Stick Defenders — Play Free Online

What Stick Defenders is

Stick Defenders is a merge defense game by TinyDobbins, released on Poki in July 2022. A wall protects your base, and waves of enemies march toward it. You hold them off with stickman gunmen that you place on the wall, and you make those gunmen stronger by merging pairs of identical units into a single higher-level one. Each wave you hold off ends with a "wave cleared" screen, and a failed stand ends in defeat.

How to play

Everything is done by dragging. Press the left mouse button on a unit, or touch it on a phone or tablet, and drag it into place:

• Drag a unit onto the wall so it starts shooting at the incoming wave.
• Release a unit over a matching unit and the pair combine into a better one.

New recruits are bought with coins. Room for units is limited, and the game warns you with a "No Free Slot" message when there is nowhere to put another recruit, which is a signal to merge.

Upgrades and the shop

Coins also pay for three upgrades:

• Recruit's damage raises how hard your units hit.
• Decrease price makes new recruits cheaper.
• Increase profit raises the coins you earn.

You can also unlock a cannon. The game keeps earning coins while you are away and shows your offline earnings when you return.

Bonuses and side features

• Lucky wheel: spin for a surprise reward, with a free spin that comes back after a timer.
• Timed boosts: auto merge, a faster rate of fire, and triple coins, each lasting a short while.
• Drone's drop: a drone that delivers a boost during play.

Your skills also come back after a cooldown, so fire them at the enemy horde as soon as they are ready.

Tips

• Merge whenever you can: two units become one, which frees a slot for the next recruit.
• If you lose a wave, do what the game itself suggests and try to merge up to a higher-level unit before the next attempt.
• Use the timed boosts when a hard wave starts rather than during an easy one, since they only last a short while.