The tower defense genre has been around for years, punctuated every so often by the release of a game that sets a new standard for how things should be. One of the first for the browser world was Desktop Tower Defense, and for the mobile market, an early heavy-hitter was the original Fieldrunners. Developer Subatomic Studios took a few years to do it, but the team has finally rolled out a worthy sequel with Fieldrunners 2. Expect more maps, more variety, more units, more enemies, and more rewards with this stunning release that will rewrite the way you think of the tower defense genre on iPhone.

Necro Gaia is a short arcade defense game from Lazy Brain Games, creator of a few other freeware indie games such as Mecha Spider Island and Infernal Edge. This intense little release puts you in control of a small blue planet called Terra, a lovely little Earth-like rock orbiting a sun that is traveling to another galaxy. You have to stay along for the ride, but the trouble is, all sorts of dangerous things are floating in the blackness of space. By changing your orbital position as well as summoning some temporary planetary friends, you can help Terra survive her journey to her new home, defeating the all-consuming Necro Gaia in the process!

Conjure magical flaming walls to deflect rocks in Wizard Walls. Use the mouse to draw the walls to defend yourself, your sheep and your townsfolk from the nasty goblins and trolls. Upgrade your magic to include fireballs and bubble walls. Give the baddies a taste of their own medicine with a stone to the face!

Hey there strategy and tower defense fans! Just a little note to announce a bit of good news for iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Kingdom Rush, the so-awesome-it's-mega-awesome tower defense game from Ironhide Games, has finally made its way to small-screened iOS devices, following Kingdom Rush HD for iPad and the browser version of Kingdom Rush last year. The game stands out as one of the best defense/strategy game on the planet, capturing two awards in our Best of 2011 feature, including Best Browser Defense or Strategy game along with Game of the Year! If you haven't tried it in one of its incarnations, you owe it to yourself to correct that mistake immediately!

The only sure way to survive a zombie invasion is to avoid it! In Zombie at the Gates you play a king who must defend the castle, giving you time to construct it into a flying castle to get away from the zombie masses. Upgrade yourself and your weapons to beat back the zombies and collect the resources you need to fly your castle to safety. So long zombies!

The Empires of Arkeia are under attack and the king needs your help defending them. In this game knowing have to effectively use your forces is imperative for success against some less than friendly foes. From a casual infantry man to a trained warrior, every person counts and with experience you can help upgrade their fighting and survivability!

Looking at the title of Alexandria Bloodshow, your mind might fly all over the place wondering what genre the game represents. Sounds like a great name for a first person shooter set in ancient Egypt, right? Well, that may be, but in this case, Alexandria Bloodshow is actually a tactical card combat game that succeeds the even more unusually named SAMURAI BLOODSHOW: les vagues blanches, les nuages rouges. Yeah, that's right! Once you put the names aside, though, you'll find a couple of excellent slow-paced strategy games that will remind you of Plants vs. Zombies in some surprising ways.

Thanks to the huge success of games like "Angry Birds" and "Crush the Castle", the physics projectile genre is one of the hottest in casual gameplay of late. Smokoko's entry, King's Game, puts a twist on the style: your targets can fire back! Obviously, it would always be your best option to decimate your opponent as quickly as possible, but in this game, it can become a necessary strategy. The AI is a fairly accurate shot, and doesn't miss that often, even on the beginning levels.

Defense games are as common as smudged screens on the iOS mobile platform, but developer Simutronics has done something creatively different with Tiny Heroes, a game that has as much personality as it has evil minions at your disposal. Putting you in the role of castle owner, you must place traps and send out baddies to thwart the deluge of heroes who are after your gold. You'd think a few sawblades and a Gork or two would be enough, wouldn't you?

It's dangerous in the primordial soup, a place where infected organisms roam hungrily looking to consume or destroy anything that crosses their path. At least, that's the scenario behind the fantastic Amoebattle by Grab Games, a real-time strategy gem created for iOS devices. Inside, at the microscopic level, it's a constant state of warfare, and war is heck.

The action-packed Enigmata series gets reincarnated as a real-time tower defense game. Protect the Core from wave after wave of enemies and huge bosses by upgrading and placing ships with a variety of explosive abilities, including upgrades that persist across levels. It's a gorgeous, though somewhat chaotic, spin on the genre that sci-fi fans will want to check out.

