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Tower Defense Simulator - TV Tropes

  • ️Mon Jul 26 2021

Tower Defense Simulator (Video Game)

In this world, no one can survive alone... note 

Tower Defense Simulator is a Co-Op Multiplayer Tower Defense game inspired by Tower Battles in Roblox mainly made by the users BelowNatural and Razuatix. Up to four players can team up and use their towers to defend against the oncoming horde of zombies. There are Four main modes, Easy, Casual, Intermediate, Molten and Fallen, with additional modes including Hardcore, Nuclear, Badlands, Pizzeria, and Events. If the team manages to survive a certain number of rounds, they receive Triumph rewards.

You can play the game for free here.

In these tropes, no one can survive alone...

  • Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
    • Military Base vehicles can pass through eachother on maps with intersections (eg. Honey Valley) or when a faster vehicle overtakes a slower one. Realistically, they'd crash into eachother, especially in the former example, and probably explode, as seen by Every Car Is a Pinto below.
    • Fire and Freezing towers do not negatively affect each other and are in fact extremely effective when used together, despite the obvious real life counter of fire and ice. Curiously, this use to be subverted as this counter was once present in the game, but it was removed in the Hexscape Event update for inexplicable reasons, likely for balancing.
  • Ace Pilot: One of the towers is literally named after this trope. being a plane that spins around in a circle and will shoot any enemies if it's range can detect them. There is also a Militant skin called Ace Pilot (based on Zero Two from DARLING in the FRANXX) as well.
  • And I Must Scream: In Sandbox Mode, the Void Reaver could get stuck after using an attack. He won't move an inch until he Turns Red at half HP. And if he's on his own with no towers in sight, well. Subverted as of v1.53.0, where this was fixed. Double Subverted because now the Gold Titan can rarely get stuck instead.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • If someone disconnects in the middle of the round, any towers they bought will stay on the map to keep providing support for the remaining player(s).
    • When opening a skin crate, you cannot get duplicate skins, unless you decide to open one but have obtained all skins of towers you have.
    • Logbooks have a pity count of 60. Killing 60 of the same enemy, be it the Normal or Nuclear Monster will give their logbook guaranteed.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The maximum towers you can place overall is 40 in solo runs. This increases overall with more players, up to 80 towers with 4 players.note  Additionally, some towers, such as the Accelerator, have their own limits, which is per player instead of global.
  • Area of Effect: Two of the melee towers: Gladiator and Sledger. Some bosses can also deal AOE stuns by stomping or their weapon.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: The Pyromancer, Freezer, Electroshocker, and Frost Blaster can lower defense and along with certain other towers, can deal damage to Lead enemies, which are immune to normal weaponry.
  • Artificial Brilliance: Rangers and other cliff towers won't all shoot an enemy at once if they'd overkill it. If the enemy can be killed in one shot, only one will shoot, and the others will either target the next enemy in line or not shoot at all.
  • Asteroids Monster: A few enemies can split or downgrade when it dies, like the Breakers. A Breaker4 becomes 3 Breaker3s, which become a Breaker2, which becomes a Breaker. Breakers and Breaker3s never spawn naturally at all.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: These towers can become this if they're too expensive, especially with their max level upgrades. Special shoutout goes to these:
    • Accelerator: Formerly considered one of the strongest towers in the game due to its attack, which deals lots of damage with a fast firerate, but costs $5000 to place down, has a overcharge and cooldown system, and maxing one out costs $51,950 without a DJ. It also has a placement limit of 8. Power Creep has made it not as useful nowadays.
    • Turret: Considered up there with Accelerator, but is the second-most expensive tower in the game ($105,500), with the placement cost being $6,000, and you can only place 3 down.
    • Pursuit: Costs $3000 to place down, and has two upgrade paths on later levels with more expensive costs. One path focuses on DPS while the other focuses on improved AOE/Splash Damage. Is considered a good substitute to the Accelerator.
    • Engineer: Total cost to max out this overpowered tower (which can deploy sentries based on the tower's level, with Level 6 having sentries that shoot missiles) without a DJ is $52,400. This is the third-most expensive tower to max out. Can detect Hidden enemies and Flying enemies at Level 2, and their sentries can damage Lead enemies at Level 6. Has a placement limit of 6.
    • Gatling Gun: Thanks to its FPS Mode, it became the first-ever tower to be manually controlled by the player to attack the enemies. Even with super expensive upgrade costs to maximize it's full potential, the Gatling Gun is super useful in-game when it comes to stopping any enemies... Be it crowds and bosses, and it can target hidden and flying enemies even when manually controlled at lower levels.
  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Invoked by the Dispatcher in the Operation I.C.E event. When she finds out that Sentinel Ramiel, one of the children of Exo was the person who broke into the control room, and he was posing as a janitor, she says she'll send the person who hired him to the Grave Digger. Possible subverted, because Ramiel sneaked in on his own and nobody hired him, but she might be referring to who allowed him in, knowing who he is from the Hexscape event.
  • Bee-Bee Gun: The Swarmer, which throws bees at first that induce a Damage Over Time effect on the enemy, and when upgraded, has an actual bee gun that fires bees. Although as of right now it's considered to be one of the worst towers in the game.
  • The Big Bad Shuffle: When TDS came out in 2019, it had No Antagonist. Two weeks later, the Molten Boss was added as the first Big Bad. On August 2nd 2019, the Gold Titan was added, making him the Big Bad. Then in the MEGA update on 13 October, the Fallen King became the Big Bad due to being the Final Boss of the hardest gamemode. A year later, with the release of Hardcore Mode, the Void Reaver arrived and cemented himself as The Man Behind the Man to the previous bosses (except Gold Titan, who got Put on a Bus instead), making him the Big Bad, and he still is today.
  • Bland-Name Product: The Bolt has two batteries labeled "Durablox", obviously a reference to Duracell.
  • Bloodier and Gorier: Pizza Party and the Hexscape event both have a blood modifier which makes the enemies drop blood puddles upon death. The description jokes it's actually pizza sauce.
