Reef Raiders

Reef Raiders is a cartoon tower defence set in a sunlit tropical cove. Turquoise water runs in past a shipwreck and a scatter of reef rocks to a harbour pier, and a strip of white sand runs from the landing beach along boardwalks, past a tiki bar and a palm grove, to the gate of the lighthouse village on the cliff. Nine pads sit along and between those two routes, and what you put on them decides how far the raiders get.

Five towers, three levels each. Cannon forts lob splashing shot at both the water and the sand. Harpoon towers are sea-only but throw bolts that punch clean through a line of boats, and at level three they fire weighted nets that drag parrots out of the sky as well. Parrot squads peck fast at anything on the beach or in the air. Tiki flames have the shortest reach on the map but set whatever walks past them burning. From wave six you can raise a mortar nest, whose shells arc across half the cove and which posts a marine on the beach to hold the boardwalk in person. Every tower sells back for sixty per cent, and a tower that cannot reach either route from a given pad is greyed out with the reason.

Dinghies come first, then sloops, broad galleons that fire back and knock your towers out for a few seconds, and fire ships that sprint for the pier and go up. On the sand it is deckhands, cutlass runners and powder monkeys who lob bombs at your gun crews, with flocks of parrots overhead that only the nets and the parrot squads can touch. A sea serpent surfaces every fifth wave and dives to dodge your shots, and wave fifteen brings Captain Redbeard's flagship, which keeps putting landing parties ashore while it works its way toward the harbour. Doubloons come from knockouts and from holding a wave, calling the next wave early pays a bonus, and three stars go to a cove that never loses a single lantern.