tower-defense

1# Tower Defense
2 
3A playbook for tower defense — enemy pathing, wave spawning, tower targeting, and the
4economy that ties them together. This is a **compositional** skill: it orchestrates pathing,
5AI, and UI into a TD loop. It does not re-teach pathfinding; it defines the systems and the
6balance levers (DPS vs. HP vs. income) that decide whether a TD is tense or trivial.
7 
8## When to use
9 
10- Use when building a game where the player **places towers** that automatically attack
11  **waves of enemies** following a path, spends earned currency to expand/upgrade, and loses
12  if too many enemies leak through.
13- Use when designing wave composition/pacing, tower targeting priorities, or the gold economy.
14 
15**When _not_ to use:** the player directly controls a shooter → `fps-shooter`. Free-form base
16building with needs → `survival-crafting`. For the pathfinding algorithm itself, use `game-ai`.
17 
18## Core loop
19 
20**Prepare (place/upgrade towers with current gold) → start the wave → enemies path toward the
21goal while towers auto-fire → earn gold from kills → survive the wave → repeat against a
22harder one.** The tension is a planning puzzle: is my current DPS enough for what's coming,
23and can I afford the answer?
24 
25## Must-have systems
26 
271. **Enemy path** — waypoint lanes, or grid + pathfinding for maze TD (refs).
282. **Wave spawner** — timed, scripted sequences of enemy types with per-wave scaling.
293. **Towers** — range, fire rate, damage, projectile/hitscan, splash; placement validity.
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