Solo developer Casey "Boz" Weeks has been building a new mobile game for the past three years called Cereus, which he describes as a "towerless tower defense game." The idea is that you're tasked with protecting your base at the center of the screen as all manner of dangers head your way. You have three main means of defending yourself, and true to his word, none of them are towers. You can simply tap an enemy to attack it, you can swipe to create a barrier that will reflect enemy bullets back at them, or you can long press on the screen to detonate a huge bomb. You can see all of this in action and explained in detail in the following trailer for Cereus.

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One of the main elements of strategy in Cereus is the skill tree, which doesn't simply increase your damage as you progress like in many games but actually enhances your main abilities in a number of unique ways allowing for a variety of tactics. There is also a combo system that triggers when you defeat enemies in succession, which will be key to beating some of the harder levels in Cereus. There's been plenty of games where you're defending the center of the screen, but typically they're more on the arcade shooter side of the spectrum. I like that Cereus is going for a more strategic approach, and I especially like how the abilities are designed for the touchscreen. No specifics on a release date just yet but Cereus should be out sometime this year a...