  • Boring, but Practical: A few early game towers can take care of the early waves by themselves.
    • Scout: One of two starting towers in the game, and was reworked in the Solar Eclipse Update so it could easily take on early waves when placed in groups. Its Golden Perk makes it even better.
    • Demoman: Cheap and causes splash damage and a group of these can hold their own in Molten Mode.
    • Soldier: A burst tower that can take care of early waves in Molten Mode, and is fairly cheap. Can detect flying enemies when its Golden Perk is activated.
    • Pyromancer: Considered a good tower (albeit not the best or most used) and has its uses in events with multiple lanes next to each other, like on Outpost 32 in the Frost Invasion or Totality Tower in the Solar Eclipse. If it's a Golden Pyromancer though, then you have yourself a tower that can deal with the early game enemies well (and it can detect Hidden enemies at base level) and can remain relevant in the late game through defense dropping and extra DPS.
    • Farm: Can't attack, but can give money at the start of a wave.
    • Shotgunner: A group can take on multiple waves, especially when the enemies are tightly packed together.
    • Hunter: Is one of the four ground towers that can detect flying enemies and is fairly cheap, dealing medium DPS.
    • Cowboy: Can attack and give cash every 6 shots.
  • Boss Bonanza: Hardcore Mode has five bosses in total, the Grave Digger, Molten Boss, Fallen Swordmaster, Fallen King and Void Reaver.
  • Boss Rush: Polluted Wasteland II has a boss in every wave starting from 19. In order, there's the Super Slime, Abomination, Super Toxic, Templar, Necromancer King, Nuclear Guardian and Nuclear Monster.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: In the Pls Donate event, the latter game's creator, Haz3mm touches a mysterious fragment that corrupts him, making him evil and send enemies to attack a pile of robux. If it were to be destroyed or stolen, the realm that the event takes place in would go dark. He would then actually show up on the final wave of the event.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: Polluted Wasteland II. Despite only having 25 waves, every wave is difficult, even for groups, with all of the enemies having extremely high health for their debuts, a Boss Rush in the later waves and the final boss having up to 2.1 million HP, depending on how many players you have.
  • The Bus Came Back:
    • Occasionally, an event will reuse previous event enemies, giving them an improved look and altered stats. Sometimes even the event bosses return. This has happened to, in order: Ducky D00M, Jack-O-Botnote , Krampus and the Frost Spirit. Additionally, the Jaxe from the Nightmare Carnival event got promoted from Boss in Mook Clothing to a full boss, albeit with his HP reduced to make him an Early-Bird Boss.
    • When Pizza Party got updated on 22 January 2025, several enemies from the Lunar Overture event returned with altered stats. Most notable is the Executioner Plush boss, who had it's HP increased significantly. This repeated itself 2 weeks later with the Badlands II mini rework, with the Giant Skeleton from the Lunar Overture event, and the Withered and Conjurer from the Hexscape event. And again with the Polluted Wasteland II mini rework, with the Overgrowth, Hex Weaver and Hex Corpse.
  • Bus Crash: Happened to the Gold Titan, the boss of the removed Golden Mode. In October 2020, the mode was removed alongside the boss because it was buggy in several aspects and generally disliked by the fanbase at the time, although they were kept in the code, and the Gold Titan even got it's HP buffed from 80,000 to 100,000. In July 2022, nearly 2 years later, the map Gilded Path was added. In it, we find the dead body of the Gold Titan and several Golden Mooks. Ironically, in December 2024, it made a temporary return in Sandbox Mode if you had the Admin gamepass, and it could be spawned in Gilded Path itself, leading it to see it's own corpse. However, it was even more buggy (the Gold Titan literally had no abilities anymore) so was Put on a Bus again, but will be added back for real some time in the future.
    • Also could have arguably happened to the Nuclear Fallen King, the Superboss of the original Polluted Wasteland, when Polluted Wasteland II came out, since the new one essentially eliminated any chance of him returning normally, even though it was never mentioned he was Killed Off for Real or anything else happened to him. Although he might get added to Admin Mode in the future, this still applies to the main game (same for the Gold Titan above)
  • Challenge Run: Challenge Maps, unlocked at Level 50. There are six of them, and they are:
    • Juggernaut: All enemies have Bloated, and enemies introduced before Wave 20 have the Tank attribute.
    • Jailed Towers: Starting from Wave 6, one tower type will be "jailed" per wave, preventing them from doing anything or being interacted with.
    • Back to Basics: You can only use the Scout, Sniper, Soldier, Demoman and Hunter.
    • Legion: There are twice as many enemies, including two Fallen Kings.
    • Oops! All Slimes: Every enemy has the Slime attribute, making it drop a Slime from Intermediate Mode on death. Oh, and the Nuclear Monster appears for no reason, with half the HP it normally has.
    • Vanguard: All enemies have Nimble, making them twice as fast.
  • Crossover: The Pls Donate Collaboration Event is the first instance of full-fledged game collaboration event. It also features limited-time skins based on the elements of the said game.
  • Crutch Character:
    • Crook Boss: From level 0, guards can spawn, walking down the track, firing at enemies in their range. When maxed out and if there are multiple Crook Bosses, then the amount of guards spawned is massive. At the same time, the guards won't be able to kill stronger enemies such as bosses right away compared to in earlier waves and will thus get plowed through and die.
    • Military Base: Spawns cars/trucks (and when upgraded, tanks) and is very cheap when starting a game. Able to hold off the first waves, depending on track length. It also suffers the same problem as Crook Boss of the spawned units struggling to kill late-game enemies before they can destroy the spawned vehicles, only said vehicles have no way to stop moving towards the enemy (even when getting a turret once upgraded enough) and will thus ram into the enemy and explode sooner than the Crook Boss guards will die.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Double Subverted: When losing, you'll have to start that match again from Wave 1 (unless you use a Revival Ticket, but those tend to be unavailable due to bugs), but you do still gain coins (or in Hardcore, gems) and XP, just not as many as a Triumph would.
  • Defeat Equals Explosion:
    • The Molten Warlord directly explodes after defeat, as does any type of Boomer.
