The bugs are coming to steal your box of sugar cubes! Turn your kitchen table into a battlefield and stop them in their tracks in this wacky tower defense style game for iPad. All manner of cockroaches, spiders, flies, and beetles march down a given path in each level. It’s your job to set up traps along the way to whittle down their energy and squish them for good. If enough bugs make it to the end and steal all your sugar cubes before the level finishes, it’s Game Over.

Along the bugs’ path are stations where you can set up defenses to shoot the insects. These defense stations are silly oddities like drink cups, rubber duckies, or toy robots. Each type of station costs a certain amount of money and has a different skill. The rubber ducks are good for penetrating armored insects, and toy robots are good for taking out flying bugs, for instance. You can also upgrade stations if you have enough money by tapping on them again. Earn money by defeating bugs.

During the levels, little pill bugs pop up and disappear over time. Tap them to collect another kind of currency. Use these pill bugs after levels to upgrade and buy new stations, or you can spend them during levels for special weapons that can help you out in a pinch. But you can’t keep the pill bugs you collect if you don’t pass that level.

To complete a stage, survive every wave of marching bugs without getting all your sugar cubes taken. If one bug makes it to the end, it’ll usually just snatch one cube. But if the boss bug at the end of the stage reaches the cubes, it’ll steal more. So you’ll want to try your best to beat all the bugs and the boss if you can. There are a dozen levels in all. They get challenging pretty quickly, but luckily you can go back and replay levels to earn more money for upgrades. The touch screen and thorough instructions makes learning how to play a breeze, but other than the wacky premise, it’s no different from any other tower defense game. But you can’t go wrong at the low price of 99 cents at the App Store!

Kid Factor:

Aside from shooting and squishing silly cartoony bugs with jetpacks, there’s not much violence here. Reading skill is helpful for the text instructions, and younger gamers might get frustrated at the more difficult levels. Bug Invasion is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews