Gaia Online Goes to Facebook With Monster Galaxy, a Pokemon-Style RPG
Gaia Online, the creator of a virtual world for teens and young adults, has had more success than most in its genre. But following a round of layoffs in November, the company has signaled what may be a new plan for the future with the release of a Facebook RPG called Monster Galaxy.
Inspired by monster-collection games like Pokemon or Digimon, Monster Galaxy starts you off as a trainer with one monster, called a “Moga”. Your goal is to wander the land and capture more Moga, while completing quests and leveling up. Doing so requires items, monsters’ unique powers and attributes, and help from other characters.
The design budget for Monster Galaxy appears to have been larger than the average Facebook game, with well drawn characters and monsters, detailed landscapes and epic music for every occasion. The story is also more prominent than in some Facebook RPGs; although knowingly predictable, with a quest to defeat the big, bad evil and your childhood nemesis, it also has a tongue-in-cheek way of playing up a lot of tropes.
The gameplay doesn’t deviate much from other monster training games. Unlike games that involve collecting gold or resources and building cities or buying armor, you really only have your monsters, called “Moga”. You can carry up to three “Moga” with you at a time, though you can capture up to 120 Moga total using “Star Seeds”.
From the beginning, you’re assigned quests which generally require you to go to a certain location or to defeat a certain number of wild Moga. While traveling the overland map, you’ll also randomly run into wild Moga and other enemies and engage them in combat. In battle, you choose one of your three Moga to start the fight, and during each battle turn you can use one of your Moga’s attacks, use an item, swap Moga, or run. All Moga belong to a Zodiac sign, and this sign determines the relative effectiveness of the Moga’s special attack in a straightforward rock-scissors-paper fashion.
Capturing Moga still involves a fight; once they’re critically damaged, they can be trapped with Star Seeds. The chance of capturing the Moga seems to depend on the damage done, your level, and the rarity of the enemy Moga. If instead you defeat enemy Mogas normally, you’re rewarded with experience points and a chance of finding more Star Seeds. As your Moga gain experience points and level, they grow stronger, but there’s currently no way to customize their growth. Also, enemy Moga grow in strength quite quickly as you progress in the game, requiring time spent grinding levels.
At “Your House” you can swap Moga and let them take naps to fully restore hp and skills. The recovery time for each Moga depends on its level; the higher the level, the longer it’ll take. However, while your Moga are napping, you’re free to swap them out with other Moga you’ve captured, so you can continue your journey without interruption and level other Mogas. If you’re impatient for a particular Moga to revive, you can also use a Blue Coffee item to instantly restore him to full health.
Monster Galaxy is currently lacking in any strong multiplayer or microtransaction incentives for the players, and doesn’t play much like other social games. You can purchase “Star Coins” with real money, which in turn can be used to buy Blue Coffee and Star Seeds to make your game a little easier, but having a lot of those isn’t required to continue. You can visit your friends’ houses and collect Whistles that help you launch special attacks in battle, but those also aren’t necessary. This ends up making the game a pretty level playing field for all players, and in the end the players who play the smartest and play the most will have progressed further than other players.
Having just launched,Monster Galaxy also still has some kinks and bugs to work out. The longer your session runs, the more the game starts to lag, until you reload the page. The UI will often misreport the probability of an attack hitting, or whether your attack will do extra damage or less damage, and sometimes leveling up a monster that just finished napping will put the monster back into a nap. While annoying, the bugs don’t detract much from the gameplay and experience.
At the end of the day, Monster Galaxy feels like a simple, if grindy, single player RPG, where it’s just you versus the world. Given the setup of the game, it can probably be expected that a PvP area will be added in due course, as well as purchasable enhancements for your Moga. But even as-is Monster Galaxy stands as a relatively unique experience among current Facebook titles, with its reliance on story and apparent disdain for forcing players to spend money or push invites to friends.
December 9th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Pretty graphics don’t make success, better to just stick to the tried and true methods of sim games. Can’t argue with the millions of users Zynga has.
