Monster Tracks or Monster Truck vs Zombie: Which to Play First

Two games served from this site

Most of the games on monstertruck.gg are embedded from a game host, but two truck games are stored on the site itself: Monster Tracks, by Fancade, and Monster Truck vs Zombie, credited to Parrot Games in its Unity build file. Both are side-on driving games with a monster truck, a hilly track and a shop. Beyond that they play very differently, so here is what each one is like and which to open first.

Monster Tracks: one long run at a time

Monster Tracks has no levels. It drops you straight into a run with a blocky white-and-orange truck and keeps building road ahead of you until you crash. The score at the top right climbs as you move forward, and yellow coin blocks sit on the track along the way. When the run ends, the game shows how many coins you collected and opens the Upgrades screen.

There are three upgrades, each with its own row of steps on a bar:

• Power for the engine
• Grip for the tyres
• Weight for the body

In our test the first step of each cost 10 coins, and a fresh game already showed a balance of 15 coins on that screen, so you can buy one upgrade after your first crash. The game's own tagline sums up the loop: Drive. Upgrade. Repeat. A button under the shop starts the next run straight away.

Monster Truck vs Zombie: fifteen levels and a garage

Monster Truck vs Zombie is level-based. After the title screen comes a Level Selector with fifteen slots, of which only the first is open at the start, and a Total Score for all of them together. Before each level the Upgrades screen offers five upgrades, each with four steps. The starting prices we saw were:

In the level you drive a blue truck over dark rocky hills, with zombies walking on the track. The top of the screen shows a Power bar that drops as time passes, a progress bar for the level, your money from the green dollar bags you pick up, a Score and a Bonus that counts down. In our first try on level 1, with no upgrades, the truck stalled on a steep hill while its Power kept falling, which shows why the upgrades matter in this game.

Which to start with

• For a quick go: Monster Tracks. Its files on this site come to about 3 MB, against about 17 MB for Monster Truck vs Zombie, and it starts driving the moment it loads, with no menus.
• For a set goal: Monster Truck vs Zombie. Fifteen fixed levels, a level selector and a total score give you something to work through. Monster Tracks has no finish line, only your best distance.
• On a phone: Monster Tracks draws its two pedals on screen. In Monster Truck vs Zombie we tested driving with the arrow keys.

Both keep the same rhythm: a run, some money, an upgrade, another run. Monster Tracks turns that over in under a minute, while Monster Truck vs Zombie spreads it across its fifteen levels.