Hold the village. Shape the path.
Skeletons are climbing out of the old dungeon and heading for your gate. They always take the shortest way there, and every hero and wall you place changes what that is.
For iPhone and iPad. Android is coming soon. Start free.
Every foe walks the shortest route from the dungeon doors to the village. Drop a Fighter or a few stone walls in the way and they find a new route, so you're really building a maze.
Wind them past your Ranger, under the Wizard's frost and into the Warlock's Fireball. You can make the path as long as you like, but you can't close it off. The game always leaves them a way through.
Each one fights differently and has three upgrade tracks with room for five upgrades. Two Druids on the same map can end up doing very different jobs.
Sword
Holds the line with sword and shield. Cheap, and hits whatever walks past.
Arrows
Long range. Hunter's Mark makes a foe take more damage from everyone.
Ray of Frost
Chills foes and slows them down. Learns to split the ray, and lights the dark at night.
Thunderwave
Hits everything nearby. With Gale it throws foes back so they walk your maze twice.
Chain Lightning
Leaps from foe to foe. Very good when the crowd bunches up.
Fireball
A long wait between casts, then a huge blast on the thickest part of the crowd.
Magic Missile
Darts that never miss. The only hero who can hit foes flying over your maze.
Bless & Sacred Flame
Blesses nearby heroes so they hit harder. Her light pushes back the dark.
Tap a hero to see what it's dealt and pick its next upgrade. Each one you buy makes the next a little dearer, so spreading gold around often goes further than maxing out a favourite.
Gold comes from kills and from starting waves. Call the next wave early while the last is still walking and you get a bonus, if you trust your maze to hold.
Foes shrug off different kinds of damage, so no single hero wins every level. Read the wave strip and mix your defence to suit.
Rattles along the shortest way in. Brittle bones crack under thunder.
Light and quick. Easy to drop if you can catch it.
Shield and helm turn aside blades and arrows. Spells work better.
Raised in the frozen crypts. Cold does nothing to it.
Raises fresh skeletons as it walks. Bring it down first.
Ignores your maze and smashes any wall you haven't reinforced.
Burns from the inside, so fire can't hurt it. Fast, too.
Flies straight over everything. Only Magic Missile can reach it.
Stops to shoot at your heroes. Enough bolts knock one out for a while.
Boss
A huge pile of bones in armour. Weapons and frost barely scratch it, and it costs two lives if it gets through.
Boss
Master of the dungeon. Waits at the end of each region and raises skeletons as it walks.
Twenty hand-made levels across two regions, the Hearthlands and the Barrow Wilds. Win a level by day and its night version opens. Same map, but in the dark, where foes outside the light shrug off a good part of every hit.
Light comes from Lantern Posts, Wizards and Clerics, so you're placing heroes for two reasons at once. Some levels change the rules too: one has no room for walls, another only fits five heroes, and on one the foes move faster than usual.
Keep all ten lives for three stars. There are 120 of them to collect.
Endless mode takes you back to The Broken Keep with no limit on heroes. The dead keep coming, each wave a little tougher than the last, and night falls every six waves.
Everyone faces the same waves, so the leaderboard is a fair fight. Your score is how many waves you clear, posted to Game Center on iPhone and iPad. Google Play Games support arrives with the Android version, coming soon.
There are 25 achievements to earn as well, from winning your first level to clearing 50 waves in Endless.
The opening levels are free, tutorial included. If you want to keep going, one purchase opens up every level, by day and by night, plus Endless mode.
You pay once and that's it.
The opening levels are free to play. One purchase opens up every other level, by day and by night, along with Endless mode. There are no ads and no subscription.
No. RattleVale plays offline and keeps your progress on your device. You only need a connection to send Endless scores and achievements to Game Center or Google Play Games.
The first level walks you through the basics and the early levels ease you in. Three stars on later levels, and the night versions, need a proper plan.
Endless mode takes place in The Broken Keep with no limit on heroes. Waves keep coming and get tougher as you go, with night falling every six waves. Everyone faces the same waves, and your score on the leaderboard is how many you clear. It comes with the one-time purchase.
No. There always has to be a way through, and the game won't let you place a hero or wall that would close the last one. Making that way as long as possible is the whole idea.
Only anonymous play data, such as which levels people win or lose, sent to GameAnalytics so we can tune the difficulty. There's no account, nothing is linked to your name and we never sell data. If you use Game Center or Google Play Games, your scores and achievements are handled by Apple or Google. The privacy policy has the details.
Fireball, Thunderwave, Ray of Frost and the rest come from the System Reference Document 5.1, which is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.