I'm not really sure if Fantasy Monster Clicker is an asset flip. Some elements of this game certainly make it seem like the developer put some effort into assembling some kind of original here. On the other hand, a lot of the game assets don't seem like they were created by the developer, but they haven't credited any asset creators for supplying assets, which might be a case of plagiarism. There's no evidence, so we need to give the benefit of the doubt... regardless, asset flip or not, the quality here is indistinguishable from many asset flip/cash grab scams, and that's a problem in itself.
This looks a lot like someone took some stock assets and dropped them onto a Unity template/blueprint for a clicker game. I've seen dozens like this, all very similar. If this isn't an asset flip, then someone put in a modest amount of effort to create something that plays and feels exactly like an asset flip does, which would be a remarkable achievement. Although, you may see this coming, such effort hasn't resulted in anything of value to gamers.
Fantasy Monster Clicker isn't really a proper game, it's just a lazy 2D browser/Flash-tier "number incrementer" game where the object of the game is to increase the in-game currency by clicking, and sometimes buying things that increase the rate at which your currency/score goes up. It's an incredibly shallow game loop, to the point you might as well just run a program that does "i=i+1; print i" and watch the numbers go up automatically, and just watch it. You'd get the exact same outcome. If this sounds completely mindless, you're not wrong. The "flavour" for this clicker is that you click on 2D pictures of various monsters and their hitpoints go down instead of your numbers going up, but ultimately the exponential rate is the core of the game with all clickers, and it's the core of the game here, too.
Taking this shovelware seriously as if it was a genuine attempt to make a game, it doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals.
The game features simple, cartoony 2D graphics, of the type you normally expect to see in low effort mobile apps. 3D graphics programming does require a degree of skill and competence and unfortunately not all developers have the budget or talent to deliver this, despite 3D graphics cards hitting the mainstream in the 1990's. Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game, having the graphics phoned in like this isn't going to result in a high quality, visually impressive game that PC gamers are used to seeing.
The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at 1080p, a very low resolution that became mainstream back in 2006 and became obsolete when 4K entered the mainstream in 2014. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers.
The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just iPhone screen tapping stuff. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here.
This is indistinguishable from a mobile app, but they put this on Steam instead of the app stores by mistake. Was it rejected by Apple and Google (they do have more rigorous quality standards than Valve does for Steam, after all)?.
Regardless, for all intents and purposes Fantasy Monster Clicker might as well be a mobile app, it has the same limitations and dumbed down qualities. It's impossible to recommend such a game to PC gamers. We don't spend all this money building gaming rigs so we can pretend they're iPhones.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 14 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?
Fantasy Monster Clicker is relatively cheap at $1 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, and the questionable ethical nature of the developer and/or their associates (as outlined above), this is impossible to recommend. This is also competing with over 11,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product.
Profile Features Limited!
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.
