[Review] Very Little Monsters

Very Little Monsters is a game developed by CODE for smartphones with the Android operating system.

When initially starting up the game, I was greeted with a black screen. It would seem the game likes to take a lot of time loading up, and might cause your device to have a minor hick up. After playing it three times, my phone wouldn’t start the game, and I had to restart my phone a few times. At one point I even had to remove the game completely and then re-install it since it refused to start.

Even thought the game sports a very basic and simple gameplay, it’s still challenging. In the game you have a field where the blue and red monsters can be moved. If you have three blue monsters in a half circle, moving a red monster in the half circle will result in the blue monsters changing color to red. The goal is to change all of the blue/red monsters to the color you’re playing as, while keeping the amount of turns at a minimum. Moving the monster two moves will result in the monster simply moving, if you move it to the area next to it, it will duplicate and you’ll have two.

Despite the very basic gameplay, I found the game to be rather challenging on normal. It does require you to think about where you’re going to place the monster, and what opening you will leave yourself. Much like chess, it requires you to think a bit ahead. The easy difficulty is almost too easy and offers very little resistance. In fact, I dare say that it’s impossible to lose, but then again, I’m sure it’s possible if you try hard enough. The normal difficulty is challenging, but the most rewarding as you feel slightly better about yourself for managing to beat the level. The only thing that bugs me about this is how slow it feels. When I start out the level everything is fine and I don’t mind it too much, but if I play it and I have to start over again, the slow speed will become frustrating.

When playing the game, each move gets zoomed in and I really dislike this. Furthermore, if you double tap on a monster, you’ll find that you’re being zoomed in, but unable to zoom out. For me, this is something that I would like to get fixed, like double tapping again to zoom out. There’s also a possibility to rotate in order to see the monsters from the side, which is quite nice, but once again, a quick “reset” button to get you back to the starting point would be nice. The opponents will also get zoomed in when there’s there turn, for me almost makes me feel dizzy. What I do like about it is how I’m able to see what moves the opponent can take, and use that to my advantage.

One of the cons of this game is the sound. Although amusing for a short amount of time, it does get annoying after awhile. The sounds the monsters make are cute, if a  bit childish from time to time. One thing I noticed when playing was how the developers made the choice to reuse sounds. That’s fine, but it does make for a repetitive and boring sound scheme. Ultimately this means people will mute the sound after hearing it too much. Younger children will most likely find the game’s music and sounds entertaining and rather funny. For older people, however, this is not the case.

The art style is very interesting, and disturbing. Not only do the monsters sport big eyes, that’s what you’ll see for the most part, unless you use the rotate function. I do like it though, they’re both cute and very… weird. An interesting blend. The play field is nice, and I like how varied it is. Each new level features a more interesting and harder play field, which makes the gameplay more dynamic.

In my opinion I think that both younger and older people will be able to play it. Even though those who are younger might not quite understand what they’re doing, the sound in itself will leave them entertained.

In conclusion, the developer need to work on making the game’s launching time shorter as well as minimizing the amount of launch problems I experienced. Despite some flaws and rather annoying features, such as the lack of any way to zoom out, the game does suck you in right away. You cannot peel your eyes away from the screen, and all of the sudden you realize you’ve been sitting with the game for hours. For a newly developed game and for a new studio, I’d say this is a very good effort.

The Good:

+ Fun to play

+ Normal difficulty is actually challenging

+ Appeals to a broad range of people

+ Younger persons will love the sound

The Bad: 

- Start up difficulties made me have to re-install the game. A big minus

- I cannot zoom out when I get zoomed in. Plus, the opponents also get zoomed in which makes the dizzy

- A bit slow when moving the monsters.

The game will launch on February 28th.