Port Defender

The Online Guide

Want to preview the future of Port Defender?  Click here to see the new Official guide (beta) for the upcoming 1.1.0 release.

Index

1.0 Basics

1.1 Background

You just installed Port Defender, a new hardware firewall on your local network, but it wasn’t properly setup at the factory.  For the firewall to function properly it has to learn how to defend by watching simulated attacks.

1.2 How to play

You goal is to stop the oncoming creep invasion by placing towers in their way.  To place towers drag their associated icon, located at the bottom right of your device to a location on the game field.  You can only place towers on open ground patches that have not been touched by creeps and does not create an impervious wall.  You have a certain amount of health per game and you will lose health when a creep escapes from your field.  Try you best to stop creeps by building mazes to slow them down and force them to cover more ground.

Port Defender 1.0.32

Maze Building

1.3 Controls

Common controls

Pan: Drag your finger

Zoom: Pinch the screen

Hide interface: Pause game, and then leave it alone for a few seconds

Single frame advance: Pause game, then tap the fast forward button to advance the game by one frame, useful for taking screen shots

Tower controls

Add tower: Drag from associated tower icon to a open location on the game field

Drop Bomb!: Drag from Bomb! icon to a location on the field, hold it still, let it build up strength, release finger from screen to explode

Switch orientation: Turn device to desired orientation, also keep your fingers off the screen while turing

Upgrade/Sell tower: Press on tower, and then select the associated icon

Admin controls

Drive admin: Place finger on screen and drag to create a virtual joystick

Move to location: Tap anywhere on the field

Tower/Weapon Controls

Tower to Weapons: Tap the above control to switch from building towers to dropping weapon

Weapon to Towers: Tap the above control to switch from dropping weapons to building towers

1.4 Contact

If you have any comments or questions please contact us on twitter @mgatelabs

2.0 Defense

2.1 Gun Tower

Description: Gun towers are your bread and butter for stopping low level creeps.  They are cheap to build and fire quickly

Speed: Fast

Range: Far

Damage: Low

Special: Visible bullets cause more damage, and can set gas covered creeps on fire

Attacks: Land targets

2.2 Anti-Air Tower

Description: Anti-Air towers will only attack flying targets

Speed: Fast

Range: Far

Damage: Low

Special: Visible flak causes more damage, and can set gas covered creeps on fire

Attacks: Flying targets

2.3 Rocket Tower

Description:Rocket towers are high damage powerhouses, but have a long reload time

Speed: Slow

Range: Very Far

Damage: Medium

Special: Rockets can find new targets if first target is lost

Note: Some tower upgrades will fire 2 rockets at the same time

Attacks: Land & Flying targets

2.4 Ping Tower

Description:Ping towers will slow down creeps, leaving them open to more attacks

Speed: Slow

Range: Near

Damage: None

Special: Will target faster creeps first

Note: Place near corners

Attacks: Land targets

2.5 Gas Tower

Description:Gas Towers launch barrels of gas at creeps, which causes the following efects.  Creep's can randomly catch fire and slowly burn to death, also creeps set on fire take double damage from rockets, nukes, anti-air and microwave towers.

Speed: Slow

Range: Near

Damage: None, but creeps will take more damage when fire

Note: Place near ping and microwave towers to cause more damage

Attacks: Land targets at first, and flying creeps at later levels

2.6 Microwave Tower

Description: Microwave towers burn enemies.  This tower will cause heavy damage, but the range is very limited

Speed: Very Fast

Range: Near

Damage: High

Note: Place at corners and near ping & gas towers

Attacks: Land targets, and flying creeps at later levels

2.7 Nuke Tower

Description:Nuke towers will destroy land based creeps.  Later upgrades make this tower a super weapon.

Speed: Slow

Range: Near

Damage: Very High

Special: Some upgrade levels fire multiple warheads.

Note: Nuke towers are very expensive to purchase and upgrade, but will decimate creeps at its highest upgrade level.  Use the Nuke tower with Admin to cause wide scale destruction

Attacks: Land targets

2.8 The Admin (Full Version Only)

Description: The admin is an expensive helper that will make the game a easier to play and win.  The price tag is high, but it’s the only available moveable tower.

Speed: Fast

Range: Anywhere

Damage: None - Super Duper High

Special:Can pickup, move and drop off towers.  Towers inside admin can attack flying and land targets.

