Played: Cursed Treasure – Don’t Touch My Gems

Michael here. This is the second in what I guess is now “officially” my ongoing series of computer game reviews I enjoy and believe you will enjoy. For the rationale and methodology behind these reviews, as well as background on tower defense games and because I’ll be referencing the game in this review, see the Kingdom Rush review.

Name: Cursed Treasure – Don’t Touch My Gems
Genre: Real Time Strategy
SubGenre: Tower Defense
Atmosphere: Fantasy
Websites: Armor Games, Kongregate
Rating: 4/5

Gameplay

Cursed Treasure: Don’t Touch My Gems is a tower defense game like Kingdom Rush where you place towers with varying capabilities on the map to try and stop waves of enemies from stealing your gems. The atmospheric twist here is that you’re the evil Overlord using Orcs, Undead, and Demons to stop the heroes.

CT:DTMG has 15 levels, each of which consist of a map made of varying terrain (there are three terrain types corresponding to the three towers and each tower) and one or more paths the heroes follow to and from your gem cave. The overall goal of any level is to keep the heroes from carrying all your gems off the map. If they succeed, you’ve lost the level. If you manage to keep at least one gem on the map (it doesn’t have to be in the cave), you win and unlock the next level.

To keep the heroes from succeeding, you have three basic tower types: the orc Den, the undead Crypt, and the demon Temple. Each of the tower types has a different range/rate/upgrade path and can only be built on one of the three terrain types (Grass, Snow, and Rock respectively), but otherwise may be built anywhere on the map (though you may have to clear the terrain of trees first, see below). There are also special High Ground tiles that provide a large range bonus where any tower may be built.

Towers automatically shoot at any heroes that come within range, gaining experience points in the process. Once a tower has enough experience, you may upgrade it to a higher level if the map allows it.

Building and upgrading towers requires gold, and while you start of with some gold at each level (that you can increase through purchasing and upgrading skills, see below), the chief way to gain gold is to kill the heroes.

CT:DTMG wouldn’t be a fantasy game if it didn’t have magic for you to use, and in this game the magic takes the form of three spells: Cut Out (to clear the aforementioned trees), Frenzy (which increases the firing rate of all your towers for a brief period of time), and Meteor (which devastates an area you designate with, well, meteors). These spells cost mana, of course, and you gain mana over time as well as by building the appropriate tower on mana pools on levels that have them.

Completing a level, even if you lose, earns you Experience Points that help you level up. With each level you advance, you are given three Skill Points you can use to buy various Skills to do things such as buy special powers for your towers, reduce the mana cost of spells, etc. The more gems you retain, the higher your rating and XP. Interestingly enough, while keeping the heroes from even touching your gems (it’s in the title, after all) gets you the highest rating of Brilliant, it actually doesn’t provide you with any more XP than simply keeping your gems on the map. Skill Points can be reset at any time so you can try various combinations out to find the one that works best for the level you’re trying to beat.

Of course, most of the preceding information is included in the handy tutorial in the first two levels of the game along with plenty of help the rest of the way.

Levels become increasingly more difficult as you advance, especially if like me you want to get that Brilliant rating. That being said, no level is impossible though you may have to do some tweaking of your Skills/level up to get the right combo to win the level.

What Makes The Game Worth/Not Worth Playing

If you liked Kingdom Rush or are a fan of the tower defense genre, this is right there at the top of the heap. Now I don’t rate it as highly as Kingdom Rush (which I consider the gold standard of TD games) for a couple of reasons:

1. CT:DTMG came out in mid-2010 (it’s undoubtedly a predecessor to KR) so its graphics and gameplay are not as sophisticated.
2. There’s no real story, the sound/voice acting isn’t as quality, there are no easter eggs, it doesn’t have as many levels – it’s simply not as good of a package.

However, these things in no way make CT:DTMG not worth playing. It’s still a solid and fun tower defense game that meets all my requirements for a game I enjoy (see the Kingdom Rushreview for the full list). Chances are, if you enjoyed KR, you’ll enjoy CT:DTMG. Oh, and this game does have something KR doesn’t: a fast-forward option to move those hero waves along.