Desktop Tower Defense (Video Game)

Video Game / Desktop Tower Defense

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, in several versions.

Tropes used

Airborne Mook: Flying creeps.
Asteroids Monster: Spawn creeps split when they die. In early levels they split only once, creating non-splitting child creeps (now called spawnlets). In later levels they split twice. And the Boss Spawn creeps at the end split three times.
Boss Game: You can select a "bosses only" game mode.
Casual Video Game
Death Course: Inverted, you're setting up one instead of taking one.
Death of a Thousand Cuts: One of the main strategies, and arguably less effective than most other strategies.
Difficulty Levels
Dungeon Bypass: Flying Creeps do this.
Excuse Plot: The creeps are trying to get across your desk. Stop them. (The developer says that the creeps are trying to steal your colored paperclips, which raises more questions than it answers.)
Follow the Leader: Tower defense is a fairly widespread genre of online casual game now.

House Rules: Several players prefer "No Juggle" or "No _insert tower here_" games. Something about them being overpowered.
Just One More Level: The developer has admitted to deliberately tweaking his game to encourage more play.
Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Dark creeps take 20 less points of damage per shot; Immune creeps cannot be slowed by Frost towers.
Miniboss / King Mook: Boss creeps are larger versions of normal creeps.
Numerical Hard: Aside from lengthening the amount of waves you have to survive depending on level, hard mode creeps have more hitpoints than easy or medium mode creeps.
Self-Imposed Challenge: Tower-limited runs, "no mazing" runs, overlapping with House Rules when extended to multiplayer.
Stat-O-Vision: Click on a tower and the stats panel will show its attributes and allow you to upgrade it. Click on a creep and the stats panel shows how much health it has left.