This made me think.
http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=22556.0;topicseen
I initially found my way to the world of Creeper World via flash tower defence games.
It actually took me a while to learn to move my defences, and then go on the offensive.
And a little longer to realise that I wasn't playing a tower defence game - I was playing a Real Time Strategy game.
It's interesting that the reviewer, who has probably played a few games in his time, seems to have arrived by a similar route.
He kept referring to CW3 as a tower defence game, while acknowledging that you can move your units around.
Which is surely the very definition of an RTS.
Anyone got any thoughts as to why the 'Tower Defence' appellation keeps getting stuck on CW?
It is, inherently, that model. But it is also pseudo-RTS. This confuses many, esp. with the ability to do things while paused.
Flash tower defense were also my gateway to the CW games.
I think CW (and probably PF, too) is a genre all to itself, really. It's definitely not tower defense, but also doesn't feel like much of a RTS game to me, either. It stands alone as innovative and fresh in a world of simple games that (in my opinion) has been stale for over a decade.
I found the Training Sim game on Kongregate, and eventually progressed to the full version, following each new game as it came out.
And I agree that it's a genre of its own. If you have to start saying "it's half this genre and half that one", then it's clearly something different from both of them. Incidentally, what might be a good name or term for the ability to manipulate things while paused? I've seen it in multiple games, namely FTL, and I never know what to call it, beyond "a game where you can pause and still do stuff". Just doesn't flow off the tongue.
Continuous-time strategy, distinct from RTS and turn-based. I also came via Kong, though I don;t recall if CW3 was out yet... the others were.
Tongue in cheek, I refer to my CW play style as 'turn based RTS'!
The realisation that I could pause was a turning point.
PF is much more of an RTS than CW (well, its less tower defense)
I love that ships can move around and still shoot things and will often use it (along side excessive use of the pause button) to do things like moving my ships from one side of an attack particle mass to the other side for no reason what so ever, or to park more ships than the space allows in an area