There's a specific kind of game in my catalog that never took off but I can't let go of. Red Wave is that game for me.

It's a mobile tower defense / RTS where communist forces invade America and you hold the line with Marines, pillboxes, landmines, artillery, and rocket launchers. It shipped back in 2018, it never found a big audience, but it needed an update to stay in the stores - and once you're in there anyway, you might as well spruce the place up.

3.0.0 is live now as a free update. New icon and title art, cleaned-up store listings, and under-the-hood work to make future updates faster. Same pencil-and-paper soul, just presented like I actually want you to tap it.

Drawn in colored pencil, for real

This is still my favorite thing about Red Wave. I only have a couple of games where I drew the graphics by hand, because frankly animating in that manner is a time consuming pain. But it does give the game a certain charm that you don't see in many modern video games.

If you're new: what the game actually is

Real-time strategy + tower defense, landscape-first, built for quick on-the-go sessions. You earn gold per kill, place defenses, and try to stop the columns before they break through.

Campaign — 6 missions:

• Mission 1: Crossing the Rio Grande - stop them at the southern border
• Mission 2: Remember the Alamo!
• Mission 3: Mighty Mississip' - hold the river
• Mission 4: The Siege of St. Louis - defend the secrets hidden below the Gateway Arch (Premium)
• Mission 5: Marine One Down - the President is down in Nashville. Save him. (Premium)
• Mission 6: Escape - crush the tank brigade fleeing to the Atlantic (Premium)

Each one opens with a briefing from the President / the General. Cheesy cutscenes in the exact way a 2018 mobile RTS should be. I'm keeping it.

Go play it

Red Wave 3.0.0 is a free update on Android, Windows, iOS, the Ape Apps Launcher, and the Web. Free to play with ads; Premium unlocks all maps and removes ads.

If you tried it years ago and it never clicked, this is a good time to give it one more run - same hand-drawn heart, much cleaner front door.

Download Red Wave

And if you have any update suggestions or issues with the app, feel free to hit me up on the official Ape Apps Discord channel!