December 9th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Zynga will most likely have this in a month… MonsterVille or some other “Ville” game that will be similar.
December 9th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
This is stupid. A game for kids on Facebook? Social games make money from 40 year old women, not 10 year old boys.
December 10th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Bad experience. Wouldn’t load completely. Bad UI and confusing first time user eperience.
Why would anyone play this? There are dozens of higher quality games than this.
December 10th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Personally I think this is a great facebook app for people who like things along the line of pokemon, yugi-oh, and digimon, etc. The graphics are pretty and the music is fun as well.
I’m an adult in my 30s and I play. I have teenagers that play as well. My teenagers spend money on facebook apps CONSTANTLY. Where do you people get your information from? Honestly.
December 11th, 2010 at 4:16 am
mga ulol eh di wag niyo laruin… ang bobski niyo talaga…
December 11th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
i like this better than farmville. :| or any other zynga or whatever. besides, been a fan of gaia for a long time now. pokemon is kind of overrated for me now anyways.
December 12th, 2010 at 3:31 am
i like this game, and i am in my mid20s, its exciting to see and capture rare mogas, hope to have multiplayer in the future.
December 14th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
It’s actually neat to see that Gaia released something like this, and it make me curious of what they hold in the future to their own website. The graphics are beautiful, and it’s pretty interesting to see some of the famous companion items come to life in this little game. To each their own I guess.
December 14th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I like this game alooot. So much better than the other facebook apps ive played :3
December 16th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
i love the game
December 17th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
I like the game… i just want to know how to start the game over if you can
December 17th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
i love monster galaxy
December 17th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Monster Galaxy is fun to play but it doesn’t always load on some computers if at all. It can be very annoying. It won’t load on my desktop once. I’ve tried several different times and the game seems to lag. I love the graphics its basically like Pokemon which i love. All in all i’d have to give this game a 2 out of 5. For the fact that its not accessible at points, things are confusing to start with, long battles you sometimes wish to skip.
December 17th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
nice but not nice… needs improvement.. but all in all its good
December 18th, 2010 at 9:07 am
again i want to knew if some1 can tell me how to restart my game, if you can. please tell me how thanks
December 18th, 2010 at 10:10 am
i like the game but…
hopefully with the money while killing appeared
December 18th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
bad game
December 18th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
jk i love this game
December 20th, 2010 at 10:59 am
I love this game, it’s great to have a game that actually lets you have fun instead of pushing you to invite friends or advertise. it gets sorta laggy the longer you play but if you refresh it’s back to normal for awhile. The story is amazing, the Moga are fantastic and the whole concept is just remarkable. to be expected from gaia online though. They’ve made some of the best Ideas I’ve seen to date. This is a game that I tell my friends about because it’s fun. NOT because the game requires it to move on in the missions. If all FB games were this great. the world would be a better place.
December 20th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
How to rename or delete a moga? please help. Thanks a lot!
December 21st, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Like
Bob I would also like to know how to restart my game thanks
December 21st, 2010 at 7:53 pm
can i play it NOT on facebook? Please send me the link to play if i can.
December 21st, 2010 at 7:55 pm
oh and, i love the game! i have pokemon too! Love it!
December 22nd, 2010 at 7:18 pm
you should put out a list of all the guys and where you can find them also i still need 2 know how to restart or start over my monster galaxy profile PLEASE TELL ME
thanks
December 23rd, 2010 at 1:07 am
what is the last level of his game?
December 25th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
this game is too hard… the star seeds and coffee is so hard to get! >.< And to catch monsters are impossible especially the rare ones. I mean… only 1% catch rate to catch it?? Screw that. its not very enjoyable.. its actually frustrating for me. This game makes me mad…
December 27th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
how do you beat a level 14 with a level 7 moga? ………….and this game is kinda like pokemon.
December 28th, 2010 at 9:39 am
how do you rename your main moga
December 30th, 2010 at 7:34 am
To Bob: The only way to start over is to delete the app from your facebook and then re-install it. As for renaming your Moga, I believe that’s permanent so choose wisely the first time around.