    • The Nuclear Monster, and to a lesser extent Wox also have explosions upon defeat, but don't blast into pieces (actually Wox will have already been reduced to his skeleton by then, as body parts explode as his HP is depleted).
  • Degraded Boss: The game will often introduce "Boss" enemies by spawning one at the end of a wave, only for their numbers to increase as the round progresses further.
  • Dem Bones: Skeletons, naturally. They also have four variants in Fallen Mode or special maps. There is also the Gunslinger, who is also clearly a skeleton as well.
  • Developer's Foresight: At the time the new achievements system came out in v1.58.0, Polluted Wasteland II was impossible to solo. That didn't stop the developers from adding a Shadow Achievement, "The Cure" in the event somebody soloed it anyway, which happened due to the addition of the Biologist tower and her ability to stunlock the Nuclear Monster until he hit half HP. As a result, the achievement wasn't discovered until 22 April 2025.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Ducky D00M isn't actually the final boss of the Ducky Revenge event's Hard difficulty, there is 3 more waves after, with a new boss, the Nerd Duck's bunny mech on Wave 33.
  • Easier Than Easy: Honey Valley. It is the only map in the game classified as "Very Easy" instead of "Easy", and the 3 circular loops close together prove this, having the easiest early-game of any map, and moving towers is usually unnecessary. However, it gives 30% less rewards than other maps...or it would, if a bug happened to disable that and make it give normal rewards.
  • Easy-Mode Mockery: Some events, mainly ones tied in with official Roblox events, have an Easy Mode and a Hard Mode, with the former providing free towers to use and in the latter, you bring your own towers.note  You either would not earn the event tower upon beating Easy mode, or obtain a weak tower instead of the main event tower. However, Easy mode completion would be mandatory to get the badges for the Roblox event.
    • In the Ducky Revenge event, you wouldn't get to see the actual final boss of the event on Easy mode, with it ending on Wave 30. Only by playing on Hard mode would you be able to fight the last 3 waves. However, there would still be a proper ending, matching the Hard mode one, only with a different robot wreckage.
    • Additionally, the map Honey Valley is classified as a "Very Easy" map, and is supposed to have reduced rewards compared to other maps. Thanks to a bug, this doesn't occur.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: Occurs when you click the Sell All button in Sandbox Mode, as every tower just vanishes on the spot.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: All units from the Military Base burst into flames when their HP reaches zero (or they hit a Siege Engine)
  • Everything Fades: For both towers and enemies
    • When a tower is sold, it just disappears entirely, with nothing left.
    • For enemies, most of them vanish instantly. Some enemies have a death animation, but they fade the same way a few seconds after the animation completes. Subverted for the Fallen King, as he instead floats up and disintegrates, the Frost Spirit, who falls into a portal, and The Void Reaver, who fades away Thanos style instead.
  • Evil Is Bigger: All major bosses are significantly larger than the towers.
  • Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Some enemies appear in multiple gamemodes, so the Survival and Hardcore bosses get along pretty well, even if they're not in one big army. In Hardcore mode, some previous bossesnote  form a Legion of Doom with the two new Hardcore bosses.
  • Evil Knockoff: All the Hostile Animatronics from Pizza Party are knockoffs of the Scout, Shotgunner, Commander and Minigunner. Don't let their shoddy appearences fool you, they're no joke.
  • Excuse Plot: Lots of zombies (and experiments, molten and fallen enemies) are invading our bases for no apparent reason. That's all we get outside of events. However, the addition of lore into the Monster Compendium should give us more information, once the lore is complete for regular enemies.
  • Faceless Goons: A lot of enemies in the game, including most early-game ones, have no face. As an extreme example, the Fallen King in Hardcore Mode also doesn't have a face, until he Turns Red.
  • Fake Ultimate Mook:
    • Packed Ice can count, particually on Easy. They look pretty intimidating, especially with Bloated, but they only have 250 health (albeit 100% defense, so it's essentially double that), and aren't a serious threat.
    • Slow Kings. Despite having a pretty intimidating name, they only have 8,000 HP including the shield, which isn't much by their debut on Wave 41.
  • Fallen Angel: There's an enemy in Fallen Mode literally named after this, and yes, they are trying to kill you. Also, the quest for the Fallen Medic skin is also called Fallen Angel, but they're on your side.
  • Fallen Hero: Subverted. There's an enemy named Fallen Hero, also in Fallen Mode (and a variant in Hardcore Mode, and another variant in the SFOTH event), but as far as we know, they were never good to begin with. Then again we don't really know the lore behind all the Fallens.
  • For the Evulz: The game doesn't have too much lore, so the reason why most enemies attack you (especially outside of events) comes down to this, if not being a Generic Doomsday Villain.
  • Fragile Speedster: Typically, the faster the enemies are, the less health they have, with exception to some bosses. The average health, however, increases with each wave.
  • Fun with Acronyms: In the Operation I.C.E event, the I.C.E stands for Intercept Command and Eliminate.
  • Fusion Dance: The Snow Golem. The ingame lore states it's made from several Snowmen merging together. When killed, it splits back.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: The ending cutscene in the Ducky Revenge event's Hard mode is different from the Easy mode one, due to their different Final Boss, with a wrecked Ducky D00M III on Easy mode, and a wrecked bunny mech on Hard mode.
  • Giant Mook: Bloated enemies. They're bigger than their ordinary counterparts, and have twice the HPnote  as well. In Sandbox Mode, it can apply to every enemy, even the Nuclear Monster!
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere:
    • The Molten Boss in Hardcore Mode comes out of nowhere, has nothing to do with the Void Reaver, note  it's relationship to the Molten Warlord is unknown and it's never mentioned again after it's defeated, unless you get a quest to kill it or obtain it's logbook.
    • The Primordial Drakobloxxer. Despite being hyped up by the developers prior to the release of Night 3 of the Hexscape event, it's appearence ingame is only teased by the occasional roar every couple waves, and on Wave 30, it just emerges from the portal with little fanfare. Lampshaded by the Dispatcher, who thought it wasn't real; she even mispells it's name:

    Dispatcher: "Dear god.. it's a Draklobloxxer[sic], I thought they were merely.. a myth!"

    • The Headless Jaxe in Night 4 of the Solar Eclipse event. It just shows up on Wave 10 with zero fanfare or foreshadowing, with players assuming Jaxe died in Night 1; even The Umbra doesn't even mention it.
    • The Creator, of the legacy Hidden Wave. In a similar vein to The final stage of F-Zero GX, it appears out of nowhere in the climax of the Hidden Wave, with little foreshadowing, and after it's defeated, it's never mentioned again unless you retrigger it.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority: Those towers with golden rays shining (Golden Perk Enabled) have much better performance compared to their vanilla counterparts. However, it may come at the cost of the placement and upgrade price increasing.
  • The Goomba:
    • The first enemies of any game are typically the easiest to deal with (context: allow you to farm and tank damage), with exception to Nights 3 and 4 of the Solar Eclipse.
  • The Gunslinger: The boss of Badlands II is named after this trope. And he's no pushover...
  • Harder Than Hard:
    • If Fallen Mode is hard mode, Hardcore Mode (and the special maps, possibly excluding Pizza Party), are this.
    • The Operation I.C.E event had an "Elite" mode that can be triggered midway through the event. To activate it, you must first beat the event on Easy (Hard doesn't count), collect 8 radio parts across the map, then go to the walkie-talkie, and type "Operation I.C.E" into it. However, the only thing it does is buff the Frost Spirit's HP by 50%.
  • Have a Nice Death: When you lose a match, the Commander will say one of the following lines:
  • Heel–Face Turn: The Nerd Duck, the Arc Villain of the Ducky Revenge event, seems to do this after he's defeated, via Professor V offering him bread in exchange for him working for them, and repairing the portal they use to get bread.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: A post-event example. In both the Violent Night (Winter 2022) and Krampus' Revenge (2023) events, the elves end up Brainwashed and Crazy from an unknown source. On the last wave of the latter event, it is revealed they were being controlled by, you guessed it, Krampus. So as a result, it is likely he was behind the events of Violent Night, triggering the trope, because a year after the event, it was revealed an old villain was behind it, as he was also the Final Boss of the Winter 2019 event.
  • Hostile Animatronics: The Scout, Shotgunner, Commander and Minigunner enemies in Pizza Party, as well as it's boss, Wox the Fox. The former four are copies of the towers of the same name, the latter is an Expy of Foxy from Five Nights at Freddy's.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: The Gatling Gun tower is very difficult to obtain, unlocking at level 175 and needing 35,000 coins to unlock, but is extremely powerful, being able to be controlled, giving it infinite range, and it does 700 DPS when maxed out. And that's without buffs.
  • Invincible Minor Minion: Siege Engines are technically enemies, and the code treats them as such. They are completely unkillable, and towers don't even bother to target them. Subverted since a way to kill them was discovered. See the Lord British Postulate section for how to kill them.
  • Joke Character: The Paintballer. It is the cheapest tower to unlock in the shop, but it has poor range, low DPS, horrible cost-efficiency and even though it does Splash Damage, it cannot hit more than 5 enemies per hit. Even when it was buffed in July 2024, the devs realised it was too good at it's job and so 5 days later, they added a maximum hit count of 3, later increased to 5 as above. It is still arguably the worst tower in the game, along with the Swarmer, Hallowpunk and Snowballer. The latter two are easy to obtain event towers since you could solo the entire Hexscape/Operation I.C.E events on Easy right away thanks to the freely provided towers. As for the Swarmer, it's just extremely outdated and has extremely low unstackable DPS.
  • Kill It with Ice:
    • Several towers, such as the Freezer and Sledger can freeze enemies.
    • Towers can actually die in this way in the 2024 Operation I.C.E event if the players place them in the wrong areas. However players can prevent this by selling them before it happens, or knowing what areas get bombarded and not putting anything on those spots.
  • Large and in Charge: All major bosses are bigger than any other enemy in the game. The one exception to the last part is the Fallen Honor Guard, who's bigger than the Grave Digger, Patient Zero and the Legacy Frost Spirit, as can be seen here◊ However, the Fallen King, the final boss of Fallen Mode (the same difficulty the Fallen Honor Guard is in) is bigger than the Honor Guard, so it's still played straight.
  • Legion of Doom: The Grave Digger, Molten Warlord (renamed to Molten Boss) and Fallen King form one in Hardcore mode, alongside new bosses Fallen Swordmasternote  and Void Reaver. Played with, as the returning bosses are alternate versions of them with different stats and abilities.
  • Level Grinding: The most tedious (but important) part of the TDS is to grind for coins and gems, meaning you have to play several rounds in a day just to get a tower(s).
    • In events, it can turn into Logical Extreme mode as the events will often award event towers in special event maps (which are usually very difficult and/or tedious) and will contain battlepasses which contain skins and other rewards by utilizing a special event currency. They're gained either by winning rounds during the event (with the event map giving the most) or in recent times, enemies randomly spawn with an accessory and when killed, drop the currency items.
  • Lord British Postulate: Siege Engines are normally invincible, as explained above, but there is a way to kill them. To do this, you need to use Pumpkin Bombs to remove the No Target and God modifiers, then it'll have 50,000 HP and you can kill it either with long range towers on Last targetting, or dropping a nuke on it. Destroying it won't affect enemies coming from it, so they'll just pop into existence where the siege engine once stood, but can drop a logbook if you kill 20 of them (or get lucky and get it sooner). Lampshaded in the description of it's logbook:

