The Monster — Remembering Its First 100,000 Downloads

On January 13, 2014, Zoryth Games announced that The Monster had reached 100,000 downloads on Google Play. The short post thanked players, acknowledged their feedback, and included a collage of reviews. More than a decade later, the original text and that image remain recoverable. 1

The Monster belonged to the company’s early Android catalog. Its January 2013 availability announcement described a maze-based horror game: a lost adventurer, an approaching creature, and a route to find before it was too late. Its stated features included thousands of mazes and a series of different environments. 2

The January 2014 milestone article linked specifically to the free Android edition, identified by the package name com.carlosamartinez.themonsterfree. That detail helps distinguish the record from similarly named games and later entries in the series. 1

The accompanying reviews capture a small part of the game’s reception. Players wrote about being startled, enjoying the pursuit, and wanting additions or improvements. The image was selected by the developer at the time. It preserves a contemporary response, rather than a representative survey of every player. 3

The milestone also needs a precise description. The surviving announcement reports downloads on Google Play. It does not establish 100,000 purchases, active users, or distinct people. The original developer-console report has not been recovered, and the date the installation threshold was crossed is unknown. January 13 is the date the company announced it. 1

That is still a meaningful record. Within the company’s first years of publishing, one of its games had reached an audience large enough to produce a substantial body of feedback. The announcement preserves that moment directly, in the voice of the studio then known as Zoryth Games.

The recovered article and its artwork give this retrospective a contemporary source. The original announcement belongs to January 2014; this new account looks back at that event without changing its place in the company’s history.

Read From MonlesSoft to Intellicialis for the wider company history.

Sources

1. Source — Original Blogger entry, published January 13, 2014 at 22:29 in the publisher’s -08:00 timezone. It links the free Android edition.
2. Source — The January 8, 2013 availability announcement and original developer feature description.
3. Source — The archived company copy includes the developer-selected collage of player reviews.