Field guide
How to play
Two jobs, one stage. Run the floor with towers, cover the pit with the cannon, and never let the barricade line go quiet.
The setup
Crowd waves walk from the back of the venue toward the stage at the top of the screen. Every fan that reaches the barricade line costs stage integrity. At zero, the tour ends.
You earn Buzz from kills and cleared waves. Buzz carries over between waves, so an early save is often worth more than an early build. Spend it on floor rigs, upgrades, repairs, or trade score for Buzz at the merch table.
Two modes, don't mix them up
| Career mode | Daily gig | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The full campaign | One shared challenge per day |
| Length | 5 tours, 60 waves, plus Endless | A single run |
| Crowd | Seeded per tour, replays identically | Fixed by today's date — identical for everyone |
| Progress | Saves; clearing a tour unlocks the next | Resets at midnight; uses your Career unlocks |
Career mode is the default when you press Space on the attract screen. The daily gig has its own button on the home page and its own page. The HUD shows which one you are in.
Controls
ConcertDefense is built for both a desktop and a phone. Everything on the keyboard has a tappable twin inside the game shell.
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Mouse / Touch | Aim the gunner — on touch the reticle floats just above your thumb |
| Click / Hold | Fire — the cannon overheats if you hold too long |
| 1–6 / Tap | Select gear from the dock |
| Click / Tap slot | Build the selected gear, or upgrade existing gear |
| Right-click / Sell button | Sell a rig for 60% back — tap Sell, then tap the rig |
| Space / Ultimate ring | DROP THE BEAT — tap the ring at 100% |
| Q / Gun chip | Swap between gunner weapons you own |
| H / Repair button | Emergency stage repair (costs Buzz) |
| P / Esc / ❚❚ | Pause |
| M | Mute |
| F | Fullscreen the playfield |
| Enter | Next wave on the merch break, resume a saved run |
On a phone: the game runs on its own page (play.html) and it requires landscape — hold the phone sideways or you get a rotate prompt instead of the playfield. Once sideways, the whole screen is the game: dragging aims and holds fire without scrolling, the reticle floats above your thumb, and the dock scrolls sideways to reach all six rigs.
The six rigs
| Rig | Cost | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Amp Stack | 60 | Reliable single-target blasts. Your bread and butter. |
| Fog Machine | 85 | Slows everything nearby and chips it down. Best in the middle row. |
| Pyro Cone | 125 | Piercing flame jets that set the crowd burning. |
| Bouncer | 95 | Short range, heavy damage, shoves the pit back. |
| Barricade | 75 | A wall with its own health that grinds anything touching it. |
| Laser Rig | 175 | Long range piercing light. Expensive, and worth it. |
Every rig upgrades twice for 55% more damage per level and a little extra range and rate. The first upgrade costs about 1.6× the rig, the second about 2.2×, so a fully maxed floor is a real investment.
Gunner weapons
Your cannon is not the only option. Weapons are bought with Buzz in the merch break and stay with you for the rest of that run. You always start with the Feedback Cannon.
| Weapon | Cost | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Feedback Cannon | Free | Fast, accurate, single shot. The default for a reason. |
| Scattergun | 280 | Four pellets in a wide spread. Almost no range — brutal point blank. |
| Rocket Pod | 560 | Slow, heavy, and explodes for splash damage on impact. |
| Rail Beam | 980 | Pierces up to five enemies down a lane, but overheats fast. |
Each weapon has its own heat cost, so a rocket or rail build will overheat much sooner than the cannon. Press Q to cycle between the weapons you own, or equip them from the armoury in the merch break.
Healing the stage
Stage integrity can be recovered three ways, and each one is priced differently on purpose.
| Method | When | Cost | Restores |
|---|---|---|---|
| Repair Crew | Merch break, between waves | ~9 Buzz per point | 18% of the bar |
| Emergency repair | Any time, mid-wave | 130 Buzz, +46% per use that run | 14% of the bar |
| Encore | Automatically when a headliner dies | Free | 12% of the bar |
The mid-wave repair is deliberately the worst rate. It exists to save a run that is about to fall, not to be your plan. Each use that run inflates the next price — 130, then 190, then 277, then 405 — so panic-patching twice in one tour really costs you.
Press H or use the Repair button in the HUD. It only lights up green when the stage is damaged and you can afford it. Killing a headliner also patches the stage for free, which makes boss waves a recovery window as well as a threat.