    "The Frost Spawner used in Outpost 32 to take down the Outpost's defenses. How did you get this anyways?!?"

  • The Man Behind the Man: The Void Reaver to the main mode bosses, upon the release of Hardcore Mode, as they reappear in the mode.
  • Mighty Glacier: The slower an enemy is, typically the more health they have, with some even having defense.
    • Special shoutout goes to the bosses, which all have extremely high amounts of health and very punishing moves, including a Shockwave Stomp which would stun all towers in range. The Umbra, Void Reaver, Ducky D00M's 2022 version and Mecha-Claus can even damage the base. (Umbra: can shoot base with a bow and arrow and deal 20 Damage. Void Reaver: throws sword that instantly reduces base HP to 1. Ducky D00M: Charges with chainsaws out towards the base, dealing 100 Damage, but the event that they are in includes the ability to increase the max health of the base to 1910.)
  • Misplaced Retribution: The Ducky Revenge event has us enter the duck realm to retrieve a God Cube fragment there. However, you're attacked by ducks who are starving because their bread supply got cut off by the events of Operation I.C.E. This is despite the fact that it might have been the Children of Exo who sabotaged it, and the Dispatcher says the whole thing is a misunderstanding, but can't reason with the revenge-driven ducks until they're all defeated, at which point Professor V recruits the Nerd Duck via a bread offering, making the latter do a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Monster Compendium: There is an index that allows you to view all enemies you've collected the pages for. You'll be able to view lore about the enemies, giving us proper backstories for the bosses other than "They invade you because they can"note . You also need the pages to spawn the enemy in Sandbox Mode, however this can be bypassed for most enemies if you have the Admin gamepass.
  • Mook Maker: Any enemy with either "Necromancer" or "Summoner" in it's name. Also enemies with "Reaper" in their name. All of them summon various Mooks from skeletons to Possessed Armors and Mystery Bosses.
    • Exaggerated with the Conjurer in Badlands II. It summons Necromancers, which then summon Skeletons on their own on top of that. Prepare to get swarmed if you don't take it out quickly.
  • Nasty Party: Pizza Party. It initially sounds like a nice place for some pizza, but once you get there, zombies, marionettes, Hostile Animatronics and even The Grim Reaper are out to get you.
  • New Resource Midgame: After reaching Level 50, Hardcore Mode is unlocked. It gives gems instead of the usual coins. Challenge Maps and Polluted Wasteland II, both unlocked at Level 50, give gems as well. Gems are used to unlock the Brawler, Necromancer, Accelerator and Engineer. You can obtain gems from other modes like Hidden Wave before Level 50, but this is challenging in its own right, and it is doubtful you will consistently generate gems from Hidden Wave.
  • No Final Boss for You: Playing the Ducky Revenge event on Easy mode made it end on Wave 30 instead of 33, preventing you from seeing the real Final Boss of the event. There's still a Final Boss, it's just what would normally be the penultimate boss.
  • No-Sell: Most enemies have one or multiple immunities:
    • Hidden: Can only be detected by select towers with the correct upgrades. Golden Pyromancers can see Hidden enemies as soon as it is placed down, while other towers have indirect ways of doing so at base level (Necromancer can summon skeletons, unit towers can summon units that will collide with them, etc).
    • Fly: Can be detected by cliff and air towers as well as a select amount of ground towers (Militant, Executioner, Engineer, etc).
    • Lead: Can only be killed with explosions, electricity, burn, poison, Accelerators, Engineers, Level 2+ Sledgers,Rangers, Level 3+ Snipers, Level 3+ Wardens, and collision damage from units.
    • Burn: Immune to the Pyromancer, Jester, and Archer's burn damage.
    • Freeze: Immune to being frozen by the Freezer, Frost Blaster, Sledger, Jester's ice bomb, and the Blizzard Bomb consumable.
    • Explosion: Cannot be dealt Splash Damage.
    • Stun: Is immune to the stun effect from the Electroshocker, Trapper, and Warden as well as the knockback effect from the Brawler's Reposition ability, DJ Booth purple track knockback ability, and Riot Guard unit knockback. They can only be slowed down by these effects.
    • Poison: Is immune to the slowdown effect from the Toxic Gunner.
    • Ghost: Cannot collide with units, except for one.note 
    • Bosses have multiple immunities, usually a combination of the ones listed above, as well as some others, such as immunity to nuclear fallout. Most also have an ability that can make them have Nigh-Invulnerability, which usually triggers when they reach a certain health threshold.
  • Nuclear Mutant: Some of the enemies in Fallen and Golden back when the Polluted Wastelands was available would be replaced with more powerful versions of them. This would only happen on the Polluted Wastelands map. When a team triumphed on Fallen Mode, they would gain a special badge. As of May 8, 2021, this map is not available. On July 29, a new version of the Polluted Wastelands came back, now known as Polluted Wastelands II, playable only on Nuclear Mode, and with it came tougher enemies to face and more rewards to earn, including the Nuclear Monster, the Final Boss of the Polluted Wastelands with a whopping 1.5 million health.
  • Obvious Rule Patch:
    • Most event maps (visible as a modifier in the Hexscape event) disable farms to prevent the player from spending the first few waves focusing on levelling up farms to build up cash. The Hexscape event also banned the Gatling Gun in the final map of the event.
    • Consumables are disabled in Hardcore Mode and Polluted Wasteland II, as are Timescale Tickets.