Tower defense fans, get your fix and ease your withdrawal symptoms with booblyc's Keeper of the Grove. In this lovely addition to the genre you play the defender of a beautiful garden kingdom, recently invaded by dark rogues, mean scaly louts, and ugly abominations. And they all want your gems! Keeper of the Grove features a long list of towers and upgrades to go along with it's lovely backdrops, but don't be fooled by it's Sunday afternoon Candyland exterior...underneath all that cute lies a monster of a tower defense game that will keep hardcore fans up at night, and more casual players entertained for the day.

In FazeCat's everything-but-the-kitchen sink defense game, Paladog, Critterland has been invaded by zombies, witches, skeletons, and just about every evil little thing you can imagine, including television sets! It's up to you to fight them off, but are you dog enough to take them on over a whopping 120 levels, including special mini-games. Paladog is a big, cuddly, newspaper-fetching machine, that brings back the Sunday paper, but slobbers all over the funnies... and you love it anyway.

Orbital Defender is a great looking planetary defense game from Addictive Zone that has been acutely tuned for ease of use on mobile devices. As a lone satellite orbiting a single planet, it's your job to keep the rock safe from asteroids, comets, UFOs, and more nefarious dangers as you orbit over and over again. You can't move, only shoot, and since firing at your planet is a very bad idea, you have to play a little game of strategy as you blast foes each time you swing by.

Have you met your orc slaughtering quotient for the day? No? Good, because In Battle Panic, a new strategy defense game by Kaiparasoft, your kingdom has been overrun by the orcish horde and it's up to you to take back what's yours and bring the fight to the enemy's homeland. Nothing new here, of course, but what makes Battle Panic stand out is its controls. To build, heal, destroy, and mine, just place your cursor over the object you want to interact with, no clicking required. Finally a strategy game for the truly casual!

Well, would you look at that, another kingdom is in peril and you must defeat the king's power hungry son before it is too late. Nano Kingdoms puts you in charge of His Majesty's forces as you carve a path towards his evil son. Easy-to-figure out click controls make this realtime strategy defense game a nice choice for first time RTS players. The sounds are well-made, the art is wonderfully cartoonish, and the difficulty will leave you satisfied with your micro-managing skills.

Hexage, creator of Evac and Everlands, pits your human military prowess against endless alien swarm in this mobile tower defense game, Radiant Defense. Defense of your spiral reactor (which looks oddly like a stove burner) is the number one priority since it keeps out those pesky invaders from, you know, destroying all humans. Radiant Defense definitely keeps elements that you would always expect from the tower defense genre, but you remove the predetermined path and get the ability to create the path they will follow to their doom (hopefully). Lasers will fly, aliens will die, and the entire time your fingers will be nimbly working to hold off a rather comically bad invasion story unfold.

Attention all bibliophiles: One of your worst fears is coming true! There's an attack being staged on books by some brainless dope who left an ink bottle open in the library and now the long prophesied war between books and ink has arrived! Hah, kidding! Well, only slightly kidding. Sinister ink blots are on a single minded mission to destroy any and all books in this typing tower defense game mash-up. It's up to you to use those years of typing skills you've amassed to stave off this most horrifying battle.

The number of defense games out there is as massive as the hordes of enemies you fight in them, but Bright Sight Team's side view strategy game stands out in the horde's ranks. Epic Stand pins you down at your castle and magic is your only weapon. To defend your castle walls, click on the screen to where you want the spell to be cast and let it work its magic. The level is over when there are no enemies left standing and none of them reach your wizard's final floor.

Gotta catch defend 'em all? Sam and Dan have spent a year taking their much loved Pokémon fan game to impressive heights, and the result is a surprisingly impressive and complex tower defense game packed with all the strategy, challenge, colour, and even all 151 original Pokémon to catch. It's silly, addictive, and still tons of fun for fans and newcomers alike.

Decision is a polished zombie action-defense hybrid from Fly Anvil, and it's a bloody good time. A cool, if slightly repetitive, mixture of serious horror, logistical strategy, frenetic action, and low-key parody, Decision shows that the undead can still pack serious punch.

Dodge bombs, grab balloons and keep the city safe in this multifaceted arcade shooter. Any of this game's three phases wouldn't be all that great individually. Putting them together, though, makes for a fantastic mix. You're not stuck doing one thing for long enough that it becomes stale. Variety is the spice of life, and Bomb Diver just might be your paprika, so all you daredevils out there owe it to yourselves to give it a shot!

