Maze Tower Wars

What’s new

Every update to the game, newest first. The version number is in the corner of the main menu.

· v0.62

A tutorial for your first match

  • Learn by playing. New players are asked once, when they press PLAY, whether they’d like the tutorial. It tours the screen, has you build a Starter maze from a Blueprint one tower type at a time (each one explained as you place it), shows every troop and when to send it, walks you through upgrading, sending, the Camp and the Forge, then drops you into a short match against a sparring bot. Skip it at any point. It replaces How to play, and you can replay it any time from Tutorial on the menu.
  • Keep the Starter maze. When you finish, the Starter maze is saved to your layouts and picked as your Blueprint, so its ghosts show up in the prep round of your next match.
  • A wax seal for the fallen. When a player is knocked out, their maze dims and a crimson wax seal drops onto it, with OUT and their finishing place pressed in, and whose troops took the last life underneath.
  • The upgrade sheet closes when you’re done. Once the towers you picked have nothing left to buy, the sheet closes by itself and the Build and Send cards come back.

· v0.61

One path per tower, and a fairer late game

  • Every tower picks its path. A tower’s first upgrade now locks in its path for good, the way the Mage already picked Frost or Fire. No more mixing the two sides of an Archer, Brawler, Tesla or Cannon.
  • Fire burns a little less. Burn was the only damage that grew with a troop’s health, so late in a match Fire did about half of a maze’s work. Its share-of-health burn is down 40%, and in return every Mastery except the Mage’s adds 0.1% of the troop’s max health to each hit, so the rest of your maze keeps up with big troops.
  • Deadeye aims for the biggest troop. Deadeye Archers shoot the troop with the most health in range, and every arrow adds 0.3% of that troop’s max health. They still hit Armored and Flyers hardest.
  • Whirlwind hits everything in reach. A Whirlwind Brawler’s swing now hits every troop around it (it stopped at four) and adds 0.2% of each one’s max health.
  • Big moments get called out. The prep round, the Onslaught countdown, the Onslaught itself and being knocked out now flash across the middle of the screen instead of sitting in a small bar at the top. Once Onslaught starts, a red glow breathes around the edge of the screen until the match ends.
  • Fixed: the Mage upgrade sheet could stop answering taps, the ✕ included, because its numbers changed so often. Every button works now.
  • Fixed: if you surrendered or were knocked out early, you could get stuck watching with no way out. The Surrender button turns into Leave match once you’re out.

· v0.60

A new coat of paint

  • New menu art. The whole crew, from the Tesla coil to the lava turtles, is repainted by hand-drawn strokes over the stone maze.
  • It fits your screen. The menu picks the version drawn closest to your screen’s shape, from tall phones to ultrawide monitors, so less of the picture gets cut off.
  • The home page and the link preview you see when someone shares the game use the new art too.
  • Looks only. Nothing about how the game plays has changed.

· v0.59

Smarter bots, stronger Masteries

  • Hard bots plan their mazes. They build long, winding paths with no dead corners, use every kind of tower (Frost included), save up for Masteries and upgrade towers in groups. They read what leaks through and send what your maze is weak to.
  • Bots play at human speed. Every bot gets the same tap budget a fast player has, so it can no longer build, upgrade and send all in the same instant.
  • Easy and Normal think the same way, just turned down. They leave a few gaps in their mazes, earn a little less from their sends and react more slowly. Both are a real game now instead of falling over by the fourth minute.
  • Masteries hit harder. Every Mastery except the Fire Mage’s now adds +75% damage on top of its effect, for the same 1,200 gold. Fire was already the strongest late game, and now the rest of your maze keeps up.
  • Permafrost spreads. When a Permafrost bolt freezes a troop, troops within a tile can freeze with it.
  • The tower report credits the Frost Mage for damage other towers deal to the troops it holds (“612k assist”), so it no longer looks like the weakest tower on the list.

· v0.58

Towers that really fight

  • Brawlers box. They wait in a guard and throw real jabs, hooks and uppercuts, mixed at random and quicker than before.
  • Archers draw properly. They stand up, plant their feet, hold the bow in their fist and pull the string back to their fingers before they loose.
  • Mages cast at what they’re shooting. All three turn to face their target. The Fire Mage’s staff moves with his hand and the fireball leaves from the orb, and the Frost Mage has a cast of his own.
  • Looks only. Every tower hits just as hard and just as often as before.
  • The main menu shows how many people are online right now. The legal notice moved behind the © button.
  • Online matches that everyone has left now close on their own, so the server stays up for everyone else.