    • After someone used Timescale Tickets' 0x speed function to spam loads of airdrops from the Mercenary Base in order to solo the Hidden Wave, the ability to use abilities during 0x speed was disabled. Players managed to work around this by placing a Mercenary Base on 0x speed, swap to 0.5x, use the ability, swap back to 0x, sell and rebuy the Mercenary Base, and repeat. This has led to more players being able to solo it. This was also patched later by preventing towers from being placed or sold, ironically making 0x speed an almost Useless Useful Spell.
  • Polluted Wasteland: The game has a map named after this tropenote , with nuclear enemies replacing most of the normal ones. All Consumables are disabled on this map.
  • Revenue-Enhancing Devices: While it was uncommon from 2019-2022, past this point, the game is receiving far more of this.
    • The most prolific and straight examples are the plushies. The developers have released several of these plushies (most of which cost over $20), all of them providing codes that, when redeemed, give something in game, ranging from tower skins, nametags, and charms.
    • Recently in 2024 were Ultimate skins. In exchange for having the highest quality and effort compared to many others, players can only obtain them by purchasing them with Robux.note  These are clearly meant for profit, as all of them are quite costly in terms of robux pricing, at 799 robux. For comparison, that is the highest possible price for event tower gamepasses.
  • Recurring Boss: Patient Zero. He appears in both Casual and Intermediate modes, on Wave 30 in both. All the other bosses only appear in one mode. In Casual Mode, he only has 60,000 HP, and in Intermediate he has 100,000 HP. Subverted as of v1.55.0, where the Grave Digger got promoted to Casual Mode, and the Brute became the new Easy Mode boss.
    • Technically, the other mode bosses (Grave Digger, Molten Warlord and Fallen King) appear in Hardcore Mode, but those are basically alternate counterparts of the originals that are also weaker, except for the Grave Digger, who Took a Level in Badass and went from 17,500 to 40,000 HP.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Fallen King. Downplayed, because he only comes on Wave 40, likely as a last resort. Played straight with Fallen Squires, who come much earlier (Wave 7) and some other enemies.
  • Sandbox Mode: A sandbox mode was added into the game in the Operation I.C.E update, unlocked at Level 250. It gives infinite health and cash, the ability to use all towers you unlocked instead of bringing only 5, spawning enemies (as long as you got their index page) and friendly units and other features.
  • Shadow Achievement: There are two achievements not visible until they're completed.
    • Awakened: Beat the Hidden Wave. Gives the "th3 G L1tch" title, 2,000 coins, 150 gems and a High-Grade Consumable Crate.
    • The Cure: Beat Polluted Wasteland II. Solo. Gives 1,250 coins, 100 gems, 2 Time Scale Tickets and 2 Spin Tickets.
  • Shockwave Stomp: The most common ability among major bosses. The Unknown in Hardcore Mode also has this ability, albeit a weaker version.
  • Splash Damage: Any tower that can cause explosion damage. This includes the Demoman, Paintballer, Rocketeer, Military Base (through tanks) and many others.
  • Superboss:
    • The Nuclear Monster, in Polluted Wastelands II, has 1.25 million HP, 300,000 more than Hardcore Mode's Void Reaver, who has 1.2 million HP, and is essentially the main game's Final Boss, and has devastating attacks and summons. It also has more health with 3+ players, capping at 1.625 million HP with 4 players.
    • There is also the Gunslinger in Badlands II. It only has 600,000 HP, but the path it spawns on is very short so it will rush to the exit quickly.
    • Several event bosses also can count. For example, there's the Frost Spirit, the final boss of the Operation I.C.E event. On Hard mode, he has 1 million HP, numerous attacks, can summon powerful enemies and can jump to a different path. And if you activate the Elite version, he'll get another 50% health boost, and on top of that, he gets more HP for each player, capping at '2.25 million HP with both Elite and four players.
  • Suspiciously Small Army: As mentioned under Arbitrary Headcount Limit, the maximum towers that can be onscreen at once is 80, which is very small for an army. Slightly subverted in Sandbox Mode, as you can remove the tower limit with Admin Mode, but you can at most only have a couple hundred towers if you fill the entire map.
  • Symbol Face: Many enemies have odd faces, most notably being the zombies that usually attack first. The symbols on their faces vary from crosses, slashes and forked crosses. There are also the molten enemies, which have faces that resemble the letter M. The only exception is the Molten Titan, who has eyes that drown out the symbol and put it in the backseat. It is most likely used to show these creatures aren't human, at least not anymore.
    • All of these enemies have had their symbol faces phased out, and they're all now Faceless Goons instead. Except for the Molten Titans in Hardcore, who keep them for the nostalgia.
  • Tower Defense: Should be very obvious why.
  • Temporary Online Content: Downplayed with the event towers, although there are some exceptions...:
    • Double Subverted and exaggerated with the Gladiator. It was the reward for triumphing The Heights during the Sword Fight On The Heights 2019 event, but afterwards, it would make its return numerous times where it would be sold as a gamepass in the shop for Robux.
    • Also Double Subverted with the Toxic Gunner, which was the reward for triumphing Trick Or Threat Town during the Halloween 2020 event. During the Solar Eclipse Event, it was available as a gamepass for a limited time from December 4th, 2021 to December 26, 2021, and was up for sale during the 2023 Black Friday Sale from November 24th-29th, 2023.
