Backyard Monsters

Kongregate free online game Monsters in my Backyard - This is freaky strategy and insane micromanagement! Join our big purple monster as he battles. Play Monsters in my Backyard.

Key peopleCEO Clayton StarkCSO Tyler BlackCPO Christopher McMullenCFO Tim HollandSr. Technical Director Lewis SobotkiewiczGM for AUS Kendra McCarthyProductsWar Commander, Battle Pirates, Vega Conflict, War Commander: Rogue Assault, Backyard Monsters, Desktop Defender, TomeWebsiteKIXEYE (stylized as KIXEYE, formerly known as Casual Collective) is a video game company founded in July 2007 and headquartered in,.The company creates, develops and publishes (MMORTS) for PC and mobile devices. KIXEYE gained popularity as a pioneer in midcore action games featuring real-time combat on the social networking website. Following their initial launch, KIXEYE's games generated 20 times more revenue per daily active user than other social games, retaining active users 5 times longer on average.Hit titles include Rogue Assault, Battle Pirates,. KIXEYE office reception in 2012.

Beginnings Developers David Scott and Paul Preece founded KIXEYE as Casual Collective to 'make games that we grew up playing and that we love playing.' They initially started by developing 13.In mid-2009 when searching for new venues for their strategy games, Scott and Preece decided to move their Flash knowledge to. After developing Minions on Ice and TSG: Missions, Casual Collective, they hired Will Harbin (co-founder of ) as CEO and moved KIXEYE’s headquarters to San Francisco. They developed, a Tower Defense game for.

After its release in December 2009, the game reached 675,000 and produced more revenue in one day than their previous games made in one month.In 2010, KIXEYE released Backyard Monsters. After three months on the market, the new game had 500,000 monthly active users, and by July 2010, it had 4.5 million monthly active users.

The game reached 2.5 million active users per month, 580,000 active users per day, with a 23 percent retention rate. An average play session lasted greater than 30 minutes, players averaged between three and four sessions a day, and retention was over seven months. The game earned a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, with over 500,000 votes. Gave Backyard Monsters 4.5 out of 5 stars, and said, 'To release a game of this calibre for free on Facebook is a real achievement.' Backyard Monsters also won the Mochi Award for Best Social Game of 2010.

2011-2014 2011, KIXEYE launched War Commander and Battle Pirates on the Facebook Games platform. These games stood as the only midcore action games with real-time combat at the time.

Both games grew immensely, with a majority of users joining organically in a 6-month window between 2012 and 2013. Many of these initial users still play Battle Pirates and War Commander.In 2011, stated that KIXEYE's game War Commander 'Represents a big step forward in the evolution of Facebook games.' Facebook banner ads continue to draw in new players.In 2013, VEGA Conflict, a spiritual successor to Battle Pirates set in space, launched on but was quickly rebuilt in Unity. The game became KIXEYE’s first cross-platform title, with players able to play on mobile, Steam, and browser.2015-Present In 2016, KIXEYE launched mobile game War Commander: Rogue Assault, the long-awaited prequel to After ironing out some initial technical issues and transitioning game operations to Canada, Rogue Assault hit its stride.In 2019, KIXEYE headquarters moved from the San Francisco office (now closed) to the office, and Clayton Stark was appointed CEO.

Since the transition, development teams have adjusted their structure to better operate as centers of excellence, providing centralized support for KIXEYE and other Stillfront partners as needed.Acquisition On June 3, 2019, Kixeye was acquired by the of, for $90 million USD. Controversy In 2012, the company sparked a small controversy after they released a video advertising for programmers that an article interpreted as sexist, and which the article argued represented a common problem of sexism in tech industries. A response from their female vice president of engineering stated that the video was misinterpreted by the journalist, and was not intended as sexist.Later that year, KIXEYE took action against racism by laying off employees reported for misconduct, following a former contractor post on Tumblr. Active Games War Commander is an MMORTS that entered open beta in 2009, and also ranks as one of the top Facebook games of all time.

The game is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape 30 years after civilization and governments have collapsed. In the game, man is divided into small, warring factions fighting for control of Earth’s remaining natural resources. In the game, man is divided into small, warring factions fighting for control of Earth's remaining natural resources – Metal, Oil and Thorium.Several years after release, War Commander released a World Map feature, which massively boosted activity in the game. This set the stage for all other KIXEYE games afterwards to include World Map gameplay.Battle Pirates Released in May 2011, Battle Pirates is one of the most successful Facebook RTS games ever launched, and it has among the highest per-user monetization of all-time.

Battle Pirates marked “the first synchronous real-time strategy of its kind”.In the year 2067, a terrorist-sparked world war has wiped out 95% of life on Earth. Survivors are split into five factions that engage in bloody battle on the high seas.Vega Conflict is a real-time strategy game launched in August of 2013. Originally built in Flash, VEGA Conflict was rebuilt in Unity in 2014 and became KIXEYE’s first cross-platform title. Users all occupy the same server but can play on browser, on mobile, or via Steam.The game focuses on the VEGA Federation, an overbearing space empire that subjects miners to harsh working conditions in an attempt to find valuable Blood Amber. The miners begin to rebel, drawing more enemies and allies into the fray. Players seek out blueprints to unlock more powerful ships and weapons, forming the ultimate fleet of spaceships to bring to events or PvP combat.War Commander: Rogue Assault War Commander: Rogue Assault is a mobile-based game developed by KIXEYE. War Commander: Rogue Assault takes place in a hypothetical post-apocalyptic World War III era.

