Bloons Tower Defense 3

With BTD 3, we start getting into the territory of peak mainstream flash games, with NinjaKiwi further refining their formula to what I basically consider its limit in this particular iteration. The track number was kicked up to 8, individual difficulty modes for each track were added as well as new enemy and tower types yet again. These tracks in particular I need to give props to, as there was enough variety at this point that the designers could spice things up a bit by having certain maps cater more towards certain towers more than others. This provides some required strategic diversity between maps and spices things up considerably, making the player consider much more carefully where they ought to invest their money per round.

This strategic depth is further increased in the additional upgrades you can give each tower, not only making each individual unit feel more powerful, but providing further avenues for the player to weigh up the value of a tower, along with encouraging more strategic placement to maximise the fewer number of towers you'll be getting, rather than the spam that was strongly encouraged in the first 2 games. This also feels like the first game where there are a wide array of viable strategies for certain tracks, which lends itself to a strong sense of player agency. Careful positioning is further encouraged by this being the first game with the introduction of a support tower to further boost your other ones, even further adding complexity to the game despite there being fairly few elements, signifying a very well designed experience where each element was given careful consideration.

This game right here is where the series started to become a classic in my eyes, I remember back at school people playing this and just being incredibly excited for the looming presence of BTD 4 on the horizon, and looking back at it, it's not too hard to see why this of all the games was a classroom favourite. Extremely tightly designed flash game with a wonderful aesthetic and all in all one of the most fun experiences with a small scale tower defence game I've had, even if it's still not really my preferred sort of game and still suffers a bit from the limitations that flash games often possess, but even so, this one's a good time.