Artificial Defense
Released Jun 2016
Artificial Defense is a one man made, real time strategy game combining orbital shooter and tower defense components within an electrifying, virtual reality setting. You are the machine, a mighty computer-system defending its servers against swarms of intruding creeps.
82% positive · 207 reviews
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence
Where to buy
Steam $2.99
Can't confirm — worth a look
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Evaluation
Artificial Defense launched on June 1, 2016 and received a steady stream of patches and updates through its first year. The developer — a solo indie creator — was actively engaged with the community throughout 2016 and into 2017, shipping feature patches, balancing updates, and bug fixes based on player feedback. The last notable content addition was the Summer Update on June 20, 2017, which added a new seasonal skin and music track. There have been no developer communications of any kind since that date, now nearly nine years ago. No DLC has ever been listed for the game, no roadmap or future content was announced, and no seasonal or live-service structure exists. The game shipped as a complete, self-contained package, and the Summer Update represents the final content addition. With no outstanding commitments, no unreleased content, and no developer activity since June 20, 2017, the game is considered content-complete.
Evidence
Summer Update shipped, adding 1 new skin and 1 new music track. This is the last known developer communication.
v1.5 update released with improved graphics, UI scaling, tutorial fixes, and controller improvements.
Media
Details
Developer
Publisher
Thiemo Bolder, ONEMANGAMES
Achievements
16
Platform
Windows
Controller
full support
Steam Deck
Not rated
Players
Single-player
About this game
In a nutshell:
"It's a yummy cocktail out of a AC130-Top-Down Shooter, RTS and a bit of Tower Defense. It's surely different, but it works out!"
1 simple task:
Defend your Operation System (OS) against intruding creeps.The execution might be a bit harder, though.
Features
- A new genre (RTS + Tower Defense + Orbital Shooter)
- 21 Offense Weapons (From Flintlocks to Neutron Bombs and Nukes)
- 21 Defense Towers (From Pistol Sentry Towers to Railgun Installations)
- 7 Hardware- Levels (Evolve from Punch-Tape to Quantum A.I.)
- 49 Challenges on 7 different Servers
- 13 Music Tracks
Firing off miniguns, launching Hellfire missiles, dropping incinerating Hades-Bombs and colossal asteroids, deploying mighty railgun and acid towers and spawning your own Intrusion Counter Measures (ICMs) to reconquer corrupted databases and firewalls are just some of the actions you can take while fending off the creeps. Earn RAM and upgrade your arsenal and hardware-level. Start as an analog punch-tape system and evolve into a quantum A.I. mainframe.
Offense - Orbital Shooter
There are 21 offensive weapons available, reaching from outdated flintlocks, over maverick-missiles to devastating meteors and neutron-bombs. You can switch between three pre-loaded weapon categories and launch the installed weapons every few seconds. Each round you fire costs you RAM and each weapon type has its own unique cooldown so you must choose wisely and adapt quickly to different situations. But beware, aiming requires some skill. Creeps are moving targets and your projectiles need some flight time before impact. You can unlock and install new weapons in the uplab.[/b]Defense - Tower Defense
There are 21 defense towers available, reaching from pistol-sentry-towers, over incinerating flame-throwers to powerful long-range railgun towers. In addition there are 7 production towers which produce your main resource: RAM (Random Access Memory). Yes, building up a small RAM economy is very important, in order to keep your system routines running. Towers must be deployed by an expensive capsule drop and you have to find the sweet spot between the right amount of resource production towers and the performance of your defense perimeter. You can unlock and install new tower versions in the uplab.Conquer - Real Time Strategy
Spawn Intrusion Counter Measures (ICMs) in order to conquer corrupted system-structures like databases, honeypots and firewalls. Databases e.g. spawn datablips, which carry valuable data and head for your backup-devices. Every datablip successfully arriving at its destination releases a certain amount of RAM, so you should do your best to protect those important but vulnerable convoys.Last evaluated Jun 27, 2026
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