List of tower defense games

I had started to compile a list of tower defense games a couple years ago, but never managed to finish it. The goals were to 1) list the basic gameplay elements that define the tower defense genre, 2) spot original gameplay elements that have made the genre progress, and 3) track the history of the genre, much like what has been done for shmups.

Name and URL	Release date	Image
Players	Platform
Bosses	Path
Comments
Backyard Monsters	early 2011
single player + Facebook friends	Flash on Facebook
Champion units never die	Free path
Receive and donate monsters from/to your Facebook friends. Send your troops against the base of another player to steal their resources. Half-cloned by Clash of Clans in 2012. By Casual Collective (now Kixeye).
Bubble Tank Defense	2009
Single player	Flash
Has bosses	Free path
Mega towers are a combination of 4 adjacent normal towers. Tower upgrade is a tree: all towers start as basic towers, then they become zone, slow, specialize against ghost, etc.
Canyon Defense	2007
Single player	Flash
no	Fixed path
Unlock towers by completing missions such as building 15 towers or acquiring $1000. Developed by Russian studio Iriysoft.
CreepSmash	2008
2 to 4 players	Java
no	Fixed path
6 tower types, each with 4 upgrade levels. Player can specify AI for each tower (eg. target creeps with fewest HP). Receive income every 15 seconds. Increase income by 10% of the price of the creeps you send to your left neighbor. Receive creeps from your right neighbor. Green creeps regen life, white are immune to slow, blue are fast, red have lots of HP. Winning strategy: sell towers to send more creeps to increase your income faster than other players. Attack-defense gameplay. 4-player games, quickly turn into 2v2. Developed by a group of German students. The community is mostly German. open source.
Cursed Treasure	May 2010
single player	Flash
Has bosses	fixed path
3 families of towers: Demon (fire AoE or burn DoT), Orc (poison DoT or strong single-target attack), and Undead (freeze, fear, or slow). Towers gain XP and level up by attacking creeps. Tower effects change when they level up. Creeps are assassins (hide temporarily), crusaders (block damage), monks (heal other creeps), and other medieval characters. Each level completed grants the player XP used to level up to acquire and level up passive skills such as more gold at the start of the level, more gold per creep, reduced tower costs, or increased tower range or damage. Player can use 3 active skills: cut tree to place tower, temporarily double the fire rate of all towers, and splash meteor damage in an area. Developed by Russian studio Iriysoft.
DemonRift TD	Sep 2011
Single player	Flash
2 Bosses	Fixed Path
4 types of towers (swordsman, archer attacks long-range but not short-range, knight can chase fast enemies, and golem can stun and block up to 5 enemies). Command points are generated over time and when killing enemies, and are used to buy or upgrade units. Upgrades only add more creatures to a tower.
Desktop TD	release?
Single player	Flash
Has bosses	Free Path
Creeps go from top to bottom or from left to right. Mazing/juggling matters a lot. By Casual Collective (now Kixeye). Spawn, flying, and many other kinds of creeps.
Dungeon Defenders	2011
single-player	Unreal Engine
No bosses	Fixed Path
3D. Originally a showcase of the Unreal Engine. Source code available.
Flash Element TD	Feb 2007
Single-player	Flash
Has boss?	Fixed path
Start the first level with the 3 basic towers. Kill enemies to earn a bit of money to upgrade towers. At the end of each wave, earn 10% of your current money (+5% per skill point spent in a certain research skill). Earn Wood every 8-10 waves to unlock towers (earth, fire, water, and combo of the 3), skills, or increase your life. Also known as 3d tower defense.
Garden TD	release?
Single player	Flash
Has bosses	Fixed Path
Spitting cactus are overpowered, gnomes are useless.
Hold the holy pig	release?
Single player	Flash
Has bosses	Fixed Path
Towers are elemental: water slows down, earth is zone damage, fire attacks fast, plant poisons, wind only attacks flying creeps.
Mini tower defense	release?
Single player	Flash
No boss	Fixed path
Creeps are tanks, towers are lasers. Winning a level gives points that can be spent to increase tower powers.
Orcs must die	Oct 2011
Single player	XBLA and Windows
No Bosses	Path?
The game happens in 3d like a normal FPS. Creeps are Orcs. The player controls an FPS avatar with deadly skills and places traps and archers in that 3d-FPS view.
Plants versus Zombies	May 2009
Single player	Flash
One final boss	No path
Zombies come from the right towards your house on the left. 5-6 lines, zombies never change line (except when you use garlic). Every 5 levels, there's a mini game. Plants are cards acquired when winning levels. No shortcuts, just clicks. The money is sun, it falls from the sky and players have to click on it to collect it. Click fest at higher levels. Five worlds: backyard by day and by night, pool by day and by night, roof by day. Lots of Easter Eggs. Very easy to understand and play through.
Rat Poker	1998
Single player	Windows 95 and 98
No boss	Fixed path
Tower defense where creeps keep looping until you order them in series like Poker hands. The player has to organize rats in series resembling Poker series (three of a kind, six of a kind, rainbow series, etc.). Rats are walking and can be grabbed and released at specific locations.
Turett Tyranny	release?
Single player	Flash
No boss	Fixed path
Creeps HP keep increasing wave after wave. Kill creep to get money. Unlock, place, and upgrade towers with money. Towers have a size (e.g. 1x1 or 3x3) and can only be placed where they fit. Walls constrain towers' line of sight. There is friendly fire between towers, but you can pay to protect them from friendly fire.
Vector TD	release?
Single player	Flash
No boss	Fixed path
Usual basic TD. Graphics resemble CreepSmash. Steep learning curve.
Viking TD	Release?
Single player	Flash
No boss	Fixed Path
Creeps are boats of Vikings, towers are catapults and others. Towers are unlocked progressively in pseudo-quests such as "build 5 catapults to unlock the tree of wisdom" or "kill 3 Big Boats at once with a spell to get the Stone Head". By Russian studio Iriysoft.
VR defender Y3K	April 2007
Single Player	Flash
No boss	Fixed path
6 kinds of towers, such as normal, slow, and flame thrower. Tower appearances reflects its upgrade level. It's hard to figure out which strategy to use as ennemies just only keep having more HP wave after wave, cf also player feedback. Graphics resemble CreepSmash.
Wicked Defense	2007
Single Player	PC
Has bosses	Fixed path
Some creeps can buff other creeps. Spells can slow down or damage monsters. Weird graphics. 3D.

