There are plenty of games that let you look after cute little animals, but your options are usually relegated to more common species like cats or dogs. But what about pogonips? Or anollys? Or how about an adorable tuckle? Wait, you’ve never heard of those? Well, you should probably head on into Monster Pet Shop, a pet game disguised as a pet store management simulator. It has all the charm and style we’ve come to expect from a Beeline title, and it manages to make slimy monsters cute.
There are plenty of games that let you look after cute little animals, but your options are usually relegated to more common species like cats or dogs. But what about pogonips? Or anollys? Or how about an adorable tuckle? Wait, you’ve never heard of those? Well, you should probably head on into Monster Pet Shop, a pet game disguised as a pet store management simulator. It has all the charm and style we’ve come to expect from a Beeline title, and it manages to make slimy monsters cute.
The game begins with you inheriting a mysterious store, the titular monster pet shop. And the gameplay mostly revolves around taking care of animals. There’s a large variety of monsters in the game, which you’ll care for from the time they’re still unhatched in the egg until they ultimately get purchased by a customer. Depending on the monster they’ll require a different type of habitat. Some need to be submerged in water, while others much prefer hanging out in the soil.
Taking care of a monster essentially boils down to four different actions. You’ll feed them, pet them, clean their habitat, and make sure they have a toy to play with. These actions are all pretty basic. Depending on the habitat they dwell in, your monster will only like a certain type of food and you’ll need the right kind of tool to clean up, but the game lets you know exactly which are the right options for each kind of monster. Finding where a monster likes to be pet is as simple as rubbing them with your finger until they start to coo.
Toys, though, are much more of a trial-and-error experience. You have no way of knowing what kind of toy your monster will want to play with, forcing you to just keep buying new ones in the hopes that they’re right. This isn’t such a problem later on, but early in the game you’ll be strapped for cash, which makes buying unnecessary toys an annoyance. Keep your monster happy and they’ll mature, at which point you can breed them and then sell them off for some cash.
Customers will come into the store demanding a certain type of monster and so you’ll need to carefully manage your stock, especially since you’ll have limited spots to keep monsters. In addition to breeding, you can also buy monster eggs from the shop, though the majority require the use of premium currency.
While the pet shop portion of the game is necessary for making money, it really feels underdeveloped. Selling monsters makes up such a small part of the game, and you don’t even have much in the way of options when it comes to decorating your store. There are different pre-made themes and you have your choice of habitats, but that’s about it.
So it’s a good thing that caring for your monsters is so well done. Not only are the activities you’ll need to do quite varied, but the monsters themselves are just so darn cute. They get angry when you poke them and purr when you scratch just the right spot. There are few things more adorable than seeing a baby monster grab a teddy bear and squeeze it with pleasure. There’s also a good amount of variety to the monsters in the game, providing some extra incentive to breed and shop for new types.
Despite its name, Monster Pet Shop is less a game about running a pet shop than it is about taking care of the monsters that dwell within. But that’s just fine with us. There are few better mobile pet simulators out there, and there are even fewer that give you the pleasure of raising a slimy one-eyed octopus.