Note: The admin is like a robotic vacuum cleaner, but instead of cleaning up, it dishes out destruction

Attacks: Land & Flying targets

2.9 The Bomb!

2.9.1 Original Bomb! (For reference only, not available)

Description: The Bomb! Is the only offensive weapon available in Port Defender.  To use the bomb, please drag from its icon, located at the bottom of your screen, to a location on the field, unlike towers you need to charge the bomb before deploying it on the field.  To charge the bomb please hold the weapon over a location, as it sits still an indicator will increase alerting you to its current strength.  Once the bomb has enough strength please release the bomb , your finger, to cause a small explosion.  Any movement will cause the bomb to reset

Cost: $1-$50

Speed: Up to you

Range: Low to High

Damage: Low to High

Special: Motion sensitive

Available To: 1.0.24

2.9.2 Bomb!

Description:  To use the bomb, please drag from its icon, located at the bottom of your screen, to a location on the field, unlike towers you need to charge the bomb before deploying it on the field.  To charge the bomb please hold the weapon over a location, as it sits still an indicator will increase alerting you to its current strength.  Once the bomb has enough strength please release the bomb , your finger, to cause a small explosion.  Any movement will cause the bomb to reset

Cost: $5

Range: Small

Damage: None - Up to you

Charge Time: 2.0 Seconds

Available From: 1.0.25

2.9.3 Gas Bomb!

Description: The Gas Bomb works like the original Bomb, except that it will not directly harm creeps, instead it will cover them in gas, which can cause them to catch fire and burn.  A creep on fire will take additional damage from towers.  Any movement will cause the bomb to reset

Cost: $15

Range: Medium

Damage: Gas

Charge Time: 2.0 Seconds

Available From: 1.0.25

2.9.4 Nuke Bomb!

Description: The Nuke Bomb is costly, but it covers a large area and will inflict enormous damage.  Any movement will cause the bomb to reset

Cost: $50

Range: Large

Damage: High

Charge Time: 2.0 Seconds

Available From: 1.0.25

3.0 Creeps

3.1 Weak

Health: Low

Note: Not very dangerous

Developer note: With the new HD graphics we decided to give them hands, before they just had a tail and feet, which would make it very difficult for them to drive vehicles

3.2 Strong

Health: Low

Note: Not very dangerous

Developer note: They actually crawl on the ground.  The tiny feet on their back are just flippers

3.3 Support

Health: Semi-Low

Note: Not very dangerous, and unintentionally cute

3.4 Fast Weak

Health: Low

Note: Not very dangerous

3.5 Fast Strong

Health: Low

Note: A little bit better than fast weak

3.6 APC

Health: Almost High

Note: Slow and dangerous at higher wave levels

Developer note: The rocket on top is just for style

3.7 Botnet

Health: Moderate

Note: Commonly seen in packs

3.8 Magnet

Health: High

Note: Will soak up all surrounding damage.  Also immune to slow damage

Developer Note: Its really the APC creep with a giant magnet on top.  Also we haven't introduced a flying magnet creep yet, but we will.

3.9 Runners

Health: Low

Note: Very fast

3.10 Boss

Health: Very High

Note: Hard to destroy

Developer note: The wheels look like they are moving, but that effect is an unexpected result of the art style

3.11 Fly Weak

Health: Low

Note: Semi dangerous!!!

3.12 Fly Support

Health: Moderate

Note: Very, very dangerous!!!

Developer note: Look at how the support creep just hangs off the rocket pack

4.0 Advanced tactics

4.1 Admin features

The admin is a unique feature for Port Defender.  With the Admin you can esentially become a moving tower and quickly change the tide of battle

4.1.1 Abduct creep

Why: Your admin craft depends on abduction points to use super powers

How: Press on the abduct icon, featured above, while around creeps.  Some creeps, such as weak creeps are automatically abducted, but higher level creeps will resist until they are near death.  You don't get points or money for abducting creeps

4.1.2 Pickup/Drop tower

Why: Have you ever built a tower in the wrong location?  With this feature you can pickup and move towers to a new destination.  Just the tower top is moved, the base is left behind as a wall.

How: Move over a tower, press the tower pickup button, featured above, to place a tower in your cargo bay.  A side effect of picking up towers are empty tower bases left on the field.  To drop a tower, move the admin over an empty tower base and tap on the desired tower's icon to release it from the cargo bay

Also: Towers in the cargo bay are active weapons

4.1.3 Super powers

Counter measures: Use this power to fire a barrage of rockets and slow projectiles

Cost: 6 Abduction points, ouch!!

Vent gases: Tower's in your cargo bay fire faster

Cost: 2 Abduction points, very cheap, very useful!

