I will always and forever be a fan of apps that take a simple game and take it ten steps higher. This game is one of them.

Flipn’ Monsters ($0.99)

Flipn’ Monsters is a card matching game at its core, but to call it as such would be an understatement. The game employs beautiful graphics, top notch sounds and animation. To cap it all off, it even creates an arcade mode to see how long you can keep flipn until time’s no longer in your favor.

Presentation

I honestly don’t know where to begin describing how the game looks. The game title first interested me, I clicked on the link and then saw sweeeet graphics. Me and Daniel are suckers for great graphics, and this one didn’t disappoint. The whole artwork reminds me of Cartoon Network’s Coward, The Cowardly Dog and Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends. Don’t ask me how I know these shows but I do, heck I wouldn’t even be surprised if some of The Laboratory artwork staff previously worked for the network.

You get one background and about 10 cards to play with. Each card is wonderfully designed with spore like monster creatures. My favorite of course is Mr. Mummy. The card characters are then re-used for the main, pause and the wonderfully designed Credits page. Overall and to say the least, this is possibly one of the flawless-est menu navigation and design executions I’ve seen in a long while.

Controls

Umm dude, what do you think? Touch of course! Simply touch any faced down card to make them face back up. Along the way, you earn special “peek bonuses” which turns over the cards to “cheat” through shaking your device.

Gameplay

There are two game modes: Classic and Arcade. Think practice mode for Classic and regular mode for Arcade. Classic mode comes with all the character designs from the get go while Arcade introduces one new character as you advance per level. From here on out, we shall discuss Arcade.

Flipn, identifying and matching cards are the keys to the game. The game starts off easy with 2 card designs. All cards will be faced up for about 5 seconds until they get flipped and the start of the timer.

You’re supposed to build chains and memorize where each card is. As you build chains, you get free cheats so you can make the cards face up for a couple of seconds.

Rinse and repeat for each level. Levels get progressively harder with the addition of new characters of course. A personal tip is to memorize the smaller character cards present. Usually, these are the new characters and there’ll be about 5% of them out of the total number of cards.

Whatever you do! Just keep going, you might want to avoid the you’re dead screen complete with the game’s overall nice design.

Suggestions

Here are some suggestions to make the game even better:

• Global High Scores. Where are they? I hope they are coming since I feel like the game warrants one.
• Randomize Card Locations. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the card locations do not change as you die and start from scratch.
• More Backgrounds and Character Designs. This one’s self explanatory. I hope more of these cool characters show up eventually.
• SOCIAL DISCOVERY ASPECT. Maybe create a one template photo background where people can add pictures and stick it in the middle of all Flipn Monsters characters! Send this to email, post to Twitter or on FaceBook. FREE and FUN easy promotion for the game.

Conclusion

Without question, this game is a must have for all matching game fans and for those with children. We rarely come across with gamest that can cater for all ages and thankfully Flipn Monsters is one of the rarities. It’s currently on sale not giving you anymore reason NOT to download it. I’m certain the kiddos will adore this game.

As for adults and developers lurking, if you want a sample of a nice app structure and execution, this would be a nice choice. I hope more games get developed, and executed to live up to its name and design. Now what are you waiting for? Get flippin!

Editor’s Note: The Laboratory along with some other developers sponsor our site. However, the reviews, previews and other news concerning them and their games are not influenced by these ads. Trust us we’ll always tell you whether to ditch an app or not regardless of the developer’s site sponsorship. Full TheAPPera.com Site Ethics can be found at: GotOATS.org.