Rootfast — Grove Defense

Rootfast is a tower defense roguelike about one decision, made again and again: which card to take next.

Between waves you draft one card at a time — a building to place, a graft to fuse onto a building you already have, or an instant. Then you place it on a small board and watch the wave play out. There are no timers and nothing to react to. Every input is a tap, and when you lose a run, you can trace it back to the choice that lost it.

GROW OR DEFEND
The board is small, so every building is a trade-off. A Sapling earns Sap each wave to pay for bigger towers later, but it takes a spot that a tower or wall could have used now. Enemies come in from the edges of the board toward your Heart instead of following a fixed path, so you are arranging a grove, not building a maze. Check the forecast, decide how much to invest and how much to defend, and commit. Lean too far either way and the grove falls.

GRAFTS FUSE TO POWER YOUR DEFENSE
Grafts attach to buildings already on the board, and many simply make a building stronger. Unlock more graft slots and two different grafts on the same building fuse into a new effect instead of stacking: 21 fusion rules cover every pair, for 532 distinct buildings in all. 22 combinations have a True Name and transform the card outright. Graft Farsight onto a Thorn Tower and it becomes a Ballista Branch, trading quick shots for a heavy, long-range bolt aimed at the toughest enemy. Finding the rest is why a tower defense roguelike this small still surprises you on the tenth run.

WHAT'S IN THE GAME
• 28 cards: 16 buildings, 9 grafts and 3 instants
• 19 levels across 3 biomes: the Verdant Gro
• Boards shaped for each level: islands, chokepoints and keeps
• 8 enemies, including a boss guarding the l
• 3 stars per level: clear it, then clear its two objectives
• Dens that send out creatures to fight besiemies in place
• A short tutorial island that teaches the draft before anything is at stake, and a practice island that opens later
to show grafts and dens in action

PROGRESS BETWEEN RUNS
Win or lose, you take Heartseeds home. Spend them across four upgrade lanes — Thornline for offense, Deeproot for economy, Heartwood for defense and Grovecraf permanent unlocks, in whatever order youlike. Heartseeds also buy sowings, which change how your starting cards are chosen.
Clear the final level of the Grove or Frostmere to earn a new Heart. Thornfang and Emberkin each play differently from the Verdant Grove. They are a different way

AFTER THE CAMPAIGN
• Daily Challenge: the same board for every player each day, and a streak to keep
• Endless: four fixed boards with no final w
• Ascension: five harder tiers across all 19 levels. Each tier you clear on the finale earns a blessing, a permanent
bonus you pick from five

FREE TO TRY
The tutorial and the first three Grove levels are free to play as often as you like, along with the first upgrades in each tree. One purchase unlocks the rest: thhe Daily Challenge and Ascension. Everythingyou earned in the free levels carries over. There are no ads, and nothing else to buy.

PLAY IT ANYWHERE
• Plays offline, with no account needed
• No energy, no timers, no waiting to play again
• Portrait or landscape
• Google Play Games: 29 achievements, 5 leaderboards and cloud save

Rootfast is a tower defense roguelike for players who would rather think than react.