South Park Tower Defense PC Port

South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! on PC, running natively, with a launcher and the options of a modern PC release.

 

_{The original Xbox 360 game code, translated to native PC code with the ReXGlue SDK. No game files included: bring your own South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! Xbox Live Arcade package.}

At a glance

The launcher

_{Display: window, monitor, VSync, aspect ratio  ·  Graphics: render resolution, anti-aliasing, filtering}

_{Controls: remapping, deadzone, vibration, keyboard  ·  Achievements: the game's 12, with pop-ups and sound}

[!NOTE] Early version. The port boots, plays its movies and runs levels on Windows and Linux, but a full play-through hasn't been confirmed yet. Please report anything that goes wrong. What changed in each version is on the releases page.

Getting started

You need: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and a DirectX 12 graphics card, or 64-bit Linux / a Steam Deck with Vulkan; about 1 GB of free space; and your own South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! Xbox Live Arcade package (see Which version you need).

Windows

1. Download SouthParkTD-...-windows-x64.zip from the latest release and unzip it anywhere.
2. Run south_park_td.exe. The launcher opens.
3. On the Play page click Install from package... and pick your package file (or drop it onto the window). Its files (about 880 MB) are copied into a game folder next to the exe.
4. Press PLAY.

Linux and Steam Deck

1. Download SouthParkTD-...-linux-x86_64.AppImage from the latest release.
2. Make it executable: right-click > Properties > Permissions > Is executable (on a Steam Deck, in Desktop Mode), or chmod +x it.
3. Run it and install from your package as on Windows. The game files go in a game folder next to the AppImage.
4. On a Steam Deck, add it to Steam with Games > Add a Non-Steam Game and play it from Game Mode. Start presses Play in the launcher.

The download contains only this port. No game files are included: they come from your own package. Saves go in Documents\south_park_td on Windows (the launcher's About page opens the save folder on any system); settings are saved to south_park_td.toml next to the program.

Which version you need

The port is made for this release only. Other versions, and title updates, will not work.

The launcher checks the title ID when you pick the package, and checks default.xex after installing. The package file's own checksum differs from player to player (its header carries the owner's licence), so default.xex is what identifies the version.

The launcher

Everything is set up before the game starts, with a controller, the keyboard or the mouse. It uses art from your own copy of the game: the package's banner and icon, and the title screen once you have played. Settings are saved to a plain text file, south_park_td.toml, next to the game.

	Play Install from your XBLA package, with the title ID and game version checked Full game or Trial: XBLA games shipped as trials unlocked by buying them; the full game is on by default Show the launcher at startup, or not (hold Shift at start to bring it back)
Display Windowed or fullscreen; F11 or Alt+Enter switches while playing Window size that fits your screen, and which monitor VSync on or off Letterbox 16:9 or stretch to fill
	Graphics Render quality: Native, Quality, Balanced, Performance and Ultra Performance, or Supersample for the cleanest edges Custom resolution from 1x (720p) to 6x (8K) FXAA, real 2x MSAA and texture filtering up to 16x Shader preparing: wait for each new effect the first time (no missing objects), or prepare it in the background
Gameplay Language: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian or Japanese Frame counter in the corner, toggled with F2 The game runs one step per frame at the console's 60 Hz, so there is deliberately no frame-rate setting: a higher rate would only make it run fast.
	Controls Controller or keyboard, with every keyboard binding changeable Stick deadzone, vibration on or off and its strength Invert the left stick's axes Remap any button on your controller
Achievements All 12 achievements with their own pictures, names and gamerscore, read from your copy of the game See which ones you have unlocked Xbox 360-style pop-ups with a sound you can pick (or your own .wav) and its volume A bonus Respect My Authoritah achievement the first time you play
	About Updates: ask, automatic or off, and Check now Open your save folder, game folder or settings file in one click Capture the launcher's title-screen art again, or reset every setting

Xbox 360 vs PC port

Good to know

Hotkeys

Known issues

• Xbox LIVE game (online play) does not work. Local play does.
• On the game-mode screen, the locked HARD difficulty is drawn with garbled letters.
• The first time you see a new effect it has to be prepared, which can cause a short pause. Effects are saved, so this only happens once.

Updates

When the launcher opens it asks GitHub whether a newer version of the port is out, and offers to install it. Update now downloads it, replaces the port's own files and restarts the launcher; your installed game, saves and settings stay as they are. Change this on the About page (Ask, Automatic or Off).

Reporting a problem

Everything useful is in the logs folder next to the program:

• south_park_td.log describes your settings, and every 10 seconds notes the frame rate, the 1% low and any frames that took over 50 or 100 ms.
• If the game crashes on Windows, crash-<date>.txt and crash-<date>.dmp appear next to it.

Please attach them to an issue together with your CPU, graphics card and operating system.

About the port

South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! came out on Xbox Live Arcade in 2009. Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny defend South Park from waves of enemies by throwing snowballs, building towers and calling in the town's other kids. It was never released on PC.

This port translates the Xbox 360 game's own code to C++ ahead of time and runs it natively on Windows and Linux with the ReXGlue SDK. NOTES.md has the technical details.

The title-screen crash

Run as-is, the game crashes a few seconds after the title screen whenever a controller is connected. At start-up it reads its save data from the player's profile. For a profile that has never saved, the runtime answered "no value", where the console answers "default". The game took that as a corrupt save, marked the player as failed, and then crashed looking the player up. This port answers as the console does (sptd/src/profile_fix.cpp). Existing saves are untouched.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/TekRantGaming/south-park-tower-defense-recompiled
cd south-park-tower-defense-recompiled
.\setup.ps1 -Package "<path to your 58410931 package>"   # downloads the SDK, unpacks your package, translates the code
sptd\build.bat sptd-release                               # compiles
.\tools\package_windows.ps1 -Version v0.1.0               # optional: the release zip

Credits

• South Park: Let's Go Tower Defense Play! by Doublesix and South Park Digital Studios, 2009.
• ReXGlue SDK, which does the code translation and runs the game, built on the work of Xenia and XenonRecomp.
• superheher/south-park-tower-defence-recomp, the first port of this game (Linux), whose findings this port reuses.
• TRG Launcher, shared with the Earthworm Jim HD, Outpost Kaloki X and King Kong ports.

[!NOTE] AI disclosure: this port was made almost entirely with Claude Code (Anthropic). The repository owner directed and tested the work; the AI did the analysis, code, tools and documentation.

[!IMPORTANT] This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by South Park Digital Studios, Comedy Central, Paramount, Doublesix or Microsoft. It contains no game code or assets. Do not open issues asking for game files.