Getting your game ready…
Choose a plant, then tap a brown soil patch to grow it there. You can also tap the patch first and then the plant. Each plant shoots any beetle inside its range circle, and every beetle you stop pays a few seeds. Tap a planted patch to upgrade it twice or to sell it. Selling before you send the next wave returns everything you just spent.
Nothing moves until you press Send wave, so plan as long as you like between waves. A beetle that reaches the basket eats fruit: one for most, two for a shellback, five for a giant. Clear every wave with fruit left to hold the grove. Nine or ten fruit earn three stars, five or more earn two. If the basket empties, Retry puts you back before that wave with the plants you had. The speed button runs a wave at 1×, 2× or 3×, and P pauses.
Sprouts fire fast, but their small seeds glance off shellback plates. Pods burst on the ground and catch several beetles at once, though they cannot reach fliers. Sap slows whatever it hits, which gives every plant nearby more shots. Thorns reach furthest, aim at the toughest beetle in range and pierce plates. The line under the board says what the next wave holds, so check it before you spend.
A plant on the inside of a bend sees the trail on two sides, so beetles stay in range for longer. Look for the patch where the range circle covers the most sand. Slow beetles just before they reach your Pods, and upgrade a well-placed plant before you buy a new one on a weak patch.
Tower defence games ask you to hold a path with defenders you place along it. Rampart (1990) is generally credited with the prototype, and the idea grew through StarCraft and Warcraft III custom maps and browser games such as Desktop Tower Defense and Bloons Tower Defense in 2007. Grove Defense is our own small version: twelve hand-made maps, four plants with three levels each, and a calm build between waves.