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Núcleo is an incremental reverse tower defense: you're the core of a dungeon, and thousands of adventurers come down your corridor to destroy you. Every one that dies feeds you mana to dig deeper, set traps and monster lairs, and grow stronger. When they finally break you, you reincarnate with Titles that make your next life go further.

Update 0.5 is the biggest one so far:

- Numbers on hover: see each trap's real damage, what the next upgrade gives, the damage per second on every tile and how much health the incoming adventurers have.

- Floor guardians: when the first legendary hero dies, pick a legendary monster to guard the floor (Lich, Bone Golem or Vampire). It blocks the corridor, levels up, learns abilities and grows stronger with Legend Essence.

- Ascend to Rank D: complete the Title Tree, reach fame 30 in a life, and your dungeon ascends (about two hours in), with permanent bonuses and 15 new titles.

- A second floor: the dungeon grows downward. An imp keeps the Crypt with its own mana while you defend the Mushroom Caves below.

- The Mushroom Caves: 6 new traps and lairs (Mushrooms that grow over time, Spores, Sticky Moss, Spore Launcher, Burst Mushroom, Spider nests), Druids who calm your fungi, and three new guardians (Spider Queen, Slime King, Myconid).

- Ranked adventurers and Badges: tougher adventurers with a golden aura drop Badges. Spend them on 24 trap evolutions, on automation (an Apprentice Imp that rebuilds your floor, a Sub-core that picks your traits) and on Trophies with no limit.

- Fury: stay in a rank too long and the adventurers arrive enraged.

- Plus: a trait for each floor on every level-up, huge waves that arrive in groups, a Title Tree you can drag and zoom, and icons for everything.

Your save from 0.4 carries over. English and Spanish. Free to play in the browser, or download it for Windows or Linux.

It's an early prototype on its way to Steam, so any feedback helps: did you make it to the Mushroom Caves? Does the imp feel like a helper or like it's in your way?

https://cycl0ps.itch.io/nucleo

Thanks for writing this up, it helped me find a real problem! legendaries aren't immune to spikes, but in your game they were practically immortal, and the reason is healing. Brann heals his party, and regular clerics walking next to them heal them too. Healing is a percentage of max health, and legendaries have up to 10 times the health of a peasant at the same fame, so one cleric nearby heals them faster than a whole row of spikes can hurt them.

A few things that should help right now:

Mud right before fire. Mud slows them down and leaves them "muddied" for 2 seconds: they take 30% more damage from everything (more with mud upgrades), and fire burns muddied adventurers 2.5 times harder. Without mud, fire is basically a strong spike. Try changing your three tiles to mud, fire, spike, with the mud on the tile they step on just before the fire. In my test without healing, your current layout left them at 25–55% health when they reached the core; with mud before each fire, all four died before the middle of the path.

Slimes don't stop them. Legendaries crush any monster in their way with one hit. Slimes are great against the crowd, not against the party.

Core health doesn't help against them. Each legendary that reaches the core takes about a third of its max health, however many upgrades it has, so three of them destroy it. That mana does more in traps.

The party is meant to end a life. Each legendary you kill gives you a title, and when you reincarnate, titles make you stronger for good (Ancient Arsenal makes every trap hit harder). Fame 15 is about normal for a first life; the next ones go further.

You're right that the game doesn't tell you how strong the traps are or how much health adventurers have. I've noted that, along with aiming the auto pulse at the party. Thanks for playing!

Thanks a lot for playing! Try pausing the game to build traps, start with the spikes and as your fame level increases, other traps will become available.

Thank you very much for your help! I had also noticed that, and the new update fixes it.

All set, sorry.

Hi! I'm working on Núcleo, an incremental reverse tower defense.

You're the core at the bottom of a dungeon. Adventurers come down your corridor by the thousands, and every one that dies gives you mana to dig deeper, set traps and grow stronger. Fame brings bigger waves, tougher heroes and, at last, a legendary party. When they break you, you reincarnate with permanent Titles. Waves can reach 15,000 adventurers on screen at once.

It's an early prototype with placeholder art and sound. You can play it in your browser or download it for Windows:

https://cycl0ps.itch.io/nucleo

A first life lasts about 10–15 minutes. I'd love to know:

- How long did you play, and what made you stop?

- Was anything confusing at the start?

Thanks for playing!