Zen Wars is a strategy puzzle defense type game from indie developer Subzero.eu. The story in the game is as follows. Lord Evilz has sent out his minions to attack your empire. You are in charge of defending your bases from the Lord Evilz troops by strategically placing walls and weapons around your bases. You build walls around your bases to defend them from enemy fire and then place weapons such as cannons, super canons, and lasers to attack them at the same time. Zen Wars requires quite a bit of strategy to play so if you are a fan of strategy/tower defense type games, you may really enjoy Zen Wars.

The game differs quite a bit from your average tower defense style game. Instead of placing weapons along a fixed path, Zen Wars is a bit more open. You start off each round by building walls around your main bases. The walls consist of Tetris like pieces that you must fit around the battlefield to surround each of your bases. The more bases you can surround with walls, the more weapons you can place to defend them. As you progress through the game, you’ll be able to add more powerful weapons to your arsenal.

There are 3 different modes of play in Zen Wars. You’ll probably want to start off with playing campaign mode as this mode will teach you the basics of how to play. As you progress through  the game, you’ll also open up levels to play in survival mode. The last mode is multiplayer mode which you’ll be able to battle it out with 1-2 other players. You’ll be able to challenge friends via local WiFi, Blue Tooth, or globally through Game Center.

Zen Wars is a very challenging game and with that said, I should point out that the game might be a bit difficult for children to play, unless they are already familiar with strategy defense games. It’s much more difficult to play than your standard tower defense game as there are many more elements involved. However, that’s not to say they wouldn’t be able to learn how to play it, they would just need to practice playing it. Playing through campaign mode helps a lot as it eases you into the more difficult aspects of the game. The game can be a bit frustrating when trying to rebuild walls as sometimes it just feels like you don’t have enough time to make the necessary repairs, but I guess that is all part of the challenge. In the end though, it’s a satisfying game with gameplay that helps it differentiate itself from the masses.

Zen Wars is available now in the App Store for $1.99. It is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.