The tower defense genre has experienced waves of innovation since it rose to popularity in the late noughties. 

First there was Desktop Tower Defense, and shortly after that, in 2009, came the seminal Plants Vs Zombies. 

And, er, that’s about it. Two waves.

Sure, a ton of excellent tower defense games have arrived since PvZ, including Bloons, Kingdom Rush, Clash Royale, and others. But nothing has happened in the last decade and a half to match the sheer joyous inventiveness of PopCap Games’s casual TD masterpiece.

Until now. 

Developed by Agonalea Games, Punko.io is an indie project that manages to faithfully capture the addictive essence of tower defense while introducing several new ideas. Here’s the game’s manifesto if you don’t believe us:

So here’s a game that’s both more approachable and more strategically deep than anything else we’ve played in years. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Here are the basics.

Zombies are running amuck, swarming the world in a shambling stampede of implacable brain-hunger that spans graveyards, cities, subways, and more. You are dramatically outnumbered, but you’ve got a couple of secret weapons. 

Those weapons are: the ability to think, the ability to cast spells, and, yes, an absolute ton of literal weapons. 

Unlike other tower defense games, Punko.io gives you a whole RPG-style inventory to draw from, including items to equip, power-ups to obtain, and special skills to unlock. This allows you to carve your own path through the game, evolving your character as you see fit. 

And that’s before we’ve even got to the subtext. Punko.io can go toe-to-toe with any tower defense game of the last decade, but it’s also got things to say about the entire genre and the people who play it. 

Satirical content isn’t a traditional review category, but Punko.io goes in hard with the tongue-in-cheek criticism of modern casual games and the dull repetition that has set in. Agonalea wants to shake us out of our collective zomboid trance. 

To that end, the studio has added a whole raft of new features and events on iOS and Android. 

They include daily rewards, free gifts, discounted packs of legendary gear, five new chapters set in Brazil, a new Dragon boss, two extra Hardcore levels, and a game-changing new Overlap Heal feature. 

Plus, to celebrate the worldwide launch of Punko.io there’s going to be a global event between September 26th and October 27th that will see players uniting to defeat zombies and hear Punko’s special message. 

Punko.io is free to play, with or without wi-fi, right now. Go check it out.