December 30th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
haha i like how the posts in the beginning are full of negative haters, and the latter are all comments from people that love/play the game. I think they already have a few million daily users. I guess it is doing pretty well, so people DO Play the game.
December 31st, 2010 at 7:55 am
magari tamashia
January 3rd, 2011 at 8:28 am
Very cute, with lots of monsters to collect. I like that there is little reliance on cash-shop items and it’s got a nice design. Buggy, yes, but it’s in Beta, what do you expect?
Definately one to watch.
January 4th, 2011 at 7:34 am
j’adore ce jeu!!! il sont trop mimi!=)
January 5th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
I like it~! But I think there should be a gifting system.
January 9th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
i love the game its great i love how it is like a combination ok pokemon, digimon, and final fantasy tactics i think that the different mogas aqre so cute. (to the haters i have almost 50 frends who play and we know it has a few bugs but it is awsome so if you cant say anything nice dont say anythig at all)
January 31st, 2011 at 11:32 pm
the game pretty get’s boring for a couple of mins. ;3
February 14th, 2011 at 7:46 am
[...] it has some staying power is Gaia Online’s Monster Galaxy, a Pokemon inspired game that we reviewed back in December. Monster Galaxy has now crossed over 6 million MAU, which is a significant win for a company that [...]
February 18th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
nose como capturar a el pulpo paul!!!x fa envienme un mail
February 21st, 2011 at 3:26 am
tthis game is awesome! Even though those epic and beyond epic mogas are hard to catch and make me mad, i still love it! I like the moga winja most! Its so cool!
March 3rd, 2011 at 3:34 pm
O M G !!! This is tooooo funnn :D Best game ever !! I love it!!!
March 20th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
i think this game needs Pvp and more items(3 items(starseed,blue coffee, and whistles)are too little
March 20th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
POR FAVOR COMO CAPTURO AL PULPO PAUL CON UNA BOLA Y A CHAMEPO DE PUEBLONIA GRACIAAS!
March 24th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
[...] well considering the early stage it is at. You can get more gameplay details in our reviews for Monster Galaxy, Miscrits, and [...]
April 21st, 2011 at 6:01 am
this is the best game i have ever played and thanck to the makers this and Monster Galaxy
April 23rd, 2011 at 11:14 pm
hiiiiiii
May 25th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
i tried deleting then re installing the game but it just comes back with my old data. what do i do????
June 9th, 2011 at 4:40 am
How I wish that there was a downloadable monster galaxy game.
July 8th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
i just would like to know how long before i can play monster galaxy i know your doing updates but its been about a week since ive been able to play the game
July 21st, 2011 at 5:09 am
hey guys i need friends i dont have any on monster galaxy my other friends are playing world of war graft so pleas help me my facbook name is anthonydemen
August 6th, 2011 at 10:21 am
i like monster galaxy.
except i wish i didn’t have to wait till their nap is over. it gets boring cause i can’t go without my mogas in the party awake.
how do you get all six slots?
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:03 am
I have to rares gnarwhale and tenpac so happy cause I only caught tenpac yesterday
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:07 am
I’m still trying to get that octopus thing but when it says choose a moga none of my maga’s appear
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:12 am
Just went on monster galaxy a second ago it still wont work
October 1st, 2011 at 5:52 am
hey,,i can’t play monster galaxy now,,why,, it always say eror
October 8th, 2011 at 6:36 am
Hey MG can you fix my bug problem i had that error 999666999 after about a month or two i think or more but when i went to facebook yesterday to see if i can play MG i could not belive my eyes,it loadet but today it just loads so please fix my bug problem this is the only interesting game to me.
October 28th, 2011 at 2:14 am
I caught the octopus moga 8 days before with my umbranine
January 31st, 2012 at 3:53 pm
how do you get on
February 19th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
This game will not load on my computer there is a block somewhere…have tried several times to load it will just fade in and out….need to remedy this problem for it makes me agitated with face book and gaia
February 20th, 2012 at 6:33 am
it loads very slowly and many more things that make it boring to play .if it was a little faster then it would be more fun to play