So that part is kind of boring to me, but there are some aspects here that I do like. It’s a lot of building and waiting until one side tips the scale just enough to wash over their forces. If you don’t remember, tower defense is not one of my favorite gaming genres. Reminds me a bit of Quarrel and Costume Quest and something else. The look of the game is not going to astound you, but it won’t also annoy you, being just right for this sort of experience of capturing spawn points, building deadly turrets, and using class-based action skills. Cute, cartoony graphics help emphasize the happy part of these wars, as does most of the loot, such as a sword made from a dead fish, a flower petal shield, and a stat-boosting pencil you can stick in your avatar’s hair. That’s the overall gist, but some story-based missions focus on other topics, like a stolen princess or a mad scientist and his army of crazy red robots. War has broken out between…uh, people that dress in white, and people that dress in black.

Happy Wars is a free-to-play tower defense game, with a single player story and online multiplayer matches.

Not ideal, I assure you, and considering I just watched Indie Game: The Movie the other night, placement on the e-marketplace is vital. Instead, I learned about it from a forum post on Giant Bomb, and then had to sift through menus (and submenus!) to figure out where to download it from. Considering it’s a free-to-play tower defense game, where the real income stems from players buying new weapons, armor, and accessories with actual money–well, real money converted into Microsoft Points ridiculously converted a second time into Happy Tickets–you’d think they’d want to let people know the thing exists.

In a dramatic twist, Happy Wars came out over the weekend with little promotion from Microsoft.

Download free happy wars