Protector: The Planes is a game for iPhone in the style of tower defense. If you are an aficionado of TD/strategy style games, you might be interested in checking it out. It has all the right components for the style of game, a game where you protect a tower in the midst of an epic battle that features enemies that come at you in waves, all the while evolving and changing, and each with their very own immunities and strengths as well as weak points. The overall premise is primarily that of a medieval theme, and your major defenses against the attacking hordes of goblins, bats, orcs, and other nasties such as necromantic ghouls, are the brave and noble wizards and knights that fight on your side. There are different levels that range from easy to difficult, and as you make progress and various ‘planes’ are unlocked one by one, you earn more, and advanced, defenses as well as powers.

With major inspiration drawn from the four basic elements of fire, water, wind, and earth, Protector: The Planes sees you undergoing a continual bombardment by hosts of ghoulish enemies that each have particular immunities to certain of your defenses as well as innate weaknesses and strengths. You can’t always rely on brute strength, and have to learn to master the various elements as you form and execute your strategies. As you earn more gold you’ll be able to upgrade maps, so that as the attacks become increasingly challenging, you have more spaces to be filled. If you manage to defend successfully against all attacks on a level, while retaining your precious life force, another level will be unlocked.

Protector: The Planes isn’t particularly modern in appearance, but has a classic appeal. The interface of the touch screen and the isometric animation combine to a game that’s deceptively simple looking. Despite this, it has as much depth of more modern-looking equivalents, and is as challenging as you could wish for. The sound effects are decent and the background music is great – and can be changed by simply shaking your device, which rounds out the experience well. You can make and retain up to three different profiles, but unfortunately there’s no auto-save feature. This is a real nuisance, as every time you shut down you have to start from the beginning all over again, which can be quite frustrating.

There are 32 different areas you can access from the main map in Protector: The Planes, and more than 40 unique enemies, as well as 10 planes that you can unlock. Overall the interface is simple and attractive, the game play is challenging, and you are provided with hours of potential entertainment.