This evening, I was sitting in a coffee shop minding my own business, when suddenly Godzilla and King Kong burst through the door and started fighting in the middle of the shop! At least, that’s the story that my Facebook tells my friends today, as I took pictures using Monster Camera- an AR app that adds monsters to the photos you take!
Developer’s Description:
This application allows you to superimpose an image of a monster onto pictures taken from your device’s camera, making it seem like they’re really there!
| Category | Score | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Does it Fulfill its Purpose? | 8 | Currently, Monster Camera includes the ability to choose between four different monsters. It worked fine on my device, but there are some features that would be great to see in the future. It would be nice to have the ability to click and drag the monster around the screen, or change its pose and size. It also might be nice to be able to have multiple monsters on the screen at the same time, too. |
| Does it Look Good? | 17 | The icons look good, and most of the monsters look decent, but godzilla has some transparency issues around the corners. There isn’t any way to adjust the monsters’ lighting, so while the visuals work okay if the picture is taken outside or in a bright room, it looks out of place when in a darker room. |
| Does it Run Well? | 10 | Monster Camera runs at around 1.75MB, with no ability to install to SD. Its permissions include the ability to modify SD contents (such as pictures), take photos, and the normal ad permissions (view network state and access internet). However, there seems to be a bit of a stability issue- tapping the icon that I assume adds creatures to photos that already exist causes the app to force close, as does tapping the “contact developer” button. |
| Is it Easy to Use? | 20 | It’d be hard to be any simpler than Monster Camera. The monster pictures along the left change which picture is on the screen, and the camera button in the bottom right takes a picture. There’s a “contact developer” button and another button that, as mentioned before, only crashed the app for me. |
| Is This App Useful to Everybody? | 15 | A good AR app can be a lot of fun, and something that most users could enjoy. I love AR apps, and this one, while not very feature-filled right now, could still result in fun times sending pictures to friends. |
| Overall Score | 70 | If you enjoy taking and sending silly photos, you should pick up Monster Camera. It’s a fun, simple to use app, and though a few more features wouldn’t hurt, it certainly works as it is. |
Reviewed Version: 1.3
| Direct market access: |