Nice little TD-styled game with a few twists – Inkub for iPad Review

Inkub is a somewhat different take on the Tower Defense genre. You're essentially defending your incubator from viruses and other nasties that are out to infect your eggs as you incubate them. To do so you'll have a variety of weapons and tools at your disposal -- eventually. Unlike most TD games though you don't get money from killing nasties, but from energy generators to either side, and you can use the money they generate to upgrade [I]them[/I] to make even more money. The challenge -- apart from the usual TD challenges -- is to manage your resources effectively between upgrading money and having enough at the ready to place tools and weaponry to fend off the nasties. An interesting twist is the third dimension, where there are multiple tubes both in front and behind, and you have to flip the incubator to reach the rear ones, so you have to keep an eye on all of these different tubes to keep them stocked with weaponry. Being tubes as well, enemies can't pass your guns or tools -- but they can destroy them, so that presents a problem. You have to place them strategically enough that they have room and reach to fire but not so crowded that they're likely to get destroyed often. It's inevitable that they will, you just have to manage their placement in order to minimize that. Unusually, the game uses a mix of 3D (the incubator and tubes itself) and 2D sprites (weapons and enemies) which looked a bit weird -- like seeing cartoon characters in a live action movie. You generally expect a game that invests in a 3D engine to go whole hog, but that's not the case here. I don't think that's either a bad or good thing when you get right down to it, it just struck me as strange and a little bit surreal. Not a bad little game overall though. The levels progress nicely, easing you into the rhythm and gradually introducing you to new elements and prodding you to improve your strategy. It gives you an effective enough tutorial during your first go that you get comfortable with the methodologies and strategies pretty quickly. Like some TD games, each round starts you off at the beginning with a new configuration and the standard starting funds. My only gripe is with upgrading. Upgrading is quite simple -- double-tap on the item to upgrade. Problem is it seems to have a bit of a time recognizing your double-tap and it may take several attempts before it clicks. Fun little game though, and reasonably priced for an iPad game given what you get, which is a decent number of progressively more difficult levels.
Review by Psychopusher on Inkub for iPad.