The game had been played over 15.7 million times as of July 2007,[1] and was one of Webware 100's top ten entertainment web applications of 2007.

[2] Desktop Tower Defense is available in an English, Spanish, German, French, or Italian interface.

This is accomplished by building and upgrading towers that shoot at, damage and kill the enemy creeps before they are able to reach their objective.

The game does not allow the player to make an exit completely inaccessible, but key strategies revolve around guiding creeps into lengthy, meandering corridors.

The player begins with a set number of lives, and loses one for each creep that survives to reach its goal (the edge of the grid opposite its entry-point, on most courses).

Preece did not immediately start work on Desktop Tower Defense because he considered Flash to be too difficult to learn.

It was only after an acquaintance created Flash Element Tower Defense that Paul started work on the game.

Starting from the "Autumn Tower Defense" map created for the real-time strategy game Warcraft III, Paul Preece created a simple tower defense game that could be played using only a browser.

The game's popularity was further increased by exposure on the internet pop-culture websites Digg and I-am-bored.com.