Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy: A Colorful App-Driven Puzzle Game

Feed the hungry monsters, but keep an eye out for what color the monster wants to be because each item you feed it will change its fur. Change it too much and you’ll lose the game.

Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy, from HYBR and Lucky Duck Games, is a unique color-based cooperative puzzle game for two-to-four players, designed for children and families. It plays in twenty minutes, and despite its family-focused gameplay, offers a puzzle that can engage a broader audience.

Gameplay

An app is required to play the game. Once it’s installed and launched, players are recommended to start the story mode, which is split into twelve levels. Each level is one game, and the story mode will slowly have you add more cards to the deck, as well as introduce more creatures for you to feed.

The core idea of the game is that you are feeding monsters. You shuffle the deck of cards, the level in the app is started, and each player draws a set number of cards. Each card shows one colored item that you can feed a creature. Some cards also show a symbol to show that its item is a healthy food with vitamins.

The app shows you a hungry monster who is a specific color. Each player must feed the monster one card each. To feed the monster a card, you scan the barcode on the back of it. Players may not show each other their cards before feeding the monster, but they may discuss them. Once you have scanned a card, you discard it. Some of the cards have special abilities which trigger when scanned.

You are trying to feed the monster items whose colors, when combined with each other, match the monster’s color as closely as possible. Once all the required cards have been fed to the monster, the app then has the monster turn into the color of the combined item colors and then rewards you a certain number of stars based on how close to its original color the monster is. If the monster’s color is too different, players immediately lose the level. Otherwise, you move on to the next monster or creature.

If a monster is fed a card with vitamins, a bar pops up on the app showing the monster’s vitamin alarm. If you feed the monster another vitamin before the alarm disappears, players lose the game.

There are different creatures in the game that will be introduced as you progress, and which have different feeding requirements, such as the rabbits which will only eat food with vitamins in them.

If players manage to successfully feed all the creatures in the level, they win the game. There is also a party mode included on the app, which allows players to play a single game with all the cards they have currently unlocked.

Review

Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy’s digital aspect allows you to dive into a unique color-based puzzle. It’s surprisingly challenging, but quite accessible and offers a fun game that’s fast to pick up and play.

Trying to discuss different shades of colors without actually showing each other your cards is trickier than you might think, and trying to match a monster’s exact shade leads you to consider colors from a new angle.

The game does require the app and is heavily app-dependent. It’s going to vary from player to player how much of an issue this is, or if they have a device new enough to run it. Still, the app is really well designed; we enjoyed the music and the graphics. It’s fun to see what color the monsters change into once they’ve been fed their food, as well as watching the bar show you how close to the ideal color you got.

There’s a nice range of different items and characters that slowly unlock as you play more of the game, which mixes up the puzzle more while never losing the simplicity that makes the game accessible and fun. The party mode is a solid way to keep enjoying the game once you’ve already worked through the story mode.

Yummy Yummy Monster Tummy is well-produced and different. It’s geared towards families and children, but the core puzzle is engaging enough that adults can have a lot of fun with it, too. If you don’t mind the app-based gameplay, it’s well worth checking out.

Pros: Excellent production quality on app and game artwork, unique puzzle, very easy to learn to play

Cons: Heavily app dependent, theme and art is geared towards a younger audience which could turn off some older players

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.