Players build and train their armies in an effort to take control of the remaining world with the help of their alliance.War Commander: Rogue Assault was released in December 2016 and developed with the help of creator,. What separates War Commander: Rogue Assault from other games in its category is the ability to instantly build buildings, units, and all other items in-game with build times. War Commander: Rogue Assault is a free-to-play game available on both and platforms.Shelved Titles KIXEYE has developed multiple titles in its time that either made it to live and have since been shelved. This list includes the original tower defense game, Desktop Defender; a browser-based MOBA called TOME: Immortal Arena; and (most famously) the game Backyard Monsters, which inspired much of the base-building RTS genre that followed.Backyard Monsters Development of Backyard Monsters started in 2009, but the game was not released until January 2010 as Desktop Creatures before being renamed by fan vote to Backyard Monsters. Backyard Monsters was released as a real-time strategy game on Facebook with 'destruction and gore and mayhem', unlike other Facebook games at the time.

In Backyard Monsters, players build a yard for their monsters, designed so that essential buildings are protected by defensive towers. If the player's yard is designed correctly, the defenses stop invading monsters who try to damage the buildings and loot resources. Backyard Monsters: Unleashed was a to released in October 2013.Executive Producer David Scott said he designed the game to 'be able to play a real-time strategy game in short sessions.' An for Backyard Monsters titled Inferno was released in January 2012 and in November 2012 a new world map was released. In addition to this, Backyard Monsters also had outposts in the new world map when the new world map update came.On February 18, 2013, the Kongregate version of Backyard Monsters was shut down. Backyard Monsters is no longer supported and player numbers have fallen significantly since its groundbreaking inception. Desktop Defender In Desktop Defender, players defended their desktop from creatures called 'creeps.'

Players deployed defensive turrets to attack anything in range. Each defeated creep rewarded players with coins, which players could use to unlock new towers that shot frost, ink, swarms of missiles and other defenses. Players could also purchase special bonus powers that slowed down enemies, sped up tower guns and caused damage.Desktop is no longer supported by KIXEYE, and, as of the end of August, 2016, no longer runs on Facebook.TOME: Immortal Arena TOME: Immortal Arena is a formerly developed by KIXEYE. Official development by KIXEYE ended February 5, 2015.New Projects As of 2020, KIXEYE has a number of projects in development, including opportunities with other Stillfront Group partners.References.

Cutler, Kim-Mai. April 18, 2012. ^ Gaudiosi, John. April 5, 2012. De Vere, Kathleen.

Inside Social Games. Retrieved 8 February 2012.

March 1, 2012. ^ YouTube. August 18, 2011. ^ Thompson, Mike.

Inside Social Games'. March 20, 2012. ^ Takahashi, Dean.

Venture Beat. September 13, 2011. Slangen, Simon. January 15, 2009. Takahashi, Dean. April 28, 2011. Hyman, Paul.

February 9, 2011. Takahashi, Dean. Venture Beat. March 16, 2012.

^ Ashby, Alicia. 2012-07-30 at the GameZebo. May 7, 2010. Lemaire, Elodie (3 January 2011). Picabum (in French). Retrieved 2 August 2011. Rao, Leena.

April 28, 2011. ^. Retrieved 18 June 2011.

^ Gibbons, Pat. 2012-06-25 at the. Gamers Daily News. March 18, 2012.

Retrieved 24 February 2013. Archived from on January 8, 2013. Meunier, Nathan. Archived from on 30 May 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2012.External links. Hyman, Paul (2010).

The latest trend in Facebook games seems to be combinations of different gameplay elements that we've seen before to make newer games that are a bit more complex., from the Casual Collective, is one of these games.What Is It? Is a combination of city-building and desktop tower defense, where players have a 'yard' in which to build contraptions and raise monsters to attack other players' yards. The tower defense element isn't surprising as the Casual Collective also made the Desktop Tower Defense Facebook game. How to Play Like the majority of Facebook games, Backyard Monsters walks you through the basics of setting up your yard, including building a town hall, resource gathering structures, defensive towers, and hiring workers. Every structure in the game requires one or more of four resources: twigs, pebbles, putty, or goo and takes a certain amount of time to build.

There's also a list of quests that will help guide you in what to do next. Once you've got the necessary buildings in place, you can begin creating your very own monster army that can be used to attack other players' yards. Infinite crisis cw. You use a building called the map room to scope out players you want to attack, then decide how many units of your monster army you want to 'fling' into battle. Besides attacking, defense is also very important, as computer-controlled 'wild monsters' as well as other players can attack you.

This is where the tower defense gameplay comes in. The game offers you a variety of shooting towers, as well as blocks and traps that can be constructed to funnel attacking monsters down a specific path, so they can be taken out before they do any damage to your buildings. The game protects you from attacks by other players for the first couple of weeks of play, giving you time to build up your yard and its defenses, but wild monsters can attack at any time.

Even if you do suffer damage, you can repair it fairly quickly, and the only thing you may lose upon being attacked is some of your resources. Likewise, when you attack another player, the only gain is resources. The one thing that really stands out in Backyard Monsters, is the art.

This might possibly be the prettiest game on Facebook now, with its 3D rendered art and cute monster designs. As it stands right now, the pacing of the game and the amount of time it takes to construct buildings feels a bit on the long side compared to other similar games, but Facebook games are never final, so we can no doubt look forward to new features and gameplay tweaks in the future. For yourself and let us know what you think. Want more news on Facebook games? Like on Facebook.