Calorie
Defenders

Calorie Defenders is a strategy game where you place vegetable traps and shoot sugary food inside the human body. One minute you're defending the body from the sugar while running and jumping across chasms, the next you are strategically placing traps to fight the invading sweet treats. It's a novel theme, but it's the clever combination of strategy and action that really make it stand out.

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You play as one of three Calorie Defenders; Carrot, Broccoli or Tomato, and must defend the insides of the digestive system from wave after wave of sugary invaders, including lollipops, gobstoppers and midget gems.

Before each wave, you lay traps made of different healthy foods (similar to the plants in Plants Vs. Zombies), like blueberries, mushrooms, cabbages, leeks and chilli peppers. Each of these attack the invaders with different strengths and weaknesses. You need to match the right vegetables against the right sweets, so strategic deployment of your limited resources is key, as each wave gets progressively more challenging.

As well as this strategy gameplay, you move around the game by running, jumping and using your jetpack. You can use an array of weapons to help pick off any enemies that make it past your defences. This also means you can discover new areas by exploring, to gain an edge in your battle.

The result is a game with an unusual theme that reduces the usual sense of violence. More than that, the combination of platforming and tower defence create a unique experience where both calm planning and tense action have their place.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Calorie Defenders 22 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 14 months ago.