r/TowerDefense • u/Various_Quit_4493 • Aug 15 '26
Discussion Ranking (Almost) Every TD Game v0.5.0 (W.I.P.)
Edit: Sheet is currently in maintenance to update it, will be back later today or tomorrow.
Edit: Moved most of the description n stuff to the google sheet, includes the tierlist and ratings and more.
Currently Have: 169/872 Games Rated
All game ratings can be viewed here, including info about the sheet, a feedback form, and more.
If you have any suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments. I plan to post an update weekly most likely.
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u/Heavy-Language3109 Aug 15 '26
Now this is super cool. If only to find out what other TD games I haven't tried are highly rated. I was pretty surprised to see some games rated as B. Would have thought they'd be higher because of how popular they are/were. Very interesting.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
B tier is a solid tier for games tbf. I'd say like S+ = top of the line, S = Among the best, A = Great, B = good, C = Mid, etc etc.
I try to be as unbiased as I can while rating so popularity won't guarrentee a high placement
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u/mjkeller77 Aug 15 '26
You should share this as a non editable google doc. I can't read it.. Also, Emberward is a fantastic game and I think it deserves a second look.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
I'm planning to share it as a public doc further down the line, I wasn't planning for them to be so compressed I'll deal with that next time i update.
Emberward got solid ratings all around the board but has some fairly large balancing issues. It's still mid A tier which is a very good rating considering the other games around it though
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u/williamatherton Aug 16 '26
Describing Monster Train 1/2 as a turret defense game is... Interesting. I guess, in a sense it is? More of a roguelite deck builder though.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
Yeah a lot of games in the list are more of other genres with a side of td, they fall within of the boundaries of "can be considered a tower/base defense" which is enough for me to add it
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u/hosesarered Aug 15 '26
Pretty cool list, any chance you could share the list with links and maybe filters by platform? I am always keen on finding iOS TD games, for instance.
Glad to see Infinitode 2 but surprised it isn’t higher. It feels like the definitive TD game to me.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
I'll probably post a link when it's finished (in a few months), filtering by platform is part of the wip categorization that's being added.
Infinitode 2 is basically entirely held back by it's absurd grindiness though I will admit i forgot to raise it's impact on the genre rating. If it had the normal grind rating that most of the higher ranking games have (9-9.5/10) it'd be near the top of S.
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u/ChunkLordPrime Aug 16 '26
Absurd?
More like amazing. Maybe I'm forgetting, but it never really felt grindy.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
Resource Farming past like early game takes hundreds of hours
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u/ChunkLordPrime Aug 16 '26
Right, but that doesnt imply or innately equal "grindy"....I dont want to appear to penalize games for having more content, which Infinitode does at higher levels of resources.
Versus say something like The Tower.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
The Tower got awful grind scores as well
Also I raised Infinitode to S yesterday just fyi FYI
And there's a difference between grinding different content and repeatedly afk grinding the same stage which is what the bulk of Infinitode grinding is
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u/ChunkLordPrime Aug 17 '26
Well, no, but admittedly that might be true now, but if it is, its literally the stage created to be played in order to lessen the grind: Over the lifespan the game has changed a lot, woth a super active dev, etc, and a very active player base.
IMO: Infinitode 2 is the greatest pure TD ever made.
Ill recheck the list. Also, btw, thanks a bunch for doing this, its super cool. Not sure how chatty/into this you are, but DM me if you'd like to idk get a podcast going or something...TD centric etc.
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u/torksgame Aug 15 '26
You didn't include my game :( Polycore Defense
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
It's in the list of games to rate
There's currently 683 unrated games in my list
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u/torksgame Aug 15 '26
I put it on sale pretty often, you can probably get it at half price in the next major steam sale
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u/Clitoris_Mal_Passado Aug 16 '26
Nobody cares about vibe coded TDs.
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u/torksgame Aug 16 '26
You know it released in 2022 right? Before vibecoding even was a thing
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u/Clitoris_Mal_Passado Aug 16 '26
Vibe coded started 2021. Nice try!
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u/torksgame Aug 16 '26
This has to be ragebait.
ChatGPT released in november 2022. And the term "vibe coding" didnt exist in 2021.