· v0.57

Castle gates, banners, and quick match waits for a real opponent

  • Gates on every board. Troops march in through a gatehouse whose portcullis stays down through the prep round and winds up as sends unlock. At the exit, a drawbridge over a little moat drops when the prep round ends, and leakers walk out over it.
  • Banners. Pick one of eight banner styles and fly it over your gates. Everyone else’s board flies a different one.
  • Profile in the top corner of the menu holds your banner, your medals and Settings. The menu links are down to Field guide and How to play.
  • Less small print on the post-match screens and in Settings, and the post-match tables scroll sideways on iPhones.
  • Quick match no longer fills a lone player’s match with bots. You wait for a second player, then the match starts 30 seconds later (or as soon as five are in), and bots take any empty seats. Want bots right now? That’s what Versus AI is for.
  • The menu shows how many people are waiting, so you can see when someone is looking for a match. Your phone’s screen stays on while you wait.
  • Fixed: after you were knocked out or surrendered (even in the prep round), or reloaded the page afterwards, the Leave match button could disappear and the screen went back to the prep round. You can always leave now.
  • The flyer line no longer sits on your board all match. It lights up, brighter than before, only while Flyers are crossing your board, so you notice when someone sends them.
  • Fixed: quick taps on the board could zoom the whole page on iPhones. If the page ever does zoom, it snaps back on its own.

Quick match without an account

  • Anyone can quick match now, signed in or not. Guests play unrated. Sign in if you want a rating and a spot on the leaderboard.
  • Nobody waits alone anymore. Bots fill the empty seats 25 seconds after the first player starts looking, and anyone who joins before then is in the same match.

Online play

The big one: you can play other people now, and anyone can make an account.

  • Quick match puts you in a five-player free-for-all. It starts 30 seconds after a second player joins, and bots take any empty seats. Quick match is rated: everyone starts at 1000, and your first five games move it faster while it finds your level.
  • Private rooms work with a link or a six-character code. Friends can join as guests and pick their own name.
  • Emotes: eight stickers, each one a head from the cast. The Grunt says GG, the Runner just smirks.
  • If your connection drops mid-match you have a minute to get back in, and you land right where you were. After that a bot takes your seat.
  • The leaderboard is quick match only, all time and this week.
  • Fixed: iPhones no longer zoom in when you tap a text box.

· v0.56

The Field guide

  • A Field guide in the main menu: every tower’s upgrade paths step by step with real numbers, the troop tier table, who beats whom, and the element combos.
  • The end-of-match medal waits for your tap now, so it doesn’t fly past while you’re still looking at the board. The medals got new art too.
  • Tray cards dropped their small print. Towers show a picture, a name and a price; that’s all anyone read mid-match anyway.
  • A bigger upgrade button, and on large monitors the whole interface scales up a step so it isn’t tiny.

· v0.55

Medals, tier looks and saved mazes

  • Medals at the end of every match against bots or friends, kept in a Medal case in the menu. Last place is always iron, so any other colour means you beat somebody.
  • Troops dress for their tier: III silver, IV gold, V crimson, VI violet. You can read how strong a wave is before the numbers show up, and it doesn’t cost any frame rate.
  • Saved layouts follow your account. Bring one into a match and its towers show as ghosts during the prep round.
  • A new board look: a darker tiled floor, softer path squares, and the build grid only while you’re building.
  • On phones, tapping a tower opens its upgrade sheet in place of the tray, and How to play has six tabs of marked-up pictures.

· v0.53

Masteries and a new Onslaught

  • The Onslaught is no longer a wave. The old version dumped a huge automatic send on everyone at once. Now, from 7:00, every troop sent has 50% more health at the same price, and it’s still you doing the sending.
  • The Forge has three ranks: second upgrades, then capstones, then Masteries.
  • Ten Masteries, one 1,200-gold upgrade per capstone, and each one gives the tower a Champion look you can spot from across the river.
  • An effects pass: hits land in time with the swing, troops flinch and topple, and every capstone has its own signature effect.
  • Tesla fixes, and a couple of bot habits fixed.

mazetw.com goes up

  • The site, the guide and the game, in a private playtest to start with.
  • Accounts with Google sign-in: a profile, your match history and a place on the leaderboard. You can delete it all from your profile page.
  • Fixed some characters: the Fire Mage holds its staff properly, Archer and Mage arms stopped clipping through their heads, and the goblin got its dagger back.

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