About Deadlock
Deadlock is a reverse tower defense where you play the villain — a rogue station AI who has captured Admiral Keogh, the last living link to the fleet command codes. Human boarding parties keep teleporting in to rescue him. Your job: place automated traps, deploy countermeasures, and trigger manual weapons to kill every boarder before they smash the cage, grab the Admiral, and carry him to the airlock they came from. For fans of Castle Doombad, Evil Genius, and Dungeon Keeper, Deadlock is a free online villain-mode defense with no download — play in your browser.
What sets Deadlock apart from every other tower-defense game is the three-outcome system. Most games are binary win or lose. Deadlock splits the win state in half based on whether the cage was ever cracked. If the Admiral was briefly freed and then recaptured — PARTIAL WIN. If you kept the cage intact from start to finish — FULL WIN. Only a FULL WIN unlocks the next stage and earns full Tritium currency. You must play defensively around the cage, not just offensively against the spawn.
How to Play Deadlock
Each stage starts with your loadout screen where you assign weapons to slots. You begin Stage 1 with Plasma Grid and Vacuum Vent. On stage start, you have a 2-second window before the first wave to place traps. Click a weapon slot to select it, then click a valid tile to place it — floor tiles for Plasma Grid, same deck tiles for Vacuum Vent. Data is your in-stage currency; the Admiral generates 1 Data/second passively.
Marines spawn from the airlocks at the edges, walk to the nearest connector, climb ladders or transit through doors to the next deck, and beeline for the Admiral's cage. Once there, they begin cracking it — 8 seconds for one Marine. Kill them before the cage cracks for a clean run. If the cage cracks, the Admiral gets picked up and carried toward the exit — kill the carrier to drop the Admiral, then kill all remaining boarders before anyone else picks him up.
Controls
- Click weapon tray (bottom): Select weapon for placement
- Click valid floor tile: Place selected weapon
- Click placed Vacuum Vent: Trigger manual weapon
- Keys 1–2: Select weapon slot
- Esc / Space: Pause / Resume
- L key: Open leaderboard
- Touch: Tap weapon button, then tap tile to place
Tips and Strategy
- Protect the cage floor first. The cage is on the top floor. Place at least one Plasma Grid on the floor tile just before the cage on wave 1 — even one Grid kills Marines before they reach the crack radius.
- Save Vacuum Vent for stacked crackers. If 2–3 Marines reach the cage simultaneously, the crack timer accelerates dangerously. Vacuum Vent sucks the entire floor row toward it and deals ramping damage — its best use is breaking up a cage stack mid-crack.
- Damage a cracker, don't kill them. Damaging a cracking Marine pauses the timer for 2 seconds. If you're trying to preserve a nearly-cracked state for progress, sometimes pausing the timer buys you more time than a kill.
- Kill carriers away from the exit. A carrier reaching the airlock ends the level immediately. Prioritize killing carriers even over cage defense once the Admiral is in motion — a dead carrier drops the Admiral mid-map, giving you time to recover.
- Two Plasma Grids on different floors beats one on the cage floor. Grids on lower floors thin the herd before Marines ever reach the cage. Layering damage across floors is more efficient than stacking everything at the cage chokepoint.
- Watch your Data budget. Plasma Grid costs only 4 Data, Vacuum Vent costs 10. With 20 starting Data you can afford 2 Grids + 1 Vent or 5 Grids. Data accumulates during play, so early conservative spending lets you place more traps mid-wave.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the three outcomes in Deadlock?
Deadlock has three distinct outcomes unlike most tower-defense games. FULL WIN (Containment Intact) means you killed every boarder without the cage ever being cracked — you earn full Tritium and unlock the next stage. PARTIAL WIN (Breach Contained) means you killed everyone but the cage was cracked at some point during the stage — you earn 50% Tritium but the next stage stays locked. LOSE (Admiral Extracted) means a carrier reached the airlock with the Admiral — you earn nothing and must retry.
How does the cage crack mechanic work?
The Admiral's cage takes 8 seconds to crack when one boarder is working on it. Multiple crackers stack the speed (2 crackers = ~5.3s, 3 = ~4s). Damaging a cracker pauses the crack timer for 2 seconds — it does NOT reset. Killing a cracker preserves the crack progress so the next boarder to arrive resumes from where the previous left off. Once cracked, the cage stays cracked permanently for the entire stage — the ring turns red as a permanent reminder.
What is the difference between Plasma Grid and Vacuum Vent weapons?
Plasma Grid is an automatic floor trap (costs 4 Data) that deals continuous tick damage to any boarder standing on it — no player input needed after placement. Vacuum Vent is a manual floor trap (costs 10 Data) that you activate by clicking it: when triggered it sucks all boarders on that deck toward it for 2 seconds, dealing ramping damage that grows from 0.25 to 1.0. Vacuum Vent has a 20-second cooldown between uses. Plasma Grid is set-and-forget; Vacuum Vent requires timing to catch groups of boarders.
How do I unlock the next stage in Deadlock?
You must achieve a FULL WIN on the current stage — killing all boarders without the cage ever being cracked. A PARTIAL WIN (cage was cracked but you killed everyone) does NOT unlock the next stage. This is intentional: Deadlock rewards true defensive play around the cage, not just killing the most enemies. Once you earn a FULL WIN, the next stage node lights up green on the Star Map.
What happens when a carrier boarder dies while holding the Admiral?
When a carrier dies, the Admiral drops at the carrier's current tile on the map. The cage stays cracked (if it was cracked), but any surviving boarder can now walk to the Admiral's dropped position and pick him up to resume the carry. This is not a win condition for you — the stage continues until either all boarders are dead (your win) or a carrier successfully reaches the exit airlock with the Admiral (your loss). Killing carriers near the exit is always riskier than killing them deep in the station.
What is Tritium and how do I use it?
Tritium is the meta-currency you earn at the end of each stage: 500T for a FULL WIN on Stage 1 Cargo Bay, proportionally more for later stages. It persists in your player profile across sessions. You spend Tritium in the Shop to unlock new weapons (Drone Swarm costs 400T, Spike Bulkhead costs 600T) and to upgrade your existing weapons from Tier 1 to Tier 2 (400T) or Tier 3 (800T each). Tritium is never lost on a loss — only earned, so every run contributes to your eventual loadout power.
