I’ve not been so conflicted or confused about a game in ages.
Desktop Defender is a small-screen idle game that fits onto your desktop setup and can be customised between a 400×400 pixel size and a 700×700 pixel size window. You play as a central geometric turret that will autofire a weapon of your choice (once you start unlocking them) to try and kill enemies to earn cash and upgrade yourself. This keeps going until you run out of health and die as the enemies march towards you and will eventually overwhelm you. So far, so arcade turret strategy shooter, right? Well, Desktop Defender plays itself. It is an idle game, and you won’t physically aim at or shoot a single thing.
The concept of this is wild to me. Unlike idle farming, fishing, or collectathon games, where you’ll have something to show for your hours of bottom-of-the-screen management, Desktop Defender just plays itself with next to no reward. The same enemies keep on coming. The same giant circle boss arrives every 5 levels with more health than before for you to try and beat. The upgrade system tops out at level 30 through the XP you earn, and then you’ll be grinding through paid upgrades with the money earned from enemy deaths. Fire rate, damage, knockback, health, and money increase are some of the key upgrades to grind through, but over time, it’s just a quick check-in and 5 clicks every 10 minutes or so. There is a prestige system that provides a different currency to buy new weapons (some are worse than others) or unlock slots for equipping card drops to boost your stats, but they feel numb, too. I was bored and ended up not even showing it on top of the other windows I was using on my desktop. I kept going to see what would change. Nothing did.
Whilst there is nothing technically wrong with Desktop Defender, I just don’t know who this is for. Why would I watch a game that looks fun to play? It isn’t even crammed with silly Steam achievements to give arbitrary rewards. The best use I found for it was turning it into a retro pixel art screensaver. I played some music, turned my lights off, and let this game loose in the biggest window I could give it. I felt like I was at a chiptune party. Maybe that’s not its intended use, but it was the most use I got from this hands-off experience. I’m so confused, but if this scratches an itch, you’ll have it in your desktop corner for hours.
Desktop Defender is out on PC. A review copy was provided by the publisher.
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