Resources & defenses.
The five raw materials, the four defenses they build, the bronze → silver → gold upgrade ladder, anvils, treasure chests, and the special items.
The five raw resources
Resources are the basic tiles that appear on the board during the planning phase. There are exactly five types, and what each one matches into is fixed.
| Resource | Match 3 builds | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Stone | Arrow Tower | Fires in all directions, range 1 tile. Can also be pushed into castle’s top row to add hearts. |
| Wood (Logs) | Ballista | Single-target, directional. Fast fire rate at higher tiers. |
| Gunpowder | Cannon | The only defense that fires across an entire row, potentially hitting every dragon in line per Johnny’s Classics. |
| Ice | Ice Wall | Does not attack — slows dragons that walk into its line. Critical against the mother dragon. |
| Gold | Treasure Chest | Not a defense. Gives free swaps when opened; higher tiers may also contain TNT or anvils. |
See Towers in Depth for per-defense behavior and tier tables.
The upgrade ladder
Each of the four defenses has the same four-tier progression. Three of a tier merged together produce one of the next tier per Tower Swap community on itch.io:
- 3× basic → 1× bronze
- 3× bronze → 1× silver
- 3× silver → 1× gold
Gold is the top tier. There is no platinum or higher. The same ladder applies to all four defenses (and, separately, to chests — see below).
The coverage trade-off: a gold cannon hits much harder than three silver cannons, but covers only one tile of the board. For early- and mid-game, players generally recommend spreading defenses over merging them; for boss rounds and high-score runs, gold-tier defenses become essential.
Anvils — the shortcut upgrade Confirmed
Anvils let you upgrade one defense by one tier without needing three of them. They are found in silver and gold chests, and they exist in three colors per towerswap.app/tower/anvil:
- Bronze anvil — drag a tier-1 (basic) defense onto it to upgrade to bronze.
- Silver anvil — upgrades a bronze defense to silver.
- Gold anvil — upgrades a silver defense to gold.
Anvils can also be used inside the inventory screen to upgrade items you have stored for future runs per towerswap.app/news.
Treasure chests — the swap economy
Chests are how you extend a game past the default swap limit. Match three gold tiles to spawn a tier-1 (basic) chest; match three chests to upgrade. The free swaps each tier gives, according to community testing per Johnny’s Classics:
| Chest tier | Free swaps when opened |
|---|---|
| Bronze chest | 12 swaps |
| Silver chest | 70 swaps |
| Gold chest | 400 swaps |
The math says silver chests are the sweet spot for most games per Johnny’s Classics. Gold chests are worth far more per slot but rare to assemble. For high-score runs, players time their game to start with a gold chest from inventory.
Silver and gold chests also have a chance to contain anvils, TNT, and other special items in addition to the free swaps per towerswap.app/news.
Special items Confirmed
Beyond the four defenses and chests, the game has several special items found inside chests or earned from events per towerswap.app/news changelog:
- TNT — tap to blast a single tile. Originally limited per game, recent updates allow TNT use any time without using the worker slot.
- Fairies — collectible item; details vary by event. Fairy houses generate them periodically.
- Time machines — restart the current day, returning all items used during it (including waking up the worker).
- Icebergs — obtained from war chests; placeable from inventory.
- Devil’s deals — random events that trade hearts for defenses.
- CrazyGames listing — defense pairings
- towerswap.app/tower/anvil — anvil definitions
- towerswap.app/news — chest contents and special items
- Johnny’s Classics — chest swap values
- itch.io community thread — upgrade ladder confirmation