Crowd pressure
Building up does not go unnoticed. Every rig you place makes the crowd tougher: each rig adds about 4% enemy health, and each upgrade level adds roughly another 2%, up to roughly 2.3×. Rigs you sell give that health back.
It is measured at the moment each fan walks in, so building mid-wave makes the next arrivals harder straight away. The merch break shows your current figure under Crowd Pressure. It is there to stop a full floor from trivialising the late waves — and to keep selling and repositioning a real option, not just a beginner's mistake.
Enemy briefing
| Type | Threat | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| Fan | Slow, harmless alone, endless in groups. | Anything. Do not over-invest. |
| Stage Crasher | Very fast, very fragile. | Fog machines and a wide spread of amps. |
| Pit Veteran | Slow, high damage if it lands. | Kill early with lasers, not last-second. |
| Mosher | Armoured. Chips your damage down. | Pyro burn ignores the worst of it. |
| Pyro Glitch | Leaves burning sparks along its lane. | Bouncers up close, then move on. |
| Riot Squad | Heavy, shielded, organised. | Stacked lasers plus the ultimate. |
| Crowd Surfer | Fast, and rides straight over barricades. | Bouncers and amps — walls do nothing. |
| Bootlegger | Heals every fan within a short radius. | Focus it first. Its aura is visible. |
| Pyro Truck | Slow, tanky, explodes and wrecks nearby rigs. | Kill it far from your floor. |
Wave types
Every wave has a signature, so the right build changes between them. The banner names the wave as it starts.
| Wave | What it wants from you |
|---|---|
| Crowd Surge | A wide wall of cheap bodies. Broad coverage beats single-target. |
| Stage Rush | Fast and fragile. Fog machines pay for themselves. |
| Armoured Column | Fewer enemies, thick plating. Burn and pierce armour. |
| Pyro Outbreak | Fire everywhere, including at your rigs. Keep spares. |
| Bootleg Gang | Healers in the crowd. Kill them before they undo your work. |
| Endurance Set | Long and relentless with no punchline. Every fifth wave. |
| Headliner | The final wave of each tour. A named boss with an escort. |
The five headliners
| Boss | Tour | Gimmick |
|---|---|---|
| The Heckler | Soundcheck | Endlessly summons backup. |
| The Wall | Club Night | Enormous armour that grows. Barely moves. |
| The Flamer | Arena Tour | Torches your rigs instead of your fans. |
| The Surge | Stadium Storm | Teleports between lanes mid-walk. |
| The Headliner | Festival Apocalypse | Summons and torches at the same time. |
Stage integrity is not the only thing on the line now — bosses that burn can wreck a rig outright, and a wrecked rig does not come back. Watch the warning rings.
Seven tips that actually help
- Build long lanes first. The centre lane sees the most traffic. Put your damage there and slow the edges.
- Buzz is interest. Clearing wave one with 30 Buzz unspent is usually better than two cheap amps.
- Combo is economy. A x8 combo multiplies both score and Buzz. Keep firing into the crowd even when nothing is close to the stage.
- Overheat is a timer. Tap-fire in bursts of two, cool for half a second, repeat. You will never lock the cannon.
- The ultimate is defence, not decoration. Hold it for a lane that is about to leak, or for boss adds.
- Sell, do not sulk. A misplaced rig refunds 60%. Rotating the floor between waves is a strategy.
- Repair before upgrades once integrity dips under 40%. Upgrades do nothing if the stage falls.
- Pressure is a budget. A 15-rig floor makes the crowd roughly twice as tough. If you are drowning, selling one useless rig is cheaper than losing the stage.
Frequently asked
Do I need an account?
No. Scores, settings, unlocks and the daily streak all live in your browser's local storage. Clearing site data wipes them.
How does the Daily Gig work?
Every day produces a fixed seed, so the crowd layout is identical for everyone playing that date. See the daily gig page for today's tour.
Can I play on mobile?
Yes, and only in landscape. Open the game page and turn the phone sideways — until you do, a rotate prompt covers the screen and nothing starts. In landscape the playfield, HUD and dock share the whole viewport, and the fullscreen button removes the browser chrome.
How long is the whole game?
Sixty waves across five tours — 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. A clean first playthrough runs about an hour. Endless Encore adds mutators after that.
Is there an end?
Five tours of escalating length, then Endless Encore unlocks. Endless cycles the wave patterns, keeps scaling, and applies a new mutator every eight waves — faster spawns, reinforced enemies, a second boss, reduced wave bonuses, or an overbooked pit.