Bloons Tower Defense 1 Game

Bloons Tower Defense 1 is the game that started the whole Bloons TD franchise back in 2007, and by the standards of the series it's tiny: one map, five towers, fifty rounds. Bloons file along a single winding path in order of toughness—red, blue, green, yellow, black and white—and popping one reveals a weaker bloon riding inside it, all the way down to nothing.

The whole game runs on the mouse. Click to place a Dart Tower, Tack Tower, Ice Tower, Bomb Tower, or the far pricier Super Monkey, then click a placed tower to buy one of its upgrade paths. Money only comes from popped bloons, so the early rounds are as much about restraint—banking cash for a good upgrade instead of spamming cheap towers—as they are about where you place things.

Controls

Mouse only: click to place a tower, click a tower to upgrade or sell it, click "Start Round" to send in the next wave.

Tips

• The Ice Tower freezes bloons, but frozen bloons only take damage from bombs—darts and tacks pass right through them, so don't count on ice alone to finish one off.
• The Super Monkey is the strongest tower in the game by a wide margin, but at $4,000 you'll need several rounds of saving before you can afford one.
• Black and White Bloons are tougher than Yellow and each splits into two Yellow Bloons when popped, so plan for the follow-up wave they leave behind, not just the bloon in front of you.

If you've played any later game in the series, this is the stripped-down original it all grew out of—worth a look for the nostalgia, or if you just want tower defense with nothing to learn before you start.