Damage has a type
Armour eats arrows. Magic goes straight through it. Some things shrug off one or the other entirely.
Bring one kind and you lose slowly, wondering why.
A free tower defense game, in this tab
Pikefall
Hold the road.
Ten maps, four tower families and an army that does not stop coming. Armour eats arrows, magic goes straight through it, and the only thing that stops a body in the road is another body.
Three rules, and the whole game sits on them
You do not out-build this. You answer it.
Every wave asks one of three questions. A defence that only knows one answer holds until wave seven, and then does not.
Soldiers stand in the road
Barracks send men who physically block the march, and nothing walks past a body. Drag the flag and you pick where the fight happens.
The only order you give, and it decides the map.
Flyers ignore all of it
Harpies cut the corners your road takes. No soldier can touch them, and a bombard cannot fire up.
A sky you left empty is a lane straight to your gate.
Four families · three tiers · eight final branches
Every tower ends as one of two things
The tier-four branch is permanent, and it is a decision about kind rather than about numbers. One of them walks away from damage typing altogether and fires true damage, which armour cannot touch at all.
Archer Post
Cheap, fast, reliable. Shoots ground and air.
Ranger HollowMusket Garrison
Barracks
Sends soldiers to physically block the road.
Knights’ HallWild Warband
Mage Spire
Magic damage cuts straight through heavy armour.
Arcane ObeliskDruid Grove
Bombard
Splash that shreds packs. Cannot hit flying enemies.
Dwarven MortarTrebuchet Keep
The four above are painted by the same code that paints them in a battle. Nothing on this page is a screenshot, because there is nothing to photograph — every sprite in Pikefall is generated the moment it is needed.
The march
Ten countries. One road through all of them.
The campaign is a surveyor’s chart, and a chart is a record. Country the horde still holds lies under a smoke wash; clearing a map lifts it, inks the road behind the army and plants your colours. The sheet starts dark and brightens as you win it.
- Southport Roadmeadow · 12 waves
- Stormcleft Passhighland · 13 waves
- Silveroak Woodforest · 14 waves
- Ashfen Marshswamp · 14 waves
- Frostholdfrost · 15 waves
- Ruins of Vaeldesert · 16 waves
- The Brimstone Gatevolcanic · 16 waves
- The Shattered Crowncitadel · 17 waves
- Barrowheathheath · 18 waves
- The Hollow Thronevoidscar · 19 waves
After the first campaign
Reasons the tab comes back open
Endless has no last wave
Waves without end and a boss every tenth, generated from the run seed alone — the same seed is the same fight for everyone. Stars from endless are capped at three a week, so it stays a reason to come back rather than a reason to grind.
Thirty Armoury cards, six tracks
The stars you win buy cards you can watch work: fire arrows, shield bashes, shells that bounce, a squire at your hero’s side. One track for each tower, one for your hero and one for your spells, and every card you own fights in every battle.
A House of your own
Compose your arms in the Hall of Arms — field, division, charge — and every tower pennant, wall shield and rally flag in the game flies them. Proper heraldry, counterchange and all.
Four heroes, three difficulties
A hero you steer around the field, each one unlocked by marching. Squire, Veteran and Ironclad over the top of that, plus Heroic and Iron challenges on any map you have already cleared.
154waves in the campaign
22kinds of enemy
8final tower branches
0files to download
Before you press play
The six things people ask
Is Pikefall free?
Free, and free in the way that matters: there is nothing to buy that changes a single number in a battle. Stars are earned by winning and spent in the Armoury; crowns buy coats of arms and tower liveries, which are paint.
Do I have to download or install anything?
No. No download, no installer, no launcher, no account and no e-mail address. The tower defense game is the tab — press play and you are in a battle. It ships no images, no audio files and no fonts, so it starts in about the time it takes to fetch some text.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, in landscape. Every control carries a second layout built for a finger rather than a scaled-down mouse one, and all 246 of them clear Apple’s 44 pixel tap floor on the smallest phone we measure against. Tap a tower to read what it does, tap again to buy it.
Is my progress saved?
Yes, in this browser, the moment a level resolves — closing the tab on the victory screen keeps the stars. There is no account, so the save lives on this device and this browser only. Clearing your site data clears the campaign with it.
How long is it?
Ten maps and 154 waves through the campaign, against 22 kinds of enemy and five bosses. After that: Heroic and Iron challenges on ground you have already taken, and an endless mode with no last wave and a boss every tenth.
Is it like Kingdom Rush?
It is built in that lineage and does not pretend otherwise — fixed build pads, four tower families, blocking soldiers, a hero you steer. What is its own: every sprite is generated in code, the campaign is a surveyor’s chart you brighten as you win it, and you compose your own heraldry. Pikefall is an independent game and is not affiliated with Ironhide Game Studio.
Free, and staying that way
If it took an evening off your hands
Pikefall is one person’s spare time. Nothing in it can be bought that changes a number in a battle and nothing ever will be — so there is no version of this you are being upsold to. If you want to put something in anyway, it buys the evenings that keep it being built.
Nothing is unlocked by it, no screen in the game asks, and this page will not ask twice. If reading it is more your thing, the whole repository is open — read the source.