UPDATEDTower Defense
Riftline
Ten towers, thirty hand-tuned waves, then endless. Every tower forks at level 3 and the choice is permanent.
What it is
Ten towers, thirty waves
Tower defense with a draft on top. Ten towers on a nine-sector board, thirty hand-tuned waves ending on a BROODMOTHER, then endless. Waves 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 25 stop the run and offer one of three rift echoes that rewrite what the rest of it does; from wave 10 you can extract and bank the result instead of dying for it.
How to play
Controls, then the numbers that matter
Every tower forks at level 3 into two exclusive specialisations and there is no undo. SPITTER picks SPLINTER (darts pierce 3) or AUTOFIRE (+90% rate, -25% damage per dart); MORTAR picks CLUSTER (3 bomblets) or NAPALM (4s burning ground). Pick against the next waves, not the bigger number.
Bulwarks carry 9 armour and Warders sit behind a 160-point shield, and every enemy gains +1 armour per 6 waves on top. Chill them with a CRYO COIL running BRITTLE (+38% damage taken from everything) and the whole board hits harder for free.
Drafts land on waves 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 25 — six rift echoes out of a 34-card pool, one of three offered each time, lasting only until the run ends. Selling refunds 70% of everything spent, so repositioning after a draft is cheap.
From wave 10, X extracts in the prep phase and banks the run as a hold. Pushing on pays a bigger record, but a leak past the RIFT COLOSSUS (4600 HP, 16 armour, 600 shield) costs 6 core at once — on APEX you only have 6.
Everything is unlocked by holding a wave, never by grinding: ARC NODE at 5, OVERCLOCK at 10, SPORE SPIRE at 12, RAILGUN at 16, COLLAPSE at 20, contracts at 20, RECLAIMER at 33, APEX at 35, THE GAUNTLET at 38, RIFTBORN at 40. Nothing on the ladder makes a tower stronger.
After a run, Briefing (or Esc) goes back to the start screen to pick a sector, threat or contract the run just unlocked and see the feats, codex and quests it moved; Enter or Redeploy repeats the same setup.
The Daily tab rolls one operation off the Taipei date, the same for every player: a sector (lent for the day if you have not reached it), STEADY or RIFT, two imposed contracts and one of eight directives. It scores waves held × the contracts' multiplier, keeps your best for the day, and Copy result puts the line on your clipboard; its three quests complete in any run that day. The streak counts days you hold wave 5 on it, keeps your best streak and days played, and buys nothing.
Trophies
32 trophies
Sign in and the ones you earn light up here and on your account.
Depth
- LINE HELD: all thirty waves
- FIRST BLOOD: the first kill
- DECADE: hold wave 10
- PAST THE TABLE: hold wave 35
- FORTY DEEP: hold wave 40
Discipline
- CLEAN SWEEP: wave 10, no breach
- UNBROKEN: wave 20, no breach
- MONOCULTURE: wave 15, one tower type
- SPARSE LINE: wave 15, 4 towers or fewer
- OMNIVORE: wave 20, 5 tower types or more
Threat and terms
- APEX HELD: wave 20 on APEX
- APEX THIRTY: wave 30 on APEX
- SILENT LINE: wave 20, powers dark
- OWN TERMS: wave 20, 3 contracts or more
- HEAVY TERMS: a run worth ×3.00 or more
Economy and powers
- ECONOMIST: 2,000 scrap at wave end
- RECLAMATION: 1,200 scrap reclaimed
- ENCHANTER: three enchants, one tower
- FULL HOUSE: all six echoes in a run
- COLD WAR: 200 frozen in one run
- ARTILLERY: twelve powers in one run
The stable
- COLOSSUS DOWN: a RIFT COLOSSUS
- UNPLUGGED: THE SIPHON down
- HATCHERY: a BROODMOTHER down
- ANCHORED: THE UNMOORED down
- THE STABLE: all four bosses down
- IRONCLAD: a Juggernaut in 3 seconds
Endings
- ON YOUR TERMS: extract a run
- EXTRACTOR: extract on exactly wave 30
Daily
- DAILY: a first daily operation
- ALL THREE: a day's three quests done
- SEVEN DAYS: a seven-day daily streak
What players say
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From the changelog
What changed
StuStudios 2.2
- Riftline’s daily operation is now the same board for every player each day, and every feat on the Feats board, plus three daily trophies, shows in your trophy case.
Riftline: SPINDLE turns teal
- SPINDLE, the beam that sweeps and cannot be dodged, is teal now, on its shop chip and on the field. It was the one violet thing in a game whose palette refuses violet, and teal was the one gap on the tower wheel, so no two towers look alike. Nothing about how it plays has changed.
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