Picnicade

Stop the bugs from raiding the picnic!

A perfect picnic is laid out on the grass, and a long line of hungry ants is marching straight for the basket. You cannot stop them with your hands, but you can stop them with the kitchen. Picnicade is a free tower defense game that runs in your browser, on a computer or a phone, with no download and no sign-up. The bugs are cute, the towers are salt shakers and watering cans, and the picnic is always worth saving.

How to play

1. Press Play and pick a level. Every level has a trail that ends at the picnic basket, and bugs walk along it in waves.
2. Click or tap one of the paper plates beside the trail to open the build menu. Choose a tower and pay for it with the money you have.
3. Press Start, or the Space bar, to call the first wave. After that, the next wave comes on its own after a short pause. Calling it early pays a small bonus.
4. Every bug that reaches the basket costs you lives, and some bugs cost more than one. Lose all of your lives and the picnic is ruined.
5. Earn money for every bug you stop and spend it on new towers or on upgrades. You can upgrade a tower twice, and you can sell it for most of what you paid.
6. Survive every wave to clear the level. You earn one to three stars, depending on how many lives you have left.

Controls

Tips

• Start with the salt shaker. It is cheap, it is quick and it can hit flying bugs, so it is useful on every level.
• Put a watering can where the trail bends. It soaks every ground bug around it and slows them down, which gives every other tower more time to shoot.
• The popcorn machine pops a burst that hurts a whole group. It is slow, so it shines against crowds of ants, and it cannot hit flies.
• Beetles have armor, and weak hits barely scratch them. The skewer launcher ignores armor and has a long range, so save some money for it.
• Flies fly over the trail. Only the salt shaker and the skewer launcher can reach them, so make sure you have one of them in range.
• Change what a tower aims at. First, Last, Strongest and Closest are all useful: Strongest is great for beetles and for the Ant Queen.
• Call waves early when you are strong. The bonus adds up, and you will need that money later.
• Do not forget the stars. They buy permanent upgrades, so replay an easy level when you want a better start on a hard one.

About Picnicade

Picnicade is a tower defense game for people who like to plan a little and then watch the plan work. The trail never changes, so every level is a puzzle about where to place your towers and what to upgrade first. There is no maze to draw and nothing to memorize.

There are four towers: the Salt Shaker, the Watering Can, the Popcorn Machine and the Skewer Launcher. Each one can be upgraded twice, and each one does a different job. Four kinds of bugs walk the trail: ants, which are steady and sturdy, crickets, which are fragile but very fast, armored beetles and flies that cross over the trail. The tenth and last level ends with the Ant Queen. She is huge, she calls more ants as she gets hurt, and if she reaches the basket the level is lost.

The campaign has 10 levels across three places: a meadow with a checkered cloth, a sunny beach and an autumn park. Some of the later levels send bugs down more than one trail. When you win, you earn stars, and you can spend them on permanent upgrades: more starting money, more lives, sharper tools and a longer reach. Clear level 5 to unlock the endless mode, where the waves never stop and the bugs get tougher each time. Your stars, your upgrades and your best wave are saved in your browser. When a bug is defeated it turns into a little puff of smoke, so the game suits all ages.

Frequently asked questions