Saturday Morning Gaming: Bloons TD 6

A few months back, the Epic Game Store had Bloons TD 6 as their weekly free game. I picked it up without thinking about it.

Well, then I saw my buddy’s kiddo playing the game when I went over to his house on Mondays for our weekly evening watching Monday Night Raw.

“Huh,” I thought. “The kiddo is playing tower defense. *I* like tower defense… hey, this might be that game I got as part of the weekly free game thing…”

And, yep, it is. I’m pleased to say that Bloons TD 6 is fun (I mean, if you like tower defense games) and it’s even fun to the point where it’s worth picking up for the $14 that Steam is going to charge you.

BUT BEFORE I GET INTO THAT. Know that the game has a game store. And the game store sells stuff like “in-game currency” and you can use the “in-game currency” to make the game easier. It’s not just for stuff like different cosmetics for your different balloon poppers. While the game is *NOT* “pay to win”, it is “pay to win on the hardest of the hard maps if you don’t want to use the most optimal strategy, which will not be apparent to anybody who isn’t a particular kind of crazy… or if they’re not willing to grind like you’re a middle-school student whose game budget includes little more than ‘the free game from the Epic Game Store’.”

So. If you are willing to overlook the whole game store thing, know that the game is a *LOT* of fun for fans of Easy and Medium maps and, if you don’t mind thinking about it, the easier of the hard maps.

The game starts out with you having pretty much a single hero and access to the Easy maps.

You start with “Quincy”, the archer as well as a bunch of “easy” maps. The first is downright simple and easy. Put your hero in a place where he’ll have multiple shots at multiple balloons! Easy peasy! Then, get a little more money and drop a few more monkeys (towers) to push back against a few more balloons and, next thing you know, you’ll be dealing against blimps and megablimps and megamegablimps.

And move to the next map. Or next difficulty that asks you to play with only primary monkeys or only military monkeys or have the map move in reverse!

Seriously, if you’re into tower defense? This game is for you. Even if it’s not free and has some seriously unfair “hard” goals.

So… what are you playing?

(Featured image is a screenshot of Bloons TD 6. All screenshots taken by the author.)