Deathtrap - Tower Defense / action-RPG

mr_zen256

2[H]4U
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Dec 29, 2005
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Has anyone grabbed Deathtrap yet? It's from Neocore, the makers of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing.

Essentially they have taken the tower defense aspect from Val Helsing and developed an entire game around it.

User reviews sound very promising.

Steam Page
 
I saw the preview for it on steam earlier, let me know what you think if you end up grabbing it, looks fun.
 
I will be waiting patiently for some Let's Plays. The trailer doesn't show much. For all I can tell it's Dungeon Defenders but with a Diablo I/II art style.
 
Steam sent me a 20% off code for the game that stacked with the 10% off to make it less than $15. Downloading it now.
 
Finally decided to stop for the night. Addicted! Don't pick Hard difficultly right from the start because the game unlocks abilities as you use your skills. It makes you use all of your skills because the next unlock is achieved by skill usage. One of the unlocks requires that you only use 1/2 the essence generated in a match. Saving that for tomorrow. ;)

The monster pets you get in the game into are darn fun to watch kill stuff. The animations aren't D3 quality, but they are very good! Lots of skills to drop points into like an ARPG.
 
Watch the video I linked above. Skip to the 8 min mark for some action.
 
It looks like my guess was right. The gameplay appears to be similar to Dungeon Defenders but with more Diablo style artwork and equipment stats plus a bit more skill variety. I'm not sure I like the tower locations being hardcoded into the map. Do you still get sufficient freedom in your setups?
 
Well each spot has a certain shape. So you can only put towers from that group on that tile. Remember I haven't unlocked all of the towers yet, and I refuse to find out what the hidden unlocks are as I want them to be a surprise. :)

So far the gun towers seem to only be one type of gun so far. Another spot can be an ice or lightning tower. The ice is a beam that can freeze, and the lightning has a 50% chance to attack twice. There is a floor trap that can be ice / fire /physical. I unlocked a spear trap also. Another floor is only acid so far.

There are monster traps that release wolves or ghouls according to your choice. The wolves are a 100% chance with a cool down. Walking on the wolves trap doesn't damage the creeps; only the wolves attacking does damage. The ghouls trap description says that it does damage when the creeps walk over it, and if they die it has a 35% chance to summon a ghoul.

Now what I listed above might sound run of the mill, but there is a perk system for the towers. You can spend points in them to level them up and give them additional powers. You can dedicate extra essence during the match to unlocking these skills after you have spent ability points to train them between matches.

So I might drop a gun tower, give it a 30% damage boost, add a 15% slow to it, and then give it extra range! Monster towers have perks like a chance to summon elite monster that do double damage it seems and have ridiculous health pools. They also have perks to double the base monster's health and damage. There are more for the other towers and I haven't even made it to level 10 yet.

Lastly, after a match there is a chest to open and the gold from the match allows you to buy gear from a shopkeeper after the match. This gear empowers your hero with extra damage, survival stats, etc. I don't know what the good gear does as I'm so low level. ;) I did notice that after completing the first matches on Normal difficulty, there were "ghost form' mobs around the map and chests. I guess I need to complete the map on hard or a certain way to enable that game mode.

Your hero has a full set of ARPG skills to choose from. By default you get a lightning beam, for right click, ice bolts for left click. There are 1,2,3,4 skills, but I've only unlocked 2 of those. What I unlocked allowed me to make a tower do double damage for a limited time period and another slows the entire map it seems. Both of those skills have fairly long cool downs. You can spend ability points in them to increase the basic skill and give it new perks.

There is a full ARPG crafting system with recipe drops from missions. No idea if the recipes are random or if it is a set pattern. So far I can make polearms, staffs, a gun, and a melee weapon. I made a staff with 2 properties. This made it superior to the stuff I had gotten from a mission. Also you can craft armor and something else. Just woke up and if I fire up the game I'll miss making my mom breakfast. ;) Sorry! :D

At level 10 it seems that I get a whole new set of unlocks. :) Can't wait!

There are various types of enemies. Ground traps don't work against flying creatures I have learned so far. Mobs of flying bats, melee undead, spell caster undead, flesh spell casters, giants, rare mobs, rare elite mobs, elite giants, bosses, elite bosses, and I ran across a guy that took almost an entire level to kill he had so much HP.

The boss type creatures have elite skill sets. For example one would freeze all of my towers as he shambled through the level. I had to break the ice and avoid his telegraphed 2 shot move.

Well off to make some breakfast. Hope this helps. I found Normal difficulty to be too easy if you use all of your essence. I also see that you get better gear, gold, etc if you use the bare minimum essence to construct traps. So basically after I have beaten everything I'm going back to try it again with that in mind.

And the game has 4 player multiplayer. if it's like Van Helsing then it will be perfection. My buddies haven't gotten the game yet as only one was available last night. Can't wait top see how the game scales with more people in the group.

Didn't proofread this post. Sorry if it has some mistakes. :) Mom just made some extra noises from her room to let me know that I should have made breakfast by now. LOL!
 
Hmmm from the 2 videos I watched game seems pretty detailed. Think I'll pick this up tonight and give it a try.
 
Loved Val Helsing 1&2
Can I play the whole "single player" story in coop? or do they separate coop only levels?
 
Been jamming at this for a couple of hours now. Very solid game. The tower defense / ARPG mix is very addictive and executed well. Definitely recommend it.
 
Does it have local co-op, would love to be able to play this with the wife. Co-op was the biggest draw for Dungeon Defenders because it was a game I enjoyed playing with the wife and she was willing to play and have fun with it.
 
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Man this is fun. You can tell they used a lot of assets and stuff from Van Helsing 1 and 2 but its still a lot of fun. Just the right mix of ARPG and TD. I can see me playing this for a little while on some D3 downtimes.
 
Spent almost five hours playing the game co-op with my brother. Game is a blast. It does everything well enough and makes things just enough of a challenge to get a hook in me without being so hard that it just ends up getting on my nerves and making me quit.
 
I'm really enjoying this game too, if I had only noticed the 20% off coupon =D oops.

Still worth it.
 
Spent almost five hours playing the game co-op with my brother. Game is a blast. It does everything well enough and makes things just enough of a challenge to get a hook in me without being so hard that it just ends up getting on my nerves and making me quit.

You didnt have a problem with the host player only receiving loot from the optional chest keys you can pick up? Game breaking IMO for now for coop. After a first few levels.Host had like 10K gold and a bunch of gear. I collected only like 500 gold and hardly any gear.
 
I've never had a problem with just the host getting loot. Whenever my me and my buddy play, there is always loot for both of us in optional chests.
 
You didnt have a problem with the host player only receiving loot from the optional chest keys you can pick up? Game breaking IMO for now for coop. After a first few levels.Host had like 10K gold and a bunch of gear. I collected only like 500 gold and hardly any gear.


That didn't happen for us. The optional chests gave both of us stuff no matter who opened them.
 
thanks
humm Odd. I checked the steam forums and other people have the same issue I have.
I will try again this weekend incase it was a fluke thing.
 
I too find it odd that they limit you to putting certain towers in certain places. I often played RTS games like tower defense games, so not having the freedom seems really weird.
 
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