Hot Barrel Cats

Prospectus

Only the cats standing on the wall can shoot — and shooting makes them overheat. A cat that fires long enough jams, goes silent, and needs time to cool. So you are always deciding who holds the wall: drag a hot cat down to the spawn zone to cool, send a fresh one up, and drop two matching cats together to merge them into a stronger tier. Merging resets the heat, which makes it a rescue as well as an upgrade. The Mildews — a damp fungus horde — walk the road toward your gate, and heat is what dries them out: a cat firing above 80 % scorches spore-carriers before they can splash heat back at your wall. 16 hand-tuned levels, five kinds of Mildew and three bosses, each of which attacks your heat rather than your health: one bursts and heats every pad at once, one shuts a shield and makes you waste fire, one keeps summoning while you rotate. Fifteen tiers of cat to merge toward, four perks to buy, a café shelf to fill, and a new daily challenge every day. Hold the gate. Watch the barrels.

How it plays

Drag a cat onto a matching cat to merge them into the next tier. The merged cat starts completely cool. Drag a hot cat down to the spawn zone to cool it, and drag a cool one up to the wall to fire. You can also tap a cat to select it, then tap where it should go. Only cats on the wall shoot. The bar under each cat is its burn time — when it runs out the cat jams, stops firing and has to cool before it works again. Call a cat with the button at the bottom; gold comes from every Mildew you kill. Don't let them reach the gate. When the gate falls, the level is over. Esc pauses, M mutes.

Opening an account with this game takes one press: Open the holding, above, and it loads on this page itself — nothing downloads and no form stands between you and the first decision. It is drawn for a flexible screen and takes its instructions from mouse, keyboard or touch, as the game prefers. It adjusts itself to upright and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all present it properly. If a fullscreen control is offered, take it — a growing enterprise deserves the whole desk.

Analyst's notes for tower defense holdings

• The bend in the road is the best real estate you own. A tower firing along a curve earns double the seconds of the same tower on a straight — buy geography before firepower.
• A slowing tower is a raise for every other tower. Anything that keeps enemies in range longer multiplies the whole line's output, and usually costs less than a second cannon.
• Save an emergency fund. The wave that breaks a defense is rarely the biggest one; it is the fast or armoured one you spent your last coins not preparing for.

Hot Barrel Cats — questions from the readership

What does it cost to open Hot Barrel Cats?

Nothing, at any point. The holding is free from the first click to the last upgrade — no account to open, no download to wait for, no paywall filed anywhere in its pages. The advertising around this page is what pays the bookkeeping.

What kind of game is Hot Barrel Cats, exactly?

We file it on the Tower Defense shelf of the ledger. It is a browser game through and through — the prospectus above is the publisher's own summary of what the game asks of you and what it gives back.

Can I play Hot Barrel Cats on a phone or tablet?

Yes — it runs in the browser on phones and tablets just as it does on a computer. It adjusts itself to upright and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all present it properly.

Is there anything to download or install first?

Nothing at all. Hot Barrel Cats is an HTML5 game: press the open button and it loads on this very page, and closing the tab leaves nothing behind on your device.

Closing entry

Finished the audit, or still mid-season? The full Tower Defense shelf is one click away — Choose the ground, price the towers, hold the road. Forty-five tower-defense plans in which your layout argues with wave after wave — and the layout is expected to win.