Your first five minutes
- Place two Archers first. They're cheap at 90 gold and cover ground immediately. Put them beside a corner — enemies slow down turning, so they stay in range longer.
- Start the wave only after your opening gold is spent. Idle gold kills nothing.
- Let kills fund the next buy. Every enemy pays gold; watch which part of the road leaks and reinforce there.
- Upgrade before you expand. A second upgrade on a working tower usually beats a new tower in a worse spot.
- Save a spell for the boss. At the end of each stage a boss arrives with an ability. Entering that fight with a spell ready is the difference between a clear and a restart.
Controls
1–5 Select tower type
QWE Cast spells
Space Pause or resume
F Game speed ×1 / ×2 / ×3
G Fullscreen
H Hide the interface
Esc Close any panel
Click an empty tile to build, click a placed tower to upgrade or specialize it. On mobile, the tower dock sits along the bottom of the screen.
Five habits that keep you alive
- Build on corners and long lanes — time in range matters more than raw damage.
- Don't spread thin. Four upgraded towers beat eight bare ones.
- Cast spells reactively, when a leak is about to happen — not the moment they come off cooldown.
- Cluster your towers. Neighbours grant passive bonuses to each other.
- Protect your lives. One leak breaks your kill combo and the score multiplier with it.
What comes next
Once you've cleared a stage or two, the depth opens up: tower specializations that fork each unit into two roles, legendary auras drafted after boss kills, Crystals that buy permanent upgrades in Ascension, and Endless mode once the campaign falls.
All of it is documented in the full guide — every tower stat, every boss ability, the adjacency bonuses, and the strategy that separates a quick loss from a Rankings run.
Losing your first few runs is normal — and not wasted. Every run pays Crystals, win or lose, and those buy permanent upgrades that make the next attempt stronger.