Top 11 of '11 (iOS). Number 8 - Monsters Ate My Condo.

Monsters Ate My Condo is brought to us by Adult Swim games, and is copyright of The Cartoon Network. I am forty years old and not cool, so I don't know what Adult Swim is. But it must be alright if it can give us a game like Monsters Ate My Condo.

You're possibly wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Monsters Ate My Condo is actually a match-three game. But it's almost certainly the most mental match-three game you'll ever play.

I love match-three games. This is strange, because I'm generally almost allergic to puzzle games, which is how the match-three game is generally categorised. But, if done well and with a twist, I find them tremendously enjoyable. Among my favourite match-three games are Puzzle Quest and Zookeeper, both fantastic examples which stray from the path of the mundane and liven up the formula with their particular takes.


Waaa-haa-haaaa!!! Where's me money?

Monsters Ate My Condo is very unusual, in that you have to match three within just one column. Usually, a game will have its pieces laid out across a grid for you to do your tile/jewel/animal-swapping. This game gives you one big tower of condominiums to match.

It's as odd as it sounds. As the condos drop from the sky, monsters stand on either side, dancing, grinning and looking ridiculous. One of them looks a bit like Eugene Krabs. I like that one.

There are four monsters in total, and each is a different colour. Conveniently, the condos come in four different colours. And, get this, those four colours are the same colours as the monsters! You'd never have guessed that, would you?


If you have to feed a monster, feed him properly. Or give him Chewits.

Your goal is to make blocks of three or more condos of the same colour. Do that, and the set of matching coloured combos will disappear. Not only that, but if a monster of the same colour is on screen, it will step aside and be replaced by one of the other monsters.

This adds a bit of extra strategy to the game. To play the game, you have to swipe out condos that impede your progress. Swipe a condo block to its like-coloured monster, and you'll make it happy. Feed it a block of the wrong colour, though, and it'll get mad. Too many wrong colours and it'll attack your tower, making it imbalanced. And if the tower topples over, your game is over.

Matching three or more doesn't just get rid of those blocks, it will also re-stabilise your tower. So it's important to give yourself as many opportunities as possible. Having said that, it's possible to manually pull the blocks, Jenga-style, back into place without actually swiping them out. It's just a bit fiddly... you might as well swipe it into a monster's gaping maw.


Looks like things are going great, considering!

This all sounds terribly easy, but of course, obstacles pop up as you progress. Concrete blocks will fall into the tower, and these can't be matched with anything. They don't cause any harm, they're merely an obstruction... but you'll want them out of the way. Create a block of three or more on or around it to get rid of it.

Of more concern is the flaming condo. This one will explode when a timer runs down, so you'll have to move fast to erase this threat. Again, you need to match three or more on or around it, but be quick about it!

There's so much going on in Monsters Ate My Condo, I could write for ages. But that's a waste of playing time. You can level up, which means your tower grows higher. You can create bronze, silver, gold and diamond condos, which are worth more points and which power up the monsters for a time, activating their special abilities.


Or rather, they were. Oh well, time to start again...

Games can last a long time, so unlike previous entries in this list, it's not necessarily great for killing five minutes. You could always pause it, I suppose. If you like high scores though, this could be your game... get good enough, and you can score BIIIIILLLLIIIOOOOONS!

Monsters Ate My Condo is really good. It takes the match-three game in a different direction, and throws in a large amount of the silly. It's a combination that works tremendously well, and has had me addicted since I bought it. It could do the same for you, especially as the universal app is just 69p. If you've got any liking for matching three of anything, Monsters Ate My Condo should be right up your apartment block.