Dead Zone — Tower Defense

v8.0.2 Score Milestones

Reward curve slowed down and capped. Gems and Rare Points now climb slowly and steadily across all 50 tiers — starting at 20 Gems + 1 RP, ending at 975 Gems + 58 RP at tier 50. Both stay comfortably under 1,000 Gems and 60 RP even at the hardest, 36-billion-score tier.

v8.0.1 Score Milestones

Expanded from 6 to 50 Score Milestones. The lowest tier is now 200,000 (up from 100,000), and thresholds grow steeply from there — all the way up to a brutal 36,000,000,000 at the very top. This is a genuine multi-month grind ladder now, not something you clear in a few sessions.
Rewards also scale across all 50 tiers, topping out at 21,500 Gems + 289 Rare Points for reaching the final milestone.

v8.0.0 MAJOR UPDATE

🏆 Lifetime Score system! A new score badge on the main menu tracks your cumulative score across every Campaign, Endless, and Daily Challenge run you've ever played.
6 Score Milestone rewards, from 100,000 all the way up to a brutal 50,000,000 — these are deliberately steep, long-term grind goals, not something you'll hit in a session or two. Rewards scale up to 5,000 Gems + 100 Rare Points at the top tier.
Click the new 🏆 badge on the menu to see your total score and track progress toward each milestone.

v7.18.0 Campaign Expansion

100 new campaign stages! The campaign now runs 1-200 on the same difficulty curve as before.
☠️ New Nightmare tier — 10 brutally hard stages (201-210). Difficulty compounds exponentially: by Stage 210, zombies have ~9.4× the HP of Stage 200, the toughest normal stage. Every Nightmare stage is a boss stage, with 48-75 waves to survive.
Warning screen before every Nightmare stage — shows the stage's wave count, difficulty multiplier, and starting resources, with an "I'm Ready" / "Cancel" choice, whether you enter from the stage-select grid or by hitting "Next Stage" after clearing Stage 200.
Nightmare stages are clearly marked with a skull icon and a red glow in the stage-select grid.
Fixed a bug that would have prevented progress past Stage 100 entirely — the stage-unlock logic had a hardcoded cutoff left over from before this expansion.

v7.17.1 Fix

Moved the Wave Prep toggle to sit directly to the left of the ▶ Resume button in the same row — it was in a separate row above before, which was easy to miss.

v7.17.0 QoL

New Wave Prep toggle — next to the Resume button when you pause. Turn it off and the next wave starts immediately after the current one ends, no countdown in between. The very first prep at the start of a game is unaffected — this only skips the breaks between waves.

v7.16.0 UI

New persistent stat bar under the play field — Wave, Money, Lives, Score, Kills, Gems, and Rare Points are now always visible in a black bar beneath the game, on both desktop and mobile.
The play field is slightly shorter to make room for it — everything shifts up a bit rather than the bar floating over the action.
These stats used to live only in the sidebar, which meant mobile players had to open the sidebar to check them. Now they're always on screen.

v7.15.0 Daily Challenge

Survival time increased to 4 minutes (was 3).
Winning now ends your Daily Challenge for the day. The win screen shows your reward clearly and a single 🏠 Menu button — no more replaying after a win, even if you had attempts left. Failing still lets you retry with any remaining attempts, unchanged.

v7.14.0 Balance & Bugfix

Removed the tower-count difficulty penalty. Zombie HP used to scale with how many towers you'd built — up to 254× more HP with a full 27-tower defense. That punished normal tower-defense play. Difficulty now comes purely from wave progression and boss kills, like it should.
Fixed the Daily Challenge "Play Again" button. The generic Play Again button (which ignored your remaining attempts and just started a normal Endless run) is now hidden on Daily Challenge outcomes — only the attempt-gated "🎯 Try Again" button shows, and it correctly disappears once you're out of attempts. The 🏠 Menu button is always there to back out.

