My Singing Monsters is a free-to-play Acapella Monster sim (a genre we're all very familiar with I'm sure), that will put you in charge of an island of monstrous singers. Care for and train your little family of monsters, decorate your island, and enjoy the rewards of their happy chorus as they sing your praises and give you money. Yeah... this is a weird one.
I like acapella music quite a bit. I confess I watch the campy reality TV show The Sing Off where we must confront the awkwardness of Nick Lachey's post-Jessica existance while fretting how the all-girl groups are going to make it when they have no bass.
Success on The Sing Off means you get some more subscribers for your YouTube channel, or, if you are really lucky, you get to do an arrangement for a song on Glee. I'm going to bring it around, I promise.
Here it comes: if only an ex-Sing Off contestant had been involved with the creation of My Singing Monsters, perhaps I would have given it more stars. I mean, what is not to love about a group of adorably ugly monsters doing 12 part harmonies?
Well, mostly the game does live up to its quirky promise, but does fall short in a couple areas.
The goal of My Singing Monsters is to create a chorus of monstrous voices that would make a monk cry. You provide food and decorations to make them happy, and when you make them happy, they give you money (for some unexplained reason). Here are some of the monsters you may encounter:
You start with musical rocks, known as noggins (shown on the left). They provide simple rhythms, which echo the island’s pulse and motivate all other monsters (at least according to the monster almanac provided). His oversized hands beat the top of his head.
In the middle, we have Toe Jammer who sings of deep sea leviathans, crashing surf, flooded basements, and bubble tea. I have no idea what bubble tea is.
Next, on the right, we have Mammotts, who have a resonating anthem that celebrates blizzards and frosted windows. Mammott sings in a deep bass, and by the looks and sound of him, was probably inspired by Lance Bass:
There are also some mini-games, including a lottery scratcher, which I have to say I have not seen in a casual game before, and memory game, which I can only assume is meant for kids. As you progress, you can buy islands, which are essentially stages for your monsters to sing on. But they are pretty pricey.
The upsides of this game are summed up by the title: you have singing monsters!! There are some downsides though. You will need to be patient and do a lot of waiting around if you don't want to spend money on gems, which speed production. The PC version of the game has somewhat of a clunky interface, and I was disappointed that I could not adjust the monsters in any way with respect to their pitch, tone, key, or note they sang. Ultimately Lance Bass, I mean Mammott, had to be muted.
I believe My Singing Monsters would be a really great game for kids. It's unique and you will not find a lot of others games like it. Below you can hear the grand finale: the complete song with the full orchestra of miscreants.