The Monster Breeder
DISCORD SERVER
About the GameThis is a turn-based fantasy strategy game with RPG elements. The game has two main layers: the first is the monster breeding, the second is the tactical turn-based arena combat.
Main Features
- Create Monsters
- Tactical Arena Combat
- Large variety of tournaments
- Warrior training
- Forging
- Alchemy
- Base upgrading
Players can purchase eggs and juvenile creatures from local hunters. The next step is to set up a magical treatment to enhance the creatures’ strength, agility, and other attributes. Nearly all these traits can be manipulated with magic scrolls, potions, blood infusions and runestones, although overuse of magic and potions can cause severe illness, infertility, shorter lifespan, or even death.
Natural species are weak and perform poorly in the arena, but all have at least one valuable ability. There are three classes of creature available: insect, reptile and carnivora. Players can only crossbreed species within the same class, and the best offspring can then be selected for magic treatments to improve their combat performance. Only eggs and juvenile creatures can be treated. Adult monsters earn experience fighting in the arena and learn new skills when leveling up, but these skills are not inheritable.
There are multiple options for players to house their monsters in the various chambers and cellars of the Old Keep, or they can build a small hut or kennel in the courtyard and upgrade it. Depending on their temperature tolerance, some creatures can live in a flooded dungeon cellar while some others need a warm environment to remain healthy. Only healthy creatures can fight and earn money for their masters.
Combat in the arena is tough but not always deadly. Beginners can participate in non-lethal tournaments without the risk of losing a character or monster. Lethal combat pays much better, but this is a game with permadeath, so be aware!
How much risk are you willing to take? Which tournament are you going to enter? Only you decide. Players get money if they take part in a tournament, but only the winners receive the glory and extra rewards.
Warriors, archers and sorcerers can be hired to fight side-by-side with monsters in the arena. Players can personalize their training and equip them with weapons that match their skills and strength, although to be overburdened with armor comes with serious penalties in combat.
Characters earn experience in the arena and gain new skills when leveling up, and older warriors can be valuable trainers depending on their intelligence and trainer skills. Some hired characters may refuse to participate in lethal tournaments, but slaves can also be trained for combat.
Players need to hire a blacksmith and alchemist to be able to craft items like weapons, armor or potions. Every craftsman has unique skills and traits affecting their products’ quality, their rate of work, and the amount of material they use.
Various types of equipment can be purchased to enhance productivity: recipe books, alembics and extractors are all useful accessories of the alchemist’s lab, while weapon and armor molds, alloy smelters and special forges are exceedingly beneficial to the blacksmith. Apprentices can be hired to improve productivity and players can employ them as blacksmiths or alchemists when they graduate.
Players can construct or upgrade various types of buildings, allowing them to keep more monsters, incubate more eggs, create more weapons and potions, or increase storage capacity and the size of their living quarters.
Some buildings have unique features: Hatchling’s Cabin provides the possibility of using runestones and magic fields to modify juvenile creatures’ traits, while the Alchemist’s Shack and Blacksmith’s Hut provide more places to hire craftsmen and also give an efficiency bonus. The Old Keep is the default building at the beginning of the game. It has multiple chambers and cellars, all of which can be assigned to any purpose.
Steam User 3
Review update after 'beating' the game.(or atleast the EA) Honestly? Its amazing. I am addicted to this bare bones shoddy looking genetics breeder. A game like this DOES NOT EXIST in this day and age. Atleast not to this degree. Which is a shame! I've been wanting a game like this for literal AGES! Theres been plenty of monster breeders, but none as indepth and good as this one. There are literally countless combinations for you to create even with the somewhat limited roster of monsters. Monsters gain the appearance of the gene you're trying to get. If you want a dino with spiny skin? They will have spikes on them jutting out to represent that. etc. Unfortunate that you can't crossbreed egg groups(in EA(, but thats not too much of an issue. Though it is a bit of a disappointment when Insectoids seem to have the BEST genetics but are super weak with extremely low life (unless you breed that out of them). But this game is amazing. Definitely do NOT skip out on this one if you've played and fell in love with games like Critter Forge in the past.
Something I'd like to see in the full release: a generations system to denote breeding generations (though its easy enough to do it yourself)
There also needs to be a leatherworker to make leather gear.
Damn I love this game. Just 'finished' it, even though you can continue on, and well. I made an army of regenerative fire breathing dragons. And im still playing. I want to develop them further.
The Rogue Druids quest seems nearly impossible. Which is a shame, the Staff of Fear seems really strong. But given how early the quest appears, you wont have the strongest team. And seeing as it never reappears(or I dont think it does) thats your only opportunity to get that unique weapon.(Unless its made that way as a sacrificial quest, in which case its actually genius.)
If this game plans to have any online features in the future, I would love a system to buy and sell creatures with other players, and maybe a pvp type system where you can fight others' creatures. And maybe more ways to capture creatures aside from stealing eggs.
People may look down on this game for basically encouraging slave labour, but look at it this way, we are NOT good people. We breed monsters for the specific purpose of killing people. Morality is not a factor in our deeds of utter chaos. We dont have to be the good guys in every single game we play.