In the year 2049, all the water on Earth has been depleted. The nearest source of the good stuff is our friendly neighborhood Mars. So... let's go get it, shall we? Mars Commando is a defense game that emphasizes unit placement and strategy over swarms of soldiers, allowing you to earn the satisfaction of eradicating thousands of aliens with half a dozen of your own troops.

Monsters never seem to have altruistic agendas. Whether it's scarfing down brains, scaring children, or mucking about with your spreadsheets so you think you did your taxes wrong (the horror!), if a monster comes near, you should probably ready your defenses. Such is the case with Monster TD, a well-illustrated side view tower defense game from Booblyc, the same team behind the physics puzzle game Steampunk.

Vanish Rain is a zombie shooter with defense elements. You're helping devoted sister Anna survive for 15 days in zombie-infested Riverhead City as she waits for her brother's return. Wholesale slaughter of zombies will earn you money, which you can spend on new guns, upgrades and repairs during the intermission between each day.

Have you ever had a legion of avaricious specters try to mess with you as you hang out around your money tree, forcing you to break out the ectoplasmic shotguns to fend them off? If so, please let us know what it's like, since it's probably a situation most of us won't encounter in our lives. Still, we can get an incredibly simulation of it in Greed Ghouls, new from Christopher Gregorio. An action game with elements of the shooter and defense genre, it's kind of a miss-mash of competing ideas, but overall, a very entertaining one.

Surviving in a town overrun with zombies is tough. We get that. Scavenging for food, desperately hailing survivors, and attempting to expand your territory while fighting off infected hordes can tax just about anyone's resolve. And let's not even get into drafting a constitution with the undead knocking on your door! In the iOS version of Rebuild, the captivating zombie survival strategy simulation browser game from Sarah Northway, you get to do all of those things, plus repair a broken helicopter, raid a bar, and help scientists work on secret research projects!

It's rough getting thrown in the Pit. Mainly because everyone there has the Plague, and nobody ever comes out... at least, not until you. Instead of dying, you, a mild castle librarian, unlock a hidden power within yourself that lets you and your friends battle monsters on another plane... and grants you the chance to save the world. A fantastic and engaging indie game from Level Up Labs that blends strategy, tower defense, fantasy, comedy, and even RPG elements for one wildly addictive game.

New to the iPad world is the tower defense game we all love to love, Kingdom Rush HD from Ironhide Games, a port of Kingdom Rush for browsers released not too long ago. The team had a bit of a problem when an unauthorized clone appeared on the iTunes App Store weeks before release. The knockoff was spotted and eventually removed (whew), leaving space for this excellent port of an already excellent game to wow and surprise gamers in the iOS device realm!

Antony Lavalle's pirates are back with a vengeance. Using more than a pin, you'll be shooting down plenty of blobs and their kin in this tower defense, strategy game. Arm the pirates, set cannons on the ship and position many other weapons on the ground. But you'll also have to make room for the oil rigs, which fund your defenses. Fire away to earn as much grog as you can drink!

Fun, frantic, and addictive, Mushroom Madness 3 is a kicking tower defense game and a great way to vent all of your inner pent up rage and frustration on a wide variety of animals, insects, and birds. Mushroom Madness 3 has added new levels, new scenarios, and best of all many new weapons and upgrades to the mix, including a fantastic "auto-click" feature that saves the gamers' mouse finger from the muscle cramps that ensue when rapidly clicking to annihilate all of the cute and cuddly yet annoying fauna of the forest.

The bunnies are back, and so are the thumbs! In this sequel to 2010's popular defense shooter hybrid, it's your goal to help these harsh hares defend their flags and territory against incoming disembodied thumbs who are covered in snot and drive jeeps and throw hadokens... as thumbs often do, naturally. Place defenses, spend upgrade points, and earn higher rankings across a variety of stages in this wildly silly but creative game.

Sarah Northway's incredibly popular and addictive zombie survival game of strategy and simulation gets a big update in this sequel that adds more skills, more items, and a lot of other tricks and tweaks. Defend one of the sole bastions of humanity left in a sprawling city and slowly work to reclaim the rest from the zombie horde, recruiting survivors, scavenging for supplies, and dealing with hazards like raiders, zombie attacks, and even dissension in your own ranks.

