THE STORY

Petting zoos are for kids, safari parks for people who hate their windscreen wipers and the human menagerie that is Big Brother for those poor unfortunates whose TVs are stuck on the abject low-brow horror of Channel 5. No, these days when it comes to the ultimate in animal entertainment, only a Monster Park will do…

THE EXPERIENCE

Hatching and breeding a range of monsters in an enclosed space for the general public to come and gawp at seems like a reasonable way to spend your time; and I certainly can’t think of any examples of such schemes going horribly, horribly wrong, because Michael Crichton would have written a book about it. That being the case, let’s get this parky started.

Owing a colossal design debt to Pixar, the aim of the game here is quite simply to build a successful theme park by buying, rearing and breeding the widest selection of ‘monsters’ possible, decorating and extending your park as you go and filling in your Monster Log (no giggling) to ultimately make money beyond the dreams of avarice – so basically the same business plan as Chessington World of Adventures.

You can do this in one of two ways: 1) the slow way by mining for crystals to feed your beasties and earn coins or, naturally, 2) the quick way by heading to the online shop and buying your way to monstering mega-bucks! Or with, as Jurassic Lark’s John Hammond would have said: “No expense spared!” Either way, brace for money making monster mating!

THE BOTTOM LINE

With decent graphics, an almost endless array of actions, social sharing and a soundtrack from a lounge bar, Monster Park is an excellent way to kill time, which is probably why it’s already hit the Google Play Top 20 Grossing chart. Entertaining and curiously addictive, if utterly unoriginal, now that the nights are drawing in, stay in and do the Monster Mash.

Additional information

Current version: 1.3.5
Requires Android 2.1 and up

Download the Monster Park app from Google Play

Check out other app reviews here