Picket Line

Picket Line is a single-player tower defense game about a factory strike in early 20th-century Europe. You control workers forming a picket line and try to keep potential strikebreakers, called Scabs, from entering the factory. Hold the strike until the factory gives up and accepts the Union’s terms.

Build the picket line

You begin with two Picket Liners in front of the factory and can move them freely. Scabs approach from different directions; place workers in their paths to stop them from entering and taking jobs. Each occupied factory room is shown by a lit window, and the game ends when every window is lit.

Each day, more Scabs arrive. Some carry improvised weapons that let them pass an ordinary Picket Liner, while police may be called in and can push through workers carrying larger banners. Place striking workers next to each other to form stronger Picket Liners. As the strike gains support among the working class, citizens provide resources such as larger banners and more factory workers are ready to join the line. You can upgrade Picket Liners with stronger banners or use your influence to persuade some Scabs to leave the factory.

The 1928 Zagreb strike

The story draws on a real strike at the Bizjak biscuit factory in Zagreb in 1928. During the city’s industrial boom, the factory’s mostly female workforce worked 12-hour days for very low pay. The strike ended with a technically legal police intervention, but became a landmark in female workers’ fight for basic rights and a precedent for other strikes in industrial Zagreb.