood, Iron Heart 2: Underground Army, Iron Heart: Steam Tower, Iron Sea Defenders, Iron Sea Frontier Defenders, Royal Defense, Royal Defense: Ancient Menace, Royal Defense: Invisible Threat, Toy Defense, Toy Defense 2, Toy Defense 3: Fantasy, Beefense, Garden Rescue: Christmas Edition, Garden Rescue, Defense of Egypt: Cleopatra Mission, Defense of Greece, Medieval Defenders, Steam Defense (side scrolling TD game), Alien Hallway (side scrolling TD game)Anti Zombie Defense, Miami Zombies, Bath Salts Zombies, , Day D: Time Mayhem, Gnomes Garden 2. All of the above games are still sold at various game distributors because they are still commercial games, however, they have come to an agreement with the original developers that allows them to give the games away because they include adware that earns the distributor money, some of which goes to the developers. In fact they can earn much more from their older games by allowing this that via direct sales once the initial release has passed .

My all-time favorite Tower Defense games are all commercial and include Defense Grid: The Awakening (the first game I ever purchased via Steam), DG2: Defense Grid 2 and the First Person Tower Defense games Sanctum and Sanctum 2, as well as other TD games such as Towers of Altrac (I originally gave this a thumbs down in my Steam reviews, but when it was released out of early access, the developer had improved it significantly so changed my review to a thumbs up) and Plants vs. Zombies. The second version called Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare is a lot more challenging and is in third/first person views. You can pick that up via Origin HERE (there's a shed load of dlcs for this game, which I wasn't aware of as its been dormant in my Origin account for almost 5 years; that said, its still a reasonable TD game without all the extra's but not as good as the original isometric version (IMO).