Monster Life is Pokemon meets papercraft meets city-builder on iOS

There's no denying the strength of a Pokemon-style game, a monster collector, if you will. But one that features critters inspired by those adorable papercraft dolls all over Pinterest ... now that's just plain dangerous. Enter Monster Life, the latest city-builder game for iOS to come from Gameloft. Yes, it's free-to-play, and yes, it's the cutest iOS game we've seen since Tiny Wings.

In Monster Life, you are a monster keeper living on the islands of Numa. It's up to you to collect and train a cavalcade of cutesy paper doll buggers in order to explore your surrounding islands in hopes of putting an end to an ancient Chaos once and for all. (What mobile game have you come across with a compelling, engaging storyline? It's not the point.)

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After a brief hands-on session with the game courtesy of Gameloft, it's safe to say that the cuteness quotient in Monster Life will exponentially increase once you play around with it this Thursday. Not only does the game look adorable, but it sounds the part, too. The city building component to Monster Life isn't much different from what you've seen before in the Facebook game scene save for its endearing 3D visuals.

But that's not the draw. What's designed to get you hooked are the over 20 monsters to collect, tend to, feed, trade and battle. Of course, every creature looks downright adorable with every touch and tap you give it whether it's to keep it happy or to crush an opponent in battle. That's the crux of Monster Life. That's why you're expected to build and check in on your town on the regular in the first place.

Battles in Monster Life are turn-based, though each monster is set on a timer. Once that timer is up, it's your cue to tap the little guy in order for it to attack an enemy in anything from one-on-one to three-on-three bouts. That said, your monster can, and will, be attacked while it waits for its chance to make another move. At random intervals, special notifications will appear that, if pressed in time, will let your creature unleash a more powerful attack--just to make sure you're paying attention.

However, your monsters won't be able to fight in tip-top shape unless you train them in the correct spots in your town. That's also important for the light social features (headed to Monster Life in a later update) that see players going toe-to-toe in asynchronous battles that size up your monsters against your friends' based on a few criteria. While we'd much rather battle with friends in real time, we just can't get over how damn cute (and free) Monster Life is to care too much. Monster Life is due out on iPhone and iPad Thursday.

Are you psyched to give Monster Life a try? What do you think of the game so far based on this first look? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.