Apple Maniacs

In spite of the fact that they look fairly simple, tower defense games are anything but that in terms of gameplay mechanics. Replayability is key, and it’s important to provide the players with many options and ways to deal with each challenge. In short, a lot of tower combinations are needed in order to keep the experience fresh and keep the players coming back for more.

Apple Maniacs is a casual tower defense game that challenges you to defend against an army of vicious foes that want to raid your apple harvest. It may not be the most exciting concept ever devised, but it shouldn’t matter as long as the gameplay is entertaining enough. Unfortunately, that is not necessarily the case, given the small collection of towers available at your disposal.

Each level features a couple of enemy waves and only a handful of towers you can use, although they can be upgraded twice to deal additional damage and increase their range. This is not enough to encourage replayability, on the other hand, especially since you are forced to use fixed places for your towers, which makes it even harder to come up with unique strategies.

The enemies are almost always the same as well, even if they come in a few varieties. There’s hardly any difference between them, bar the fact that some require more hits in order to be put down. Hence, you are always just watching the screen and waiting for your gold coins to multiply in order to apply upgrades and be done with the level as quickly as possible.

Lastly, the graphics are actually decent, or at the very least colorful enough to be pleasant. The maps get repetitive after a few levels, but it’s nice to see some proper textures for a change. Naturally, it’s quite obvious that the game is a mobile port, especially when you consider the interface and the controls. It’s not a big issue, on the other hand, given the simplicity of the gameplay.

Apple Maniacs is not a bad game per se, but it’s the kind of game that gets very annoying after ten minutes of gameplay. Hence, it’s only worth trying if you are a complete beginner with the genre and you want something easy to start with.