About Hold the Gate
Attackers march down the roads toward your gate: spearmen, archers, riders, and now and then a siege ram. Tap a lane to send your next defender into it, and the two meet where they meet. Spears stop riders, riders run down archers, archers beat spears, the same type trades, and a ram crushes the first defender that hits it, so it takes two. You can see your next three defenders, and every lane shows at a glance whether the next one would win there, so the whole game is choosing which lane gets the one you have. A winner walks on and can stop the next attacker too. Anything that reaches the gate knocks a piece off it, and the gate falling ends the run. The waves come faster and more mixed the whole way through.
How to play
- Attackers walk down the roads from the right toward your gate on the left. Tap a lane to send your next defender into it.
- On a keyboard, press 1 to 3 (1 to 4 when there are four lanes) to send, or pick a lane with the arrow keys or W and S and press Space.
- When a defender meets an attacker they fight for 0.45 seconds. Spears beat riders, riders beat archers, archers beat spears, and the same type trades. A winner walks on and can stop the next attacker too.
- Anything that reaches the gate knocks hit points off it. The gate has 8, and the run ends when it falls.
Tips
- Read the lane chips. Each lane with an attacker shows your next defender against the first attacker it would meet: a green tick for a win, a red cross for a loss, an equals sign for a trade, and ×2 for a ram.
- Riders first. A rider walks 1.45 times as fast as a spearman and knocks 2 points off the gate; spearmen and archers knock off 1. A spare spearman belongs in the lane with a rider.
- Rams take two. A siege ram wins every fight but loses one of its two hit points each time, and does 4 damage at the gate. It is the slowest attacker, so there is time to send two.
- Plan with the queue. You can see your next three defenders, dealt from a shuffled bag of two of each type, and the front one cannot be skipped. Spend a poor fit where it at least trades.
- Tap slightly early. A send reloads in 0.9 seconds. A tap in the last 0.35 seconds of the reload is kept and sent the moment it is ready.
Read the full Hold the Gate guide (5 min read)
From the developer
Hold the Gate is lane defence with one verb: tap a lane to send your next defender into it. Attackers march down three or four lanes toward your gate. A counter cycle decides each fight: spear beats cavalry, cavalry beats archer, archer beats spear. A siege ram wins every fight but loses a hit point each time, so it takes two defenders. I built it in plain JavaScript on a 2D canvas, on a small shared runtime I wrote for my one-verb games, which handles loading, screen fitting, input, sound and saving.
The decision is which lane gets the defender you have. The next three are shown, and the front one cannot be skipped. I wanted it readable with no words on a 360 by 640 phone, so units carry team rings and type icons, each lane shows a chip with a tick, cross or equals for the next match-up, and a counter wheel sits beside the queue.
Fairness is tested with a bot that sends at most one defender a second, reacts in 0.4 seconds and sees only the field: every wave of the first 85 seconds is holdable from a full gate. The art is rendered in Blender from Toony Tiny RTS Set by Polygon Blacksmith, with the gate's construction stages as its damage states.
Son Hoang, who made Hold the Gate
Update history
- Added music: Tower Defense Theme by DST.
- Released on the site.
- First playable build: tap a lane to send your next defender against attackers marching on your gate.
Questions
Does Hold the Gate save my progress?
Only your best score, in this browser's local storage, shown under the queue. Every run starts again at the first wave with a full gate.
Can I play Hold the Gate on a phone?
Yes. A tap anywhere in a lane's band sends into that lane. A phone gets three lanes; a landscape screen at least 600 pixels tall gets four.
How is the score worked out?
10 for every attacker stopped, including by a trade, and 30 for a ram. Holding a wave adds 50, but only if the gate still stands and you stopped at least half of its attackers.
Is there an ending?
No. Waves keep growing and speeding up until attackers reach the gate faster than anyone can send, so every run ends with the gate falling. The card says what broke it.
