Tower defense has become its own genre, and in most cases it’s already pretty played out. There just isn’t much more that can be done with the idea of setting up obstacles to stop waves of enemies from getting to your base. Fortunately, there’s still some fun to be had out of the formula, and enough fun to justify paying $15 for it. One of the best new examples of this is Robot Entertainment’s Orcs Must Die.

There’s some backstory about having to guard portals and being trained by an old wizard and stuff like that, but the main concept of Orcs Must Die is on its name: orcs are trying to get to your big glowing thing, and you have to stop them. The action takes place from the perspective of your character in the third person, and setting traps and placing soldiers involves actually moving to where you want them to go and pretting the button. This perspective is important because you can also directly fight the mob of enemies with your crossbow and sword, along with several other useful toys like bracers that let you throw enemies around and a gauntlet that lets you throw fireballs.

This two-pronged approach is one of the most important and fun aspects of the game, but it’s also one of the most frustrating. You can’t win by just laying traps or fighting, but have to diligently balance both. Lay your traps between waves and fight them off as they attack. If you didn’t set up your traps well enough, the horde will overwhelm you and kill you, giving you a 5-point penalty at best and swarm your portal at worst. If you don’t fight them personally with your various toys, the horde will overwhelm your defenses and rush past, getting enough enemies to swarm your portal and defeat you. Of course, this means you can’t just enjoy trap placement or hack-and-shoot action. You need to juggle them both.

Fortunately, your repertoire of traps and weapons expands as you play through the campaign. You start with just a crossbow, a sword, and some humble arrow wall traps and spike floor traps, but you can eventually get archers, springboards, fans, and other wacky tools. Traps can be upgraded through points you earn with each map, ranging from 1 for a terrible attempt to 5 for not getting any enemies past your defenses and not dying. You can also get access to “Weavers,” two upgrade trees that can enhance either your traps or your weapons in a given map. This, combined with a limited but growing number of slots for traps and weapons, makes for a lot of strategic options. Fortunately, the choice doesn’t ever feel too overwhelming, and you’ll likely find a handful of go-to items you’ll use in most maps.

The traps aren’t exactly balanced, due to both limited use for many of them and the unusual expense of several. The wall of blades is extremely expensive compared to other traps, and has a limited range compared to the much cheaper arrow wall. The barricade, a vital item for crowd control, is almost as expensive while being far, far more useful, potentially more than any other trap. It’s clear Robot Entertainment wants you to play the maps exactly as they designed them, without much corralling with barricades. Fortunately, most of the maps work well.

Some maps aren’t, however, and they tend to be so open and have so many different entrances and portals that defending everything feels less like tower defense and more like playing tag with a limp. These maps really show how useful the barricades could be if they weren’t so expensive to build. Fortunately, most maps are fun and satisfying enough for you to forgive the few chore maps.

Graphics look very good, with slightly cartoonish character and setting designs and a polished, complete look without any noticeable bugs in rendering or gameplay. It isn’t a CryTek shooter, but it isn’t a minimalist, low-budget indie game that abandons any attempt at 3D graphics of any quality. The music is repetitive and the character dialog is irritating, but they don’t get in the way of the game.

There isn’t any multiplayer, but the leaderboard integrates seamlessly with Steam to show you how well you did on each map compared to your friends. Cooperative multiplayer for the larger, more open maps would have been a great touch. Of course, tower defense isn’t really conducive to multiplayer, so it’s not that much of a flaw. There are still enough maps, upgrade points, and difficulty settings to get plenty of enjoyment from the game.

Orcs Must Die is one of the more fun indie games I’ve grabbed on Steam, and worth the $15 to download it. If you like tower defense, give this game a try.