The pickles are attacking! Run! And while you're running, why not set up a few defensive towers to take out the Horripickles and Fisquitoes chasing you? In Monster Mash you must protect storybook villages and their people from evil fairy tale monsters. It's a tower defense game with artwork, characters and plot taken right out of a children's book, and it's every bit as surreal (yet fun) as you might think.
Tower defense games usually operate on the same basic rule set — monsters march along a specified path and you must place towers that will destroy them before they reach the end. Each enemy defeated earns you a bit of cash you can use to buy more units or upgrade existing towers to be stronger, faster, or have a wider range of attack. There's always a good variety of buildings at your disposal, each with a different strength and weakness to help stave off the hordes.
Monster Mash takes the now-familiar formula and gives it a child-like makeover. Not in terms of gameplay, mind you (although it is a bit pared-down compared to other tower defense games), but in the artwork and setting. Each round begins with a villager running out of the monster cave back to the village. Your lives are measured in people, and each runaway villager that returns to the town gives you another chance at success. Let a monster reach the end of the path, however, and expect to lose a few villagers. You don't want to kill the happy people of Curly Valley, do you?
Defeated monsters occasionally drop items that can be collected by sending villagers out onto the battlefield. Some items give you gold, while others speed up building time, slow the enemy's walking speed, or increase your towers' attack strength. There are even level-specific objects you can click on to aid your cause, such as the scarecrow that freezes enemies or the cannon that dispatches foes no matter where they are. Throw that in the pot with a handful of unique maps and you have the makings of an entertaining tower defense game.
Analysis: In a genre that's becoming more crowded as the weeks go by, Monster Mash has the good sense to set itself apart from the pack with a delightful artwork and story presentation. The gameplay itself is rather run-of-the-mill, but seeing zany monster after zany monster crawl out of the cave is a blast, and each one comes complete with a short biography.
Where Monster Mash falls a bit short is in long-term play. Each map you defend is almost completely cut-off from previous areas, as you don't carry gold between stages. Power-ups you nab are saved, but as far as an over-reaching drive to keep playing the game, there really isn't one. Also, the difficulty level is sharply increased after just a few levels, and it's quite a jarring experience.
Compared to other tower defense games (especially Garden Defense), the amount of items and towers doesn't quite stack up, leaving the experience a bit flat by comparison. But the creativity poured into the artwork and character stories more than makes up for that. It's a good tower defense game made even better thanks to a little imagination.
Windows:
Download the demo
Order the full version
Mac OS X:
Not available. Use Boot Camp or Parallels.
Monster Mash is available to download from these affiliates:
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Comments (may contain spoilers)
To give credit where credit is due, Monster Mash was developed by Russian developers KranX Productions, who also made Yumsters. Both games have a very distinct and toe-tapping soundtrack!
Posted by: Anonymous | February 17, 2008 6:13 PM
i need help! i'm on the second version of the first stage. on attack 17 three of the zombie type monsters come with the runers and those three zombies WILL NOT DIE. i have played this levl about a trillion times and they always eat my peope. advice?
Posted by: chloe | February 20, 2008 4:39 PM
chloe, i am having the same problem on the same level, any luck yet?
Posted by: Tammy Hart | February 21, 2008 12:20 AM
I got past that, but I don't really remember how. I think I had a bunch of power ups saved up & just unloaded them all.
Posted by: juv3nal
|
February 22, 2008 5:05 AM
I am having the same problem. I rolled right along absolutely LOVING Monster Mash (though I agree with John's comments about its shortcomings), and while I've managed past wave 17 (you do need to power up the center area and use the energy towers...), I still only make it to wave 33 at the most! I never use cheats in a game, but for this one, I've started considering it. Only 6 villagers, 37 waves, and after being on this darn level forever, I'm wondering if maybe the balance is a little off in this level.
Anyone know how to get PAST it?
Mike
Posted by: Mike | March 15, 2008 10:54 AM
same her that wave17 is brutal. and I don't have may powerups. The first time I made it past 17 - but then I died at 33 argggg.
Stupid Stupid. Yes I tried the energy towers and the scarecrow as well. I even move towers when the zombies are past them. Grrrrr.............
Posted by: Anonymous | March 19, 2008 7:28 PM
on that level you just have to put your ground towers close together and make sure you have some power ups that slow down the monsters. If you upgrade at least two of the ground towers to the second highest level and put them close together and than push the scarecrow when the monster is close enough for both of them to hit it at the same time you should be able to kill them. I hope that helped.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 27, 2008 3:42 AM
i've made it to level 30. but still even though months have passed i haven't beat all 37 waves. i have figured out that when land bosses or zombies come all you can do it have ALL land cannon things and waste zero space with the flying ones. it's so ard to sell switch and upgrade them all again. i can't beat it. i can kill the first two bosses and the zombies but it just goes downhill from there. ridiculous.
Posted by: chloe | April 4, 2008 4:12 PM
I love this game, I've played it through at least five times (maybe I need to get a life). The trick to this game is to stratagize where your weapons will be best used and be flexible. Just because you have big beautiful cannon built towards the end of the last scene doesn't mean it's going to do you any good if the majority of the creatures are flying. Be willing to stop time and rebuild if necessary. Also, remember, the power supplies can support more then one weapon. Be smart, put the weapons with short range firing capacity in the front, then a power supply, then if you have room build a palace which has a longer firing range.Also, the bubble gum machine seemed dumb to me at first but it's now my best friend. And try to build weapons in places where they can shoot two directions instead of one. Doubling up will allow you more money to make the weapons you have more powerful. (Wow, that's far to much for one person to know about one game) Have fun!
Posted by: Laura | April 10, 2008 2:57 PM