Palace vs Aliens

One cannon on the palace wall, ten waves of invaders, one upgrade between each

Single player
shooter
defense
action

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About Palace vs Aliens

A medieval palace, a sky full of descending invaders, and a single cannon bolted to the wall. The joke writes itself, but the numbers underneath are not joking: the palace has one hundred points of health, there is no second cannon, and an armoured invader that reaches the wall takes eighteen of them.

Ten waves, each larger and slightly faster than the last, ending with a mothership. Between waves the game stops and offers three upgrade cards, of which you take one. That single choice is the whole build system — faster fire, an extra bolt, heavier bolts, slowing shots, an automatic turret, bursting shells, or forty points of stonework back on the palace.

It is a defence game stripped down to aiming and spending. Nothing is placed by hand, nothing is built, and the only thing that ever shoots without you is the turret, if you chose it. Runs last a few minutes and end either on the mothership or on the wave where your health finally ran out.

What is different about this version

The usual build phase is gone. There are no towers to place, no routes to cover, no map to plan — the defences that would normally be structures have been folded into one deck of cannon upgrades, offered three at a time between waves. Take Sky Tower and a turret appears on the wall and fires by itself; take Catapult Blast and your bolts burst on impact; take Stone Walls and you repair forty health instead of getting stronger.

That last card is the only one without a limit on how often you may take it, which is the real tension of a run. Everything else caps out, so each repair you take is a permanent hole in your firepower going into the mothership, and every repair you skip is health you will not get back.

How to play Palace vs Aliens

Aim the cannon at the sky. It pivots from the top of the palace and cannot point below the horizon.
Fire at invaders as they descend. A plain bolt does one point of damage.
Keep them off the wall. Anything that reaches the palace takes a bite out of its health bar and disappears.
Clear every invader in the wave to bank a bonus that grows with the wave number.
Choose one of three upgrade cards before the next wave starts.
Survive ten waves. The tenth brings the mothership, and it does not come alone.

Controls

Desktop	The cannon follows your cursor and clicking fires it, or you can swing it with the left and right arrows and shoot with the spacebar. Upgrades are taken with 1, 2 or 3.
Phone or tablet	Touch anywhere to aim the cannon at that point and hold to keep firing; tap an upgrade card to take it.
Players	One player. Any other characters on screen are run by the game.

Strategy

Work backwards from the mothership. It arrives on the final wave with a hundred and fifty points of health, alongside sixteen ordinary invaders. An unimproved cannon does one damage a shot about four times a second, nowhere near enough while the rest of the wave is walking in. Heavy Bolts is close to compulsory: each level adds a point of damage, and at full stack a bolt does four, which also drops the armoured invaders from six hits to two. Rapid Fire multiplies whatever that bolt is worth, so the two compound — but speed without damage still needs six shots to kill a tank.

Triage by damage done rather than by distance. The armoured invaders move slowest and hit hardest; the flying saucers are the quickest thing on screen but die to a single bolt and barely scratch the wall. Let a saucer close in while you finish a tank, never the reverse. From the fifth wave some invaders arrive crowned, with double health and half again the damage, and they deserve the same priority.

Health is a currency, not a safety net. There is exactly one way to get it back, and spending a pick on it costs an upgrade slot you will feel in the last two waves. Finish a wave above roughly seventy and you should take firepower and accept the chip damage. Below forty with several waves left, repair at once — the health bar never scales, but the invaders gain a little health and speed every round.

Mistakes that cost you the game

Shooting whatever is closest. The slow armoured invaders are the ones that actually empty the health bar, and they are the easiest to hit precisely because they are slow.
Taking repairs early out of caution. Health spent on a comfortable wave three is firepower missing on wave ten, when the mothership needs every point of damage a bolt can carry.

Tips

Twin Cannon is strongest against dense low waves and weakest against the mothership, since the spread only partly lands on one target.
Frost Bolts add no damage but cut a target's speed for a couple of seconds, which beats damage when two tanks arrive together.
Sky Tower scales partly with your damage upgrades, so it is better taken after Heavy Bolts than before.
The wave-clear bonus grows with the wave number, so a clean late wave outscores several early ones.
Sweep the cannon between shots rather than tracking one target down. Invaders descend in loose columns.

Questions about Palace vs Aliens

Is this a tower defence game?

Not in the usual sense. You never place anything on the map — you aim one cannon and choose an upgrade between waves.

How long is a full run?

Ten waves, a few minutes if it goes well. The tenth wave brings the mothership and ends it either way.

Can I repair the palace?

Only through the Stone Walls upgrade card, which restores forty health. It is the one card you can take as often as it is offered.

Does it cost anything?

No. Palace vs Aliens is free to play, runs in your browser, and needs no download, install or account.

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