In Lock's Quest, you play as a young man named Lock, with dreams of becoming one of the world's Archineers, a play on engineers who use an energy called the Source to build various constructs and buildings. The Archineers are also a military force, and were apparently instrumental in pushing back an evil known as the Clockwork Army quite a few years ago. As most evil things tend to do, the Clockwork Army returns, and this ends up putting Lock on the fast track to becoming an Archineer, and throughout the game there's quite a bit of story involved, not all of which ends up being too engaging.

The actual gameplay, however, is pretty fun. Levels are divided up on a larger map, and as the story progresses you'll move from spot to spot. Most areas involve a two-step process, starting with a build mode that lets you scan the area and set up your defenses. On each map there's a dark colored sector, which is where your enemies will spawn from, and most maps have various routes to whatever place or thing you're trying to protect. You set up your defenses on a grid, trying to not only halt the advance of this army but also trying to attack back, using turrets that can built into walls, small traps that can be laid out on the ground, and then using Lock himself, who has a few small attack abilities to help you out. You're given a short amount of time to do this in, usually around 2-3 minutes, and once your time is up, then you move into the Attack mode.

In Attack mode, the Clockwork army will slowly start to spawn out of their area, and put your defenses to the test. During this mode you can control Lock's movement with the stylus, pointing or dragging him along the map. You can choose to engage in one on one combat with any member of the opposing army just by tapping on them, and Lock has a limited life bar that you need to keep an eye on when attacking. As you progress, Lock will also gain a few abilities, like a numerical combo meter at the bottom screen that you can tap in order with the stylus, or a small wheel that you need to turn a certain number of times to unleash a poison attack.

If you feel the need to rely on your walls and turrets, you can bolster your defense by performing real-time repairs on them as the Clockwork is attacking them. Simply tap on a damaged structure and Lock will begin the "Ratcheting" process, and if a wall or structure has taken enough damage a small ratchet will appear on the bottom of the screen that you'll need to crank to speed up your repairs.

You'll win an encounter by surviving until the timer ends, and at that point the Clockwork Army runs out of the Source that powers it, and all opposing units will self destruct, causing you to win that map. Most of these areas are spread out into days within the game, so it's pretty typical for you to use the same defenses over and over, provided you can keep everything in working order.

It's definitely a fresh approach to a type of tower defense game, and for a while you'll most likely enjoy Lock's Quest. New enemies are introduced frequently early on, along with traps and turrets that you'll actually need to build out of scrap parts collected on the battlefield. However, as you hit the midpoint of the game it starts to drag on a bit more, and while there are a few new elements introduced, it doesn't feel like enough, especially not compared to the early sections of the game.

Also, the difficulty on the default setting isn't all that challenging, and that has to do with the enemy AI more than anything. A lot of times you can set up a single wall (provided you only need to protect one passage), and stand behind it repairing it. Even if the enemies manage to break down pieces of the wall, as long as a single turret is still in place, they'll tend to focus on that turret, instead of trying to move past your defenses and cause a much bigger problem. This makes even some of the larger encounters really manageable, as you can place a series of turrets outside of a wall that will keep your enemies busy until the time runs out. Also, as you get farther along, you start to gain a ridiculous amount of source, considering you can be pretty thrifty with the stuff early on. This makes it possible for you to build a large amount of defense, which can be a bit overkill, and oftentimes you'll barrel over the opposition.

However, I definitely applaud Lock's Quest for being a fairly unique action/strategy hybrid, and I can honestly say I haven't played anything like it, and even comparing it to a tower defense title like Pixeljunk Monsters isn't entirely fair, since they do play out in entirely different ways. It's a fun little title, and while it might not hold your attention thru the entire main story, it's definitely worth checking out regardless.