Jarred Defense

A cat is stuck in a jar. It's your problem now.

Jarred Defense is a tower defense for people who miss the strategic depth of old-school TDs. Place towers anywhere and use them to shape the enemy path. Force enemies the long way around, make them walk over level hazards, and create choke points for your splash damage. No spells, no first-person shooting, no random card modifiers. Just planning, placement, items, and upgrades.

Countless Ways to Solve Each Map

Build towers. Force enemies through lava. Adapt to melting ice blocks as heat sources reshape the level around you. Send the next wave early and pocket the bonus.

Swap your equipped items, choose different branches in the tower upgrade trees, and find a completely different way to beat the same map.

Enemies will try to ruin your plans too. Some stop to heal, some fly over your defenses, some split into more enemies when defeated, while others get faster the longer they travel in a straight line.

The cat trapped in the jar has opinions about all of this. They are not helpful.

Uncover Yuki's Story

Progress through the campaign to unlock cutscenes and find out why Yuki keeps appearing in jars, what happened to the robots, and whether any of this might possibly be her fault. Yuki will provide constant tactical support.

A Full Campaign + Community Maps and Level Editor

The campaign takes roughly 4-6 hours to complete. Beyond the story, take on optional challenges and Endless Mode with leaderboards. Jarred Defense also includes a full level editor. Create your own maps, publish them to Community Maps, and play and rate levels made by other players.

Features

No predefined tower locations or single correct solution, place towers anywhere and shape the enemy path

Handcrafted levels that change as you play

Early send mechanic with risk-weighted bonuses

Tower upgrade trees with branching specializations

Equippable items that change your strategy

Hazard tiles: force enemies to step on them

Enemies with unique mechanics and various bosses and mini-bosses

Optional challenges that unlock new towers and items

Unlockable cosmetics for Yuki

Endless Mode with leaderboards

Full level editor and Community Maps

4-6 hour story campaign with cutscenes

This Game Is Kind of Hard

I built it because I missed the old-school flash tower defense games that didn't hold your hand. As a result, you’ll probably watch your defenses fall apart more than once. I consider that part of the fun.

About the Developer

Mikolas studied Computer Graphics at the Czech Technical University in Prague. After graduating, he joined Prusa Research, a 3D printing company, in 2017. He now leads the company's Content team.

Jarred Defense grew out of his love for maze-building tower defense games, especially Warcraft III custom maps and Flash-era TDs. Years later, he realized that the kind of strategic tower defense he wanted to play, where building the enemy path is a core part of the game, had become surprisingly hard to find.

“I’ve wanted to make my own game for years, and eventually realized I was in a slightly unusual position where I could program it, draw it, make the trailers, and even do the marketing myself. But the final push was much simpler: I really wanted to play a strategic tower defense with true maze building again. I couldn’t find the game I wanted, so two years ago I started making it.”

Jarred Defense began as an evening project and was developed over roughly two years in his spare time.

Made by one person who just wanted to play a game like this and couldn't find one.

Powered by the open-source GODOT game engine. <3