About a couple of years ago a friend introduced me to a popular app called Monster Strike. The game was very popular in Asia and was taking America by storm. The game at the time was the based on Wikipedia was most revenue gross of all time in Asia. I tried it for a couple of weeks and although I enjoy playing my friend was the only other person I knew playing the game and for that when we did not meet up I would neglect to play. Bottom line back then I was not playing Monster Strike because I love the game but playing it more to relate with my friend more. It also did not help that within the year I started playing that the US version was to stop updating, while the Asian versions would continue with updates.

What is Monster Strike?

A puzzle and strategy game best defines Monster Strike. Players purchase monsters and battle each other on the field by bouncing the monster to attack each other. There are daily missions to earn rewards and weekly battles between guilds to earn more monsters. Collecting multiple monsters allows players to level up and strengthen their own formations. Multiple monsters when evolved together has potential of creating even stronger monsters based on specific luck. Monsters will also create combos that have specific effects when used together.

In the beginning the learning curve of the game is not too bad. The basics of attacking and winning by aiming the monsters and bounding it on the field to complete matches is simple to understand. As players further progress in the game, however, there needs to be a lot of planning and investing on specific monsters that would work best in battle. Strategies have to be formulated to earn wins on higher level matches.

The stats on monsters are Attack, HP, and Speed. Each monster can be leveled up by gaining experience, but to evolve them into even stronger monsters depends partly on which monsters used to evolve and the luck of the monsters. The higher the luck the more likely the evolution will result into a very powerful monster.

The graphics and animations in the game is vibrant and colorful. It is likely one of the most colorful game apps I have ever seen. Although it is mainly a 2d scrolling game the animations are definitely on par to big budget console games. What sets the game apart is that in the Asian versions updates are to it are done weekly if not daily which includes additional animations and monsters. The game started in 2013/4 so you can only imagine how much it has progressed to stay so popular for so long.

Conclusions

There are multiple similarities between Monster Strike and Splinterlands. Both games are strategies based and have game achievements to meet and can leveling up monsters. Strategies as in combine which monsters to be used in battle to achieve victory and the excitement of getting a strong monster in rewards is in both games.

Differences in the games would lean more toward graphics. Monster Strike definitely have spent a lot more money to develop and update as its revenue since creation to 2019 is north of $9 billion dollars! Splinterland's art work is outstanding but compare its animations and game play versus Monster Strike would not be a fair comparison. Monster Strike is on a whole different level.

With Splinterland's mobile app rolling out soon it is worth hoping that the success of Monster Strike could be some sort of similar path for Splinterlands to take. There are a lot of reasons that Splinterlands should gain in popularity on mobile app, however it is remained to be seen. A ton of competition awaits, but I think Splinterlands would rise up to the occasion.