Trenches is a mobile Tower Defense game set during World War I and developed by Thunder Game Works. Released in 2009, it was one of the earliest hits for the fledgling App Store alongside Killer Apps Pocket God (which it would have a crossover with) and Angry Birds. Initially exclusive for the iPod Touch and iPhone, it would later be ported to the iPad and Nintendo Wii under the name Trenches: Generals.
Something of a remake of flash game Warfare 1917, Trenches focuses on a combination of path-drawing and tower defense. Each side (initially the British and Germans, though this was later expanded) rushes onto a side-scrolling battlefield littered with barbed wire and, well, trenches and attempt to hold each other off until they horde enough resources and units to go over the top and push the enemy back to their spawn. Individual units can be given paths, allowing you to stagger units, rush trenches, or pull them back to draw enemies out - or to beat a hasty retreat from the artillery and poison gas that will rain death upon your trench.
There are several different units, each of whom have advantages and drawbacks:
- Riflemen are the cheapest units in the game. They have average damage and range and spawn in groups of three.
- Snipers can fire from behind the front lines and can one-shot kill, but have a slow rate of fire and only spawn one at a time.
- Machine gunners have high damage output and spawn with a rifleman (who will take over the machine gun if he dies), but have poor range that makes them cannon fodder outside of a trench.
- Engineers can build and destroy barbed wire to slow down enemies/speed up allies and convert trenches into spawn points, but have Short Range Shotguns that make them useless in a fight.
- Mortars do massive damage and have long range, but have *very* long reload and are useless if undefended.
Trenches received a spinoff, Stenches - an expansion of the game's zombie-slaying horde mode - and a 2011 sequel Trenches II (published by Electronic Arts), which greatly expanded the game's formula with new mechanics and classes. Unfortunately, the sequel's poor reception (citing buggy matchmaking and bad AI) - as well as its traditional payment model in the midst of the mobile gaming industry's shift to free-to-play - resulted in Trenches II being a commercial failure and Thunder Game Works vanishing.
This work features examples of:
- Artificial Stupidity: The AI only sends out one unit at a time and only bombs enemies they're fighting, which makes it easy to have a token force hold them off while you build up an army safely behind the lines.
- Bayonet Ya: Riflemen all have bayonets on their guns. They actually have animations for them, but since melee combat never happens outside of the zombies mode (at which point it's probably game over anyways) you'll very rarely see them used.
- Black Comedy: The games are cartoony takes on World War I, so this is bound to happen. Soldiers gibbed by artillery have their heads fly absurdly far (with their goofy expressions still plastered to their face), for example.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The AI in the sequel either raises funds at an extremely accelerated rate or spawns units based on some algorithm completely divorced from how the player does. This can lead to things like spawning a flood of high-value units while at the same time literally chasing the player's units back to spawn with back-to-back artillery barrages.
- Concussion Frags: Mortars initially didn't have splash damage at all, which combined with how long their firing animation is, meant that whoever they were aiming at probably moved or died before they got hit. That plus them being the most expensive unit in the game meant that they were totally useless. A later update fixed this and made them properly dangerous.
- Deadly Gas: This is a World War I game, of course. It's less immediately lethal than explosive artillery but lasts longer, so you can use it to cut off reinforcements for a bit.
- Death from Above: You can periodically rain poison gas (which deals damage over time) or explosive artillery (which usually kills everything it hits) on your enemies. Incoming artillery strikes are signaled with a smoke bomb, giving the targets about two seconds to book it.
- The Engineer: An update added an engineer class, who can upgrade trenches (allowing them to be used as forward spawns if upgraded enough) and build (or destroy) barbed wire to slow down enemies.
- Hold the Line: There are some of these in the campaign.
- Last Stand: The zombies mode is unwinnable - at least in theory, updates that buffed mortars and the standard rifle trooper, and allowed players to construct barbed wire (which slows down units) made it possible to fight the zombies to a standstill. Stenches is an entire game of this.
- Mood Whiplash: Some reviewers complained that the choking on gas sound is
too realistic. - Mutual Disadvantage: The bulk of matches are spent in stalemate with both sides locked in their trenches and pushing each other back and forth. Fitting, given the setting.
- One-Word Title: Trenches, naturally.
- Short-Range Shotgun: Engineers will probably be gunned down before they can use their shotguns, especially since it usually requires them to climb out into No Man's Land.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: Officers spawn randomly and carry short-range handguns, so if you aren't paying attention and can't wrangle them in time they'll attempt to launch a one-man offensive and get gunned down in short order.
- War Has Never Been So Much Fun: Downplayed. The game has a cartoony art style completely with big, goofy grins on the British and humorous dialogue, but the bleak setting and stalemate-prone trench warfare lend it some seriousness.
- Weird Crossover: It had a crossover with Pocket God that replaced the horde mode's zombies with possessed Pygmies.
- Zerg Rush: Most battles are decided by whoever puts together the biggest army and swarms them across the map. The trick is figuring out how to stall the enemy buildup long enough to gain the numerical advantage yourself.
