Kith, Like Us

Claws, venom, too many eyes — do your worst.

Reverse tower defense: the turrets were built to stop something exactly like you.

Design a map →

Kith, Like Us is a reverse tower defense game. You lead the swarm that attacks the maze: pick your creatures, spend your tickets, and break through automated turret lines to reach the hub. The editor that builds the official maps runs free in your browser, and a simulator shows you where any map kills you.

"You are not the defender. You are what the defenders were built to stop. Except the defenders are yours, and they no longer know it."

You were human once. Now: hostile wildlife. The plan was simple. Send the automated terraforming fleet first to tame the planet, then dispatch the colonisation ship to a world already prepared.

The colonisation ship arrived first. Centuries early. The colonists survived the only way the planet allowed: bonding with the local fauna, reshaping themselves generation by generation to fit a world that had no place for them. By the time the terraforming fleet arrived, nothing about them read as human anymore. Its machines ran their protocol without hesitation: clear hostile wildlife, prepare for human habitation.

Both sides are human in origin. Neither knows it. You lead the Kith, a swarm with claws, venom, and too many eyes. They are not pets. They are not cute. They follow you anyway. And every turret you take apart was sent here to save you.

How it plays

The gauntlet is the level, and you are the wave.

  • You don't build. You spend. A ticket budget ticks in on a steady beat, and every minion costs tickets to field, from a 1-ticket swarmer to a 4-ticket sapper. Run out with nothing alive and the run is over.
  • Take the vents. Every steam vent is a flag. Destroy the Grid hub powering it, raise a tendril gateway on it, and it pays you for as long as you hold it. Leave one neutral and the Grid takes it back.
  • Move like a swarm, not an army. Switch which team is on the field: the old one resorbs at no cost, the new one spawns next pulse. Your minions take priorities, not orders.
  • Get in, and get the hub. The central hub falling ends the encounter. Between you and it: walls, blast doors, keycards, and turrets that were never built to fight something like you.

🛠️ The Workshop

Every encounter is a maze of turrets, walls and zones, and the tool the official maps are built with is free in your browser.

Draw the maze or auto-generate one. Place the turret line, the locked doors, the keycards, the caches. Then hit Simulate: a bot fights its way through your map and hands back a scrubbable replay, plus a diagnostic showing where the attack died and which entries it never touched. Tune it, re-simulate, and when it's right, download the JSON. The most-loved community encounters will inspire official content at release.

Maps authored in the editor: full turret lines, locked doors, alarm sweeps, the works.

An authored encounter map: six blast doors chained to a single keycard, with two levers wired to airlock pairs.
The Locksmith's Round — doors matter more than walls.
A dense authored map with sweep alarms, mementos and turret nests arranged in concentric rings around the central hub.
The Vigil — they are still watching a post that stopped answering.
A frontal turret line down a two-lane avenue, attack ranges shown as dotted circles.
The Boulevard — the Grid invites you in.

Open-format JSON. No account required to design.

Open the editor →