We don't want zombies, bandits, sheep, zerglings, orcs, musical notes, or balloons on the lawn.

Around 480 BC, King Leonidus Butler enlisted the help of Kevin Sorbo and Pit to defend the Greecy city-state of Red Rover. On the very first turn, things went south as Butler rovered Little Zizou to come over. Going straight for their leader, the Persians felt threatened. Thanks to their high speed stat, the Persians quickly arrived at Thersmopylons long before their leader could come right over and began xerxing Butler's chain, crippling Leo's strength with an abundant use of Pay Day, and then proceeded to lick themselves. Three days later, Lil' Z walked right pass the weary defenders and claimed what was rightfully his. He brough Pit back with him and then it was Zizou's turn to rover someone over to his chain. Now left with Struggle, the Persians were unable to prevent Sorbo from bringing Pit back with him, leaving Platypusa no other choice but to send her second-in-command, Perry, to end this silly game at once. To make a long history lesson short, everyone became Roman, and a sequel was funded seven years later with the coins scattered about the field.

While many still believe in the Sand Castle Vs. Ocean theory, this idea is without reliableWiki resources to support it, thus the Battle of Thermohoppopotamus remains as the first documented use of what tacticians refer to today as a "tower defense".

The tower defense strategy was nautrally conceived through conception. Since women are the opposite of men, and inherently evil because of it, sperm is treated as a sort of enemy. As sperm enters the female's body, it reaches an abyss-like region aptly named the "tartuterus". While the egg cell's membrane acts as the primary shield, the tartuterus is set up as an elaborate maze filled with trap cards, anti-sperm monsters, David Bowie, and acid to prevent all but the most determined sperm from ever seeing the egg. For those few who survive the trip, they will then have to fight their way through the cannon towers, slowing traps, and an excessive number of sunken colonies fortifying the membrane of the ovum. In most cases, only a sole survivor lives to tell the tale (not that anyone cares to listen).

All of this, along with Custard's last stand for revenge at the Alamo, laid the foundation for this sub-genre of RTS gaming:

If it wasn't for the pants, you wouldn't be able to tell'em apart!

Still, it was a weak foundation with few developers willing to create titles based solely upon giving their enemies the D, that is, until Starcraft arrived. Not only did Blizzard breathe new life into real-time strategy with the overwhelming success of Starcraft, but the included campaign editor opened the doors for players to expand upon that success. The most notable of these creations were the turret and sunken defense maps. Because of the Zerg creep preventing non-Zerg teammates from building their own defenses, the earliest maps typically kept the two separate, meaning waves of flying units for turret defense maps, and waves of ground units for sunkens. Eventually, one of these map makers realized that Zerg also have spore colonies (those buildings no one gave a fuck about, because Hydralisks are cheaper and more effective), so it was possible to have both ground and air waves with a single race without having to waste space with pylons or resources with making units to fill bunkers. As people became more familiar with the editing tools, we got mixed TD maps ("turret defense" was the preferred label, even when sunkens were also included) with all three races, stationary units acting as additional defense options, and, sometimes, a relatively competent balance in the increasing strength of the waves. The concept is easy to learn, but it does entail effective mazing and careful spending on upgrades to complete, so the player doesn't feel stupid afterwards for playing it (that's the job of the bunker wars and zone control maps). When Warcraft III took over, turrets were replaced by towers. People were still making "TD" maps, but the "T" changed to accomodate the medieval setting, and the name just stuck after that. The "D" was stuck somewhere else for added enjoyment.

The tower defense genre boomed with the help of Adobe Flash. Not everyone wanted to buy a Craft game, and there was nothing else worth playing in 2007...

So it was up to independent developers to fill this void with browser games (and porn advertisements).

The first major success was in January of 2007, and it was actually a Flash remake of the Warcraft 3 map Element TD. Lazy bastard. Personally, I believe Defend Your Castle ! deserves a little more credit for its 2003 contribution, but I understand that it doesn't play much like what qualifies for a tower defense game nowadays, and no one cares what I think, so fuck it. This was followed up with other popular titles such as Desktop Tower Defense, Bloons Tower Defense 1 - 4, Gemcraft, Cursed Treasure 1 and 2, Kingdom Rush, Cellcraft, Symphonic Tower Defense, Pokemon Tower Defense, Throw Pillows at a Toddler's Face as Hard As You Can, and plenty of others that now make up entire websites dedicated solely to them. Why are they so popular? It's partially because the gameplay is, at its core, simple fun, like a Bejeweled clone or an old beat'em up, though a few have tried (unsuccessfully) to make their games a bit more complex. Another reason is because many of them are 100% free to play. Can't afford to buy a copy of Plants Vs Zombies or Orcs Must Die!? Who cares?! There's plenty of other choices out there. If you don't mind paying, however, I highly recommend both of those games! I'm especially impressed with Orcs Must Die! because it utilizes the third-person perspective of standard action games without complicating anything in the process. I also appreciate the humor Robot Entertainment injected into it. Whatever TD you decide to play, you're likely going to have more fun than you figured you would... unless it has a shitty rating. Why would you even bother playing if that information was available? To prove my statement wrong? Why would that matter? Who's going to actually read this and agree with anything I type? Your effort to make me look foolish has been in vain! I made myself look foolish long before you were even aware of my existence, so there!

Oh, and Rampart existed at some point during all of this.

Yeah, that's how I remember it.

Anyway, the only reason I've wasted so much of my lonely, worthless time typing about this is because I've spent the last few months playing four of them, three of which I bought as part of a Humble Bundle: Orcs Must Die!, its sequel, and Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. The fourth is Symphonic Tower Defense, which is not only a decent TD, but the music you defend against is also legally free to download. What more could I want? Dr Pepper and a 3DS that isn't a piece of shit? Nah. Nah.... *sighs* I hate you so much malfunctioning shoulder buttons.