Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Hashtag Defence: DeTweet

By Alec Meer on September 2nd, 2010 at 5:37 pm.

A lot of people have a problem with Twitter. They think it’s meaningless, reductive, frivolous. This I say to them: what if it was a tower defence game? Oh-ho, now you’re listening.

DeTweet is Shawn Clapper’s canny concept, blending two of the more persistent mainstays of online culture: Twitter trending and tower defence. It’s still in its early stages, so there isn’t much in the way of high-grade weaponry to play with as yet, but the foundations are there, and strong.

What I like it about it is that it requires two different types of knowledge: being reasonably au fait with basic tower placement/upgrading and resource management, and having enough of an ear to the e-ground to know what people are spending their 140 characters furiously frothing about. An invader is created for every recent and ongoing mention of the word you base your game on, so the more popular it is the longer the game will last. And the harder it will be.

For instance, a session based around CODBLOPS didn’t get me very far, as not enough people have picked up LewieP’s splendid contract-o-mock of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Rockpapershotgun also proved disappointingly brief. But it was at least easy, as there wasn’t much of anything to mow down with my gun-nests.

“Blair” though – hoo boy. Not only did chatter about The Demon Prime Minister’s autobiography spawn endless tiny men, but Americans lusting over Gossip Girl’s Blair Lively further filled my screen. The addition of continued discussion about the Exorcist’s Linda Blair to the mix guaranteed there was more pixel-assault than I could quite handle.

While what really sold this to me was the comic surreality of men screaming random political assertions and crazed lechery in little speech bubbles even as they’re bloodily shot to pieces, for next time I’ll need something popular, but not that popular. (Or at least for the turret build time to be decreased a little). I’m sure you’re going to suggest some excellent alternatives below, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?

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57 Comments »

  2. 02/09/2010 at 17:47 westyfield says:

    “Daily” works quite well – any links from news websites/papers ensure plenty of bads.

  3. 02/09/2010 at 17:55 alh_p says:

    I got to level 6 (when the game ended) with “Hague”. Do I get a prize? I’d like a rosette please.

  4. 02/09/2010 at 17:55 terry says:

    I’m getting good results from “mexico oil spill”, not so much for “news of the world are a bunch of lawbreaking shitheads”.

  5. 02/09/2010 at 18:00 Zwebbie says:

    Aww, “Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox” got me only one little guy.

  6. 02/09/2010 at 18:08 Joe Martin says:

    Awesome. I put in my #joeslunch hashtag and was attacked by an army of rice puddings and ham salad sandwichs.

  7. 02/09/2010 at 18:10 apricotsoup says:

    I tell you, lots of people drinking on twitter.

    A search for drink is still going ~20mins later.

    3 upgraded towers is all you need at early levels :3

  8. 02/09/2010 at 18:13 AtkinsSJ says:

    Having fun with “Justin Bieber”. This is quite bizarre.

  9. 02/09/2010 at 18:13 Sonic Goo says:

    I tried Lady Gaga and got to level 2…

  10. 02/09/2010 at 18:14 Spaceman-Spiff says:

    Getting lots for “wtf” and “omg”.

  11. 02/09/2010 at 18:20 Dinger says:

    Penis. Lots of retweets and lots of blood.

  12. 02/09/2010 at 18:21 AlecTavi says:

    “FML.” You get to defend yourself from whiny, emo, schoolchildren.

  13. 02/09/2010 at 18:22 Fumarole says:

    Obama makes for a lot of dudes, same with Fox.

  14. 02/09/2010 at 18:22 Chris R says:

    Yeah, I was going to say that Beiber would probably present the biggest challenge. And in the game!

  15. 02/09/2010 at 18:24 crazyD says:

    I did Discovery. Very busy, but I was able to get to level 6.

  16. 02/09/2010 at 18:25 ShawnClapper says:

    Wow, it’s an honor being listed on RPS. Honestly my favorite online source for games ..really :). Game is still pretty green so the main thing I’ll be working on now is tweaking difficulty.
    Have to spend some time playing myself here to work it out. Suggestions welcome!

    • 02/09/2010 at 20:37 DrGonzo says:

      Loving the game btw. It would be nice to have a next wave button. You can end up having to wait around for a while. Also, being able to place towers before the game starts would be nice as I’m slow and dumb.

  17. 02/09/2010 at 18:26 apricotsoup says:

    http://img691.imageshack.us/i/drinkc.png/

    No sign of ending soon and I have to go home :/

    Also drinkc :/ damn image names.

  18. 02/09/2010 at 18:34 Picacodigos says:

    “Apple” and “Android” gave me better results.

  19. 02/09/2010 at 18:46 Severian says:

    I hate twitter and I hate this.

  20. 02/09/2010 at 18:50 Lack_26 says:

    I managed to get to level five against God, by God there were a lot of them, I filled up all the space I had to put turrets in.