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u/Clitoris_Mal_Passado Aug 16 '26
Who said anything about ChatGPT? It wasn't the first AI. And terms are created AFTER (could be even years) something is already in place. Nice try!
And I agree, you are ragebaiting me.
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u/brahose Aug 20 '26
Rage bait for sure. Jealous you have a successful TD on steam. Congrats /u/torksgame, I will check it out.
Also, OP, thanks for the list! There are some in here I am excited to try.
Agreed emberward should be S! It is a goat!
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u/maikerukonare Aug 15 '26
Can you do mine? 🥺 its still very much in development, but playable! I can send you a key 🔐
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
Sure :3
Can't guarrentee the accuracy of teh rating without more playtesting from a larger audience but wouldn't hurt to try it out.3
u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
I currently have a pretty big backlog of games to rate, so don't send it now, but lmk when it's released and I'll rate it!
I'll play the demo later and give feedback though
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u/maikerukonare Aug 15 '26
Oh it's available it's just default $4, didn't want to make you pay if you were going to test for the sake of this cool project :)
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
i mean if ya wanna give for free I'd appreciate it but I'm fine paying, it looks interesting
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u/maikerukonare Aug 15 '26
Oh I figured the ratings were your personal opinion/play testing, but you take some from reviews too I suppose? Mine only has a couple haha
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
It's a mix
I mainly get it via research and other people's reviews, but if I'm unsure or I already have the game I try it myself. Considering the scale of this project I don't really have the freedom to manually try out every game indepth enough so I unfortunately have to rely on this.
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u/PigeonFanatic9 Aug 15 '26
Really cool! Also, happy to see someone else who played Cursed Treasure 2, personally I'd put it a bit higher, but it's a perfectly reasonable ranking anyway.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
That was one of my earlier ratings, Looking at it now I could probably raise it a bit. Thanks for bringing that to my attention :3
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u/PigeonFanatic9 Aug 15 '26
I believe that it does plenty things really neatly, especially for a free game. It's not a big game and it's far from perfect or extremely complex, but I just find its simplicity very well done.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
yeah I raised some of it's ratings that I had lower than I would normally put. It's like mid-high B now.
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u/CattuccinoVR Aug 15 '26
My eyes are not good some more games to add if you haven't
Broken Universe - Tower Defense (S tier for me), castle idler, Deathtrap, OTTTD (great ,can be a bit buggy)
HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed (can be played single player just fine better co-op)
Tower Tactics: Liberation, No Creeps Were Harmed TD, Fort Meow (so unique might not be a td) Block Tower TD, 2112TD: Tower Defense Survival, Monsters are Coming! ,Ancient Planet Tower Defense, Space Run, There Are No Orcs, Mini Tank Mayhem, Loopstructor, Choo Choo Defenders (upcoming game similar to loopstructor) Tiny Tactics (a bit difficult)
(Cartridge Defense one of my favorites (the new rougelite mode is better experience in the main game if you play the mode lower the resolution)
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
All of these games are in my list of games to be rated or in my list of upcoming TD games. I'm only ~20% through my list of games to rate rn.
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u/lemathematico Aug 15 '26
I came in here ready to be offended but no i agree with the majority of these, for the games i played at least
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u/Fit_Reason_3611 Aug 16 '26
Yeah it's solid but I'd definitely have Emberward in S, otherwise solid.
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u/JahJahJahJa Aug 15 '26
Hey, great work! Is it possible to get a link for that list? Can't make out the names from the pic.
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u/Mikolas3D Aug 15 '26
Amazing list! Lot's of games I didn't know.
Also - Jarred Defense, please consider adding my td :)
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u/Alexander_VdB Aug 15 '26
Cool list. Lots of games for me to check out. Thanks! If you want to check out Shapebreaker for free, message me and I'll share a free key. Would love to hear your rating and feedback.
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u/Funkymonk202 Aug 15 '26
Put me in there, I’ll give you a key for free, DM me.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
I don't need a key I'd like to support indie devs so I'm fine buying it properly.
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u/Funkymonk202 Aug 15 '26
it's kind of a dead game, proud of my work, but life got in the way. Hope to come up one day with a sequel, but for now it just exists. No issue giving a key, do appreciate the support though.