    • Like the Toxic Gunner, this was Double Subverted with the Slasher, which was the reward for triumphing Nightmare Carnival during the Halloween 2019 Event. It would be available as a gamepass during the Halloween 2020 Event.
    • This was also Double Subverted with the Archer, the reward for obtaining the Gift of Sharpness during Christmas 2019, as it would be available as a gamepass during the Spring 2020 Event.
    • Again Double Subverted with the Sledger, as it was available as a gamepass during the 2022 Memorial Day Sale.
    • Also Double Subverted with the Executioner, being available from the 2023 Black Friday Sale from November 24th, 2023 to November 29th.
    • Double Subverted with the Frost Blaster, being totally reworked in the Krampus' Revenge Event update and resold from 21 December 2023 to 10 February 2024, even after the event ended on January 31.
    • Double Subverted with Jester, the tower used to be obtained by winning all acts the 2023 Lunar Overture Event. It went on a resale during the 2024 Hexscape Event, in 30th October.
    • Double Subverted with Commando who got completly reworked at the end of the 2024 Hexscape event and was put on sale for a limited time
    • Double Subverted with Cryomancer who was originally obtained by beating the 2023 Krampus' revenge event but came back as a gamepass for 48 hours during The 2024 Operation I.C.E event
    • Only 1 Event tower (Swarmer) has not yet been brought back as a gamepass. However, it will get a rework and thus most likely rerelease in April 2025.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Max level Ranger (1200 Damage per shot) vs. Normal (4 HP). Guess which one wins.
  • Too Awesome to Use: Nukes, and especially Molten Monsters. Both are legendary consumables, making them the rarest ones, and you can only use 1 per game. Both are very powerful, but is it really worth using one in Fallen Mode? Most the time you can either win without consumables, or weaker ones, or lose anyway even with them if you're on an Insane map. To top it all off, Molten Monsters cannot be obtained anymore outside of the Winter 2024 battlepass, which itself is temporary.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Several.
    • The Molten Boss when he became the Molten Warlord. His HP nearly doubled in an instant, then got raised again to 150,000 HP (for reference, Molten Boss had 70,000 HP before)
    • The Fallen King during the Fallen rework. He went from 150,000 HP to 200,000 HP (but got his speed decreased to compensate), and gained a new form through the Hidden Wave (see True Final Boss right below).
    • Zigzagged with Wox the Fox. Initially at 250,000 HP, he was deemed too easy and buffed to 450,000 HP hours after release, but then nerfed back the next day as they overtuned him. Over 2 years later, he was buffed again to 450,000 HP with the Pizza Party mini-rework.
    • The Void Reaver at the Duck Hunt update. His HP went from 700,000 to 1.2 million. Sadly, his twin brother was Killed Off for Real at the same timenote .
  • True Final Boss: On Fallen Mode, if you type in 120, 1 and 1009 in that order, then beat the mode with 1 HP remaining and beat the Fallen King within 60 seconds without consumables, the Hidden Wave will trigger, and the Fallen King will transform into the Awakened Fallen King, with 800,000 HP. (The normal Fallen King has 200,000 HP)
  • Unique Enemy: The Health Cultist. Only one spawns per game of Hardcore Mode, and not anywhere else. At the time of the mode's release, it was additionally the only enemy that could heal other enemies. Nowadays the Toxic and Super Toxic in Polluted Wasteland II can do so with puddles they spawn upon death; Patient Zero can throw healing potions on the map, and Necrotic Skeletons also leave healing puddles, but they're much weaker.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • You can force cliff towers to stand in a location where one of their legs is permanently hanging off a platform. Downplayed, because this doesn't affect their stats.
    • You can also force towers to be stunned for a long time in Sandbox Mode by spawning a Zerg Rush of Fallen Kings, Vindicators or any other enemy with stuns.
    • And you can also use the Sell All button to erase all your towers from existence.
    • On the enemies' side, you can send a Zerg Rush of Void Reavers against overpowered towers and watch them all scream when they all get killed in succession. Or blow up tons of Nuclear Monsters. Really, the possibilities are endless!
  • Villain: Exit, Stage Left:
    • The Frost Spirit falls into a portal and gets away when defeated. Every. Single. Time.
    • When triggering the Hidden Wave, the Fallen King will fly into the sky instead of disintegrating like he normally does. He will then come back just over a minute later as the Awakened Fallen King.
  • Villain Forgot to Level Grind:
    • Averted with Fallen King during the Fallen rework, Void Reaver when his twin was Killed Off for Real, Jack-O-Bot when he returned in the Lunar Overture event, Wox the Fox when Pizza Party got a mini rework; all of them got stronger.
    • Subverted with Krampus and the Frost Spirit. Their default HP stayed the same between their first and second appearences, but their abilities got stronger, and they gained the ability to jump to another path.
  • Zigzagged for the Gunslinger upon the Badlands II mini rework, and Nuclear Monster upon the Polluted Wasteland II mini rework. Their base HP is the same, but they got health scaling based on player count, increasing their HP when with 3+ players, and gained new minions, and in some cases their old ones got stronger.
  • Played straight for Ducky D00M in it's return in 2025; it's HP was the same as in 2022. However, a new boss was added after it, the Nerd Duck, a bunny robot with 800,000 HP.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist:
    • Patient Zero. In the Intermediate Mode trailer, he says this:

    Now there's entire species erased, millions of acres defaced.

    But yet, Jetzt ist es an mir, die Menschheit auszulöschen!"

    • The ducks in the Ducky Revenge event. They are driven to madness because their access to bread was cut off, due to the Operation I.C.E event, leaving them unable to get food and starve. And when an entire race is starving, you can get...desperate. Doesn't help that they found a God Cube Fragment. When the T.D.S get to their realm, they instinctively attack, but it's a misunderstanding, and The Nerd Duck does a Heel–Face Turn after he's defeated.
  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Lampshaded in the description of Pizza Party at the Special modes statue:

    "Welcome to Wox's Pizza Party! Surely nothing could go wrong..."

  • You Have Failed Me: Possibly, and Played for Laughs, on the heroic side during the Operation I.C.E event. When the Dispatcher discovers that the "janitor" in the control room is Sentinel Ramiel, one of the Children of Exo, she says she'll send whoever hired him to the Grave Digger. However, it's implied Ramiel sneaked his way in disguising as a janitor, so it's possible nobody hired him in the first place, making it subverted. Unless she was referring to whoever let a known villain into Outpost 32, seeing as they should've recognised his face and at that point deserve it.
  • You Nuke 'Em: Nukes are one of the various consumables in the game. When used, they do up to 50,000 damagenote  to all enemies on the map and apply a radiation effect to all enemies, excluding bosses, but including newly spawned enemies, inflicting percentaged-based damage to survivors.