Last updated on January 16th, 2026 at 04:54 am
TowerMadness – Strategy Game Review
TowerMadness is a Strategy/Puzzle game from ZSpectre, Inc., first launched in 24th May 2009.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 831+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes TowerMadness Stand Out
Evil aliens are coming to turn your beloved sheep into intergalactic scarves! Protect the flock using only quick thinking and the arsenal of upgradeable weaponry at your disposal.
"Addictive, time-sucking fun. There are plenty of tower defense strategy games out there, but TowerMadness brings the genre to a new level."
- Brian X Chen, Wired
"If you’re a fan of Tower Defense games, do yourself a huge favor and check out TowerMadness."
- Jon Phillips, MacLife
"It would be madness to miss this game…it comes highly recommended."
- Spanner Spencer, PocketGamer
• WINNER, Best App Ever Awards, Best Strategy Game
• FINALIST, Pocket Gamer Awards, Best Strategy/Simulation Game
• A Wired Favorite iPhone App
• A MacLife App of the Year
A UNIQUE 3D TOWER DEFENSE EXPERIENCE
Play from an aerial view or zoom down to first person and get close to the action.
LOTS OF LEVELS
Over 100 maps in diverse environments (35 available as expansion map packs).
ALIENS!
Think fast to defeat the 17 different types of alien enemies intent on stealing your sheep.
GUNS, LOTS OF GUNS
Over 60 diverse weapons and upgrades.
ENDLESS FUN
Endless mode lets you see how many waves you can withstand.
COMPETITION
Global leaderboards, Game Center achievements, and Friend Scores so you can compare scores with your friends and the millions of players worldwide.
LET’S SEE THAT AGAIN!
Replays let you learn new strategies or share your games with the world through Twitter, Facebook, or email.
iPad owners, check out "TowerMadness HD" for the Pocket Gamer Readers' Choice iPad Game of the Year Award winning version of this game.
Search for our other award-winning games: Zombie Gunship and Nuts!
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, TowerMadness is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 8th January 2020
Recent improvements include:
1.24: Optimized and updated for iOS 13.
1.24.1: Fixed crash-on-load on some devices.
Download & Availability
TowerMadness is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Its not free, and theres lots of map packs- but this is the original tower defense on iPhone. Its fun, easy to pick up and doesnt kill your battery. Ive played this so many times over so many years, its just a good recommendation. If you hate the in-app purchases, get the HD version for tablet- comes w everything.
We come back very seldomly to reminisce with our younger self, brings back memories of traveling with the parents and playing this endlessly. Thank you.
This is our favorite app. Please do an update.
Although the game hasnt been updated in a long while, and some kids may think this old game is irrelevant, our Papa used to play this game all the time, he had beaten nearly every level before he passed without a single in-app purchase! Although he played the free version, that being Zero, he still got us into this amazing game, and we had the great honor of notifying him of the second game, which he quickly surpassed us in of course.. We greatly miss him and all the amazing memories Ive had with him, including the ones where we played these awesome games together, thank you devs for making a great game, and thank you Papa for being who you were.
We firmly believe this game to be the best ever produced for the App Store. We wish it were still receiving updates.
We love this game. Its fun and we love the strategy and upgrades available. Please update this game so its compatible with the most recent iOS. We have played for years!! And we come back every once in a while to see if theres an update. Still very fun.
We used to play this game years ago and would think about it from time to time, but for whatever reason, a couple of days ago we decided to do some digging. This threw us back and the game is awesome! Simple, well constructed, and the tower upgrades are perfect. Plus Im happy that we had to pay for it because we hate freemium gaming. Anyway, thanks for years of joy and rekindling :).
We just re-downloaded this and still fun as ever. We wish it could be current and new maps added. Better than part 2.
This game has a lot of building you can build guns and save sheep from aliens Love the game buy it please.
We've been playing this game for at least 11 years. It got us through many extremely painful multi month long hospital stays, and hundreds of boring meetings. We've played this game across high school, college, and two jobs and it keeps giving. We still haven't mastered every level. It is, in our opinion, the pinnacle of tower defense games and we are beyond grateful that it still works on our iPhone 12. If this game got DLC in 2021 we'd buy it. TM2 is good as well, but we just can't let this one go. We actually kept our old iPod touch around in case they ever stop updating it. If you do ever stop updating it please open source it.
Make more levels!!!! Love them all.
This is our favorite game! Most games on our Iphone get tiring.. Not this game! It's a great game and never gets boring! It's pretty addicting!! You won't regret buying this game.
We have been playing this since we were a kid basically. We wish more add-on maps were made. We never write reviews, but this truly is the best game Ive ever played. This one is also a lot better than Tower Madness 2.
We keep coming back to this straightforward and well designed game year after year. So glad they have updated it and we can keep saving sheep.
Ive been playing this game for years and we think it would be awesome if some new guns were added to to the arsenal.
We absolutely love getting lost in this game! Ive had it for years. Yet lately, whenever we try to open it, it says downloading, then, installing. And we try again and it repeats. Any help here.
We still play this game every day. Just messaged a friend who misses it too. More maps please. Thanks again.
Still so fun! Glad it works on our phone again.
Love this game. Happy they fixed the crash.
Best game ever. Crash on load is fixed.
