The Field Manual

How a battle goes

A battle opens with a purse of gold and a quiet road. Spend it on towers before the first wave arrives; every enemy killed pays a bounty, and the map pays a levy as each wave is released, so the defence grows as the fight goes on. When the next wave is ready its banner appears on the bar. Calling it early pays extra gold for the time you gave up, which is how a confident defence gets ahead and an overconfident one falls over.

The whole game rests on three rules, and every wave tests at least one of them.

• Damage has a type. Arrows, blades and shells deal physical damage, which armour cuts. Mage towers deal magic damage, which magic resistance cuts and armour does not. A few sources deal true damage, which nothing reduces. An armoured column laughs at a wall of archers, and a pack of demons shrugs off spells, so a defence built from one kind of tower holds for a while and then quietly stops working.
• Soldiers stand in the road. A barracks sends a squad that physically blocks the march: an enemy held by a soldier stops walking until one of them falls. Moving the barracks’ rally flag decides where that fight happens, and putting it inside the range of your other towers is most of the art of the game.
• Flyers ignore all of it. Harpies and gargoyles cut the corners of the road, no soldier can reach them, and a bombard cannot fire upward. Archers, mages and your hero are what answer the sky.

Every enemy that reaches the gate costs lives — most cost one, the biggest cost more. Lose them all and the map is lost; hold until the last wave is cleared and the map is won, with stars for how many lives you kept. Stars are spent in the Armoury, which makes every later battle a little different from the one before it.

Controls

Pikefall plays with a mouse, a keyboard or a finger. On a mouse, click an empty pad to open the build ring around it and click a tower to see its upgrades, its abilities and the button that sells it. Hovering a choice shows what it costs and what it does before you commit. On a touchscreen the same ring docks along the bottom of the field: tap a choice once to read it, and tap it again to buy it.

Click or tap your hero to pick them up, then click anywhere on the field to send them there. A barracks moves its soldiers only through its flag button: press it, then press the spot on the road where they should stand. Every tower also has an order button that changes what it aims at first — the enemy furthest along the road, the last, the strongest or the weakest.

The game saves your campaign in this browser as you play. There is no account and nothing to install; a phone held sideways plays the same game as a desktop.

Towers

Every tower is built on a pad beside the road and climbs three tiers, each one a different building rather than the same one taller. At the fourth step it becomes one of two branches, and the choice is permanent. A branch then offers abilities to buy with gold, and a single tower may own two of them. Selling a tower returns 70% of everything spent on it.

Archer Post

Cheap, fast, reliable. Shoots ground and air. Deals physical damage; can hit flying enemies.

Ranger Hollow 550 gold

Outranges everything and buries targets in arrows.

• Poison Arrows — 350 gold, always on. Arrows have a 40% chance to poison for 14 damage/s over 4s. Poison ignores armour.
• Split Shot — 450 gold, always on. Every third volley also strikes two additional enemies in range.

Musket Garrison 620 gold

Slow, heavy rounds that nothing reduces — armour, wards and all. It fires true damage instead.

• Snipe — 400 gold, every 8s. Every 8s, fires an aimed shot at the strongest enemy in range for 240 true damage.
• Ranging Mark — 480 gold, always on. Every shot marks its target: it takes 30% more damage from every source for 4s.

Barracks

Sends soldiers to physically block the road. Drag the flag to move them. Deals physical damage; cannot hit flying enemies.

Knights' Hall 600 gold

Heavily armoured. Holds a lane open against anything that hits hard.

• Shield Wall — 400 gold, always on. Wounded knights raise their shields: below 60% health, each takes 30% less damage.
• Holy Strike — 480 gold, always on. Every fourth blow lands as 30 true damage, bypassing armour entirely.
• Bulwark — 520 gold, always on; needs the Armoury card Knight-Captain. At full garrison, projects 25% damage reduction to every soldier in rally range.

Wild Warband 560 gold

Fragile, furious, and reinforced twice as fast.

• Berserk — 420 gold, always on. Below half health, raiders attack 70% faster until they fall.
• Thrown Axes — 450 gold, always on. Raiders hurl axes at enemies up to 100 units away while closing in.

Mage Spire

Magic damage cuts straight through heavy armour. Hits air. Deals magic damage; can hit flying enemies.

Arcane Obelisk 700 gold

Raw arcane power, and a beam that erases whatever it touches.

• Death Ray — 500 gold, every 11s. Every 11s, a beam sears the strongest enemy in range for 260 true damage.
• Mana Siphon — 420 gold, always on. Enemies slain by this tower yield 60% more gold.
• Null Field — 540 gold, every 16s; needs the Armoury card Null Field. Every 16s, strips magic immunity and resistance from enemies in range for 5s.

Druid Grove 680 gold

Control rather than damage. Roots the road and hands the time to everyone else.

• Polymorph — 520 gold, always on. 20% chance to turn a target into a sheep for 4s — no armour, no attacks, barely moves. Bosses resist.
• Summon Treant — 560 gold, always on. A treant holds the road beside the grove. When it falls, another grows 16s later.

Bombard

Splash damage that shreds packs. Cannot hit flying enemies. Deals physical damage; cannot hit flying enemies.

Bombardment (120 gold, any tier): The crew can shell one spot you choose on every reload, whether or not anything is there.

Dwarven Mortar 700 gold

Fast, wide, and relentless. Deletes swarms.

