Monster Mail: Smash the crates and learn how monsters really box their packages!
We love it when developers email us about their new games and we’re ecstatic when their game is fun to play! Keep reading to find out what we thought of this colorful and wacky game…
Gameplay: This is a trial and error puzzle game where you need to get the monster heart into the crate. We have no idea why we’re sending hearts, or why the heart is a monster either… we can only presume that the developers were extremely heart broken and have yet to recover from their last relationship! Anyway… so there are crates and planks scattered around the mail room and you need to strategically smash them to roll the heart into the mail box.
By tapping on the wooden crates then you’ll destroy them, and in doing so you’ll take away the platforms which prop up the monster heart. The heart will then fall down due to gravity and if you’ve smashed the objects in the correct order then the heart will plop straight into the mail box. It’s perhaps difficult to imagine how this works, but as you progress through the levels you’ll be given see-saws which you can sway with weighted iron boxes. Then there are some interesting jelly boxes which increase the bouncing of the heart. No good game would be without some level of unnecessary violence and in this case there are dynamite loaded cases which will blast the crates around the mail room.
The demo version includes 25 levels, spread across 5 stages. As you go further through the game various objects are introduced, and the classic three star system draws you in to perfect the rounds. Usually I find that the three stars are either not worthwhile or are too easy, but bizarrely in this case the stars are a decent difficulty. The levels are also very fast allowing you to apply a trial and error approach to get the three stars.
Music and Sound Effects: The developers are surprisingly considerate here and have these options off by default! So you need to switch them on in the options menu if you want them. When you choose to enjoy the sounds then the level music is a very cool and the smooth bassy tune is excellent for filling the void whilst also being nonintrusive. The menu music is very lively and upbeat to get you into the game mood. All the sound effects seem to be decent, but it’d be good if the relative levels could be adjusted so one could hear the sound effects louder over the music.
Graphics: Not many distinguishing animations are here like in Angry Birds or Tiny Ball vs Evil Devil but the color theming is bright and happy. The vibrance just oozes with a bit of light hearted fun. If I were being a perfectionist, then perhaps there could be a few more particle effects, but otherwise this is good stuff.
Interface: A fair amount of thought has gone into the interaction and you don’t need to tap each box to destroy them – you can swipe and slash multiple boxes at the same time. If you have an old phone then you might enjoy this game less because the touch wasn’t always responsive on our Samsung Galaxy S2 test device. The lag wasn’t significant, but it was enough to make us repeat some rounds a few times more than we really needed to.
Some negatives: There’s always quite a big problem in these puzzle games when you get stuck – what do you do when this happens and how do you continue? We had this problem on one of the stages and just couldn’t figure out the solution at the time. It annoyed us so much that we just put the game down… almost writing it off. However, we did come back with a fresh mind and cracked it. Needless to say it would be really great if there was a level skipping system like they have in Greedy Spiders.
Rating: 4/5 A new physics based trial and error game which is fast and fun to play. You can feel the love from the developers and we sense that this will be awesome with a few more updates. There are a decent number of free levels in the demo and it’s worth buying if you really like the lite version!
Developers: TVS
Monster Mail Promotional Youtube Video
Monster Mail QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto Google Play)
