[eevwnawo] tower defense

desirable features for an entertaining tower defense game:

1. kill attackers in varied and interesting ways -- sandbox style.
2. attackers can be induced to kill each other.
3. funnel attackers into to kill zones.
4. mechanisms to separate attackers into types, which can then be killed efficiently in type-specific ways.
5. no randomness

it feels a little like chemistry, refining materials.  perhaps a subset of real chemistry could be taught as a tower defense game.

to allow attackers to be killed in various ways, let an attacker be constructed out of many components.  a failure in any component kills the attacker: it has many single points of failure.

not only the defender's weapons or other attackers, but the environment can also be harnessed to kill attackers.

vaguely similar: build a better mousetrap.