Odin City - the last refuge of human kind against the resilient Creeper. It does what it can, but it's always just a matter of time before it needs to create a wormhole and travel away. You control Odin City in Knuckle Cracker's Creeper World: User Space, a strategy game consisting of user-created levels from the level editor in Creeper World. It's a great introduction to the series with an easy to pick up interface and a progression of levels which allow you to figure out the finer points before it increases in difficulty. Hey, and if you find yourself intrigued enough after 12 levels, you can always shell out the dough for the full game.

It's been five long years. You're ready to play the newest action release by LostVectors. It's Bowmaster Winter Storm! For fans of the previous BowMaster Prelude, you'll see a lot of familiar aspects of the game was carried over. Those of you who loved the first Bowmaster will pluck at the upgrade to the graphics and music, and those of you who never experienced it will simply find a good defense game in Winter Storm.

In SilenGames' latest defense shooter Granny Strikes Back, you'll help the eponymous Granny as she fends off snowmen commanded by aliens who need her raspberry jam to fuel their spaceship. Yes, you read that right. Well... what else do you use jam for? If you're a fan of the genre, you'll be hard pressed not to like this one; it's silly, beautifully designed, fun, and just like Grandma used to make.

Hey! Orcs, skeletons, giants, mosquitoes, bunnies, and evil bees! Those acorns are mine! Armed with a bow and arrows and a few other more boom-inducing weapons, Elliot Pace's Defend Your Nuts is a fast-paced defense game that puts you in the furry shoes of a squirrel perched on a tree. As evil minions tromp in from the right side of the screen, take aim and fire to send them back to the flames of Hades where they belong, keeping your winter stash safe and secure from their muck-covered paws!

Kingdom Rush has itty-bitty visuals but an ogre's worth of style and strategy. In this fantastic tower defense game, protect your kingdom's roads and countrysides against incoming hordes of goblins, bandits, wulves, and other nasties. Build towers, upgrade your army in and out of battle, take on challenges, and enjoy all the POW SOK SHUNT battling you can handle while you're at it.

Cat God vs. Sun King is an interesting volley into the defense genre: the enemy is sending waves upon waves in an attempt to build a tower, and you're purely and simply trying to destroy them all. Plus you're a cute little cat. The more you use abilities, the cheaper, quicker and more powerful they will get, up to a max of three levels per skill. Once you kill every enemy, you win the level.

You can put down your mallet; you won't be crushing any castles yourself this time! In fact, in Joey Betz and Toge Production's latest joint effort, you'll be (gasp!) protecting them! Take up the mantle of Siege Master once more in this challenging and well made tower defense game as you work with the leaders of the realm to repel troops of dangerous, numerous invaders who want nothing better than to crush your castle... hey... YOU'RE the only one who gets to do that!

Brimming with attention-to-detail, artistic touches and many customizable options, Battle Stance: Human Campaign is designed to entice every ilk of casual gamer into playing hero. The upgrades, details and customizations make this real time strategy fantasy game worth venturing.

Wikipedia tells us that the Battle of Britain was a World War II bombing campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom in mid-1940. It was the first military campaign fought nearly entirely by forces of the air, and those British that fought and prevailed inspired the famous Winston Churchill quote that "Never... was so much owed by so many to so few." And who were these few to which we owe said victory? Well, according to Black Moon Design's new real time strategy release, appropriately titled The Battle of Britain, they were a quartet of quipping, heavily-accented, impressively mustachioed flying-aces... Okay, perhaps a bit of history is lost in the adaptation, but it's fun.

In Bug Tunnel Defense, bugs are in fact our deadly enemies after an atomic war has laid waste to the rest of civilization, and they're coming for what is left of humanity. So, not much different from the present day, really, minus the radiation and the end of civilization. With 5 levels of tutorials and 40 levels of gameplay, Bug Tunnel Defense is short but entertaining. If you enjoy tower defense games, then try out Bug Tunnel Defense with its fun new twist on an old classic. And for heaven's sake, get those darn bugs before they wipe us all out.

It's not just apocalypse, it's the pocalypse, and zombies aren't the only thing you have to worry about in this beautiful, quirky little defense shooter from newcomers Green Pixel. Defend the city of New Hammerston against zombies, mutants, plant monsters, robots, and even vampires with an array of powerful weapons and abilities, and spend the cash you earn to upgrade your butt-kicking prowess.

