Firehose Games‘s PC tower defense game, Go Home Dinosaurs, is a game about protecting an army of gopher’s midsummer stash of BBQ from a toothy, slow-walking horde of prehistoric foes. Let that sink in for a moment. In the upbeat, ridiculous world of Go Home, gophers and dinosaurs come together to fight over delicious meat after the dinosaurs try to take said meat from the gophers. It’s a crazy conceit, but it works because Firehose embraces it totally and molds a uniquely irreverent look and feel for a tower defense game around it. Also, Go Home isn’t slouch where it counts: mechanically, it’s a solid TD game.
And now it’s coming to iPad. Firehose Games has revealed to us that it’s heading to iPad 2 and up later next month for $4.99. Neat!
If you’ve played a TD game, like, ever before, you’ll feel pretty at home with this one in short order. In every level, a conga line of dinosaurs descend from a spawn and walk along a lane. Your job, as the gophers, is to put down turrets that’ll stop them. Easy!
Where Go Home departs the most from the norm is in turret placement. Levels are brutal small and grid-based, and each of the game’s turrets have a Tetris-piece shape. You can only put down a turret where it fits, meaning you can’t just throw them down willy-nilly all over the place. This kinda brings in a puzzle game feel to the experience. Also, you can only bring in a “hand" of turrets into each match and turrets can’t be removed, so a lot of the strategy part of takes place before the creeps even roll out.
Another interesting thing: you control a “hero" gopher. He’s basically a moveable turret that’s able to go wherever he’s needed. Eventually, you unlock special abilities for him that you can take into battle as part of your “hand." One ability lets you clone him for a few seconds. Another gives him the power to throw fireballs or conjure an explosive barrel.
Jared and I spent some time with an early build of the game and you can see it in action just below:
Anyway, how does it feel on iPad? Extremely good, as you’d expect. The clicks and drags are responsive. With a simple two-finger touch, you can rotate turret pieces. All said, this basically feels like a game that was designed for iPad first.
We’re excited to keep going with our build and get final copy next month when the game hits. Feel free to add Go Home to your Watch List in our app (Free) if you’d like more updates on it as we plug away.
