You place towers. You lose. Then King Mark gets better.
Mindfulness TD is a roguelike tower defense. You put towers on the grass beside a single road, call the wave, and try to keep the remaining survivors of your kingdom alive until morning. You will lose, especially at first. A first night tends to die around wave ten. When it does, you spend the mindfulness you earned on a progression tree. The tree stays after the hut falls.
You are King Mark. Last autumn a raid took the hall, the crown, and the family who ate under those walls. A few of your people got out with you. They found an abandoned hut in a marsh and ate slime. Tonight slime walks the road.
Place towers
Towers go on the grass, not on the road, not on the hut. Call the wave and keep the people alive. Small enemies drop a couple of coins; a fatter type drops more. You cannot farm one wave forever and buy a whole new line of towers with the proceeds.
Every ten waves a boss walks. If you drop it, a wheel pays gold for tonight, mindfulness for the camp, or, rarely, a Motivational Momento that changes how the fort looks.
Spend mindfulness
The tree is how King Mark improves after a failed night. Nine branches, forty-nine ranks. The early ranks have ordinary names. Routine starts the next night with more gold. Breath gives you longer to place towers. Interest grows the coin you left unspent. Pacing Yourself puts 5x on the pace button. A decent night buys one or two ranks, not the tree.
Each rank is a small habit he can take into the next defense. Lose the hut and the board is gone. The tree stays.
What stays
When the door fails, you run, and they run with you. They are alive. The save is the camp, not the board. Hold long enough and the hut becomes a timber keep, then a hall. King Mark's face warms as you spend: ten faces, from grief toward the people who remain. The story is told in graphic-novel pages, not a cutscene you sit through. He looks back at the walls once. After that, he looks at the door.