• Cluster Shot — 480 gold, always on. Each shell scatters 4 bomblets around the impact for 40% damage each.
• Napalm — 520 gold, always on. Impacts leave burning ground for 5s, dealing 22 damage/s that ignores armour.
• Airburst — 560 gold, always on; needs the Armoury card Airburst. Shells detonate above the road, catching air units in the splash at full damage.

Trebuchet Keep 660 gold

Enormous range and enormous stones. Slow, but nothing survives a direct hit.

• Boulder Barrage — 560 gold, every 14s. Every 14s, hurls three stones in quick succession across the target area.
• Oil Slick — 440 gold, always on. Impacts leave slick ground for 6s, slowing everything on it by 45%.

Heroes

One hero marches with you into every battle. You steer them anywhere on the field; they fight on their own, gain experience from what they kill up to level 10, and come back a few seconds after they fall. Each hero learns three abilities as they level, which fire on their own whenever there is something worth hitting.

Ser Alderon, Knight of the Dawn

Blocker. A wall with a sword. Holds a breach open while everything else dies around him. With you from the first battle.

• Holy Smite — from level 1, every 7s. Calls down light on nearby enemies for 90 true damage.
• Consecrated Ground — from level 4, every 16s. Blesses the ground for 6s: enemies burn, allies mend.
• Shield of Dawn — from level 7, every 22s. He and every nearby ally take 55% less damage for 6s.

Kaela Thornwood, Warden of Silveroak

Ranged damage. Fights from range and never blocks. Put her behind a wall and let her work. Joins you once Silveroak Wood is held.

• Volley — from level 1, every 8s. Looses arrows at up to 5 enemies in range for 70 each.
• Snare Trap — from level 4, every 14s. Lays a trap that roots the first enemy into it and slows the rest for 4s.
• Hunter's Mark — from level 7, every 18s. Marks the toughest enemy in range: it takes 45% more damage for 8s.

Morvek the Ashen, Emberspeaker

Area damage. Frail, slow to close, and capable of erasing an entire pack at once. Joins you once Frosthold is held.

• Firestorm — from level 1, every 10s. Ignites the densest group in range for 120 magic damage and sets them burning.
• Arcane Chain — from level 4, every 13s. Lightning arcs between up to 5 enemies, losing a fifth of its power each jump.
• Blink Strike — from level 7, every 20s. Vanishes and reappears at the leading enemy in a 200-damage detonation.

Grimna Ironjaw, Of the Broken Tusk

Melee damage. Kills faster than anything else on the field, and every blow feeds him. Joins you once The Brimstone Gate is held.

• Whirlwind — from level 1, every 6s. Spins through everything within reach for 100 damage.
• Bloodrage — from level 4, every 17s. Attacks 80% faster for 7s and heals for a third of the damage dealt, passive included.
• Ground Slam — from level 7, every 19s. Cracks the earth for 150 damage and stuns everything nearby for 2.5s.

Spells

Two spells sit on the battle bar, cast anywhere on the field and recharging on their own. Every commander starts with these:

• Rain of Fire — recharges in 60s. Three meteors scorch the target area. Ignores armour entirely.
• Reinforcements — recharges in 22s. Two militia hold the ground where you drop them, then disperse.

The Armoury can teach more, and either can take one of the two slots:

• Bounty Contract — recharges in 40s. Marks a stretch of ground for 12s. Anything killed inside it pays triple gold.
• Rally — recharges in 48s. Every soldier and the hero in range heals to full and hits 40% harder for 6s.

The Armoury

Stars won in battle buy Armoury cards. Each card adds something you can watch happen on the field rather than a percentage, and none of them has a downside. Cards are bought top down along their track; once a whole track is owned, each of its cards can be overcharged up to 5 more times. Refunds are free, so a set of cards is never a mistake you have to keep.

Archers

Barracks

Mages

Artillery

Hero

Spells

The horde

Armour cuts physical damage and magic resistance cuts magic damage, both by the share shown. True damage ignores both. Speed is in field units per second; a goblin walks at 54.

Bosses

A boss changes its wards as it is hurt. Every one of them spends part of the fight immune to one kind of damage, so no single kind of tower can finish it.

• Gorruk the Ogre King — 6200 health, 3 phases. Wards himself against magic at two thirds and turns spectral at one third. One damage type will not finish him.
• Vashkar the Ashwing — 3200 health, 3 phases, flies. Arrows pass through the cinder shroud; the molten core sheds magic instead. Anti-air in one flavour is not enough.
• Kaz'gor the Crownless — 9000 health, 3 phases. Blood-warded against magic, then spectral against steel, and his slam quickens with every phase.
• Ulvarr the Barrow-King — 7600 health, 3 phases. Raises the barrow as he fights. Spectral at two thirds, iron-bound at one third — and the dead he raises are neither.
• Zhurath the Unmade — 12500 health, 4 phases. Spectral, then blood-warded, then spectral again. Whichever half of your defence you sold, you sold it too early.
• Skarnvald the Deepwarden — 12000 health, 3 phases. Plated, then stone-warded against magic, then spectral — and faster with every phase. Hit him early.

The campaign

The campaign is a march across a chart, one map after another. Each map is won with up to 3 stars, counted by the lives you still hold at the end.

Difficulty and modes

Difficulty is chosen each time a map is opened.

Once a map is held, three more ways to play it open:

• Heroic Challenge — The last six waves only, back to back, with a fixed budget.
• Iron Challenge — One life. No selling. Half the build slots.
• Endless — Waves without end, and a boss every tenth. Survive.