If you were looking for a game that gives you a taste of true omnipotence, zOMT leaves something to be desired. But as a defense game, it's a great deal of fun. Being told that your godly might was at the level of "holy toast" was certainly a spur to keep playing. Conquer all fifteen levels and your power will be unquestioned! At least from here to that torch-thing.

If history has taught us anything, it's that history is neat and can make great content for video games. Case in point: Siegius, a casual real-time strategy / defense game that takes place during Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul way back in the mid-50s BC. Send units out to attack the base of the Gaul commander Vercingetorix. He's streaming soldiers as well, so you must balance defensive units with long-range fighters, melee combat specialists, and unique spells, clearing the battlefields as you march your way to victory! Hopefully!

Don't Panic is a well designed defense shooter game on all fronts. Ralph Damiano has made an incredibly fun and exciting game that doesn't let you rest on your laurels, but also takes measures to make sure you're still enjoying it. Each level can get you as excited as the one before. You play a king, or, at the very least, someone who is a crown enthusiast, and you must defend your fortress against a mad scientist and his robot minions.

Take up the mantle of Gem Keeper and protect your glittery hoard from all comers in this official level pack from tower defense maestros Iriysoft. Make strategic use of three different terrains and towers, upgrading your offensive capabilities to stand firm against hordes of powerful enemies, each with their own unique abilities. Just remember, when the going get tough, the tough rain down a fiery hail of massive meteorites.

You have a base. Some ships want to explode your base. You must explode them first! Ah, simplicity rules in the strategy, defense title, Star Forge, the latest from Hero Interactive. For those that enjoy thinking on their feet with unexpected challenges that make triumph all the sweeter, Star Forge is going to really suck you in.

Stuck between two warring forces, you seem to have no choice but to help defend Wayland Keep against its attackers. Fortunately, this is something you're really good at. Like really, really good. Take on the role of Argus, an unusually talented swordsman, and master a variety of deadly spells and abilities in this action-packed hack-and-slash fantasy game that blends defense with RPG elements for one bloody good time.

Zombies and siege weapons and physics, oh my! The community has created another great batch of levels for everyone's favourite game about doing terrible things to royalty with catapults, and added in an Undead Mode to boot. While it's nothing fans haven't seen before, it you love the series then "more of all that awesome stuff" is hardly a bad thing.

Nerdook goes intergalactic with this cute, simple to learn RTS-lite title that stars you as a bounty hunter traveling from planet to planet deploying your robot army in an effort to bring The Bad Guys(tm) to justice. Build and upgrade your army as you take on the worst the galaxy has to offer in this clever little hybrid.

Sgt. Kirley and his men thought they were finally headed home after the war, but instead they find themselves ordered to join up with enemy forces and sent to defend a massive trench, apparently in the middle of nowhere. Why? Well, it turns out zombies really like trenches (and this one is pretty sweet, amirite?), and if you want to protect this one from the new undead menace, you'll have to master your gun and handle your troops in this simple but effective shooter/defense hybrid from WootraGames.

Card games turn deadly with Cardian, the strategy/defense/action hybrid that will keep you on your toes as you scrabble to summon enough soldiers to destroy your opponent's portal before they reach yours. Unlock new cards with unique creatures, abilities, or resources in your quest to defeat the six masters of the game.

Tiles! Tiles! My kingdom for a set of appropriately matched takes! IriySoft puts a strange new spin on the defense genre in this match-3 hybrid as you take control of a set of three heroes attempting to fend off hordes of approaching enemies by creating matches on a board that summons reinforcement, heals, or even unleashes special abilities.

Rebuild is best described as a survival sim with sprinklings of defense and strategy themes. You won't be put in the thick of battle... instead you'll be managing the town, using your mouse to send survivors to do the dirty work. It's after the Zombipocalypse and you're in control of a small group of survivors trying to stay alive.

Addictive, intense and unforgiving, Shattered Colony: The Survivors is a tower defense game from Jonathan Duerig doesn't really fit the normal definitions of the genre. Your only protection against the zombie apocalypse is a rag-tag group of survivors with limited expertise and supplies. How long can you last, and will the choices you make be the ones that keep you alive, or bring about an untimely end?