v7.13.1 Bugfix

Fixed Vulcan (and Flamer) dealing little to no damage. Their small splash radius was tighter than the zone used to register a hit — bullets would visibly hit a zombie but the actual damage check used a much smaller area and often found nothing there, especially against bigger zombies (Tank, Boss). The zombie a bullet visibly hits now always takes damage; splash still extends it to nearby zombies as before.

v7.13.0 Daily Challenge

New confirm screen before starting — shows a warning about the rules (flat $250... now $300 starting money, nonstop zombies) and a full breakdown of what you can win, with a "▶ Start Challenge" button. No more instantly burning an attempt by mis-tapping the menu button.
Made it a little easier: starting money up to $300 (was $250), zombies spawn ~15% slower, and the difficulty ramp peaks lower and climbs more gradually.

v7.12.0 Achievements

20 more achievements added — 44 total now! New milestones fill in the gaps between existing tiers (Rampage at 500 kills, First Wave at Wave 5) and add fresh grinds for veteran players (Wave 200, 100 prestige levels, completing every research project, placing every tower type at least once).
New: Star-based Campaign achievements — earn stars across stages, or get a perfect 3-star clear on 20 different stages.
New: "Jackpot Hunter" — a special achievement for landing the Daily Challenge's 10% jackpot roll.

v7.11.0 Achievements

🏆 New Achievements panel! 24 milestones across Combat, Survival, Campaign, Mastery, Collection, and Daily Challenge categories — each with a progress bar and a Gem/RP reward to claim.
Veteran players: achievements based on existing stats (kills, waves, stages cleared, prestige levels, research) already reflect your real progress — some may be claimable the moment you open the panel!
New lifetime stats tracked going forward: chests opened, bosses defeated, tower levels maxed, and Daily Challenges completed.

v7.10.0 Daily Challenge

New Jackpot tier — 10% chance to get everything: +5 Rare Points, +120 Gems, AND a free Double Money boost, all at once.
The normal 90% roll now gives bigger Gem rewards too — 120 Gems (was 80).

v7.9.1 Bugfix

Fixed upgrade buttons not enabling automatically. If you were viewing a tower's info and earned enough money to afford an upgrade, the button used to stay greyed out until you clicked off and back on. Now it enables itself the instant you can afford it.

v7.9.0 UI

Tower Info moved to bottom-center of the screen — click a placed tower to see its stats/upgrades right where you're looking, instead of across in the sidebar.
New collapse tab — a small "🔧 Tower Info ▼" tab lets you hide the panel when you don't need it, freeing up the view of the battlefield.
Nicer border/frame on wide screens — the letterboxed sides of the play field now have a soft radial background and a subtle green accent-glow edge instead of flat black.

v7.8.0 Fairness

Play field width is now capped and centered at 1100px. On large monitors and ultrawide screens, the battlefield used to stretch to the full window width — meaning zombies had to travel a much longer (or shorter) distance depending on your screen, which affected how long your towers got to shoot them. Everyone now plays on the same-length battlefield above a certain screen size.
Mobile is unaffected — phones and most tablets were already narrower than the new cap, so they keep their full available width exactly as before.
Added a subtle frame/shadow around the play field so the centered layout looks intentional on wide screens instead of leaving dead space.

v7.7.2 QoL

Daily Challenge now shows a countdown under the menu button once you're out of attempts — "⏰ Xh Ym" ticks down live until your attempts reset.

v7.7.1 Bugfix

Fixed zombies spawning during the prep countdown. Playing a Daily Challenge (or any run) could leave leftover spawn-timer state that carried into your next game, causing zombies to appear before prep ended. Spawn state now fully resets at the start of every new game.

v7.7.0 New Mode

🎯 Daily Challenge! New button top-left of the main menu. Survive 3 minutes of nonstop zombies, starting with a fixed $250 — no upgrades carry over, pure skill test.
3 attempts per day, resetting 24 hours after your first attempt that day.
Complete it for a random reward: +2 Rare Points, +80 Gems, or a free Double Money boost for your next run.
Difficulty ramps smoothly over the 3 minutes — easy at the start, genuinely tough by the end.

