Building comparison
head to head
Iron BrigadevsOrcs Must Die!
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is execution, and it is a single point.
Iron Brigade
Optimization · Practiced Mastery
Double Fine's tower-defense shooter where you fight TV monsters from a customizable trench-mech.
Orcs Must Die!
Optimization · Pure Optimization
A third-person tower defense about funneling orc hordes into gleefully lethal trap corridors.
Iron Brigade leans Optimization (Practiced Mastery); Orcs Must Die! leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
Iron BrigadeOrcs Must Die!
Axis by axis
Execution5 vs 4
Iron Brigade leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Iron Brigade
Manual aiming from your walking trench-mech
Orcs Must Die!
Active shooting supplements the traps
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Iron Brigade
Tube waves arrive on schedule
Orcs Must Die!
Orc waves follow fixed paths
Variance2 vs 2
Same score on variance - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Iron Brigade
Loot drops randomize gear options
Orcs Must Die!
Minor wave composition randomness
Optimization7 vs 8
Orcs Must Die! leans a little harder on optimization, though the gap is small.
Iron Brigade
Turret placement and mech loadout economy
Orcs Must Die!
Trap placement and kill-corridor economics are the game
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.