Arkandian Crusade is the first chapter in the new Arkandian Legends series from Undefined, a turn-based RPG with defense elements. Create a hero who will venture out into the world at the behest of your kind to combat the demon threat. With over sixty dozens, hundreds of items, magical spells, quests, and much more, expect to be busy for a very long time indeed.

A defense shooter release from Evil Dog and Sick Death Fiend. Tis the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature is stirring, save for the hordes of demon-possessed toys that have found their way under the tree, ready to devour the sleeping bodies of Mom, Dad, and little Timmy. The only thing that stands in their way is you, your hammer and lots of tacks, a ball, a whip that cracks, and a plethora of other gift-weapons. It's six hours until sunrise, with waves of toys coming every ten minutes... as Tiny Tim would say, God help us, all of us.

Hell Yeah would most likely be the demented, over-the-top product of an experimental hybrid between Okamiden and Jack Black. Irrepressibly tongue-in-cheek, Hell Yeah is a gesture-based defense game in which you'll defend the wonders of the world against the armies of the Devil, and despite the fact it features everything from Jesus to a pizza-wielding Julius Ceasar, it's one of those rare games you just can't get mad at.

When there is no more room in hell, demons will walk the earth, stealing soft plushy toys so you can't use them to find your daughter, unless you use a combination of platforming and defense to stop them... that's, uh... how that goes, right? Nerdook delivers another clever genre hybrid, this time putting you into the shoes of one weird dad trying to save his daughter from even weirder enemies.

In the battle between man and machine, what side will you take? You are a human who has volunteered to be "digitized" in an effort to bring a halt to the rogue AIs that are plaguing cyberspace. But who can you really trust? CoreSector's tower defense strategy game is an engaging, addictive title with eye-catching aesthetics, upgrades, enemy types, and an interesting story to tell.

Bunny Flags effortlessly combines tower defense, fort survival and arena shooting—three of the most popular themes in the defense genre—into one hell of a slick, addicting little game. You play the role of "White Rabbit," a long-eared, short-tempered combat bunny who—for whatever reason—is under constant siege by a variety of mean-tempered thumbs (and the occasional hand).

From Louissi, creator of Catapult Madness and Neon Rider, Planet Noevo is a combination arena shooter, base defense and survival game where you play as a stranded space colonist trying to survive on a hostile alien planet

BigTree TopGun is a top-down shooter that employs the familiar "rotating turret" mechanic; enemy bugs enter the playing field from all angles, while each level the amount of enemy waves increases. The onslaught consists of a diverse array of evil little buggers that fly in erratic, difficult-to-hit patterns and possess innate abilities that make them immune to certain types of attack.

In Garden Gnome Carnage you control the Christmas hating gnome who is doing his best to stop an army of Santas, elves and presents from spreading cheer. Your gnome achieves this by putting a brick apartment building on wheels, attaching a rope to the chimney and whirling yourself around like a...like a gnome attached to a chimney.

What do you do when you find yourself under attack by enemy forces? You could cry, you could pray, you could break out the tambourine and try to get them to give peace a chance... or, if you're one of the mice in Nob Studio's clever puzzle/defense/strategy title, you dig up an ancient, mysterious war machine, man it with your mousey comrades, and tromp your way across fifteen levels to ultimate victory.

Wing Men is a bold stroke of simplicity for the casual strategy defense genre. While the gameplay is a little shallow and underdeveloped, that can at least partly be explained by its minimalist take on strategy gaming. It's simple and straightforward, like Wing Men Corp's take on warfare and business. "War is money?" Play to find out.

Command an array of soldiers and turrets in pursuit of various planet-conquering objections, being careful to defend your battery, because your battery is kind of important to your spaceship. Everyone knows nothing puts a damper on a day of planetary destruction like having to root around the still burning wrecks of your enemies for some jumper cables.

Think you're ready to work at the lab? Think again. B.O.B, our resident A.I., has turned on HQ, and we'll need you to strap into this giant mech and hold off his minions long enough for you to destroy him in this fast-paced shooter/defense game. Rampage around an enormous city map, but don't worry; it's just a simulation... right?

Got a hankering for tactical warfare? How about commanding an army of diverse, magical creatures and using an array of powerful spells to wreak havoc on the battlefield? That's what Epic War 4 is all about; an exciting mishmash of strategic defense and action-packed combat on--as the name implies--an epic scale.

