''Aegis Defenders'' is a 2D platforming and

tower defense Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive struc ...

game developed by Guts Department. The game originated as a project for

USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses **South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...

’s Intermediate Games class and had a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. It was later picked up by publisher

Humble Bundle Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and t ...

in 2017 with Japanese publishing support from Kakehashi Games. ''Aegis Defenders'' was released on February 8, 2018, on

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, and

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

Gameplay

In ''Aegis Defenders'', players control a team of up to 2 characters. In addition to running, jumping, and attacking, each character has a unique sub-ability and can build a unique item. Players can use "cross fusion" to combine items into more powerful ones. Each level is usually split into exploration and tower defense phases. The exploration phase consists of platforming and puzzle solving. During the tower defense phase, players must protect their base (an important person or object) from waves of approaching enemies. There are 18 levels in the story campaign plus 3 bonus levels featuring crossover characters from other Kickstarter games including

Shovel Knight ''Shovel Knight'' is a platform game, platform video game developed and published by Yacht Club Games. Development was crowdfunded and the game was released for Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and Windows in June 2014. It was ported to OS X and Linux in Se ...

, Lunais from

Timespinner ''Timespinner'' is a video game developed by Lunar Ray Games and published by Chucklefish. It was funded through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in June 2014. Initially scheduled for release in November 2015, growth in the project's scope n ...

, and Derpl Zork from

Awesomenauts ''Awesomenauts'' is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed by Dutch video game development company Ronimo Games. The game was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in May 2012, and for Microsoft Windows systems i ...

Plot

''Aegis Defenders'' follows a pair of Ruinhunters, Bart and his grand daughter Clu, as they discover a powerful weapon known as Aegis and embark on a quest to prevent it from falling into the hands of an evil empire. Along the way they join forces with Kobo the companion drone, Kaiim the monk, and Zula the bandit.

Development and release

''Aegis Defenders'' originated as a student project by Bryce Kho and Lifu Lin for

’s Intermediate Games class. After graduating, Bryce started indie studio Guts Department to develop the project into a full game and launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. The game was primarily developed by a 3-person team with Bryce Kho as director/writer/artist/designer, his sister Kristen Kho as engineer, and Max Palazzo as producer. Bryce's wife, Lai Xu, co-wrote the script. Max Palazzo and Mike Effenberger assisted Bryce with design and tuning for levels. Guts Department partnered with Power Up Audio for the music and sound effects. The soundtrack was composed by Riley Koenig. It features 14 original tracks that blend together old-school synth elements with more traditional Japanese RPG orchestral music. The game was demoed at several conventions including

PAX West PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston and Philadelphia in the United States; and Melbourne in Australia. PAX wa ...

2017

Indie Megabooth The Indie Megabooth is a section at game expositions dedicated to the display and promotion of indie games. It launched at PAX East 2012 and appeared at other PAX events before expanding to other shows including the Eurogamer Expo, Electronic Ent ...

Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in September in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. The ...

2017,

Gamescom Gamescom (stylized as gamescom) is a trade fair for video games held annually at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2018, it has been organised by ''game – Verband der deutschen Games-Branche'' (English: Associa ...

2017,

PlayStation Experience PlayStation Experience, also known as PSX, is an annual event for the video game industry presented by Sony Interactive Entertainment used to reveal and advertise PlayStation games and game-related merchandise. The event is open to the public an ...

2017, and

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

2018. ''Aegis Defenders'' released on

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

on February 8, 2018.

Reception

Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017, and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. History ' ...

''s Chris Carter said "Aegis Defenders is a smooth, well-thought-out ride. The original art, charm, and in-game universe only add to it, and I'd love to see more." The game received a Gold Award in the Famitsu cross review, issue 1525 (February 2018), and was nominated for the 2018 SXSW Gamer's Voice Award. It received the "Best of the Mix" award at the E3 Week Mix 2017.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Video games 2018 video games Platformers Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games Windows games MacOS games Indie games Kickstarter-funded video games Video games featuring female protagonists PlayStation Network games Video games developed in the United States Steam Greenlight games Tower defense video games Humble Games games