Review: Monstermind

I personally dislike your average Facebook game. In essence they are nothing but self-propagating pyramid schemes devoid of any real gameplay. I'm not even harsh about that, I'm just pointing out the obvious here. In fact raise your finger how many times you've seen the spam like "X has find a sick duckling and would like you to give it a home" on top of your Facebook page.

There is no doubt however that in the last few years casual games have soared, and the gaming industry has slowly turned its gaze towards it. The last counter of facebook inhabitants was that of 700 million users. And that is a huge playerbase which is not to be ignored. It is in this light we have to look at EA's recent acquisition of Popcap. A game developing studio that has perhaps single-handedly revolutionized casual games.
But that said, the selection of casual games on Facebook itself, the so called application games has never really broken through that stereotype of boring collector games. It is for that exact reason that I was initially cautious about trying MonsterMind. Bossa Studio's take on social games.

MonsterMind plays much like a RTS-based city simulator. You not only build your city based upon population and tactical resources (Money). You also need to defend it from an onslaught of monster attacks. These come in the form of 1950's B-movie monsters, from a gaint Ape to the 49 1/2 ft woman.  The entire game is stylized around that area as well. Even the little mission videos are black-and white reels that any fan of the Fallout series will surely appreciate.
The unique angle of the game however is how you can annihilate your friends' cities by unleashing your own homebrewn version of terror and fear. The game even wants to be played as an antisocial game. Where it is incredibly fun to not only destroy your friend's city, but where it's also hilarious to see your own city in ruins. The game namely doesn't penalize you much for it. Repair cost is minimum, and you will be rewarded by drops and xp still. I would say that that aspect of the game is well-balanced, unfortunately you'll find the start of the game a bit too slow as you struggle to get money.
In my interview with the game's lead developer Mike Bithell during Eurogamer Expo, he relayed an anecdote where someone in the team was boasting about how great and awesome his studio was, until a secret mail going round banded the entire rest of the team against him in a one-all assault.
I think it's that exact that anecdote catches what MonsterMind makes so much fun and unique at the moment. Sure it's fun to make your own city, but I'll be damned if it's not more fun to inflict doom upon those unsuspecting cities.

That's not to say the game is all positive. There are some bugs currently and the micro-transaction system is in my opinion mildly overpriced. It's nice that the developers have made some of the real currency buildings to be available as a crafting drop, but to expand your city by one grid you'll have to fork out a reasonable sum. I was also missing a scroll function to have more control and vision over my city, but the developer told me that was a thing they would like to include, and as of this article it appears to be included sort of.

The game is currently in beta, and unfortunately it is still having some issues. Town Halls not repairing, tanks blocking your monsters, or just the usual maintenance. So it's currently not the stablest condition, but I heartily recommend this game to absolutely everybody.
You can find it here: http://apps.facebook.com/monstermind/?ref=bos_mainsite