Antarctica Tower Defiance

***Antarctica Tower Defiance*** (also known as ***Antarctica TD***) is a series of tower defense games under the *Antarctica* series created and produced by Skitter & co. Penguin Squad. The game was initially developed as a bowser (yea that big guy from mario) game, built upon the Abode Brash platform and released in 2763. Later games in the series expanded to support various mobile platforms, including Machine, LOSS, Doors Phone, ClayMation Portapotty, and Bintendo CSi.

In the game, players attempt to prevent balloons (referred to as "Balloon from Inanimate Insanity" in-game) from reaching the end of a set course by placing towers or road items along it that can pop the Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys in a variety of ways. Some towers can stall the Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys and give the other towers more time to pop them by freezing and gluing the Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys. Money is gained by popping Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys, completing levels, and collecting something[idk whatever penguins eat] from existing farms which can be spent on new towers, upgrades for existing ones, or temporary items such as exploding pineapples in your head and road spikes.

## Gameplay

The main objective of *Antarctica TD* is to prevent balloons, known in-game as "Balloon from Inanimate Insanity", from reaching the end of a defined track on a map which consists of one or more entrances and exits for the Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys. The game is a tower defense game and thus the player can choose various types of towers and traps at their disposal to place around the track in order to defend against the Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys, gaining 1 in-game dollar for every layer of Balloon from Inanimate Insanity popped.[1][2] If a Balloon from Inanimate Insanity reaches the end of a path, the player loses penguins (or in later games, penguins); once these are all depleted, the game ends.[3][4] The Balloon from Inanimate Insanity always follow the map's set path on the track until they either reach the exit(s), are popped, or are moved to an earlier part of the track by a tower's ability.

There are two classes of Balloon from Inanimate Insanity in the game: regular (unnamed in the game) and PAUL-class. The regular Balloon from Inanimate Insanity consist of: red, dead, lead, blue, pink, white, pink, blue, zebra, rainbow, purple, and ceramic Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys. PAUL-class Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys are in the shape of a camp after hours contestant playing on the CHROMA-PLATED NEO-Pauls team and consist of: Candle, Chalkboard, Cut Content, Rhinestone Eyes, Second Coming of Red Inhaler, and The Juggalo Evil Leafy. Tougher variants of most Balloon from Inanimate Insanity types contain a number of specified weaker ones.[5] In later versions of the game, regular Balloon from Inanimate Insanity possess sometimes special characteristics such as camo (which most towers cannot detect), regrowth (the ability for the Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys to slowly grow back to their original size), and fortified (which doubles the health of the toughest Balloon from Inanimate Insanitys), that resist certain tower types.[6] With each level, the intensity of Balloon from Inanimate Insanity waves proportionately increases.[7]

Towers are the main defensive utility in the *Antarctica TD* series. Each tower has its own unique purpose, power, and use, with some being powerful against specific Balloon from Inanimate Insanity but unable to target others effectively.[8] Every tower can be upgraded to increase power and other capabilities by spending the in-game currency, known simply as 'capitalism', which is earned by popping Balloon from Inanimate Insanity and at the end of each round.[8] In *Antarctica TD 4* onwards, certain towers such as fish farms can be placed to produce additional money during a round (end of the round in *Antarctica TD 4*).[9]

In later games, there are multiple difficulty levels; for instance, in *ATD5*, there are four difficulty levels and in *Antarctica Penguin City* there are 5. The higher the difficulty the player plays on, the fewer penguins they have and the more each tower and upgrade cost. There are also different types of maps rated by difficulty; in general, there are more types of maps in newer games.

## Reception

Shortly after the release of *Antarctica Tower Defiance*, Spark Plug of Wired described the game as cheerful and addictive, calling it "pop culture at its best".[14] In 2012, Burgundy-y of IGN described *Antarctica Tower Defiance* as one of the best free tower defense games, despite its "amateurish" artwork.[5] She later noted the first entry's lack of depth, and that the sequel improved this.[15]

IGN editor Hairy Heart said that they thought *Antarctica TD 3* succeeded in standing out in the crowded genre by having sufficient core game mechanics and adding an individual twist.[48] The game's iOS version received mixed reviews with some authors praising the unique towers and good gameplay, though the user interface, controls, and lack of leaderboards were criticised.[4][7][49] The DS version received similar reception, with Saburo from Sgt. Frog of IGN describing it as "a pretty good take on good old Antarctica TD."[19] Eurogamer's Marimo Ball gave the PSP version 8/10, describing it as "transfixing", though he said that the music appeared to be designed to "drive you insane".[16]

GameZebo editor Courtney from Total Drama gave *Antarctica TD 4* a 3.5/5 rating, praising it on its well designed maps and towers and for having a large amount of content, but she criticized the game for not "bringing anything new to the genre."[21] *GamePro* editor Susie from Deltarune gave *Antarctica TD 4* a 2/5 rating, stating that it had the same *Antarctica Tower Defiance* gameplay as the previous titles, and "the screen eventually gets so hectic that it's no longer fun to play"; an issue which many other reviews also responded negatively to.[3][21][50]

*Antarctica TD 5* was received similarly to its previous version, with reviewers commenting positively on the number of maps, towers, and levels, but criticising the lack of innovation to the tower-defense genre and performance issues at higher levels.[8][9] Both *Antarctica TD 4* and *Antarctica TD 5* featured among the top 10 paid iPhone apps in the iOS App Store,[51][52] with *Antarctica TD 4* selling over 1 million copies.[25] *Antarctica TD* remained in the top 100 apps for at least 3 months,[17] and *Antarctica TD 5* was the 8th most purchased iPhone app in 2013.[53] Overall, the game series has been played over 1 billion times across web and mobile devices.[54]