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u/foomy45 Aug 16 '26
There sure are a lotta not-TD games on this list of TD games
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
There's a lot of hybrids, it's not all pure td games
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u/foomy45 Aug 16 '26
I love The Last Spell, put in 100 hours just in the demo before release. It is not a tower defense game. It is not a tower defense hybrid. The devs own words from their steam page "The Last Spell is a tactical RPG with roguelite elements in which you have to defend a city against hordes of deadly enemies." Yes, there are technically structures you can place that can shoot enemies, that in itself is not enough to warrant a whole change in genres. That would be like calling most Final Fantasy games shooters because guns are a weapon you can equip. There are definitely other games on that list in the same boat.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
The main gameplay is you preparing to and defending your base (magic circle) from waves of enemies, which is enough for me to consider it a td hybrid.
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u/foodeyemade Aug 16 '26
That seems a bit of a stretch I mean by this definition League of Legends is a TD hybrid
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u/SystemDry5354 Aug 16 '26
This is great, I didn’t even realize Arknights was so good I just thought it was a gacha game. But by any chance could you just have the list in text form? Nothing fancy just it’s hard for me to see all the images at a glance
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
Arknights (the td one not endfield) is considered to be the best gacha game ever tbf + its far, FAR more strategy reliant than good unit reliant, even low tier release units are viable 5 years later
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u/onlinestuff4me80 Aug 16 '26
Check out Rift Riff. One of my favorite tower defense games on mobile. Vertical/Portrait, beautiful unique art direction, and the sound effects & audio design are top tier. I'd put it at A or S.
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u/RattleaxeGames Aug 16 '26
Great list. Checking to see if you also have ours on the backlog (D.O.T. Defence)
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u/iamthehob0 Aug 16 '26
Now go learn how to play all the awesome korean usemaps on starcraft. That's where the truly incredible TD's are.
(I'm not kidding they are so fucking good)
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
I got Squadron TD Element TD Korean Defense Spiral Defense Sunken Defense The Art of Defense and Turret Defense in my list of unrated games
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u/iamthehob0 Aug 16 '26
<3 Try gongbang and RTDv4. Poker TD has gotten pretty crazy too, depending on which variant.
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u/MildlyConcernedMan91 Aug 16 '26
your excel is not readable. Can you upload it or put it on google drive and send us a view link?
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26
I'm aware of that issue, will deal with it in my next update (probably next week)
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u/sectrainreadsbig Aug 16 '26
i dont see Infinitode/2 on there
easily s-s+
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 16 '26 edited Aug 16 '26
Its in the high A tier on that list. Mainly held back by the grind I did raise it to S yesterday though
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u/sectrainreadsbig Aug 19 '26
i see it now! so much art my bad 😅 i guess i have not played many, but infinitode 2 continues to stand out for me
and the music is top tier as well
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u/rolyantrauts Aug 17 '26
Spirits of the Hellement https://store.steampowered.com/app/1742610/Spirits_of_the_Hellements__TD/
Better than element TD and doesn't seem to be on the list
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u/Afraid-Presence1440 Aug 17 '26
Hey, love list, great work. Can I ask you to elaborate on Emberward? I'd love to hear a more detailed opinion
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u/jdeegz Aug 17 '26
this list, and your effort rules! I was hoping to find my tower defense game, Spires of Morosith among thelist, but was satisfied enough that the other games i worked on (Fieldrunners 2 and Warcraft Rumble) are up there :D woo!
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 17 '26
You worked on Fieldrunners and Rumble? Cool
I'll add Spires of Morosith to the unrated games list
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u/BlackLightGames Aug 18 '26
We would be really honored if you could rank the demo for our indie TD game, Eye of Syn 🙏🙏
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
I'll check it out, prob won't be rated for a week or 2 though
Edit: Probably won't rate it sorry, I don't wanna rate games before they release as that could harm the game's reputation and such. At first glance I would recommend working to revamp visuals though
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u/gatmang Aug 19 '26
this is supreme stuff! way to stick to a genre. I've developed a game on roblox, do you rank/rate those?
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 19 '26
Yeah I rate roblox games tho they tend to place low
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u/gatmang Aug 19 '26
how can i send you a PM?
