On the face of it, MonstrosCity is yet another Facebook virtual pet game built around the idea of adopting, raising, and then selling some species of delightful creature. Once you’ve spent some time with the game, though, it becomes clear that there’s a sort of weird madness at work with it.
On the face of it, MonstrosCity is yet another Facebook virtual pet game built around the idea of adopting, raising, and then selling some species of delightful creature. Once you’ve spent some time with the game, though, it becomes clear that there’s a sort of weird madness at work with it.
Where most virtual pet games offer sedate fish or cuddly pets, MonstrosCity wants you to raise vaguely Muppet-like monsters until they reach building-crushing proportions before selling them off. You earn experience mainly by letting your monsters learn about city-leveling through destroying the decorations you keep around them when they’re tiny.
It’s an intersection of cute and Godzilla that has definite appeal. The creatures in MonstrosCity have designs that successfully combine adorable with potential for menace. You level them up and gain experience by Unleashing them periodically, which makes them throw a precious-looking little tantrum that rattles around all of your nearby decorations.
The more damage the little creature does, the more experience gained. You’ll also feed your monsters as frequently as you can to try and help increase their size. Your monsters are quite miniscule when you adopt them (and stay that way for quite some time in-game), but can eventually grow into enormous beasts.
MonstrosCity has a few issues as of this writing. The pace of the game is very slow, with monsters remaining unsatisfyingly tiny for quite some time. The social mechanics are limited and vague, mostly consisting of the ability to visit a friend’s monsters and Unleash them. Doing this allows you to earn experience but it’s not clear if these visits are to your friend’s benefit at all from the clues provided in-game. You can play a fun mini-game with your monster, but it’s the same mini-game for all monsters and grows dull after awhile.
There’s a lot of potential in MonstrosCity, though. The game has a sound premise that’s accessible while offering an original twist, with strong visuals and a few interesting play mechanics. It’s perhaps a little overly-simple at this point in its lifespan, but the same could be said of most recently-launched virtual pet games. MonstrosCity has the advantage of being possibly the only one that lets you raise a fantastic monster up into a city-stomper.
