The Clubbox is a new feature in the game “My Singing Monsters,” which was made in collaboration with popular artist T-Pain to bring a new type of experience to players. Free currency and monsters, Encore Events, sticker packs, the Customixer, island boosts and new songs, costumes and decorations are all available in the Clubbox. All of this comes together to make one of the best updates for “My Singing Monsters” in quite a while.
The Clubbox works quite differently from the rest of the game, with each of the songs being a part of a limited time Act rather than on a permanent island. So far, only two Acts have released, those being the upbeat Opening Act of the Pomily Family Band and the punk-inspired BlitherPhish. A currently unnamed upcoming Act that will release on April 30 will feature an entirely new Legendary class monster named Autotuna that will be voiced by T-Pain and will most likely be inspired by one of his releases.
Each Act features a small collection of monsters as well as a character named DJ Epic who fills in any uncovered spots in the song. Five monsters are featured in the Pomily Family Band, those being the cheerleading vocalist PomPom, the responsive vocalist Hoola, the tuba-honking Sooza, the dilruda-bowing Rooba and the bell-ringing TooToo, with DJ Epic filling in the percussion.
In BlitherPhish, there is the drum-smashing Rare Shellbeat, the not-so-air-guitar-strumming Young Attmoz, the 8-bit flute synth-playing Fleehwurm, and Autotuna’s vocalist apprentice Epic Phangler, with DJ Epic on bass and ear candy here.
To progress through the Clubbox to unlock the song and costumes tied to each Act, the player must first choose their Act and what island it is hosted on. Then, Clubbox Tickets replace coins in the Encore Event reward tracks.
To progress through an Encore Event, players must do a task based on the theme of the four day long Event to gain points. Currently, there are three Encore Events available: the breeding-based Breeding Blitz, the incubation-stationed Hatching Hubbub, and the treat-powered Baking Blast. Four Encore Events take place during an Act, with them shuffling every Event cycle without repeating twice in a row.
Then, using their earned Clubbox Tickets, players spend differing amounts of them to build up Hype. The more Hype a player builds, the more rewards they get.
The unlockable costumes in the Acts change up how each monster sounds, such as using different effects, tuning it to a different harmony, or even entirely changing the Virtual Studio Technology. The costumes, stage effects, decorations and volumes of each monster in an Act can be edited using the Customixer.
The Pomily Family Band’s song was not a favorite of mine, with it being more of a formulaic pop song designed to get stuck in one’s head. BlitherPhish, on the other hand, is a great song. DJ Epic is surprisingly the best part of it, with the trumpet stabs being just plain awesome. All of the other monsters featured in BlitherPhish are still very strong, though, except for Epic Phangler in its punk costume. Luckily, the mecha costume adds some awesome effects and harmonies that redeem the monster entirely.
Other than just unlocking new songs by progressing through an Act, players also get time, luck and diamond cost boosts tied to the island the Clubbox is hosted on and free monsters based on the ones featured in the Act they choose to progress through for the 16 day cycle. The latter is a great feature because some of the monsters that are freely given take a lot of work or good luck to get naturally.
Act unlocks save between cycles, which allows players to get new rewards like diamonds when redoing an Act for any tier they had previously unlocked. There is also another type of reward players may get when progressing through an Act and Encore Events: Sticker Packs.
Sticker Packs come in five rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary. They each give the player one more sticker than the last, with Common giving one and Legendary skipping five to give six instead. The higher rarities also have increased chances at rarer stickers.
Every 60 days, a new set of 150 stickers split evenly between 15 albums is unlocked, with each sticker being a different rarity between one and five stars. Completing an album gives the player an amount of diamonds, a free monster and a unique costume for that monster. If a player manages to collect all 150 stickers within the time limit, they unlock the grand prize, which is currently a free powered-up Wubbox, a costume for it and a large amount of diamonds.
Sticker Packs are not only able to be unlocked through Act progress and Encore Events, though. As a player collects stickers, they are bound to get a hefty amount of duplicates. These duplicates are turned into stars based on their rarity, and players can save up those stars to purchase one of three different Sticker Pack bundles, each featuring higher rarity packs for higher star prices.
Personally, I prefer to save up for the rarest 500-star Pack as that gives me the best chance at getting the rare stickers I have yet to collect. Since it is so expensive, though, I have only opened one so far, but in it were some of the rarest stickers in my collection.
This sticker feature was a seamless addition to the game, at least, it was when ignoring the major bug when it was first added. For some reason, the game was really bad at remembering what stickers had already been collected, leading to missing stars, but that seems to be fixed now, making the sticker system one of my favorite recent gameplay-focused additions to “My Singing Monsters.”
The Clubbox overall is also a pretty seamless addition to the game, and is definitely a spectacular decision for Big Blue Bubble to add to their golden child of a game. The sheer scope of what genres, sounds, animations, collaborations, monster combinations and overall art they can experiment with through the Clubbox excites me, and nets it a perfect ten out of ten diamonds needed to purchase a Mini-Mine on any island that allows for it.