Soldiers, make ready your spears, your griffons, your... battle mech suits? Hmmm. This fast-paced defense/strategy game puts you in command of a base you have to defend through the ages, balancing your ever-increasing troops against the growing might of an opposing force.

Banished by the peace loving Kupapians, it seems that that which made you a pariah could be what saves them from an invasion of evil monsters. Now you must raise an army and protect the very people that cast you out in this defense shooter hybrid.

Might makes right in this realtime strategy game where the goal is to overwhelm your opponent's base with your soldiers while protecting your own. And by soldiers, I mean pixels. And by pixels, I mean... no, no, I mean pixels. From Pixelante, as it would happen! A colourful, fast-paced action game where victory depends on the speed on your fingers.

Hands off my gems! Well, actually, I guess they're your gems, but you can't blame me for wanting them. Everyone else does, too; from ninja to monks to mages to heroes, everyone is marching on your horde, and it's up to you to utilize three distinct armies at your command to stop them. Gain levels, upgrade abilities, and above all else, protect your treasure!

Arm yourself with the experimental Omega cannon in this hybrid defense/shooter/resource management game as you struggle to defend your base from hostile invaders. Gather what you need to bolster your defenses, and unlock new technology to help combat the threat. From typically high-action developer Lucidrine comes a slower and more strategic title set in the great beyond.

Need a little zombie in your day? Don't we all! Play a ghoulish twist on the defense genre by placing and upgrading heroes out of harm's way to defeat the horde, or put them directly in the line of fire to make a heroic sacrifice. Just remember, be strategic! Just because it's a zombie apocalypse doesn't mean it can't be neat and orderly, darn it.

Think elves are awesome? Sure you do. That's why you want to play this clever side-scrolling game of fantasy warfare! March on an enemy castle, deploying expendable human and centaur troops, and earn cash to upgrade your army or purchase new abilities. Control your actions and control your victory!

Like being king of your castle? Best keep those orcish hordes at bay with a bit of fighting, building and training. But mostly fighting. After planting his castle on what might have been the resident sacred patch of land, a knight is facing wave after wave of orcs keen to remove him from the local scenery in Ninja Kiwi's interesting defense/hack-and-slash twist.

Some days, don't cute and furry animals just make you want to go all Ted Nugent on their...bums? Mushroom Madness 2 fulfills that inner madman in all of us who just wants to smack, smash, DESTROY! Play Mushroom Madness 2, animal control in the form of casual gameplay.

Take gardening to a whole new level in this defense title where you handle the growth of one of the last plants on Earth to help it stave off an insect invasion. You'll need to plan ahead and use your resources carefully if you want to avoid being covered in hundreds of stinging, biting, space bugs. And really, who doesn't?

Ionic is a new sci-fi strategy-shooter that joins the ranks of popular tower defense spin-offs. Enemy fighters simultaneously advance from both sides of an almost-ridiculously long and horizontal map, which represents the size and shape of your Dreadnought battleship. Instead of the usual tower-building mechanic, weapons and modules are constructed atop various "slots" scattered across the ship's hull.

Think you finally kicked your Plants vs. Zombies habit? You are so wrong. Just released on the iTunes App Store: PopCap's crazy-awesome casual defense game Plants vs. Zombies. It's got all the cherry bombing, squash pounding, sunflower sprouting, zombie dispatching wildness of the original PC/Mac download, now in the palms of your hands.

You know the old saying about not getting between a boy and his balloon? Of course you don't, since we just made that up. But in this fast-paced action/shooter/defense hybrid, you'll need to learn the value of a hot air balloon if you want to escape this strange landscape. Repair it as quickly as you can to sail off to safety, but be careful. There's a welcoming party headed your way, and it isn't very welcoming.

Crop Defenders is inspired by several tower defense sub-genres; instead of protecting a goal via strategically-placed towers along a fixed path, you're tasked with using an army of birds to guard a small patch of crops from invading rabbits, deer and other hungry wildlife.

NinjaKiwi's follow-up to its first defense game is better in (almost) every way. Protect yourself from wave after wave of enemies by mixing potions and lobbing them across a wall. Each concoction will have a different affect, allowing you to mix and create your own recipes of doom.

