Tower Defense: Free Online Strategy Game with 12 Maps

What is Tower Defense?

Tower Defense is a free strategy game you play in your browser. Waves of creatures called the Gloom march along a road towards your Core. You build towers beside the road to stop them, earn coins for every one that falls, and spend those coins on more towers and better upgrades.

There are 12 maps across four worlds, eight towers that each branch into two different upgrade paths, and sixteen kinds of enemy, from fast Darts to stealthed Shades and four bosses. Press Play and you are on the first map straight away.

Every map can be played on Easy, Normal or Hard, and once you have held a map you can take it on again in endless mode to see how many waves you last.

How to play Tower Defense

1. 

   1Press Play

   The big Play button on the first screen drops you straight into the first map, First Light. Difficulty is set to Normal; you can change it here before you start, and Easy is the relaxed choice.

2. 

   2Pick a tower, then a tile

   Choose a tower in the shop and point at a tile beside the road. The ring shows how far it reaches. Corners are the best spots, because enemies stay in range for longer.

3. 

   3Start the wave

   Press Start wave. The Next strip shows which enemies are coming. Once a wave is under control, calling the next one early pays bonus coins.

4. 

   4Upgrade and choose a branch

   Click a tower to open its panel. The first upgrade makes it stronger; after that you pick one of two branches, such as Gatling for speed or Piercer for armour.

5. 

   5Match towers to enemies

   Flyers skip the road, so keep a Bolt Turret, Beam Lance or Rocket Pod under the dotted flight lane. Armour needs beams or poison, shields need Arc Pylons, and stealth needs a Signal Relay.

6. 

   6Use your powers

   Orbital Strike hits one spot you choose, which is ideal for a tight pack or a Mender. Cryo Pulse freezes the whole road for a moment and shows every hidden enemy.

7. 

   7Hold the Core for stars

   Clear the final wave to hold the map. Keep the Core above half health for two stars and above nine tenths for three. The next map unlocks either way.

The rules in full

1. Press Play. You land on the first map with a handful of coins and no enemies yet, so there is time to look around.
2. Pick a tower from the shop, then click a tile beside the road. On a phone, tap a tile to see the tower's range, then tap the same tile again to build.
3. Press Start wave when you are ready. Enemies follow the road towards the Core, and each one that gets there costs Core health.
4. Every enemy you stop pays coins. Spend them between waves or in the middle of a fight; you can also build while paused.
5. Click a tower you own to upgrade it. After the first upgrade each tower offers two branches, and you choose one.
6. Look at the next-wave strip before each wave. It shows what is coming, and tapping an enemy tells you what stops it.
7. Call the next wave early for bonus coins when the road is under control.
8. Use the two powers when things go wrong: Orbital Strike blasts one spot, Cryo Pulse freezes every enemy and reveals stealth.
9. Clear the last wave with the Core still standing to hold the map and earn up to three stars.

Tower Defense tips and strategy

• Build at bends. A tower inside a corner covers two or three stretches of road at once.
• Mix your towers. Every copy of the same kind costs more than the last, and no single tower answers every enemy.
• Put a Frost Coil where your strongest towers already reach. Slowed enemies take more hits from everything nearby.
• A fully upgraded tower in a good spot usually beats two new ones in poor spots.
• Check the next-wave strip for a New tag. Tap that enemy to learn its weakness before it arrives.
• Set one tower to Strong when Menders or bosses appear, so it does not waste shots on small fry.
• Sell a tower you have just placed, before the wave starts, and you get back everything you paid. Try placements freely.
• Save Cryo Pulse for the moment a boss or a Shade is about to slip past your last tower.
• Call waves early while they are easy. The bonus coins matter most in the first half of a map.
• New to this kind of game? Pick Easy. Enemies are slower and weaker, and the Core takes twice as many hits.

What is a tower defense game?