4.2 Advanced maze building

Please read the following logic to learn how experts play

The first few waves:

At the start of any game your maze should resemble a long path, which will hug the walls of the field, and then eventually hug around itself.   For most layouts, such as green field, start by building your maze so creeps, go, up, then down, then up again, ping ponging back and forth from the top and bottom part of the screen.  Also for the first few waves only build gun towers, since rocket and ping towers need a proper maze to function efficiently

Building on a strong foundation:

At this point you should have a basic maze, with a few sharp turns.  At this point start placing microwave towers at the sharp turns with adjacent ping towers. to make slow destruction choakpoints.  This combination of towers creates a trap where creeps are slowed down and then burned by the microwave tower.  Also start placing rockets near the middle of the field to destroy flying creeps that will eventually show up

Bringing it home:

At some point the difficulty of each wave will substantially increase, and you will need a strong defense to stop most waves.  To ensure victory, place nuke and gas towers around sharp turns.  Also consider purchasing the Admin, and loading it up with two nuke towers  and a gas tower.  This way you can have moving nuke towers that attack creeps, which are on fire and take double damage.  When in trouble, use the Admin's vent super power, to tripple your fireing rate and easily destroy multiple creeps trying to escape.

Sample field design:

Boxes: Towers

Letters: (m)icrowave, (n)uke, (p)ing

Red box: Wasted space, use this space to house a rocket tower or nuke tower for your Admin to pickup

Arrows: Creep path

5.0 Appendix

5.1 Tower Details

5.1.1 Land/Air defense

5.1.2 Purchase/Upgrade costs

5.2 Comments

5.2.1 Endless mode

We would like to add in a option to continue playing, the only question is how to make it still fun.  We could remove 'random' and replace it with common+, a 300 wave version, that would start with the first 90 waves from common, but extended to 300 waves.

Comment: Version 1.0.30 changes the random system to generate 300 waves.  The random wave count will be raised over time in increments of 100 waves.  We will also listen to comments and adjust the random system over time.

5.2.2 Comment from "Fourth Stooge" on iTunes

…the functions of the towers keep changing.  [the] New bombs are nice but you screwed up the old ones…

We do have some stats that may help clear up some questions about the bombs in version 1.0.25 and comments about planned changes for version 1.0.26.

The Old Bomb!

Charge time:  8.33 seconds

Damage: 6 to 300 points

Price:  $1 - $50

The New Bomb!

Charge time:  2.40

Damage:  1.67 to 20 points

Price: $5

The Gas Bomb!

Charge time:  4.40 seconds

Damage: 7.50 seconds of gas

Price: $15

The Nuke Bomb

Charge time: 7.20 seconds

Damage: 29.17 to 350 points

Price: $50

From this we know, at wave 1, the old bomb causes more damage at $5.  The nuke bomb will cause more damage than the old bomb at $50.  The nuke bomb will charge faster than the old bomb at $50.  If a creep catches fire when hit by a gas bomb, than it will take 36.65 points of damage over time, and take extra damage from other towers.

We are currently working on power towers, which will allow towers to have extra properties, such as attacking flying creeps or increasing their rate of fire.  For example with the air power tower the problem of towers not attacking flying creeps will be handled, but the towers will be a limited resource.

For version 1.0.26 we can expect to see the bombs change again, but at this point, we are planning to reduce charge times to 2.0 seconds, add in a new c4 bomb that will act as the middle ground between Bomb and Nuke.  The damage of the new bomb will also be raised to be a bit bigger than the original bomb at the same price.  If you have a comment about the proposed changes, then please send us a message on twitter @mgatelabs.

5.2.3 Comment on achievements

Achivements are sent to game center when you complete a game and you must be playing on a difficulty higher then easy.

5.3 Store Objects

5.3.1 Fun Mode

When Enabled: You will receive $9999 each wave and have your health reset to 999.  As a side note there is a bug in 1.0.24 which can cause you to lose while in fun mode, but this has been patched in 1.0.25.

Available From: 1.0.24

5.3.2 Free Will

When Enabled:  Your admin vehicle will automatically chase down creeps.

Available From: 1.0.25

5.3.3 Cash For Admins

When Enabled: Your purchase of the admin will not cost anything, but you still need to accumulate $999 to purchase.  You will also automatically receive the admin at wave 30 if not purchased before.

Available From: 1.0.25

5.4 Sync Tool

5.4.1 Why does this exist?

Sync tool is designed for player's who want to play Port Defender on multiple devices.  With Sync Tool you can sync your stats between devices to combine them, or transfer saves between devices.  Sync Tool is only available in Port Defender 1.0.28+ for Game Center users.

5.4.2 How to

1. In order to use the sync tool both devices must be logged in to Game Center as the same player
2. One device must be designated as the server and the other as client
   1. On device 1 press Local server
   2. On device 2 press Local client
3. If the client cannot find the server then bluetooth may be disabled on that device.  A quick fix is to switch which device was the server/client so you get the option to enable bluetooth
4. Once your devices are connected you can press sync stats or transfer save
5. Once finished press disconnect