How it plays

A tower defence for two, played a turn at a time with a small deck of cards. You and your rival each have a base and your own copy of the same map: one winding path and a dozen tiles beside it. Every card is two things: send it along your rival's path as units, which walk it once and come back round in your deck, or build it on one of your tiles as a tower, which stays and guards.

Both of you plan in secret and lock in. Then both plans play out at once. You never see what your rival holds or where it is going until it is too late to answer it, so the game is reading them: what they will send, where they have left a gap in range, and what must still be in their deck.

Two sides, one set of rules

One player is Coquette, all bows and lace; the other is Goth, all bats and candlelight. They look nothing alike and play by the same rules. The shuffle is the only chance: the same two plans always end the same way.

What to know before a first match

Only units hurt a base. Towers alone hold out for a while and never win.
Where a tower stands matters. It fires at what walks within its range, so a tile that sees more of the path is worth more. Hover a tile to see what it reaches.
A Swarm is four Runners, all leaving at once, or a Shooter, a Heavy a Brute or a Cannon, and a Breaker a Breaker, which knocks down a tower as it passes, or a Wall for it to knock down first. An Escort is two Shields, which hurt nobody but draw every tower's fire, or a Mortar, which hits every unit in its range. A Rush is five Runners, or a Sniper, which reaches far along the path and shoots whichever unit is furthest along it.
Shooters stop Runners and Cannons stop Brutes. A Cannon is wasted on a Runner.
Some cards do something else. Rebuild, Draw and Recycle have no unit and no tower: played, each takes a place in your hand and does its one thing, from a bigger next hand to a fallen tower standing again. You take them into your deck like any other card.
Order your wave. Units walk in the order you set, one released each step: a Brute in front soaks up fire for the Runners behind it.
Building thins your deck. A card built is out of it, so each turn you may take one new card by leaving a card in your hand unplayed.
No stalling. You can resign a match, and claim it if your rival leaves.

When both plans are locked the turn plays out in front of you: the waves walk, the towers fire, and a base that falls closes its doors for the night. Tower is for a desktop screen, and this is an early version, still being tuned by play.