Retro Tower Defense Game Modes: Waves, Levels & Clear Rates
Gamemodes is core feature in retro tower defense thats let you play the actual game, there are 4 main gamemodes, those being casual, normal, hard and insane with each having different type of enemies and enemies themself, winning or losing gamemode gives you xp along with tix and event current if theres active event and 2 side ones those being Endless and Sandbox. NOTE : Normal, hard and insane don't have wave structure after 10th wave; you can click on images or search them to get to pages.
| Mode | Level needed | Waves | Players who have cleared it | Share of all players |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casual | 0 | 20 | 1,246,550 | 12.0% |
| Normal | 5 | 30 | 901,320 | 8.7% |
| Hard | 15 | 40 | 324,683 | 3.1% |
| Insane | 25 | 50 | 51,306 | 0.5% |
One structural detail that catches people out: only Casual has a fixed wave structure the whole way through. Normal, Hard and Insane drop that structure after wave 10, so what you face from there is not a fixed script you can memorise.
Endless mode
Endless arrived with the Endless Mode event and never finishes — waves keep scaling and you play until you fall over. It has its own three difficulties (Casual, Standard and Hardcore) that are separate from the four above. Standard is the one to run on most maps; drop to Casual on three-path maps like What The...?, where the early game punishes a slow start. 35,087 players have completed the Endless event.
Sandbox
Sandbox is the fifth mode and it is a gamepass, not a difficulty — it exists for testing loadouts rather than earning. Nothing you do there counts towards badges or Tix.
Clear counts pulled:
Once you are past level 10, modifiers are worth more than moving up a difficulty — a stacked Normal run can out-earn a bare Hard run. Map-by-map clear counts are on the maps page.