Über Hivetide
Hivetide is an incremental tower defense game about holding one extraction rig against a hive that moves like water.
We came to this planet for biomass. The insects living under the crust need it too, and they have noticed. Every stage is a shift at the extractor: keep it standing until it can be pulled out, then spend what you harvested and go back down.A horde, not a line of enemies
The insects don't walk a fixed path. They flow toward the extractor, fill every tunnel, and when a corridor gets crowded the ones behind look for another way around. Thousands can be on screen at once. Your job is to decide where that flood gets squeezed and what is waiting there when it does.Towers on the rock, aimed by hand
- Towers go only on the high ground: solid rock next to a tunnel, looking down into it.
- Drag the edges of each tower's firing arc to narrow what it covers. Rock blocks line of sight, so where you build matters as much as what you build.
- Pick up a tower mid-fight and drop it somewhere else. It needs a few seconds to set up again, so every move costs you something.
- Choose who each gun shoots at: the insect closest to the extractor, the strongest one, or the nearest one.
Eight towers, four worlds that disagree about them
Machine Gun, Cannon, Mortar, Tesla, Flamethrower, Cryostat, Railgun and Missile Launcher. Each world has its own weather that helps some kinds of weapons and hurts others: wind bends your grenades on the Surface, damp air soaks the powder and carries the lightning in the Colony, heat favors fire in the Royal Chamber, and a magnetic field throws off guided shots in the Core. Each stage adds its own weather event on top, and a second shift can hit in the middle of the fight. The mix that won yesterday may not win today.
The ground changes under you
- In the Colony, you only see what your towers can see.
- In the Royal Chamber, the horde runs faster along the veins of the nest, and Diggers bore through the rock, opening new tunnels for everyone behind them.
- In the Core, cracked rock collapses during the stage and opens shortcuts. The defense you set up at the start stops being enough.
Four worlds, 40 stages, each on its own map
Surface, Colony, Royal Chamber and Core. Every world brings new insects, new towers and a mini-boss halfway through. Each world ends with a boss that has to die before the stage is over: the Millipede, the Acid Slug, the Drill Worm and the Wasp Empress.
One stage per world breaks the rules:
- Two extractors. Lose either one and you lose the stage.
- Blackout. Your towers are nearly blind until the next flare drifts down.
- Swarm Flight. Almost the whole horde flies straight over the walls.
- Endless collapse. The rock keeps giving way for the whole stage.
Every stage also has a bonus mission: win without the nuke, keep one tower slot empty, let no flyer reach the extractor. Clear it once for extra biomass and a star.Four abilities for when it goes wrong
Missile, Airstrike, Orbital Laser, and one Nuke per stage that hits the whole map. Pause at any time to aim them, reposition towers, or just look at the mess.
Lose, harvest, come back
Every run pays biomass, win or lose. Spend it on a large upgrade tree: damage, fire rate and range for every tower, extra tower slots, extractor armor, better harvesting, and the abilities themselves. When you lose, the end-of-stage report tells you why: which insect did the damage, which tower sat idle, and what the weather took from your best gun.After the campaign
- Endless mode for each world you've freed.
- Modifiers that make cleared stages harder, with medals for how many you stack.
- A Daily Challenge with the same stage and rules for everyone that day.
- A Veteran campaign: all 40 stages again, much tougher.
Features
- Easy, Normal and Hard difficulty for the campaign.
- Three colorblind modes (deuteranopia, protanopia, tritanopia) that recolor the insects.
- Controller support through an on-screen cursor, with button prompts.
- Speed 1×, 2×, 3× and pause.
- A bestiary that fills in as you meet each insect and unlock each tower.
- Everything you see is drawn by code.