Monster’s Planet

Monster’s Planet is a creature breeding game on Facebook that was created by Plinga. The game’s cute look and simple system of acquiring new monsters makes it seem like it was designed with younger children in mind. However, there’s very little interaction with the monster’s; so whether a child would be willing to continue playing Monster’s Planet just to create new monsters is debatable.

The ultimate goal of Monster’s Planet is discovering new species of monsters and getting multicolored monsters of each type. The only thing that keeps the player from accomplishing this right away is the wait time between when monsters can have their DNA extracted and how long it takes to fuse the DNA; sometime the wait can be multiple hours depending on the monster’s rarity. There are also different classifications of monsters with many species in each. The player starts with insect type monsters, but can work up to prairie, sea, flying, undead, elf and dragon type monsters.

While Monster’s Planet undoubtedly falls into the breeding game genre, there is no actual breeding in the game. The player acquires a couple of monsters in the tutorial that allows the process of extracting and splicing DNA to begin. This may sound complicated, but the process mostly consists of clicking on a monster to extract DNA and then choosing two sets of extracted DNA to combine. Monster’s Planet also differs from other breeding games by not giving any of the monsters stats. Instead, the best or rarest type of a monster species is determined by color. The color system works the same for every monster with the most common being red and the rarest being multicolored with yellow, orange, blue, green and purple in between. In order to get different colors, the player splices the DNA of two of the same species with different colors. In order to get different species, the player splices two different species’ DNA together.

Monster’s Planet has a daily reward for logging in, a lottery wheel to spin for prizes, and a hints section designed to give the player tips on splicing DNA (frequently, information that the player is already well aware of). There’s also a level up system for the player that unlocks items and different sections of the game as missions and basic tasks are completed. A combination of leveling up and getting friends to join eventually unlocks the other monster types for purchase and keeping. While the game starts out slow with just a few monsters, the player can soon have lots. However, the rarer they get the more time is spent waiting for something else to do.

There are some serious localization problems with Monster’s Planet with messages frequently popping up in German in the English version of the game. There is also a combat preview shown in the help section that depicts a couple of monsters battling as if in a 2D fighting game. However, there does not appear to be a section of the game that allows this, or any stats on the individual monsters to indicate fighting skill or ability. So, this combat feature may yet be something to look forward to.

Hints and Tips

–          Follow the missions to level up quickly.

–          When creating a new species type, always start by creating a red and yellow type, the bases of the color system. The color system doesn’t allow advanced colors to backtrack and create earlier colors, so always start with the base pair.