About This Game

Thornline TD is a tower defense where there's no path until you build one. Every tower you place is part of the wall, and the enemy walks whatever route you leave open. Play online with up to eight people and send units into each other's mazes, or play on your own across fifty levels and ten worlds.

Build the maze

You can't close the path completely, so there's always a way through. The skill is making that way long, and making it run past your strongest towers.

Eight towers, handed to you a few at a time: Arrow, Cannon, Frost, Poison, Lightning, Catapult, Flamethrower and Sniper. Each one upgrades twice, and an upgrade makes a tower stronger without changing what it does. Armor takes a flat amount off every hit, so a Cannon's heavy shots break through it and an Arrow's light ones don't. You win by reading the wave and building for it.

Send units at your rivals

Up to eight players, each defending their own maze. Every round you choose how to spend your gold: on towers, or on units you send into a rival's lane. Each unit you send adds to your income for the rest of the match, so the gold you spend on attack keeps paying for your defense. The last player alive wins.

Invite friends and fill the empty seats with bots, or play a skirmish against seven bots offline.

Ten worlds, each with a rule of its own

On your own, climb fifty levels across ten worlds, a new world every level. Past the first, each world plays by a rule of its own. On the Sunbarrens every wave comes up out of the sand a quarter of the way down the path, so the front of your maze does nothing.

On the Frostline a boss comes in at your keep and walks your maze backwards. On the Saltmarsh every second wave has twice the enemies at half the health. On the Barrows the enemies you kill stand up once more.

The maze that cleared the last world is the wrong maze for the next one.

Fifty levels, nine bosses

• The same level is the same board every time. Lose by a little, see what to change, and go again.

• Each world has an enemy of its own. The Wrecker steals your gold while it walks. The Scarab's armor cracks with every hit. The Boar runs faster when you hurt it. The Ghoul heals when nothing is hitting it. The Knight breaks into beetles when it falls.

• Nine bosses. Every level from the second ends with one, and the Thorn King waits at level fifty.

• Three stars and a crown on every level. Stars buy upgrades that last: more gold at the start, stronger towers, more interest.

• A relic every fourth round. Pick one to keep for the rest of the level, or take the gold instead.

• It keeps going past fifty. The worlds come round again, harder each time.

One price, one complete game

No DLC and no pay to win. Buy it once and you have all of it, the online mode included. The solo levels need no internet connection.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

No AI image, music or voice generators were used to make Thornline TD. The translations into other languages were done with AI tools, and some of the text in the game and on the store page was drafted with AI help, then edited by me.