App review: Monsters Ate My Condo

Monsters Ate My Condo is like an old Japanese monster movie on your tablet or smartphone, except one of the monsters is a giant blue unicorn. Although I can't remember the last time I saw a monster movie where a picture of a turd popped up with the words 'stinky poo' beside it when the monster ate something it didn't like.

It's very, very Adult Swim.

Monsters Ate My Condo, like Adult Swim's Robot Unicorn Attack, is a very simple gameplay concept. You're in control of a condominium, but monsters to the left and right keep trying to eat it. The monsters come in four different colours, and you have to remove condos within the tower and then swipe them towards the monster of that colour to feed them and keep them happy. If they're happy, they won't knock your building down. If you feed them a condo of the wrong colour, they'll get unhappy and destroy all your hard work. Likewise, if you neglect to feed them for a while, they'll also be unhappy.

While you're feeding the monsters, you can create sections of the tower that are at least three blocks high to create a 'bronze' combo block. This earns you extra points toward your score. Combine three bronze blocks and you get a silver block, three silver blocks and you get a gold block, and so on. If you've got an unhappy monster you can also placate it by feeding it one of these special blocks.

If your monsters get too mad and attack your tower, you might be okay. Or they might knock it down, and then you'll lose.

There are only two modes to play - a timed version and 'endless mode'. Endless mode is not actually endless at all - when your tower gets knocked down, you still die. In endless mode the tower gets taller as the game goes on, which increases the likelihood of it falling down. In time attack, however, it's very tall from the beginning of the game, so you're always at risk of having it knocked down or having it fall.

Like Robot Unicorn Attack, one of the best elements of Monsters Ate My Condo is the music. Rather than play sweet tunes throughout the game, it pokes fun at you by having an opera singer taunt you when you lose. During the game, it plays Japanese music that sounds like it's intended for a kids' show. It's silly and upbeat, just like the rest of the game.

Monsters Ate My Condo is another absurd game from Adult Swim, and the timed mode, in particular, is a great timewaster when you've only got a couple of minutes to spare. It's also pretty addictive - especially when you get a really high score on your first game, and the challenge is in trying to beat it in following games.

The only bad thing about Monsters Ate My Condo is that there are only the two modes to choose from.