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Hold the Line

Your keep holds the left edge of the screen, and everything that wants it down has to walk a long lane to get there. You aim, you fire, and everything that falls pays. Between waves nothing is walking - that is when money turns into a better gun, guards on the roof, or stakes driven into the lane.

Free
No ads
No account
No download
Works offline
Single player

How do you play?

Aim and fire - Tap where you want to shoot - with a finger on a phone, with the mouse on a PC. Holding down keeps firing, but a single tap is always enough: nothing here asks you to hold a finger down.
Reload - The magazine reloads itself once it is empty. R reloads early, which beats standing empty when a runner arrives.
Between waves - Nothing is walking and nothing is rushing you. The shelf is drawn over the lane, and you spend as much as you like before pressing the button that sends the next one.
Repair - The wall absorbs before the house does. The house cannot be repaired: when it falls, the run is over.

About this game

The lane is the whole difference. It is 900 units long. Something that enters from the right needs time to cross it, and that time is exactly what you have to stop it. Nothing else sets the difficulty - not the floor area, not the sky, only the distance and the reach of whatever you are holding.

Six kinds cross that lane and each one exists because an answer exists. The foot soldier walks up and hits the wall. The runner is thin and fast and punishes a reload taken at the wrong moment. The vehicle is slow, soaks up an enormous amount and hits hard on arrival - which is the entire reason the rocketeer is for sale. The shooter stops dead 440 units short of the wall and never closes: no mine and no stake touches it, only reach does, and that is why the marksman costs money. The air unit ignores every ground defence you own. And on wave 20 something heavy walks in with a health bar of its own.

The shop is a forecast, not a shopping list. Every counter appears on the shelf one wave BEFORE the threat it answers: the rocketeer at six, the marksman at nine, the sky guard at twelve. A player who buys whatever looks good today gets caught out the day after tomorrow. That is the whole game.

Twenty waves and the campaign is won. After that the lane keeps sending them, faster and faster, until the keep falls - and then there is only a score. A winning run takes about a quarter of an hour, which makes it far and away the longest thing on this site: a whole bus ride, not a three-minute break.

The wall takes damage before the house does. It starts with 260 points and the keep behind it has 500. Repairing the wall costs the same all run, deliberately: it is the one purchase a losing player must always be able to make again, and a repair whose price climbs turns one bad wave into a run that was lost before it started. Everything else climbs 45 per cent per copy, so nobody can hoard for nine waves and buy the entire shop on the tenth.

The siege's cash has nothing to do with your coins. It is created by the run, spent by the run, and dies with it. There is no exchange rate. There never will be.

What does it teach?

Thinking ahead

Spending on a danger you cannot see yet is a habit that does not arrive on its own, and this game asks for it every single wave.

Choosing

Every coin spent here is not spent there. The game never tells you which purchase was right - the next wave does.

Aiming

Picking a target out of a crowd, and knowing which one arrives first, is a skill in its own right.

Tips

Buy for the wave after this one

What arrives on seven is prepared for on six. Watch the shelf - whatever has just appeared is almost always the answer to something that has not arrived yet.

A shooter never reaches you

There is no point mining the lane for it. It stops far out and shoots back; it has to be reached with range, and your rifleman does not have enough.

The sky is a separate game

No wall, no mine, no stake and no rifleman touches anything that flies. Without a sky guard, wave thirteen simply passes over everything you paid for.

A repaired wall is worth a guard

A half-wrecked keep ends the run sooner than a slightly short magazine does. Repair while it is still an expense and not a rescue.

What age is it for?

From 8

You have to aim, count and plan at the same time. A younger child manages on Calm, but a whole run is long.

Teenagers and adults

Wild sends bigger, faster and tougher waves, and pays less per body.

Grown-ups on their own

The overtime past wave 20 is the part built for someone chasing a number rather than an ending.

Accessibility

Everything is played with taps: nothing asks you to hold a finger down or to drag. The keyboard works on a PC, the targets are large, and no shop card is ever disabled - a card you cannot afford still answers, with a small movement, rather than staying silent.

Playing together

One aims, one buys

Two of you at one screen: one shoots during the wave, the other decides the spending between them. They are two different jobs, and arguing about it is half the fun.

Guess what is coming

Before pressing the button, ask what arrives next. Guessing wrong together beats buying at random.

Split the four lines

Take two shop lines each - one of you owns the guns and the powers, the other the guards and the lane - and see which pair of choices got further.

Common questions

How long is a run?

A winning campaign runs about a quarter of an hour. It is deliberately the longest game on the site, and the entrance screen says so before you start.

What happens after wave twenty?

The campaign is won and the lane carries on anyway. The waves climb more steeply than before, because by then you own the whole shop, and all that is left is a score.

Does the game's cash turn into coins?

No, never. It is a currency inside the run; it does not touch your wallet and there is no exchange rate between the two.

Can you win without buying anything?

No. A player who spends nothing falls between wave five and wave nine depending on the difficulty. The shop is not decoration.

Does the screen have to be landscape?

The game is built for a wide screen and fits itself to the shape of your window, but the lane always keeps the same length - it is never easier on a big screen.

Is my progress saved if I leave?

Between waves, yes. A run is saved on the shop screen and never in the middle of a wave, so you come back to the moment before you sent the next one, with your cash.

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