Loading ...
TOWER-DEFENSE
Spacethumper 2 Review: A Free Tower Defense That's... Actually Pretty Competent? (With Caveats)
I clicked on this expecting another janky itch.io tower defense clone. What I got was a surprisingly functional base defense game that happens to cater to a very specific audience. Your mileage will absolutely vary.
Paul
December 23, 2025
6.5
Overall Score
"Here's my honest take: Spacethumper 2 is a competent tower defense game with base building mechanics that happens to serve a very specific niche audience."
First Impressions (Or: When Your Antivirus Judges Your Life Choices)
Let me set the scene: I'm scrolling through itch.io's tower defense section because apparently I hate myself, and I see Spacethumper 2. The name alone made me suspicious. Then my antivirus software threw up red flags like it was trying to save me from myself. The developers acknowledge this—small indie game, not signed properly, you know the drill. I've been doing this long enough to know the difference between actual malware and Windows Defender having trust issues, so I pressed on. What greeted me was a surprisingly functional tower defense game with base building elements that immediately reminded me of those Flash games I wasted my youth on, except this one has a very specific fetish angle that I need to address head-on: this game features weight-gain mechanics and furry characters. If that's not your thing, you can leave now. Still here? Okay, let's talk about whether the actual game underneath all that is worth your time.
The Core Loop: Defense Mechanics That Actually Work
Here's the thing that genuinely surprised me: Spacethumper 2 has a solid gameplay foundation. You build structures, defend your base against waves of enemies, and manage resources—standard tower defense fare that we've been doing since Kingdom Rush made it cool again, or really since Desktop Tower Defense in 2007 if we're being honest. The building mechanics have weight to them; your placement matters, your upgrade paths matter, and the waves scale in a way that actually challenges you without feeling unfair. I found myself genuinely strategizing about turret placement and base layout, which is more than I can say for the seventeen other indie tower defense clones I've reviewed this month. The progression feels earned rather than arbitrary. What keeps this from being a 8+ in gameplay is that it doesn't reinvent anything—strip away the niche elements and you've got a competent but familiar experience. Still, competent is better than most of what I see on itch.io.
The Elephant in the Room (Or: The Weight-Gain Mechanics)
Look, I'm going to be professional about this even though it's weird for me personally. The game features weight-gain mechanics and furry characters as core elements, not just window dressing. This is clearly designed for a specific audience, and you know within thirty seconds whether you're in that audience or not. What I will say is this: the developers committed to their vision and executed it consistently. The art style is cohesive, the mechanics integrate with the theme rather than feeling tacked on, and there's an internal logic to everything. I've seen too many games try to be everything to everyone and fail; Spacethumper 2 knows exactly what it is and doesn't apologize. The developers mention potentially adding more stages post-1.0, which suggests they're still iterating. From a pure game design perspective, having mechanics that tie into your aesthetic rather than fighting against it is smart. Whether you personally vibe with that aesthetic is between you and your browser history.
Presentation: Functional Art Direction and Absent Audio Details
The visual presentation is better than it has any right to be for a free itch.io tower defense game. The art style is consistent, readable during gameplay—which matters more than you'd think when projectiles are flying and enemies are swarming—and has a clear identity. I've played tower defense games with realistic graphics that looked worse because they couldn't commit to a style. This commits. Hard. The UI is clean enough to navigate without a manual, which puts it ahead of seventy percent of indie strategy games I've suffered through. What's frustrating is the complete lack of specified audio information. No mention of music, sound effects, nothing. Either it's sparse enough to be unremarkable or the developers forgot to talk about it. Given how much indie games live or die by their audio design—Undertale, Celeste, Hollow Knight all understood this—the silence here is deafening. I'm scoring this based on visual presentation alone because I can't evaluate what isn't documented.
Development Reality Check: No Schedule, No Debug Mode, No Problem?
