How do you stop people getting comfortable in a tower defence game? Isle of Arrows has some lovely ideas
Isle of Arrows has an idea: a second base. Just as you're beginning to slouch and get comfortable, it introduces another base, and it's like starting all over again but at the same time as managing something else. Only now, you have one pool of resources to spread across both bases. Even more importantly: both bases share the same overall health pool.
But Isle of Arrows doesn't stop there with the ideas: it also plays around heavily with space. You know how in a typical tower defence game, the space you defend is usually defined and set? Well here, it's not. By laying new paths you can extend the runway enemies have to walk down, therefore increasing the distance and time it takes for them to reach your core. You can also wind paths around defences, getting maximum usage out of them. It's not, however, as easy as it sounds.
Ok, so, the pink dots are where the enemies come from. Note the two bases here. The first has been expanded a bit but looks almost exactly like the bigger base did at the start. The stars on the floor are freeze traps that slow enemies down, the towers mostly shoot arrows, and the flags extend the playing space. The really exciting potential in all of this is obviously joining the two bases together somehow, and funnelling all of the eneies into one big grinder.