The Basics, Shiny and Resources

The Basics, Shiny and Resources

Concept

The idea behind Backyard Monsters is to build up a Yard, essentially a main base with defenses, buildings to produce an army, and all-important resource collectors. Balancing these equates to unlocking the key to the game. To attack other players, you must 'hatch' monsters which you then launch across the map at other players. There are a variety of offensive units you can build to help you attack, each with strenghts, weaknesses and specializations, as well as defensive structures, such as walls and towers, to keep the enemy at bay.

Shiny

Shiny are the premium currency in Backyard Monsters. This means that you, generally, have to pay for them using real money. The game generously gives you 1,000 Shiny at the beginning of your adventure, but after that you either have to purchase more or earn them for completing surveys and participating in offers.

Shiny can be used for various things, generally to advance the game quicker than it would otherwise progress:

Resource Purchasing:
If you are short on any resources, you can buy more with Shiny. You can also buy more storage for resources, increasing the cap by 10 percent.

Protection:
You can buy Daily Protection from attacks for 32 Shiny, Weekly for 250 Shiny and Ultimate for 1,100 Shiny. As soon as you attack someone, your Protection ends and you do not get any Shiny back. For more on this, see our Protection section.

Workers:
You can buy more Workers to help out. The first additional one costs 250 Shiny, the next 500, the next 1,000, and the maximum fourth costs 2,000.

Decorations:
These are not really necessary, but are good for showing off all of your Shiny to your friends, and to help hide defensive towers or important structures.

Yard Expansions:
You can purchase more room for your buildings by buying expansions with your Shiny.

How to Earn Shiny

You can of course buy Shiny using your real money, but the game also gives you 1,000 when you are starting out.

It is possible to get free Shiny by picking mushrooms. You will have a chance of getting either 3 or 8 Shiny, but may not receive any.

Click the Earn Shiny option at the top of the screen to be able to earn Shiny by watching adverts or completing surveys. This will reward you with 10 or 20 Shiny per promotion.

You also receive 1,000 free Shiny for every month that you are a member of the D.A.V.E. club.

Resources

Twigs:

Twigs are probably the game's most frequently used resource. They are required to purchase items and you will need to use them with pretty much all buildings. Once you have built a Catapult, you can also use Twigs as ammunition for it.

To collect Twigs, you can either loot them from enemy Yards, or build Twig Snappers.

Pebbles:

Pebbles are, similarly to Twigs, quite an important resource in Backyard Monsters. They are primarily used to construct and upgrade buildings, and are used in many tasks. Pebbles can also be used in the deployment of Pebble Bombs.

Putty:

Putty is used for researching and unlocking new monsters and abilities in the Monster Academy and Monster Lab. It is also required for producing certain defensive buildings - not Blocks, but all others.

Goo:

Goo is for hatching Monsters in any of your monster Hatcheries. The cost of each Monster will increase as you research upgrades for them.

NOTE: If you get the Inferno Yard, you will open up the ability to earn different resources. See our Inferno Yard section for more information on this.

General Resources Tips:

The best way to get extra resources, faster, is to attack other players. See our section on Attacking for the best early strategies to do this.

Upgrade your Harvesters to increase their capacity. This will mean you do not necessarily have to log in as often to empty them and collect the rewards.

When attacking Harvesters, Brains, Bolts, Malphus and Grokus only damage those with resources in - emptying them. If they have run out of resources, they will go on to another target.

Quests

Access the Quests screen to collect the rewards from any quests which you may have completed along your journey through Backyard Monsters. You will not get the rewards unless you access this screen. Click the yellow Collect button to get your rewards.

You can also simply click into the Quest pane once a quest has been completed - you will see the tick next to it - and select Collect.

TIP: Quest rewards can be collected whenever you see fit - you can effectively store them until you need the rewards. It is therefore a good idea to keep them and only collect them when absolutely necessary.

Empire Points

Empire Points are the best way to determine the value of your empire. Essentially, it is the total value of your Yard and all of your Outposts. You can see it in the Leaderboard.

To get Empire Points, you should concentrate on taking over more outposts. A main Yard is generally worth roughly 15,000,000 Empire Points - no small amount. An Outpost is around 2,000,000. You can also purchase Kits with Shiny to dramatically increase your Empire Points.