v7.6.0 Balance

Tower upgrades debuffed 25% — every upgrade's damage bonus across all 27 towers and both paths is reduced by a quarter. Range and fire-rate bonuses are untouched. Small early upgrades barely change; big late-game multipliers come down more.
Campaign now has more waves the higher you climb. Wave count scales smoothly by stage instead of flat tiers: Stage 1 stays at 5 waves, but Stage 50 is now 15 waves and Stage 100 is 25 waves — a real endurance test at the top.

v7.5.0 Backgrounds

Backgrounds now actually change the gameplay scene! Previously they only changed the shop thumbnail — now the selected background tints the sky, ground, and atmospheric glow during play.
6 new backgrounds: Blood Moon, Toxic Swamp, Sunken Harbor, Crimson Dusk, Neon Districts, and Nuclear Winter.
All 6 original backgrounds re-themed with richer skies and colored horizon glows.

v7.4.0 Content

26 new upgrades & items! All wired into real gameplay and tested.
9 shop boosts: Ammo Crate, Rapid Reload Run, Sharpshooter Run, Fortress Walls, Money Surge, Overdrive Run, Recon Optics, Splash Master, Veteran Start.
9 prestige upgrades: Precision Optics, Headshot Training, Wide Payload, Volley Fire, Rapid Deployment, Reactive Plating, Field Medic, Compound Interest, Salvage Crew.
8 research projects: Trigger Assembly, Shrapnel Casings, Sabot Rounds, Cryo Saturation, Toxic Compounds, Bounty Network, War Economy, Convoy Support.

v7.3.0 Gameplay

Reload system! Ballistic towers now have magazines. They fire until empty, then reload. A green bar shows rounds left; an amber RELOAD bar shows reload progress.
Magazine sizes scale with fire rate — fast towers (minigun, vulcan) get big mags for satisfying bursts; slow heavy hitters (sniper, cannon, nuke) get small mags but are barely affected since they fire so rarely.
Energy weapons (laser, tesla, railgun, chain) have no reload — they fire continuously as before.
New upgrades: Extended Mags & Quick Hands (prestige) and Ammo Logistics (research) boost magazine size and reload speed.

v7.2.0 Visuals

Upgraded towers now glow — a pulsing aura under each tower, brighter and bigger the more it's upgraded. Blue for path A, orange for path B.
Muzzle flashes — towers flash when they fire.
Better bullet trails — gradient-faded streaks with a hot white core instead of flat lines.
UI polish — gradient menu buttons with a glow on hover, stronger logo glow, panel header gradients, and hover states on the in-game toolbar buttons.

v7.1.4 Balance

Rifle upgrades nerfed — top-tier rifle damage reduced ~13-17%. Early-game rifle towers unchanged. Other towers untouched.
Endless Mode unlocks at Stage 25 (was 50). Players can now jump into endless after a much shorter campaign run.
Save codes ~19% smaller. Empty/default fields are now stripped before encoding. Old codes still import correctly.
Fixed a typo in the Endless Mode lock alert.

v7.1.3 QoL

⏭ Skip button appears in the topbar during prep phases. Tap it to start the next wave instantly when you're ready — no waiting for the timer.
Works for the initial 30-second prep AND every between-wave 15s/30s prep.
Fixed the pause button label not hiding correctly on small phone screens.

v7.1.2 Anti-Cheat

Save signing: saves now carry a signature. Edited save files (or pasted-and-modified export codes) get rejected with a clear error.
Auto-backup: every save also writes a rolling backup. If a save is corrupted or tampered, the previous good save is restored automatically.
Old unsigned saves and pre-v7.1.2 export codes still load — no progress lost.
Note: this stops casual save editors, not determined hackers. True anti-cheat needs a server.

