[Guide] Tower Defense Mini-Games

Tower Defense Mini-Games Guide

This guide will walk you through the tower mini-games, a listing is below. I have beat these games on all levels of difficulty, although my choice game is Bixie Defense. I started this post to help out all those asking questions about the Tower games.

Briarwood Defense: Weed Killing!, Plants Alive, and Weeding the Weeds

Penguin Defense: A Fishy Situation, Penguin Produce, and My Fish, MINE!

Bixie Defense: Protect the Hive, Honey, I’m Home, and We’ve Come for the Honey

Garden Defense: Crop Dusting, Gardening 101, and Barnyard Bonanza

The biggest thing that differentiates these is the maps and the types of towers you can use. Each defense has its own set of towers, and slightly different game play. Bixie has three pathways that creatures enter through, and penguin has fish buckets (life) that can be taken back as the creatures path back out, but Garden and Briarwood are straight up kill the creatures before they get to the end. On additional posts I go into more details about the different Defenses. Keep in mind that the only thing that changes from 3 games within the defense is the maps and the bonus stuff.

Real quick, the difference between Hard, Medium, and Regular (Easy is regular just a members only version with additional bonuses) is the number of waves involved, Hard has 50, medium has 25 and regular has 10.

Basic Underlying Strategies

1) Placement: Other then upgrades, this is the most important thing you should consider. Some say pile everything at the entrance or this or that, and I'll tell you that’s not going to cut it with the harder levels. Things to look for when placing your towers: Curves, where your tower can hit creatures longer. Double paths, so if the creature does get by you, you can hit it again on the other side. Poison towers aren’t usually part of groupings, and are usually best placed at entrances and middle of maps, try not to place them at the end. See Grouping for further ideas.

2) Upgrading: This is the most important thing you can do in these games. Each upgrade a tower grows exponentially, meaning the first upgrade equals about 3 of the same tower etc. Other then maybe the easy game, you can't win without upgrading your towers. Each tower has 5 tiers to it, and each upgrade adds increased range and power. What to upgrade depends a lot on the defense you are playing, but the tower I find myself upgrading above all others is usually the medium range and medium damage tower. It strikes fast and is easier to upgrade then your high damage towers.

3) Groupings: A grouping is a set of towers placed together, the most common would be a slowing tower, and your high and mid damage towers right after it. If a Defense has a poison tower (All but the penguin defense), I usually place one at an entrance and some where in the middle that hits two paths if possible. The amount of towers in a grouping changes per Defense I play, and the difficulty level. Easy generally only needs one grouping, medium one grouping plus some stray towers, and hard can get up to 3 or 2 heavily stacked groupings.

4) Power-ups: You can mouse over these for the details, but if played right these can be very crucial to your campaign. You have: Slow time, Money Bonus, Increased Attack, Increased Range, Building Boost Speed (It upgrades faster), and A bomb that does little damage, but stuns the creatures. IMO Money Bonus is the most important, and if used properly could gain you a fast boost in cash, I usually either use a slow, or an attack boost and the money bonus together to ensure I get the whole wave.


· Don’t waste money. Place your key towers, and try not to vary from that. Save your money for upgrades as much as possible. Keep in mind upgrades range anywhere from like 12 cost up to 550 or higher for final tiers. That’s a lot of cash.

· Don’t waste power-ups. Save these for when you are just shy of that big upgrade you need. On easy games you may find that you never use power-ups at all, and each power-up you have at the end adds to your score if I’m not mistaken.

· Don’t underestimate the poison towers. They can do some serious damage if you put the effort into upgrading them.

· Careful upgrading while creatures are passing you, your towers don’t fight while upgrading.

· Most of the Tower Defenses can be done with a maximum of 16 towers, although you may be able to do it with a lot less. If you have more then that, to put it bluntly, you don’t have a clue what you are doing.

· Keep in mind you can sell towers, this can become vital when upgrading to a Tier 4 or 5 tower.

Do Not Do

· Build tons of towers all over the place, because this takes away the precious money that you need to upgrade your towers.

· Do not stack everything all in one place, the single hitting towers will continue to hit one creature till its dead or out of range. So other creatures can slide by barely getting hit. Refer to groupings above.

Side Note: I want to mention really quick: in the charts below with the upgrades you may find discrepancies in the numbers for the Power. The upgrades say +whatever, but when you actually buy the upgrade the numbers differ, some seem like they are rounded down. Some just seem way off altogether. I tried to post the actual number after I upgraded, so they reflect the power more accurately. Some of the Tier 4 and 5 upgrades I haven’t had a chance to buy yet, so just going off the + number, but will update as needed.

Bixie Defense

Location(s): Sanctuary

Protect the Hive, Honey, I'm Home, and We've Come for the Honey



Quick Overview: This is a unique Defense game, because creatures come at you from three different directions. I like this version because it seems more challenging to set up your defense. Basically you want to stop the creatures from entering the Hive.

Strategy: There is no easy strategy for this, at least to describe. The basics are this: Find a spot where all three trails path together and build a strong defense there. Place poison towers (Stinger Bixies) at all three entrances, and upgrade those a couple of times if you can, and then forget about them(don't bother upgrading on easy or medium). Keep reinforcing your main defense, you can place random towers if you like and if you have the money. If I'm playing on hard, towards the end I'll sacrifice the poison towers for a big upgrade.