  21. 02/09/2010 at 19:11 Tei says:

    Got to level 6 with CNN :-D
    I must try again!

  22. 02/09/2010 at 19:12 TomSmizzle says:

    “Oil” was way too hard, and way too depressing, but “Butt” was hilarious, and not that hard!

  23. 02/09/2010 at 19:12 Trite says:

    Meh, I went with “a”. Let’s just say I didn’t get to the end.

  24. 02/09/2010 at 19:21 Birky says:

    Just tried ‘love’ – It occurs to me that it makes for a pretty hard game (and probably would consistantly). Makes for dull reading however – which is surely the thing it adds over every other tower defence game.

  25. 02/09/2010 at 19:25 Davie says:

    “Bong” was far more difficult than I expected it to be.

  26. 02/09/2010 at 19:29 Calabi says:

    Was fun, like the killing the news.

  27. 02/09/2010 at 19:40 Trollwind says:

    I need a cheat code! Got through “churros” easy enough, but I can’t seem to beat “nfl”

  28. 02/09/2010 at 19:41 WFL says:

    #fail was rough.

  29. 02/09/2010 at 19:47 Eschatos says:

    Made it to level 14 using “bieber” before I was overwhelmed. Had every single tower slot filled with a fully upgraded tower, thus proving that it is impossible to win against Justin Bieber.

  30. 02/09/2010 at 20:22 Flagg says:

    Tried “true dat” http://thecardchest.com/#detweet/true dat
    Was funny with them all agreeing with each other heh but was pretty easy…So then tried “agreed” http://thecardchest.com/#detweet/agreed ….that one killed me heh

  31. 02/09/2010 at 20:31 DJ Phantoon says:

    What kind of weird tower is it where they can’t shoot right next to themselves? Game needs more work. Also, Freedom is much harder to beat than Nazis. So there.

  32. 02/09/2010 at 21:06 Berzee says:

    For much hilarity try “OMNOMNOM”

  33. 02/09/2010 at 21:19 Moth Bones says:

    Seeing the little blue characters bloodily mown down when ‘Tories’ is used is utterly heartwarming. There weren’t many though. Placing the towers seems very hit-and-miss, I’m still not sure what mouse-click combination I actually managed it with.

  34. 02/09/2010 at 21:22 Moth Bones says:

    Oh, the little figures are blue whatever word you use. Okay.

    Also, I keep thinking our cat is in the room because of the mewing noises.

  35. 02/09/2010 at 23:04 Konork says:

    1) Set the word to “a”
    2) Do somewhat fine for the first two levels
    3) !!!
    4) Profit Pain

  36. 02/09/2010 at 23:36 TowerOfBabel says:

    best score was lvl 6 with egg … lots of fun with oil, palin, fish

  37. 02/09/2010 at 23:49 MarkN says:

    I used “DeTweet”. I got one very easy level. It’s rare a game is too accessible and easy because it’s very niche, but if this game takes off it’s only going to get harder and harder. And then fewer people will want to play it. I have no idea where this will end…

  38. 03/09/2010 at 02:28 JackShandy says:

    Hard mode:

    “Love”.

  39. 03/09/2010 at 02:36 Arathain says:

    “Football” didn’t go so well.

  40. 03/09/2010 at 05:16 Hodge says:

    “Portal 2″ didn’t do much, either. I hope it’s not being prescient.

  41. 03/09/2010 at 06:09 Sovereign says:

    “follow” – Nightmare Mode

  42. 03/09/2010 at 06:20 panther says:

    I mowed down lady gaga fans, how satisfying.

  43. 03/09/2010 at 07:13 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:

    “ate” gave me a good balance. Still, loads of people out there who need to explain what they’ve eaten. Often it does not even have anything to do with normal food.

  44. 03/09/2010 at 09:38 R.Hippy says:

    I survived ’til level 10 with Obama, then I ran out of good places for guns. Also, a lot of people Tweet a lot of bullshit about him.

  45. 03/09/2010 at 09:56 netsukemonkey says:

    This is an amazing game. I tried ‘unfair’ and although it didn’t generate many bads there’s a lot of fun to be had gunning down the little fellas as they moan about life being unfair.Of course life is unfair, little people. Your walking down a predetermined path being machine gunned by me!

  46. 03/09/2010 at 10:45 odd signals says:

    Defeated by Earl on level 3 :-(

  47. 03/09/2010 at 12:50 duel90 says:

    used #Oil

    Did anyone else go deaf from machine gun fire?

  48. 03/09/2010 at 22:26 Flagg says:

    Hah nice

  49. 04/09/2010 at 15:55 Glenno says:

    As in real life I had ‘beer’ ….

    Kept knocking them back for a bit then the beer overwhelmed me and I fell over badly.

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