A sequel to the popular Monsterama Park, Monsterama Planet is all about accidentally landing on an alien planet and helping its indigenous creatures rebuild their civilization. Monsterama Planet offers plenty of interesting things to do such as build astrobases, plant and harvest rayberries, gather iron ore and meteor rocks, scour the Astrojungle for hidden treasures, and convert the barren landscape into a magnificent home for the Monsterama creatures. This civilization building SIM game does play out in real time, but its limited wait time, enchanting colors, and quirky tasks looks inviting and charming. Let’s crash this planet and see how it plays out.
Crash and Build a Monstrous Colony
Crash landing on a strange planet with monster alien life may be a scary prospect, but on Monsterama Planet it’s one hell of an adventure. Thanks to space astronaut officer Edward, fellow mate Landa, space robot Frank, and orange flamed monster Mino, there’s plenty of fun quests to keep you glued to the game. A quick and easy tutorial kicks off the game, and pretty soon, you delve into the foggy misty AstroJungle to discover hidden treasures, items, and resources.
Game chatter happens by way of big and easy to read textual pop-ups, though closing them every time is a bloody bore. You’ll find all new quests to the left of the screen, and game resources and earnings at the bottom. As you complete quests you move up a level and unlock more resources. While the game is free to play, like all smart simulation games, you’ll be locked out of some important items you need to progress. In Monsterama Planet it is the binoculars. Binoculars help you discover resources hidden in the Astrojungle, but once you run out of them, you’re left with very little option to earn them. You can pick up a few when you level up, but there’s the tempting option to shell out a few dollars and buy a pack of them using IAPs. In fact, you can pick up silver coins, gold bars, and crystals too, from as little as 99 cents all the way up to a 100 dollars. You can earn these resources for free, but I find that downloading and installing a whole bunch of crappy stuff, a lousy way to do it. But the option is open for the really desperate!
So Much To Do, So Little Help
Unlike most simulation games, there are no restrictions on the number of quests you can do at any point of time. Barring tasks that require you to use the binoculars, you are free to grow as many crops as you like, build as many structures as you want, and collect its rewards every now and again to your hearts content. Often you’ll miss having another crew member to give you a helping hand. Since each task needs a handler, a crew of just 2 people and a space robot won’t be enough. Especially when one of the crew is held up in a 20 minute or 30 minute task, you’ll only have 2 people free to complete smaller tasks. Additional help will cost you 200 gold bars, an option you won’t find immediately feasible. Luckily, there are lot of small time tasks that you can juggle with the limited crew members. However, you will be left wishing for an additional hand every now and again.
Wholesome Goodness for the Most Part
Monsterama Planet captures the beauty and depth of its environment in beautiful colors. Although the monsters don’t play a very big role in the game, they are bright, colorful, and lovable. The eye pleasing colors, eye grabbing cartoony graphics, and charming characters are the game’s big plus factor. The game’s negatives were definitely the music. It somehow felt out of place and disconnected with the environment and I turned it off after a while. The animation effects are good for the most part, but were a little off the mark in some situations. For instance, crops surrounded by buildings were cut off from crew members and could not be watered properly. It was a little weird to see the crew watering an empty patch of land! That said, such issues are not game disrupting and overall you do enjoy doing the various little tasks and look forward to more.
The Verdict
Monsterama Planet is a good enough game to pick up and play, but not so much to follow up later on. One powerful ingredient that I found lacking in Monsterama is a reason to continue playing. Unlike 2020: My Country, I’m not sure I will want to come back and continue building the planet a few days from now. The game has top notch graphics, perfect characters, engaging enough game play, and good social interactive elements, yet you feel that the magic is missing. There’s no strong urge to pull you back into the game when you’ve taken a break. However, since the game is free, offers plenty of enjoyable things to do, and doesn’t aggressively lean towards IAPs, there’s a very good chance you’ll end up playing more than you bargained for.