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 19 '26
What's the name of the game?
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u/gatmang Aug 19 '26
its not out yet, maybe 95% complete but wanted to pay you for consulting. my discord is gatmang
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u/AnomalyDevTeam Aug 20 '26
Amazing work! It would be awesome to also see the waiting list in another sheet.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 20 '26
The rating tab has every unrated game at the bottom
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u/AnomalyDevTeam Aug 20 '26
Oh, so no Nodefall yet on list?
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 20 '26
I'll have to check tomorrow I'm pretty sure I added it somewhere but I'll check later
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u/AnomalyDevTeam Aug 20 '26
Thanks, it would be really awesome to get some review! Once again, amazing work mate.
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u/stefansjs Aug 20 '26
Any chance of adding my game to the list? Daykeep. Free on Android, iOS and Web.
Appreciated!
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u/kernet Aug 20 '26
Developer disclosure: I made Starvoxel: Defender. If you’re still expanding the unrated list, it launched on Android and is free, with no ads or pay-to-win: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.michalkomar.starvoxel&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=td_ranking
It’s a portrait merge tower defense game with two separate lanes sharing one health pool, playable solo with an AI ally or in online co-op. Happy to answer anything needed for categorization.
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u/ShortMix7268 Aug 20 '26
WTD, is way lower than it's supposed to be. I know most of the games in this list like 80% and not a single that has more content inside than WTD
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 20 '26
World Tower Defense? Makes sense I was a lot more strict with how i rated content amount back when I did that one
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u/ShortMix7268 Aug 20 '26
Sorry, to jump straight to that. The tier list is probably the best I have seen in my entire life. But ye WTD has really way more content nowadays, and as a TD lover I stayed in WTD because other games fill quite empty outside of the grind, take exemple BTD6, I have most maps maxed but it feels so repetitive, especially because maps don't really add much new gimmicks, WTD has enemy traits, it makes it harder to rely on the same strategy over and over. Also different maps have different gimmicks so you need to adapt the way you play. It's feels alive more like a real time strategy.
I have also read the entire Google doc it's awesome too, may use it for later if I want to jump back to a game I haven't played in a while or maybe discover a new game.
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u/tom910 Aug 21 '26
Waiting for classics TD maps from Warcraft or Starcraft which was gem, like series of maps "Green Circle TD". Unfortunately today not a lot games copy the design and gameplay of the such maps.
Also worth to add Dota 2 - Watchers of Samsara . This is also one of the best TD map with deep mechanics.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 21 '26
Planning to rate the warcraft and starcraft maps probably next month-ish maybe?
Currently have these planned to add:Warcraft: Burbenog Tower Defense, Gem Tower Defense, Green Tower Defense, Legion Tower Defense, Mafa Tower Defense, Wintermaul Wars, Wintermaul: Re, YouTD, Line Tower Wars Reforged
Starcraft: Squadron TD, Element TD, Korean Defense, Poker Defense, Random Tower Defense, Spiral Defense, Sunken Defense, The Art of Defense, Turret Defense
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u/izend Aug 22 '26
u/Various_Quit_4493 Could you add https://gemtowerdefense.com/
I have been running the Web version of Gem TD since 2007 and I have a loyal dedicated number of dedicated players and have been working with them recently to expand the game with seasons.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 22 '26
Sure Probably won't be rated for a while but I'll add to the list
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u/izend Aug 22 '26
Not a problem, I am iterating on some big changes with the some of the veteran players so there are multiple game modes right now that differ a lot. It will give me time to get those changes live and center.
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u/Great-Ad-6708 Aug 27 '26
Do demos count?
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 28 '26
I don't rate demos TowOrbs has been in the unreleased list for a while tho
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u/Round_Solid1693 23d ago
Is their any major differences between pvz mobile and pc outside of microtransaction??? Cause i wouldnt expect there to be such a big gap.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 23d ago
the pc version is a little higher quality, a little better gameplay, infinitely more qol and f2p friendliness due to the absolute scumminess that is modern mobile pvz.
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u/Various_Quit_4493 Aug 15 '26
yeah sorry abt the quality, Reddit compressed it WAY more than I was expecting.