Nice to have fixed the bug in 24hours.
Yes this game finally works again after a really long time of it not working. Thank you. Looking forward to TM3 hopefully.
Ive been playing this since it came out years ago. Our only gripe that we wish we could get resolved is that we upgraded to the ad-free version, but we cant bring over our previous purchases. Dev, is there any way to carry these from the free to paid version.
Amazing game, but in the app the extra maps cant be purchased anymore. We select the shop to purchase but it never loads… Love the game but we need more maps to play.
We think theres an issue on iOS 18. None of the online stuff works. Says we dont have an internet connection.
Used to play this game often…Great game. Ive owned it for years. Looks like iOS 14.2 broke it. Any chance of an update to fix it.
Please help, we cannot seem to restore our purchase on our phone and thus keep getting very. Very long ads. Making it unplayable. Can you please help.
This game is fun. But you took a huge part of it away. The servers.
Bummer, the game is great but support will not email us back, tried 3 times over several weeks.
When will you update Tower Madness 2??? Please update love this game and would love it to utilize the full screen of the iPhone 11. Thanks.
Enables you to be very creative in your problem solving. 1/7/20 – Hi, our app wont open. Are the servers down? Or do we reinstall?.
The first update in years for IOS 13.3 and it will not open. Auto-crashes. Update: delete and reinstall fixed. We lost all our progress but such is life.
Thank you for updating TM1 to 64bit. The 2nd isnt our cup of tea but the 1st is so awesome and fun to play. Thanks team.
New update fails instantly on iOS 13.3.
We updated both the free (blue one) and the payed for one (orange) this morning. Now the orange one opens then closes. The blue one checks for games center login, but just sits there.
Please make and update for the current ios 11 and up theres alot folks that enjoy this game crashes after update.
Still brings fun to any down time situation. This game is a straight classic. Love playing while listening to podcast or got some down time to kill. One of our favorite game app ever.
We love this game so much. Look for reviews Ive written! Almost none. We love this game so much we stopped playing just to tell others how good it is. Please dont ever sunset.
We just randomly remembered it existed so.
This game rocks! Thank you so much for the many hours of fun with this game. This was one of the first games we ever downloaded on our iPhone years ago. Having this ported to 64 bit was a wonderful surprise.
Love the game wish it was still being updated at least they put in iOS 12 support and iPhone X support so we could play it again Ive played this game for a long time and we still enjoy it.
This is our all time favorite game for IOS. We play it almost every day to relax and enjoy. Once you learn the defense towers and strategies, then its fun to craft your solution to beat each level. Its fun and relaxing, yet challenging. If you like strategy and defense type games, then this is the one for you. It also has no bugs and never freezes nor crashes. Great job.
This, the original Tower Madness, was not only the best tower defense game Ive ever played but it was also one of the best mobile games ever and dare we say it just one of the best games period. When Limbic let it lapse in favor of the greatly inferior TowerMadness 2, we joined the mass of heartbroken fans who deleted the no longer supported original having already deleted the sequel in disappointment. We just noticed today that Limbic caves in to fan demands and updated this game and we are stoked to download and play it again! We hope it will let us restore all our old map pack purchases and the flamethrower.
If not then the best tower defense game for sure… Been playing it for years.
This game is so much better than tm2. We are so glad they updated. One of the few games that is enjoyable that doesnt require network connection. We will buy every map you guys put out to support this game. Update for 2019. We would pay for more maps if we could. One of the few great games that doesnt require and always on connection. Still play it to this day and happy to continue to pay to support.
But it recently started crashing on our iPhone X. Now we cant play it. Please bring it back.
OMG! This is the best game we have ever played on a cell phone! IT ROCKS! Thank you Tower Madness team.
Update 2: even more thrilled to find that after we uninstalled & reinstalled the game it works! Our 5 star review stands. Update: was thrilled to see Limbic updated the game to run under the new IOS!! We downloaded the upgrade but sadly it still wont run. The splash pops briefly then the app closes without error. IPhone 7, current IOS. One of our all time favorite games. Can no longer play as it fails to open after the upgrade to IOS 11, so 1 star. Would rate 5 stars if compatibility issue was fixed.
First off… Thank you for updating for iOS 11! That is very cool of you guys. Seriously. Thank you. :). Now… Please update again to make it compatible with older iPhones. It crashes on our iPhone 6 at start up when logging into Game Center. We are running iOS 11.4. -Looking forward to playing our all time favorite phone game again. :).
UPDATE: You have made so many happy. Thank you for updating the BEST iOS game EVER made. Now, we can finally update to iOS 11.4! This is the best game we have ever played and it's preventing us from updating our iOS devices to iOS 11. You should update it for those who have purchased it and still prefer it to TM2. Are you really abandoning us? Update to 64 bit and charge us again if you must. Heck, you can even include new courses if you have a guilty conscience over abandoning your customers. You guys got it right the first time and got many of us hooked. You're also responsible for the pain we're suffering going without. For the love of mankind, help us out and relieve our pain.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.24.1
- Size: 53.26 MB
- iOS: 13.2 or later
- Languages: EN, DE
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: ZSpectre, Inc.
Last updated: 8th January 2020 | Genre: Strategy, Puzzle | Developer: ZSpectre, Inc.