And a list of games I have not broken down yet.

Name	Comments
W3 mod
Colony Defense	The terrain is a sphere, which gives a Populous-like view of the planet.
Sol Survivor	3D, fancy graphics, multiplayer co-op
Garden Defense
Defense Grid	Matrix atmosphere, 3D, fancy-ish graphics, fixed path.
Fieldrunners	Resembles Desktop TD, old-school war atmosphere, kawaii 2D god-view graphics.
TriDefense	for iPhone
Besiegement	for iPhone
The Horde	1994, contender for first TD game around; Its FAQ says that The Horde currently deletes all other non-horde saved games in NVRAM when you save a game
Harvest: Massive Encounter	Creeps are aliens, towers are human. planet exploration atmosphere.
Protector	Towers are medieval characters.
Immortal Defence
Pixel Junk Monsters
Lock's Quest	DS game
Guns' n' Glory	For iOS. UI is intuitive, but moving units around looks clumsy. Video.
TowerMadness	iPad game, free placement, towers can be upgraded, creeps are aliens, lives are sheeps that you have to protect. 2 players can play at the same time on the same ipad, but there are no interactions between players (no co-op, no PVP).
Starship defense	DSi game, slow, fixed path, rubbing/touching creeps with stilet inflicts damage. towers can be positioned on slots on the wall or on the roof. Video.
Castle-Combat	Clone of Rampart, old game from 1990, possible origin of the TD genre.
Kajaani	in space
Lockdown TD	"lifting" system that lets you move towers temporarily and reposition them between waves
Pokemon TD	So successful it has a sequel.
Ninja vs Pirates
Starland	Multiplayer

And a list of lists of TD games, mostly Flash:

• Newsground
• playthisthing.com
• playTD.com
• tdgames.net
• andkon.com
• TD.cz
• tdgames.ca