8 Bit Tower Defense Gold Guide: How to Earn It and What to Spend It On

How you earn Gold

Gold is the reward for fighting. The game's own tutorial states it plainly: "Gold from battles levels up your units." In practice, that means finishing story acts and other matches — when you win, the victory screen adds Gold to your balance. One observed victory in Greenfield Outpost Act 2 paid +750 Gold; payouts for other acts and difficulties have not been observed. If you are still getting comfortable with the combat itself, the how to play guide covers the basics first.

New players also get a small head start: the tutorial hands you 500 Gold (alongside 2 Trait Rerolls) specifically to use on the unit-leveling system it walks you through.

Battles are not the only place Gold shows up. Promo codes can include Gold among their one-time rewards — UPDATE1 and HOLLOWHUNT are two codes that have done so. Code availability changes over time, so treat codes as an occasional top-up rather than a repeatable earning route; the codes page keeps the current list.

Gold is not the cash you spend in a match

Gold and the dollar cash inside a battle are two different currencies, and mixing them up is the most common point of confusion. The differences at a glance:

The unit upgrades guide covers that in-match side of the economy. In the hub, you can recognize Gold as the coin counter — one hub display showed 8,988 — sitting on the HUD alongside your Gems, Dice/Trait Reroll tokens and event Candy. If you want the full picture of how these currencies relate, the currencies guide breaks each one down.

How to spend Gold: level up your units

Your Gold goes toward leveling up your units in the hub. The process takes three steps:

1. Open the UNITS menu in the hub.
2. Open the level tab — this is also where your Gold balance is displayed.
3. Select a unit and press LEVEL UP. Each level adds damage.

Leveling with Gold runs up to level 100, and a unit's level improves the damage it puts out each time you upgrade it during battle — so Gold invested in the hub keeps paying off in every fight you take that unit into.

You do not need Gold for every level, either. You can also feed units of lesser rarity into your main unit, which increases its level without spending any Gold. On top of that, the tutorial notes that squad units gain XP from every match you play, so your battles themselves feed into unit progression alongside the Gold you bring home.

That is the whole loop: fight battles to earn Gold, then bring it back to the hub and pour it into unit levels. To see where that fits into the larger climb, the progression guide connects Gold spending to the rest of your account growth.