The goal
Protect your headquarters (HQ). You lose if the Ferals destroy it and win once every attack wave has been cleared. Outposts, walls and turrets stand between the cave and your HQ; losing an outpost does not end the battle.
Controls
On a touch screen
- Tap the ground to walk there. Hold or drag your finger to steer your hero directly.
- Tap an enemy to attack it. Your hero keeps firing at that target while you move.
- During the battle, the joystick in the bottom-left corner moves your hero, and the Fire button in the bottom-right corner shoots the nearest enemy, preferring enemies in the direction you push. Hold Fire to keep shooting: it picks the next target when one falls.
- Turn the camera with the rotate buttons or by twisting two fingers. Pinch to zoom in the Overview and Top views.
With a mouse and keyboard
- Click the ground to walk there. Hold the button or drag to steer.
- Click an enemy to attack it.
- Rotate the camera with the left and right arrow keys or by dragging with the right mouse button. Zoom the Overview and Top views with the mouse wheel.
- Press Esc to stop.
Camera views
Follow keeps the camera on your hero and widens to a battle view once the fight starts. Overview frames the whole battlefield at an angle, and Top looks straight down on it.
Prepare your formation
Before the battle nothing is fixed: you can move the HQ, the outposts and every defense.
Carry buildings with your hero
Tap a building, or point at it with the mouse, and choose Move. Your hero picks it up. Tap where it should go: if the spot is far away, your hero walks closer first, and you tap again to set it down. A footprint preview shows whether the building fits. Cancel Move leaves it where it was.
Stone walls stack up to three high. A wall with another one on top cannot be moved, and in battle only the bottom wall takes damage: when it breaks, the whole stack falls.
Stay inside outpost range
Turrets, traps, barricades and wooden gates belong to an outpost. Keep them inside that outpost’s square range. Outside it, a facility becomes a scaffold with a tenth of its health, and turrets stop firing until you bring them back in range.
Edit formation
For bigger changes, open Edit formation before the battle. Place new defenses, move them or delete them, up to the limits each HQ and outpost allows, and add a second outpost if you want one. Deleting an outpost removes its defenses too. Undo steps back, Cancel throws the draft away, and Done applies it.
Save and share formations
In the editor, Saved formations keeps up to six layouts, each with a small map preview. Save stores the current draft in a slot and Load brings one back. Copy code turns your draft into a share code, and Paste code loads a code from a friend. Codes contain only buildings and work on the same map.
Defenses
- HQ: your headquarters. If it falls, the battle is lost.
- Outpost: holds your turrets, traps, barricades and wooden gates. Its range decides where they work at full strength.
- Walls, barricades and gates: block the Ferals’ path. Gates lower when your hero is within 2 meters and close again behind you; a closed gate stops enemies.
- Gatling: a rapid-fire turret that aims by itself.
- Mortarling: lobs shells into groups of enemies, but cannot hit anything within 5 meters.
- Mine: explodes when someone steps on it during the battle, and that includes your hero. Mines are safe to walk over while you prepare.
Fight the battle
Tap Start Battle when your formation is ready. From then on, buildings stay where they are.
- Waves: 12 waves come out of the cave mouths, with stray raiders slipping in between. The last wave always brings the Chiefling, a boss with 3,200 health.
- Attacking: tap or click an enemy to lock on. Your hero keeps shooting it until it is destroyed or more than 25 meters away, and does not switch targets alone unless you hold Fire. The shotgun only hits within 10 meters and is strongest up close; the crosshair turns red while your target is out of reach.
- Charging: keep running at an enemy and your hero charges in for 40 damage, knocking it back and stunning it for half a second.
- XP: defeated Ferals drop XP. Walk close and it flies to you.
- Health: stand near your HQ or an outpost that is still intact to recover. If your hero falls, they drop back in beside the HQ after 15 seconds.
After the battle, Replay starts the same fight again with your formation in place, and Rearrange takes you back to preparation.
Tips for a stronger formation
- Give Mortarlings room. They cannot hit enemies within 5 meters, so set them back behind walls or barricades and let their shells land on the crowd held up in front.
- Shape the path. Walls and gates shape the route the Ferals take to your HQ. Make them bunch up where several turrets can reach.
- Mix your turrets. Gatlings deal with enemies that get close; Mortarlings punish groups from range.
- Put mines on the enemies’ route, not yours. They hurt your hero too.
- Fight near your base. Staying close to the HQ or an outpost lets your hero recover between fights.
- Save before you experiment. Keep a formation that works in a save slot, then try changes in the editor.
Want a longer adventure? Try Fortcraft, the free 3D tower defense island adventure that Fortrush comes from.