Introduction / Quick Start

Read this section first. Then play a few games, and come back and read "Keyboard Shortcuts" and the rest..

Runestone Defense is a tower defense game. Monsters will enter the board and follow the shortest path to the exit. In their way, you can place towers, which will shoot at them and cause damage and even death. Your goal is to kill all the monsters before they reach the exit. For each monster that escapes, you lose 1 life. If you reach 0 life, you lose the game. You start each level with 20 lives.

Towers cost money to buy. You start with some money, depending on the level, and you get more money for each monster you kill. You can then buy more towers, or upgrade the ones you have. Generally, a fully upgraded tower is your strongest weapon, and will be a better deal for the money than a bunch of low level towers.

Click on "Next" to call the next wave early and get bonus money. Good luck!



Keyboard Shortcuts

While all actions can be accomplished with the mouse, it is faster to use the keyboard shortcuts.

  • 1 - 6 : Select a tower, starting from the top left. This is the same as clicking on a tower in the sidebar. Note: the tower is not actually purchased until you sucessfully place it on the board.
  • P - PAUSE.
  • B - BUY the selected tower. If no tower in the sidebar is selected, this has no effect.
  • U - UPGRADE the selected tower. If no tower on the board is selected, this has no effect.
  • S - SELL the selected tower. If no tower on the board is selected, this has no effect.
  • I - INFO: toggle tower upgrade level display mode.
  • N - send the NEXT wave. Same as clicking 'Start' or 'Next'.
  • SPACE - clear any selections.

Monsters

  • Skeleton

    Fast moving, but with no armor, this is the enemy's common soldier. It has relatively few hit points.

  • Skeleton Archer

    Fairly quick, but slower than the Skeleton, it has minimal armor and low hit points.

  • Skeleton Warrior

    Slow moving, but with good armor and decent hit points


  • Skeleton Legionnaire

    This is the tank of the enemy's army. Stong & heavily armored, but it moves very slow. Be wary.



Towers

Towers are your weapons. Place them in the path of the enemy, and they will shoot at them as they come into range.

Empty Tower

Hot Key: 1. This is a tower with no weapon. It's very cheap. It will block the monsters' path, so it is useful to create a cheap maze.


Arrow Tower

Hot Key: 2. This is your basic tower. It is cheap at first, and powerful when fully upgraded. It damages the enemy, but does not have any special abilities


Web Tower

Hot Key: 3. The Web tower does a small amount of damage, but it's main function is to slow the enemy down so your other towers have more time to shoot them.


Armor Piercing Tower

Hot Key: 4. The Armor Piercing tower shoots right through enemy armor, delivering it's full damage directly to the enemy. This is especially important against the heavily armored Skeleton Legionnaire.


Poison Tower

Hot Key: 5. The Poison tower has a small initial damage rating, but does more damage to the enemy even after the hit. It does damage per second for x seconds after the initial hit.


Bomb Tower

Hot Key: 6. The Bomb tower does damage to all enemies in range of it's blast.