Lord Of The Ants

A top-down tower defence where you dig the map.

Thousands of ants march on your queen, always by the shortest path. Dig new tunnels and raise walls to change that path, and lead them into your turrets.

Reshape the cave between waves.

• Dig. Paint over rock and your workers dig it out, or spend stone to drill it instantly.

• Wall. Drag a wall across a tunnel. It goes up the moment you let go.

• Reroute. The swarm always takes the shortest open path, so every wall sends it somewhere new.

• Walls break. Big ants chew through stone. Click a wall to reinforce it.

Five turrets. Two upgrade paths each, and you can only finish one.

• ARBOR – long range. Each shot pierces the whole line.

• MAW – fast bites. Every fifth bite knocks the ant back up the tunnel.

• FOXFIRE – a spark that jumps from ant to ant. The only turret that hits fliers.

• ACID – burns its target, then leaves a pool that burns whatever walks through.

• BOMBARDIER – kills one ant, and that ant explodes on the ones around it.

Every colour of ant has a turret that counters it.

• Six colours. Five have a matching turret that deals extra damage to them; every other turret deals less.

• Red ants have no counter. No turret hits them harder.

• Every nest is marked with the turret that beats it, so you can read a level at a glance.

For when the turrets are not enough.

• Four traps: a buried mine that waits for a crowd, sticky ground, a burning pool, and a trap that throws the swarm back the way it came.

• Three abilities: drop a meteor, set the floor on fire, or call in nine of your own ants.

• Your own army: soldiers, spitters and workers. Send them to destroy enemy nests, and bring them back before they are overrun.

Each one breaks a different strategy.

• THE TIDE – a shielded boss at the head of a flood of escorts.

• THE DRIFT – brings drones that fly over your walls.

• THE SHEPHERD – weak on its own, guarded by eighteen fast runners.

• And nine more.

A 120-node upgrade tree.

• Every level pays out, even the ones you lose. Spend it on turret, ant and income upgrades that last the whole campaign.

• You can see them. The top upgrades change how things look: turrets grow spurs, the queen grows a crown.

56 levels down, then endless.

• Choose your route down a branching map. Each win shows what the paths below it pay.

• Some levels change the rules: all your money up front and no more, a set of abandoned turrets, or thirty waves on a floor that collapses.

• Endless mode after the finale, with a depth record.

• Optional permadeath: if your queen dies, the save is gone. The thirty-wave levels and endless mode are the exceptions.

Single-player. No microtransactions.