v7.1.1 Audit

Full code audit — confirmed every onclick button wires to a real function, every getElementById target exists, all 7 new prestige upgrades and 5 new research items reach gameplay through the right effect channels.
Tested all 15 chests with 1000 simulated rolls each — every chest delivers rewards, every boost ID in the chest pool exists in the shop, no silent failures.
Verified save migration handles old (pre-v7) saves and export/import round-trips losslessly.

v7.1.0 Content

Fixed chest rewards. Old descriptions advertised Parts/Boost Items/Mega RP that never actually dropped — chests gave gems only. Every chest now drops what its description says.
Wolf Vault buffed. Was identical to Mythic for 2.5× the cost. Now drops ~1650 gems + 5 RP + TWO boosts (legendary + epic) + bonus rolls.
3 new chests: Starter Bundle (200g), Speed Run Crate (1800g), Elite Operations (6000g).
7 new prestige upgrades: Lucky Crits, Battlefield Loot, Veteran Wages, Last Stand, Heavy Munitions, Logistics Bonus, Lucky Streak.
5 new research projects: Overdrive Coils, Long-Range Targeting, Forward Bunker, Jackpot Reels, Last Stand Protocol (one-shot revive).

v7.0.6 Save System

Quick Save to file — Settings → 📤 Export now has a one-tap "Download as File" button. Saves a .txt file you can keep anywhere.
Quick Load from file — 📥 Import now has "Choose Save File" so you can load a backup without copy/paste.
New players now start with 110 gems (was 10).

v7.0.5 Save System

Export & import save codes — back up your progress or move it to another device. Buttons live in Settings → 💾 Save Data.
Future updates now auto-migrate old saves so new fields don't break your progress.

v7.0.4 UI

Added this patch notes button so you can see what's been updated.

v7.0.3 Bug Fix

Fixed Speeders making the game progressively harder. They were wrongly counted as bosses on death, secretly stacking +3 zombies/wave and +8% HP each time. Killing speeders is now safe.

v7.0.2 Mobile

More play area on phones — tighter topbar, shorter button labels, hidden logo on tiny screens.
Sidebar now takes up to 92% of the screen on small phones — much easier to read tower stats.
Sidebar toggle moved to a side tab on the right edge so it's no longer in the way of placing towers.
Trimmed sidebar padding so more towers fit without scrolling.

v7.0.1 Visuals

New zombie battlefield background on loading screen, main menu, and level select.

v7.0.0 Major Update

Campaign mode: 100 stages with star ratings, locked/cleared progression.
Bloons-style loadouts: towers unlock as you climb stages.
Background unlocks at stages 10 / 25 / 50 / 75 / 100.
Endless mode unlocks after clearing Stage 50.
Boss stages every 10 levels — boss spawns on the final wave.
Boosts now apply correctly in both Campaign and Endless modes.
Removed all music & sound code (silent build).
Dead-code cleanup, formatting pass.

📋 What's New

🎟 Redeem Code

🛒 Shop

⚡ Prestige Upgrades

🎨 Backgrounds

⚙ Settings

📤 Export Save

📥 Import Save

🔬 Research Lab

🏆 Achievements

🏆 Score Milestones

🎯 Daily Challenge

☠️ Nightmare Stage

Rotate Your Phone

▶ Campaign

★ STAGE CLEARED

☠ BASE OVERRUN

🎁 Reward!

📋 What's New

🎟 Redeem Code

🛒 Shop

⚡ Prestige Upgrades

🎨 Backgrounds

⚙ Settings

📤 Export Save

📥 Import Save

🔬 Research Lab

🏆 Achievements

🏆 Score Milestones

🎯 Daily Challenge

☠️ Nightmare Stage

Rotate Your Phone

⏸ PAUSED

⚙ Settings

🏠 Return to Menu?

▶ Campaign

★ STAGE CLEARED

☠ BASE OVERRUN

🎁 Reward!