Dino Ridge

Dino Ridge is a chunky prehistoric tower defence. A dusty trail winds out of a red-rock canyon, forks around fern islands and ends at a cave mouth covered in painted hand-prints. That cave is your village, and everything with claws wants in.

Five towers, three tiers each, all crewed by cavefolk in fur with bone pins in their hair. The spear hut throws fast and far and is one of only two things that can touch a pterodactyl; at tier three it throws two spears at once. The boulder catapult is slow but drops a rock with a wide splash that leaves whatever survives staggering. The tar pit pours black tar down every stretch of trail it can reach, slowing anything that wades in and making it burn far hotter. The fire brazier sets one dinosaur alight and the fire jumps to whatever is packed in beside it. The drum totem never attacks at all, it just beats time and speeds up every tower around it, and at tier three one roll of the drum sends a raptor pack running back down the trail.

Raptors come in packs of five and always take the wider branch, so a fork is never a free lane. Triceratops charge straight through tar. Pterodactyls ignore the ground entirely. An ankylosaur will smash a tar pit flat unless you have taken it to tier three. A brachiosaur shrugs raptors off its back every time you hurt it, dinosaur eggs hatch mid-trail if you leave them alone, and the T-rex roars every few seconds to knock your towers silent for two full seconds — and shrugs off most of what you throw at it unless you have lured it into the tar first. On the Lava Ridge valleys the volcano erupts on a timer and drops glowing rocks onto your tower spots, and you have to tap them clear before you can build again. Twelve valleys with fifteen to twenty-five waves each, a boss every fifth wave, three stars for a flawless defence, and an endless valley once you have earned it.