Unblocked Strategy Games

Strategy games are about decisions. You choose what to build, where to put it and when to spend, then watch the result play out. The seven games here range from a no-pressure town builder to a turn-based war for up to four players. Four of them are tower defense, so it helps to know how they differ.

Four Tower Defense Games, Four Different Twists

In tower defense, enemies march along a path and the towers you place beside it fire on their own. Your job is picking towers, spots and upgrades.

• Hex Formation is the gentlest start. The map is a field of hexagons, and you get three turret types, ten lives and ten waves. Clear them all and you win.
• Elematter is about matching. Enemies come as Earth, Water, Air and Fire, and so do your towers. Each tower hits one type extra hard, so you read the next wave and build its counter. You get twenty waves, thirteen lives and 500 starting fragments.
• Canvas TD never ends. Red squares stream in roughly every twenty seconds and keep getting tougher. It has four turret types (Laser, Missile, Tazer and Mortar), three maps and ten upgrade levels per stat.
• PoliGuard has no final wave either. Its seven neon towers are shapes like stars and hexagons, and each upgrade boosts every tower of that kind, so it pays to pick favorites.

Short on time? Hex Formation and Elematter have a clear end. Canvas TD and PoliGuard are endless, so they suit a longer free period.

Turn-Based Strategy on a Random Map

Compact Conflict is a war game for up to four armies. Each color can be a person or a bot, so friends can take turns on one device. The map is fresh every match, and you can reroll it before you start.

Temples are the heart of it. They work as troop factories and magic shops, and holding them earns faith to spend. You choose a game length of 9, 12 or 15 turns, or no limit, and whoever holds the most land at the end wins. It came from js13kGames 2014, yet it plays with real depth.

Slow-Growing Strategy

Evolve Idle starts with you clicking to make RNA in the ooze. Combine it into DNA, add cell parts, and eventually the screen becomes a settlement with jobs, buildings and research. It is mostly text and buttons. Come back after two or more minutes away and the gap is banked as bonus time, so the game runs twice as fast for a while.

IsoCity has no money, score or timer. You place streets, canals, walls, stores and apartment blocks on a small isometric grid, choosing from over seventy pieces. It is strategy only in the planning sense, and it is the most relaxing game on this page.

Mouse, Touch and Screen Size

Most of these are mouse games. IsoCity and Compact Conflict work well on a phone or tablet. Canvas TD, Elematter, Hex Formation and Evolve Idle run on touch screens but feel cramped: small turrets are fiddly to tap, and Evolve Idle shows prices only on hover. A laptop is more comfortable for all four.

PoliGuard needs a mouse and keyboard. Number keys 1 to 7 pick towers, which is quicker than the side panel. Canvas TD uses number keys too: 1 to 4 build a turret, and with a turret selected, 1 to 3 upgrade its damage, rate or range.

How to Think Like a Strategist

1. Build before the wave, not after. In tower defense, a tower placed early gets shots at the whole wave. One placed late only catches the stragglers.
2. Cover the bends. A turret near a curve can reach enemies on two stretches of road. This is extra useful in Hex Formation, where each cell touches up to six others.
3. Read before you build. Elematter rewards building the right element for the next wave rather than simply more towers.
4. Go for temples. In Compact Conflict, temples turn into a steady supply of faith and soldiers.
5. Keep investing. In Canvas TD and PoliGuard, a setup that feels safe now will start leaking later. Keep upgrading as the waves grow.

Where to Go Next

If you like out-thinking an opponent one move at a time, the board and card games have chess with a visible engine and backgammon. For more idle games that grow while you work, see the casual games.