Camp Defense Review

Road Block

Prepare to defend your camp in Camp Defense, an action-packed tower defense game that requires strategy and patience. Russian developer Stereo7 Games manages to create a healthy balance between tower defense and idle game mechanics that allows for casual play. Camp Defense is exactly as the name suggests—defend your camp against hordes of the undead.

Revving the Engine

When you first start up the game, you are instantly dropped into wave one, and these get progressively more difficult as you progress. The main component of this title is the tower defense. Players will have a truck that can be upgraded with units available to take up valuable spots for defense. By surviving through waves, you earn money that allows you to purchase and upgrade units to help, as well as upgrade your truck with mods like spikes, armor or turrets. All the components of the truck can be upgraded with the coins you earn during the waves. Upgrading the truck will also provide another spot to place a unit every ten levels.

As you progress, you can unlock new units to use on your truck. Some cost coins, some cost premium diamonds and some even cost real money. The ones that require real money are ridiculously expensive. The unit called “Agatha” currently costs $9.99. Units and upgrades get confusing after a while. It’s difficult to understand the advantage of each unit. Generally, a newly unlocked character will be better than the one you have equipped on your truck. It takes a lot of watching and adjusting to learn the best strategies. The hardest thing to gauge is the defensive units. While you send them out, your turrets and other units will continue to shoot at the hordes. It makes it difficult to see how effective they are.

Units are clearly inspired by characters from popular horror films and shows, such as Negan from The Walking Dead. There are two types of units: offense and defense. Defensive characters can be sent out to fight on the ground against the zombies. Offensive characters have projectiles that can be launched at the horde. During the wave, you can click on your units to use their special ability. You have to aim the red strike zone where you want the projectile to go as the game pauses. Once you’re finished, the horde will begin to move again. So make sure to take that into account when you aim.

Campfire Song

Camp Defense has two additional features that break up the monotony of the tower defense mode. The first is true to the name of the game. You have a camp where you are able to collect additional money and upgrades. This is where the idle part comes in. The camp has a mine that automatically produces coins, which have to be gathered before the collection fills up. Once it’s full, you won’t amass more coins until you log back in. The mine can be upgraded to increase the limit or speed up the coins accumulated per minute.

The camp also has a way to upgrade through skill points earned as you progress through the waves. There are tons of upgrades to choose from. However, you only receive one skill point every five waves. This coincides with zombie boss waves that happen every five waves. It’s a good idea to read through the choices before you spend your first point. Skills can range from more health for your truck to a higher rate of fire for your turrets.

Another feature in Camp Defense is a map that you can explore. Locations unlock as you progress. You can take over these locations by defeating a wave of human enemies similar to the normal game mode. Each location has a wave number that tells you how hard it is to beat. Players at wave 20 probably can’t defeat the hordes at a wave 30 building. Once you beat these locations, they act like the mining back at camp. Coins collected here are lower than the mine and your collection fills up faster. You can upgrade to store more coins between visits.

Survive and Thrive

Camp Defense is a free-to-play title that can be played offline. One of the most surprising things is that ads don’t pop up between waves. Ads are completely optional. After a wave, you can choose to watch an ad to double your earnings. This along with the overpriced premium units don’t hinder gameplay at all.

Fans of this genre will likely enjoy this well-designed title, but it can get boring after a while. Overall, Camp Defense is an addicting casual title that manages to stay entertaining through additional features.