The developers are refreshingly honest: they work on this when time and motivation allow, there's no set update schedule, and they're not adding quality-of-life features like debug mode because they're worried about save file corruption. Part of me respects the honesty—this is two people making a free game in their spare time, not a studio with a roadmap and investors. But the other part of me, the part that's been burned by abandoned Early Access titles and broken promises, sees red flags. No debug mode when bugs exist means you're at the mercy of whenever they can patch things. The 4.7 out of 5 rating from 165 players suggests the community is forgiving, and the developers do respond to comments actively, which counts for something. Still, going into this expecting a finished, polished product with ongoing support is setting yourself up for disappointment. It's a passion project that happens to be playable, not a service.
What Actually Works Here (Reluctant Praise Section)
Against my better judgment and my natural inclination to tear everything apart, Spacethumper 2 does several things right. The difficulty curve is well-tuned—I actually had to retry waves and rethink my strategy rather than sleepwalking through content. The building placement system has depth without drowning you in complexity; I could experiment with different base layouts and see tangible results. Resource management feels meaningful rather than arbitrary. Most importantly, the game respects your time in ways many tower defense games don't—waves don't drag on forever, defeats don't feel like punishment, and progression is steady enough to keep you engaged. The fact that it's free with genuine content rather than being a demo for paid DLC is almost quaint in 2025. For a niche game serving a specific audience, it's far more competent than it needed to be, and that's worth acknowledging even if I'm grumpy about acknowledging it.
Rating Breakdown
Quality
6.5
For a free itch.io game, it's remarkably stable—though my antivirus had a fit and the lack of debug mode when bugs DO appear is mildly infuriating.
Innovation
5
It's tower defense with base building, which we've been doing since the flash game era, plus some very niche mechanics that are innovative to exactly nobody who's spent time in certain corners of the internet.
Value
8
It's free, it works, and there's genuine content here—can't argue with that math even if I want to.
Gameplay
7
The core loop kept me playing way longer than I expected, which annoyed me because I had a backlog to clear and this wasn't supposed to be good.
Audio/Visual
6
The art style is competent and consistent, which is more than I can say for most indie tower defense games, though the aesthetic is doing a LOT of heavy lifting for a specific demographic.
Replayability
6.5
Multiple waves and base configurations give you reasons to return, assuming you're into what this game is selling in the first place.
What Didn't Annoy Me
Actually functional tower defense mechanics that require strategy instead of just spamming towers like it's 2008
Free with real content, not a three-level demo begging for your wallet
Surprisingly stable for an itch.io indie game that made my antivirus cry
Cohesive art direction that commits to its vision instead of being generic sci-fi asset store garbage
Active developers who respond to the community, which is more than most Early Access games can claim
The difficulty curve actually curves instead of being a flat line of boredom
What Made Me Sigh
Your antivirus will judge you before you even install it, and honestly, fair
No debug mode means when bugs happen you're just stuck waiting for a patch whenever the devs have time
Zero information about audio design, which either means it's forgettable or nonexistent
The niche mechanics mean this will appeal to maybe five percent of tower defense fans at best
No update schedule means this could be abandoned tomorrow and you'd have no warning
Final Verdict
Here's my honest take: Spacethumper 2 is a competent tower defense game with base building mechanics that happens to serve a very specific niche audience. If you're in that audience, you already know it and you've probably already played this. If you're not, the underlying game is still functional enough to be worth trying since it's free—just be aware of what you're getting into. The core gameplay loop is better than most free tower defense games I've suffered through, the strategy actually requires thought, and the developers seem committed even without a set schedule. It's not going to replace They Are Billions or Kingdom Rush in anyone's rotation, but for a free passion project, it's surprisingly solid. I'm annoyed that I can't trash this more thoroughly, but competence is competence even when it comes wrapped in furry weight-gain mechanics. Six-point-six overall, which in my scoring system means genuinely above average for itch.io indies. Your mileage will vary wildly based on personal taste, but the game itself works, and that's more than I expected when my antivirus started screaming.
Spacethumper 2
Tags
tower-defense
base-building
furry
niche-mechanics
free-game
strategy
indie
Are you a developer and want to remove this review?