Steam User 2
this game looks very retro in some senses. very...oh early 2000s (you might not think that's retro but it was 20yrs ago) i didn't have my hopes up for it. then i tried the demo. the combat forces you to plan and think. you fudge up in a battle and die, your game is over. frustrating but oddly addicting. i wasn't mad when my first character died, was more 'well drat' because i had finally started to gain ground with some speed.
Steam User 2
If you enjoy creature collector's get this game. It is rough around the edges, the models are an ugly kind of cute, but it is incredibly in-depth. There are several QoL features that would be nice to have, but from the way it looks, the developer is still working on the game, so I am hopeful they get included.
Steam User 2
Buy this game for the following reasons.
1. It is turn based.
2. It has extensive customization for difficulty.
3. It his progression, via skills, money, reputation.
4. You can play sandbox style (forever) by preventing your char from aging and dying.
5. The battles are tactical with "Jagged Alliance" style attacks of opportunity.
6. You can play with only monsters, monsters and a human, almost all humans in selected battles.
7. It has event which happen monthly including satisfying Contests with huge gold payouts and or Loot.
8. It never feels like the game is cheating.
9. The graphics or "good enough" for the level of gameplay provided.
10. It has many ways to modify or influence your monster's development, magic stones, potions, scrolls.
11. It has building progression, and you can upate your locations in a huge varity of ways. (if u gotz teh gold).
12. (no political nonsense of any kind).
13. It is singleplayer no online connections required, (minus the STEAM drm of course :) ).
14. It is STILL early access (as of 01/25/24), and he listens to the community!!!!! Let me explain.
There could be others, but I hate walls of text.
Steam User 2
Completely fantastic game. There is a ton of depth in this game with the breeding mechanics and it is so much fun to play. The turn-based strategy part of it is passable but I really got sucked in trying to make the best monsters.
The main improvements to the way the game plays needs to be in grouping of monsters that have fully grown. Currently there is no way to change the way your monsters show up on your list so if you have an older monster that you want to keep but dont use it shows up first in the combat selection list. You should be able to change the way that list shows up and group monsters together. I would make a "leveling" group and a "max level only for breeding" group. With both of those setup you can keep track of what you are trying to do better in the combat selection list.
Another good QOL improvement is to list what monsters are the parent of an egg/hatchling. As it stands you have to rename the eggs/monsters as soon as spawn as eggs to try to keep track of what stats/abilities you are aiming for on them. Not a huge problem at the start but when you end up having 20+ babys at a time it starts to get hard to pick the correct stat boosts for each one.
Then ofc as everyone has said the graphics are kinda lame. IMO a solid graphics asset pack for the world generation would be a big improvement. I expect improvements for the monsters would be very hard to do due to the way the monsters breed and merge into new things.
Quests and such could use some work. It dosent really feel like we are working twards much right now and I expect that is because the quests are very basic. If we could get some direction from quests I think it would feel much better. Example is some quest we get fairly early (lvl locked) that is very hard to do until you are 2nd or 3rd generation and then it unlocks other quests that are difficult but not impossible.
Side note, maybe add a game mode that prevents save cheesing. As it stands now I just save before every battle so if my op monsters die I just re load. Something like an autosave only mode where you have to take the results from every battle and cant load a previous save.
A small tip for anyone, breeding boost pillar is your friend. Free extra offspring is just an extra roll at max stats for a badass new stud or base.
Really is an amazing game created here.
Steam User 1
Great game that's made by one person if I heard right. It has that small game feel but you can tell the developer has put a ton of work into it and it's very enjoyable. You will defiantly get your moneys worth with this one.
So what you get is basically farm for raising monsters and training mercenarys. Everything cost so much a day like the food and the upkeep and you can even get slaves....think they cost a bit of cash as well. But you can chop them up and feed them to your monster so that also works. You then go to the market buy some monsters and maybe a mercenary and then you run off to the arenas or catacombs and fight to earn money and experience to invest skill points into your monsters. After a little bit you can decide to breed your monsters and start combining their abilities and cross breed them to make them pretty funky versions.....Some times those versions don't work out tho but heck just breed some more. Can even harvest your own mobs and remove their benefits and give it to another mob at a cost of course.
The game inst perfect tho its really the environment tho that is troublesome and I think the taming mobs needs a bit of work. The environment is the problem because you have so little control over it. You need to upgrade the monster house and monster lab or w.e to the last level this is kinda annoying because it just feels like a big game lock. I think it would have been better to give you away to control it but at maybe more of a cost till you get to higher lvls and can upgrade your stuff. The taming is basically the same you need to wait to craft taming potions or buy them at the rare market or else you can't fight with them in a good amount of the arena matchs. I think having events or something to boost tame lvl would be the way to go. But overall this game is looking great and I encourge others with even a slight interest give it a shot. Its well worth the cost and a developer this good should get some love.
Steam User 1
I don't ever leave a review for a game but I have to for this one. This game is one of those gems you look for in the store. Yes, the graphics are not good, but that doesn't matter because the core gameplay is amazing. I can already see the replayability to this game in my first run. I'm making all the beginner mistakes and still loving it. If you have any interest in gladiator/monster simulators, you should get this game and support this developer so he can keep adding more to it.