Gemcraft: Labyrinth

Gemcraft Labyrinth is the 3rd Chapter of the epic tower defense series of Gemcraft from Game In a Bottle. Gemcraft Labyrinth offers a deep gameplay with its combination of strategy and RPG elements making it easily one of the best tower defense games of 2013.

The basic gameplay of Labyrinth remains the same as the Gemcraft series: Monsters of various types will approach the orb on the map by means of meandering pathways, and it is the gamer’s job to place gems in strategic locations to try to destroy them before they reach the orb. Monsters reach your orb and damage your mana by varying amounts. If your mana falls to zero, you lose the game. Your mana slowly replenishes over time and you with every kill and mana are also the currency to purchase and upgrade towers and gems and many other traps and advantages. Having a lot of mana will make you withstand a lot of attacks but every so often a large monster will appear that can crush your orb altogether.

The crux and strategy of the game, as the title suggests, is with the gems. There are eight different coloured gems each hue with distinct special ability in addition to their attack points some of which include slowing down enemies, creating chain hits and reducing enemy armour. Gems can be combined, combining the hues and retaining a portion of the special abilities from each gem. While most stages only give you a few colours to use, you can actually combine gems to increase their potency and give them new abilities. You can stick with the gems the level gives you to begin with and think strategically, or you can spend mana to instantly unlock any colour you wish for the duration of the level. Gems can be upgraded to increase attack speed, attack damage and attack radius, and upgrading the gems brings about a different shape gem.

A new addition to the labyrinth chapter is the ‘apparition’. These are rare innocuous beings that sporadically appear on a few maps that fly into and out of your view during the game. Destroying apparitions gives you upgrade points directly. Upgrade points can be used to acquire advantages that last through the entire game such as increasing your mana pool at the start of every game or increasing the potency and special abilities of gems. Gemcraft Labyrinth is entirely meritocratic, you can adjust the difficulty of the game on each map which gives you extra XP points after you complete it which convert to upgrade points.

Gemcraft Labyrinth is a must-get game for Tower defense game lovers and can be played for free on Armorgames and Kongregate. Game In a Bottle has announced that the sequel to this game Chasing Shadows will be released shortly in the beginning of this year.