Gemcraft Chasing Shadows has been released on Steam

[TheVampire100]

You may take longer than other playstyles but no matter how you apporach, eventually you will win with it.

Do you mean that if you grind hard enough, every strategy is valid. This sounds like a negative to me since it will make the game similr to clicker games.

I don't think it is a good thing if my experience can be summarized as "Lose enough times to win finally". Can you elaborate more? I am about to be done with Kingdom Rush, and I would like to pick new TD I will play.

I actually think that not every strategy may work but I could be wrong with that. But some strategies don't work very good. Also, when you loose you get nothing in this game, except Shadow Cores. You have to beat levels to get xp.
The game is to some extend grindy because it's a RPG and all RPGs are to some extend grindy. You will eventually hit a point where you notice that you need more skill points to beat a level, so you try another level first or redo an earlier level. If you've seen Mánagarmrs video, he showed that you get skill points for leveling (xp) and achievments (and there are tons of achievments int he game, so you won't run out of them soon). Stat points can be assigned to the different skills, most of them don't even have a level cap, or you can ave them for extra starting mana.

Back to the question if every strategy is valid: In Gemcraft you need some stuff to succeed. You need fast firing towers to kill large monsters groups, for example swarms. And you need strong towers to kill armored monsters or monsters with lot of HP, for example giants. If you don't have anything of that you will most likely fail. I also think that a no tower strategy will fail on most stages.
How you get thi stuff is however your choice. You can use poison, you can use chain hit, you can use slow, armor shredding, critical hit. There are 9 different gems, so you can say there are 9 different "core ways" to play this game.

[Draco18s]

I actually think that not every strategy may work but I could be wrong with that. But some strategies don't work very good. Also, when you loose you get nothing in this game, except Shadow Cores. You have to beat levels to get xp.

What Misery means is, that you can go to a level you've already beaten and just beat it repeatedly for the exp.

[TheVampire100]

I meant Tombik, not Misery.

[tombik]

You will eventually hit a point where you notice that you need more skill points to beat a level, so you try another level first or redo an earlier level.

Hmm. I should skip that one then, thanks for the explanation.

[Aklyon]

(Creeper World for me is pretty much a "play it once, I'm done" with no specific attraction to challenges or replaying).

Eh?  Did you not mess with any of the stuff beyond the campaign, then?   The campaign is almost just an extended tutorial that teaches you about each game element... which is why it's not all that hard.  The game's real content is everything AFTER that, which is where players sometimes get AI War levels of replay hours out of it.  Particle Fleet is similar in this respect but isn't quite as robust yet.

Immortal Defense looks interesting.  Bloody strange, but interesting.   Be nice if this genre had more games like these... there's WAY too many of them that are effectively Defense Grid except slightly different.  Developers just copy each other WAY too much in this genre, which is a shame, as it has the potential to be so interesting.

Immortal Defense gets very strange if you TD your way into the secret area, that for sure. Interesting strange, but not exactly replayability like was said already.

[TheVampire100]

I think what I liked the most about Immortal Defense was, that you are an important part of the defense. Liek Misery already said, a lot of TD games work that way that you cheese you build stuff and wait for enemies to die. While not everyone may have the same distaste for that kind of gameplay as he has, Immortal Defense puts the player on the active role of playing. Simply because, you, the player are the strongest "tower" in the game. Not that there are any real towers int he game, just points.
The mouse cursor in this game represents your focused willpower (you have no body, you are just a mind with endless power), so you focus your rage into one point and it materializes as bullets into the real world. Sounds more confusing than it is, basically your cursor shoots bullets wherever you direct it. This works perfectly in the game since you have autoaim. Simply move it close to enemie and it fires directly at them.

The points are different aspects of your psyche, they represent your emotions and thoughts that you have while being in space. Points work similiar to towers like in other TD games but not quite the same way. First, you have only a limited amount of them per level. It's not liek yu can build the ones you want as long as you have moeny. Like I said before, they represent your emotions and because of this you can only build them if you HAVE those emotions. So you get a limit of them each level, depending on the current level. However, these points produce MORE points over time. I never fully understood what exactly the unlock requirements for new points were but I think if your towers produce enough damage (kills, they create a new point for you to place. however, if you have a specific point not aviable in that level you won't get it later of course. They only duplicate.
There is another difference to normal towers. Your points react to yourself (since they are parts of your mind), if you charge your special attack, they are drawn to your cursor, if you release it, they fly into the direction of the special attack. There is also a special point that always attacks the same target as you do.

And don't get me started on the more crazy towers/points, the game simply does not want to behave like other TD games. They literally break the genre with this game.

[Aklyon]

And you don't have a body in the first place because your planet discovered some sort of tech that takes the you out of your body and throws it up two dimensions (path space being above hyperspace, where the enemies are actually rushing through). The result is you seeing it as an entirely non-straight (usually) but linear path, and them seeing your points as some sort of demon ghosts they can't kill (but can effect, much later) destroying their ships easily.

[TheVampire100]

This is another TD game that might interes you: http://store.steampowered.com/app/218410/
Defenders Quest is a mix from rpg and td. Every tower int he game is a typical rpg character. You can summon them on the field and they fight the enemies for you to protect you, however they can also be attacked and die. If thats happens you have to summon them again.
All characters in the game get xp after each level (even if you loose it) and can level up, you can invest points in new skills, you can also buy them new weapons and armor, just like a regular rpg.
It's a really well designed game and they are currently working on the sequel.

Your own character levels also up, he can cast spells that help your other heroes and he gets more hp (so you can sustain more enemies that reach you) and more PSI, which acts as the curency for this game.