Tips:

Most of the costs and upgrades in this version are fairly cheap compared to the other defense games. You can bulk up fairly quickly if you do it right.
All the maps have a spot near the bottom where all three trails eventually pass through, I won't give you the spoiler, just find it and make that your key defense.
At the top of the map, two trails cross each other. You can place stuff here, as long as you aren't weakening your main defense, it'll help boost your score if you can kill them faster.
Bixie Druids rule in this defense. Cheap upgrades, multi hit and fast attack. If you build it... They will die.






Location(s): Briarwood - Center area

Weed Killing! - Plants Alive - Weeding the Weeds

Quick Overview: This defense is basically: kill all creatures before they hit the end of the path. Between the three sub-games the only thing that changes is the maps and the types of bonuses.

Strategy: Start a grouping right away, consisting of a Castle Tower and Tangle Wood Tower and if you have the money a Vine Tower, refer to Placement in the original post. Concentrate on upgrading those three towers quickly, before adding additional towers. If you are playing on hard, you'll want a second grouping, and its vital you get those towers up to at least Tier 4, refer to chart below.


Tips:

The map is a winding, one direction pathway. Lots of curves for good placement.
The Multi Hit towers are your weakest direct damage towers on these maps, and remember Vine Towers are kind of slow. For this map I use more Tangle Wood Towers then I do Vine towers.
Since your Castle Tower has such a huge range, you could probably get away with just using one of them on this map and double stacking your damage towers.
Again, keep in mind your higher damage towers are single hit, so while I recommend placing them on curves be careful of double hitting other pathways, because it can screw up the whole pattern if your heavy damage tower is hitting that one stray that got away while another stream of monsters is coming through untouched.








Location(s): Snowhill, Wugachug (one table)

A Fishy Situation, Penguin Produce, My fish, MINE!



Quick Overview: This Defense differs from Garden Defense and Briarwood Defense in that the creatures have to make it to your building and then carry the fish back out and exit the way the came in. So you have a chance to get your fish (life) back. Other then that its basically kill the creatures before they get out, and it's a single pathway. Also there is NO poison tower in this Defense.

Strategy: This is a weird defense in my opinion, just because the towers are all kind of blah. Stick with the previous strategies for Briarwood Defense, but I often debate whether Mail tower is better then Penguin Tower. The Mail Penguin has a long range and does more damage, but its slow. The Penguin Tower has a shorter range, but not by much, and attacks much faster. Usually I use a combination of Penguin Tower and Hammer Penguin with maybe one or two Mail Penguins. I will say I don't play this one as much, because the towers are weaker and since they kill slower you have to build a strategy to hit them on their way back as well if you play in hard mode.



Tips:

Remember: They path forward and then back. So if they get by your main defense, they will have to go through it once more.
If one gets by you and its on its way back, the next wave will start. Keep in mind that your single hit towers, if busy, may not attack it. This is where Hammer Penguins become important.
DO NOT FORGET TO GRAB THE FISH BUCKETS. If they stole your life, and you kill the creature, be sure to click the fish buckets to get them back.










Location(s): Shrouded Glade, SW of Crossroads at the farm (Has the Members only tables Easy, Med and Hard)

Crop Dusting, Gardening 101, Barnyard Bonanza



Quick Overview: This is pretty much the same as Briarwood Defense, only differences are the towers(There is no Poison Tower), but the principles remain the same. On a regular Garden Defense Table, you will find that the different sub games have varying degrees of difficulty. Crop Dusting is easy, Gardening 101 is medium and Barnyard Bonanza is on the members only tables.

Strategy: Start a grouping right away, consisting of a Water Gun and a Dwarf or Garden Tower. I usually place the cow tower last, as it usually doesn't get into play till after a few rounds. Refer to Placement in the original post. Concentrate on upgrading those towers quickly, before adding additional towers(if you need them). Water Gun I'd probably upgrade last, as you won't see a noticeable difference till you can get it to tier 3. Just upgrade them starting with Dwarf or Garden Tower.

Additional Strategy: Going area of effect style. Ignoring Garden Tower altogether and concentrating on using a water gun, 2 Dwarf Towers, and 2 Cow Towers and then upgrade, upgrade, and upgrade.


Tips:

Dwarf Tower is slow but its multi-target makes this thing a beast.
Cow Tower is devastating right off the bat. So place it and upgrade it when you get a chance. Don't waste your money on a lot of these though, as their range is low and their attack is slow. Two of these should be enough for most situations, and always place them near your water gun. The more this thing gets to hit stuff the better off you are.
This defense is mostly about Multi-Hits, so build your defense on that.

Wow, I think this might help me a whole lot. I still need help with the hard levels of them but I'll follow this.

There are also YouTube videos which show extremely EASY ways to win. If you just type in the name of the minigame and then the difficulty im sure you will find it

Yup that's how i was able to beat the HARD bixie defense

This is gonna be a big help, thank you for posting this. Maybe now I can finally beat the medium ones XD

Cool. I will use it for my other accounts, I really need the loot you get in the quests. Thank you for the guide.

Thank you soo much!! I was finally able to beat the ones I never could before!!