About the Game
The cult classic tower defense game beloved by millions comes to Steam with GemCraft - Chasing Shadows. Against swarms of vicious, demonic avatars, your only defenses are the gems you conjure that, when placed atop towers or into traps and amplifiers, become conduits for powerful magical and elemental attacks. GemCraft combines fast-paced real-time strategy as you deal with waves of incoming monsters, and cunning tactics that allow you to craft and combine magical gems.
Create traps that poison or slow, discover powerful artifacts and unlock new abilities, and stand alone against The Forgotten, a seemingly unkillable archdemon whose endless armies threaten to swallow the world. GemCraft is packed with multiple levels of difficulty, hundreds of achievements, nearly two hundred levels, and much, much more, making it a rewarding, deep strategy game you'll come back to over and over again.
Create traps that poison or slow, discover powerful artifacts and unlock new abilities, and stand alone against The Forgotten, a seemingly unkillable archdemon whose endless armies threaten to swallow the world. GemCraft is packed with multiple levels of difficulty, hundreds of achievements, nearly two hundred levels, and much, much more, making it a rewarding, deep strategy game you'll come back to over and over again.
Key Features:
- Conquer over 190 stages with unique challenges and conditions.
- Over two dozen passive skills to unlock and enhance as you level up and increase your power.
- More than 400 achievements that will reward you with more skill points as you earn them.
- Craft and combine nine gem types with different effects to suit your tactical needs.
- Combine and stack multiple tiers of difficulty and challenging battle traits for greater rewards, but also greater dangers.
- Socket fragments you find into your mystical talisman to impart new bonuses.
- Wield devastating spells to decimate your foes or enhance your gems.
- Control the speed of battle with fast-forward or pause to fit your play style.
- Want more monsters? Summon them with wave stones, but beware their greater power...
- Replay any stage you've completed for more experience points or with a new challenge.
- Hold out as long as you can after you win levels in Endurance mode for more rewards.
Screenshots
13 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
On the site: Build 734216
Up to date
List of changes:
- Fixed: outcome panel could show negative mana spent on amplifiers with high level masonry skill
- Fixed: Spiritforge controlled towers with their gems stolen by a specter stated that a new gem can be inserted
- When the Forgotten locks the gui, the call for early waves is withdrawn
- Fixed some typos
- Waves enraged by the Forgotten can't be cleaned of rage anymore
- Fixed a bug involving specters almost leaving the battlefield with a stolen gem
- Minor change at field V7: One of the Spf towers upgrades its gem later
- Added Alt+Enter shortcut to switch full screen
View on Steam
- Fixed: outcome panel could show negative mana spent on amplifiers with high level masonry skill
- Fixed: Spiritforge controlled towers with their gems stolen by a specter stated that a new gem can be inserted
- When the Forgotten locks the gui, the call for early waves is withdrawn
- Fixed some typos
- Waves enraged by the Forgotten can't be cleaned of rage anymore
- Fixed a bug involving specters almost leaving the battlefield with a stolen gem
- Minor change at field V7: One of the Spf towers upgrades its gem later
- Added Alt+Enter shortcut to switch full screen
Fixed:
- demolishing a tower while its gem was shooting a beam left the beam vfx stuck
- waves right after a spark couldn't be unangered
- orblets dropped by monsters banished by the Scythe Gate disappeared
View on Steam
- demolishing a tower while its gem was shooting a beam left the beam vfx stuck
- waves right after a spark couldn't be unangered
- orblets dropped by monsters banished by the Scythe Gate disappeared
A new version of GemCraft Chasing Shadows arrives with a bunch of long awaited changes and fixes:
Improvements:
- Resonance skill damage boost became +4.5% per level (previously +3%)
- Touch of Wisdom spark always appears every 100 waves
- Fields F3 and U7 have reduced hp increment between waves
- Hold alt while adjusting a gem's range to step by 1%
- Press delete over a wave stone to remove enraging
- Shadow cores can be used to get skill points, starting at 1000 sc, price going up by 100 sc with every skillpt bought
Fixed errors:
- Hopefully reduced lag when monsters spawn beacons in masses
- Fixed some typos and achievements
- Resetting traits shook the sc counter
- Checking building placement ignored guardians
- Shrines ignored guardians
Still more bugfixes and changes arrive in the next build.