A unique blend of defense, action, arcade, and even physics genres results in this tasty new game from developer veteran Tyler Glaiel. Use the forces of attraction to protect your fledgling new world from incoming attackers by sending them hurtling towards one another. The action is fast, the gameplay is clever, and, perhaps best of all, you get to call yourself an environmentalist now. Congratulations!

Drawing inspiration from popular "castle defense" games like BowMaster Prelude, Elona Shooter adds a serious helping of Asian-influenced, tactical RPG mechanics. You not only get to defend your castle from swarms of oncoming monsters with a satisfying array of weapons and skills, you won't have to go at it alone; an entire tactical RPG-styled party of helpers comes to your aid, eventually.

Squishy, squelchy, and over-the-top, Trap Master is a fast and furious hybrid of defense and side-scrolling chew-em-up action, as you play a monstrous beast defending its lair from all invaders. Upgrade your abilities, install traps to waylay or crush the unwary, and unleash every cringe-worthy attack in your arsenal to be the one, the only... Trap Master! Not for the squeamish, or head-banging resistant.

What do you do when a rival inventor shows up with his band of mechanical spiders to steal the blueprints made by a fantastic machine that runs on language? Why, you strap on your vocabulary and feed the biggest, meatiest words you can think of into the machine so it can blast the intruders with a cannon! No, don't stop to think about machines using words for fuel, or how exactly one might strap their vocabulary to anything, you've got shooting to do!

In an era-spanning adventure, you'll guide the bizarrely adorable GOBTRON through epoch after epoch of pesky Earthlings who believe that the planet isn't big enough for the both of you. The trustiest weapon in your arsenal is a gob of mucus, swaying from your pink, furry nostril. Click on the snot to grab it, pull it back to ready your strike, and then release to fling the sticky missile in the opposite direction of your pull.

Defend yourself against waves of foes in space, where a click of the mouse unleashes massive explosions to decimate enemy fighters, because making peace is overrated when you have a limitless supply of missiles at your fingertips.

The undead hordes are on the march, but your back yard is standing in the way, covered with fresh, fertilized topsoil. In this cheerfully absurd melding of resource management and tower defense, you must defend your delicious brains with an assortment of warrior plants. Plants vs. Zombies is the strangest, most original game from Popcap yet.

Prince Peep is the last of the Whistle Knights, who have guarded the legendary Arrow of Time for generations against all invaders. Help Peep keep the Arrow safe in the new defense title from Super Flash Bros: The Arrow of Time.

Desktop TD Pro is a substantial new update to one of the grandfathers of tower defense, with new shiny graphics and menacing new "hopper" and "decoy" creeps. With the new Scenarios, Sprint Mode, and a completely customizable Sandbox Mode, this is a strong contender for Best Tower Defense Game Ever.

Look! Off in the horizon! Ships with flags with skulls and crossbones! And tons of peg-legged men hobbling right this way! We've got pirates on our hands, and the need to defend against them! Pirate Defense is Hero Interactive's (Storm Winds, Bubble Tanks) take on tower defense games, with a steep slant toward traps and chain reactions. Give those pirates the worst day of their pillaging life.

Orbital Decay pays homage to the Super Nintendo era of 16-bit graphics by incorporating some really cool and interesting strategy elements into the formula of a classic side-scrolling shooter. As the commander of a massive battleship, you must upgrade various weapons and fire your main cannon (the Ultragun!) to defend yourself against waves of crazy-looking alien ships.

Mofuya Defense is an excellent addition to the tower defense genre, featuring an upgradeable base that can defend itself, and a balanced power resource management system. With cute pixel graphics, a comfortable learning curve, a good number of weapons at your disposal, and additional features not found in other tower defense games, Mofuya Defense is definitely worth investing some time in.

Sin Mark is a Bowmaster Prelude-inspired side-scroller by Con Artist of Armor Games, featuring subtle strategy elements and lots of magic arrow, spell-weaving fun. It's meant to be played with your hero as mobile as possible, unlike many of the static, turret-defending bow-and-arrow games in this genre. Progressing through a series of levels battling waves of Middle Earth-type monsters, you'll extract magic from "Rune Stones" to build a larger arsenal of offensive and defensive spells, all of which are cast from your trusty bow.

Not satisfied simply to have won second place in our last competition, game designer Lars Doucet has been busy reworking, researching, and refining his entry, the strategic defense game Super Energy Apocalypse. We are proud to announce that the full-fledged game has now been released!