Mesozoic Protocol

A single-player roguelite tower defense where you pilot a hero mech alongside your turrets and hold a campaign of outposts against waves of dinosaurs and matriarch queens.

Mesozoic Protocol is a single-player roguelite tower defense from Ricos Labs LLC, the studio of solo developer Rico Trebeljahr. Pick a hero mech, combine tower types, and defend an armed HQ across a campaign of outposts against dinosaur waves and matriarch queens. Each hero brings a kit of active abilities. You start with one, and the others unlock with bolts dropped per kill. Breach and Containment level modifiers turn each clear into a harder puzzle. A free demo with the opening outposts runs in any modern browser at play.mesozoicprotocol.com, with no ads and no account. Desktop builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux, plus iOS and Android versions, are in preparation.

Mesozoic Protocol is a single-player roguelite tower defense from Ricos Labs LLC, the studio of solo developer Rico Trebeljahr. Players take the role of an operator at a revival-biotech outpost where containment has very much failed: the cloning rigs are still running inside the perimeter, and the specimens have integrated the revival hardware into themselves. From a fixed top-down camera, the player pilots a hero mech alongside chains of sci-fi turrets and holds the line across hand-designed outposts in very different biomes.

The game pairs two layers that most TDs keep separate. Build towers such as Pulse, Chain, Cryo, Mortar, Flame, Hive, and Barracks, and defend an armed HQ. Each tower has its own upgrade paths and a persistent skill tree. The hero layer is a roster of piloted mechs, each with active abilities of its own. Leela is an electric skirmisher, George a cryo controller, Mike close-range flame and Stan a kinetic gunner. Heroes unlock with bolts, the in-game scrap currency dropped per enemy kill. Each kit is played in its own way. Leela teleports with Phase Step and plants a Shock Pylon that stuns every enemy inside its ring. George blocks a lane with Glacier Wall, then freezes every chilled enemy near him with Cold Snap. Mike plants Proximity Mines that ground enemies trigger. His fire can detonate them early. Stan sets down a Sentry Gun and plants himself in Siege Mode. The ultimates are Leela's Ball Lightning (a storm orb that flies down the lane and arcs from enemy to enemy under it), George's Avalanche (an ice front that runs up the lane), Mike's Dragon's Breath (one charged flame cone) and Stan's Bullet Hell (a barrage cone that the player steers). Bosses are biome-themed matriarch queens, each with her own model, resistance profile, and child-spawn stream. Breach and Containment level modifiers stack extra stars on top of the base grade.

A free demo with the opening outposts runs in any modern browser at play.mesozoicprotocol.com. It has no ads and needs no account. Desktop builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux, plus iOS and Android ports, are in preparation. The desktop game costs $9.99 in Early Access and $13.99 at version 1.0. The mobile versions cost $6.99.

I built Mesozoic Protocol because the tower defense genre is starved for asymmetric enemies and starved for a reason to keep the player acting between waves. There are hundreds of TDs and most of them have generic fantasy goblins, and most of them ask the player to watch instead of act.

The hero mech is the answer to both. You're piloting a hero with active abilities alongside your towers, in real time, on the same map. Heroes unlock with bolts dropped per kill — so the hero shop is the meta loop and the level grind is what feeds it.

Bosses are biome-themed matriarchs. The raptor queen sheds juvenile swarms behind her as she runs. The stego matriarch calves a stego every few seconds. The parasaur resonator amplifies chain damage. The apex apatosaur is the final-wave threat — cold is the only real lever against her. Every encounter is a different shape.

I'm building this solo with TypeScript, React Three Fiber, Vite, and Tauri. The web build is the canonical version. Audio and 3D assets are licensed from indie marketplaces; everything else is hand-built.

— Rico Trebeljahr