EDIT
v.1.0.4a has one change:
- Touch of Wisdom spark always appears every 50 waves instead of 100
EDIT2
v.1.0.4b fixes 2 exploits and 1 serious bug. Suspiciously high xps due to the exploits gone through a one time cut. Sorry for the mess with the recent changes!
View on Steam
Improvements:
- Resonance skill damage boost became +4.5% per level (previously +3%)
- Touch of Wisdom spark always appears every 100 waves
- Fields F3 and U7 have reduced hp increment between waves
- Hold alt while adjusting a gem's range to step by 1%
- Press delete over a wave stone to remove enraging
- Shadow cores can be used to get skill points, starting at 1000 sc, price going up by 100 sc with every skillpt bought
Fixed errors:
- Hopefully reduced lag when monsters spawn beacons in masses
- Fixed some typos and achievements
- Resetting traits shook the sc counter
- Checking building placement ignored guardians
- Shrines ignored guardians
Still more bugfixes and changes arrive in the next build.
EDIT
v.1.0.4a has one change:
- Touch of Wisdom spark always appears every 50 waves instead of 100
EDIT2
v.1.0.4b fixes 2 exploits and 1 serious bug. Suspiciously high xps due to the exploits gone through a one time cut. Sorry for the mess with the recent changes!
A new version of GemCraft Chasing Shadows is out, putting an end to some annoyances and improving gameplay:
Improvements:
Fixed errors:
There are still more known errors, thanks to you keeping sending feedback, the next update will arrive as soon as a new pack of fixes and tweaks stacks up!
View on Steam
Improvements:
- Shadows don't destroy nearby walls on death anymore
- Traps and Amplifiers skills are uncapped
- Spires can't move while the GUI is being locked by the Forgotten (earlier only specters and apparitions were affected)
Fixed errors:
- Spawning lots of beacons should give much less lag
http://gameinabottle.com/images/gccs-scr-20150518.jpg - Installation folder is now properly named. Existing installations should keep working fine, reinstalling the game will place the game files into the new folder.
- Field L5 drop holder hidden under a tree is visible now
- Calculating total skill points fixed again
- Fixed: shrines activated just before ending a battle had their performance info text stuck on the screen
There are still more known errors, thanks to you keeping sending feedback, the next update will arrive as soon as a new pack of fixes and tweaks stacks up!
List of changes:
Also, Steam trading cards and all the related things are now available!
View on Steam
- Hopefully fixed an error involving towers shooting at wizlocks
- Fixed field X6 not allowing building anything
- Fixed skill panel infobox not counting vision and achievement reset skill points to the total value
- Fixed: having guardians on the field and setting a gem priority to swarmling or giant threw error message
- The 'Touch of wisdom' (xp boost) spark doesn't appear in Iron Wizard mode anymore
- Vision fields should now always give the same wave composition (setting traits for normal fields caused random waves for visions too)- sorry for all the frustration!
- Added +4 save slots
- Added new option: Set default game window size
Also, Steam trading cards and all the related things are now available!
Current Release
Build 734216
Uploaded Oct 10, 2026
System Requirements
OS
N/A
CPU
Intel Celeron N or better
RAM
2048 MB RAM
GPU
Intel HD Graphics or better
How to Install
1
Download all files
2
Extract the .ZIP file to a folder (use WinRAR or 7-Zip)
3
Run GemCraft Chasing Shadows.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
Archive password
Needed when extracting (WinRAR / 7-Zip) — not a site login.
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Download GemCraft - Chasing Shadows for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of GemCraft - Chasing Shadows for free. GemCraft - Chasing Shadows is a Action released by Game in a Bottle.