In a tower defense game you do not control a hero. You place defences along a route and let them do the fighting. The skill is in what you build, where you build it and when you spend.

This one uses a fixed road. Enemies never change their route, so every tile beside it has a value you can learn: how long an enemy stays in range, and how many stretches of road one tower can see.

A map takes five to ten minutes. You can pause at any moment and keep building, which makes it a calm game to think through as well as a quick one to play.

The eight towers and their upgrade branches

The Bolt Turret is the cheap all-rounder and hits both ground and air. The Mortar lobs shells that blast a whole group. The Frost Coil does no damage; it slows everything in its ring.

The Arc Pylon throws lightning that jumps from enemy to enemy and tears shields apart. The Beam Lance ignores armour and burns hotter the longer it stays on one target. The Rocket Pod fires long-range homing rockets that are far stronger against flyers.

The Spore Mister poisons, eating a share of health each second, which makes it strong against big enemies. The Signal Relay reveals stealth and boosts the towers around it.

Each tower has one plain upgrade and then two branches with two steps each. A Bolt Turret can become a Gatling that fills the road with shots or a Piercer that ignores armour. A Mortar can go wide with Cluster or stun with Quake. You pick one branch per tower, so two towers of the same kind can do very different jobs.

Enemies of the Gloom, and what stops each one

Grubs are plain. Darts are fast and fragile, so slow them. Gnats are tiny and arrive in crowds, so use splash. Bulks are slow with a lot of health, and Shells wear armour that shrugs off small hits.

Flits and Drakes fly their own lane and cannot be reached by Mortars, Arc Pylons or Spore Misters. Wards carry a shield that regrows. Broods burst into three Mites. Menders heal everything near them, and Shades cannot be targeted until a Signal Relay or a Cryo Pulse reveals them.

Four bosses close out the big waves: the armoured Goliath, the Broodmother who hatches Gnats as she walks, the Phantom who fades out of reach, and the Colossus at the end of the last map.

Twelve maps across four worlds

The campaign starts on the Verdant Moon with a single winding road, then moves to the Ember Reach, Frostfall and the Void Station. Later maps split the road in two or three, add a second flight lane and scatter rocks over the best building spots.

Maps run from 10 waves on First Light to 22 on Singularity. Holding a map unlocks the next one, and your best stars and score are kept for each difficulty.

Difficulty, stars and endless mode

Easy is the forgiving way to play. You start with more coins and every kill pays more, the Core has twice the health it has on Normal, and enemies are slower with about half the health and much thinner armour. Flyers and bosses are softer still, a cloaked Shade flickers into view so any tower can hit it, and nothing but a boss costs more than one Core health. Placing towers and upgrading them is enough to hold a map on Easy; three stars still take some care.

Hard gives you fewer coins, a weaker Core and tougher enemies, and pays half as much score again. Stars earned on a harder setting count for the easier ones too, and there are 108 to collect in all.

Endless mode opens on any map you have held. The waves keep coming and keep growing, and the game records the furthest wave you reach on each difficulty. The endless leaderboard counts runs on Normal and Hard, where one boss getting through ends the run.

Speed, pausing and saving

The speed button switches between ×1, ×2 and ×3, so quiet waves pass quickly. Pause stops the road but leaves the shop open: build, upgrade, sell and change targets while everything stands still.

Your run is saved as you play. Close the tab or reload, and Continue brings you back to the start of the wave you were on with your towers in place. If the Core falls in the campaign you can retry that wave instead of restarting the map.

Playing on a phone, tablet or keyboard

On a phone held upright the map turns on its side so the tiles stay big enough to tap. Tap a tile once to preview a tower and its range, and again to build it.

On a keyboard, keys 1 to 8 pick a tower, the arrow keys move a cursor and Enter builds. Q and E upgrade, T changes the target, X sells, N calls the next wave, F changes speed, 9 and 0 fire the powers, P pauses and M mutes.

Tower Defense FAQ