To play Backyard Monsters, create a free account at backyardmonsters.fbgamesweb.com and follow the built-in tutorial. The loop is simple: collect resources, build, raise monsters in the Hatchery and fling them at a wild tribe to loot its yard. Below you will find the account, your starting yard, the tutorial in order, the first builds with their costs, your first attack, the controls and the usual hiccups. The figures are the ones the game uses today and may change during the beta.
Here is the game: open it in your browser, create your free account and follow the tutorial, which walks you through the first steps of this guide.
Build your yard with buildings and towers, raise monsters with Goo and send them against the wild tribes on the map in this classic Facebook game.
In beta: some parts of the original game are not complete yet and you may run into bugs.
Open backyardmonsters.fbgamesweb.com and choose Create account and play. The form asks for a username of 3 to 24 characters (letters, numbers, dots, hyphens or underscores), an optional email and a password of at least 8 characters, typed twice. Names that differ only in capital letters count as the same name, and a password that is too common or too close to your username is rejected.
When you submit the form you are signed in and sent straight into the game, where the tutorial starts. Later you can log in with your username or your email. Nothing from an old Facebook yard is imported, so everybody starts at the same point. Keep your password somewhere safe.
A new yard begins with a Town Hall, a Twig Snapper, a Pebble Shiner and a general store, all at level 1, plus 1,600 twigs, 1,600 pebbles and no putty or goo. Storage holds 10,000 of each resource until you build Silos, and every Silo raises that limit.
Each resource comes from its own building: the Twig Snapper makes twigs, the Pebble Shiner pebbles, the Putty Squisher putty and the Goo Factory goo. Each has 10 levels, with health running from 500 at level 1 to 165,000 at the top. They work until they are full, so press Bank on a producer to collect what it made. Shiny is the special currency that speeds things up and buys some extras.
The tutorial starts with the Twig Snapper: you collect twigs, upgrade it to level 2 and speed it up with Close Enough, a speed-up that is free on upgrades with five minutes or less remaining. Next you open Buildings, choose the defense tab, pick the Sniper Tower, click on the grass to place it and speed it up. When it is done, wild monsters from the Legionnaire tribe show up and the tower drives them off.
Then you build Housing. If you need room, drag the yard around to find a spot. The game gives you 15 Pokeys, and a gift of Shiny lets you hire a second worker in the Store, so you can build or upgrade two things at once. With both workers you build the Flinger and the Map Room. They take more than five minutes, so you buy the paid speed-up Finish Building NOW!, which is priced in Shiny.
After collecting your quest rewards, you open the Map, pick the Legionnaire tribe, press Attack and fling your Pokeys in. Back home you build the Hatchery and raise more Pokeys, then the Putty Squisher and the Goo Factory. The last steps are upgrading the Town Hall, building the Monster Locker and checking the Quests list, which tells you what to do next. The tutorial hands you the resources for the Sniper Tower, the Housing, the Flinger and the Map Room, so there is nothing to save up for at the start.
After the tutorial, the Town Hall decides how much you may build. At level 1 you can have one Hatchery, one Housing, one Flinger and one Map Room, two cannon towers and two sniper towers, and up to one of each resource producer. Walls (Blocks), the trap and the Monster Locker open at level 2, the monster bunker, the monster academy and the hatchery control center at level 3, and the laser and Tesla towers at level 4. The Town Hall has 10 levels, with health from 4,000 to 600,000.
These are the first-level build costs. The Hatchery costs 2,000 twigs and 2,000 pebbles (15 minutes). The Housing costs 2,160 of each (5 minutes). The Flinger costs 1,000 twigs, 1,000 pebbles and 500 putty (15 minutes), and the Map Room 2,000 twigs and 2,000 pebbles (15 minutes). A Sniper Tower takes 1,500 twigs, 2,000 pebbles and 500 putty, and a cannon tower 2,000 twigs, 1,500 pebbles and 500 putty; both build in 30 seconds.
The producers are cheaper: a Putty Squisher costs 525 twigs and 224 pebbles and a Goo Factory 247 twigs and 577 pebbles, at 20 seconds each. Upgrades cost more. The Twig Snapper's step to level 2 costs 1,575 pebbles (5 minutes) and the Town Hall's costs 7,000 twigs and 7,000 pebbles (10 minutes). All of these figures can change while the game is in beta.
Monsters are raised in the Hatchery with Goo and live in your Housing. Open the Hatchery, click a monster to add it to the queue (click several times for several) and wait. A Pokey costs 250 Goo each, so three cost 750. Unlocking more monsters and keeping the Hatchery busy takes putty and goo, which is why the tutorial has you build both producers.
The website's guide lists 15 monsters, most with six levels. Pokey starts at 200 health and 60 damage and moves at 1.2 km/h. Wormzer is the fastest at 3 km/h, Eye-ra hits for 4,000 at level 1 and 24,000 at the top, and D.A.V.E. reaches 21,000 health. Zafreeti does not attack: its damage figure is negative, which means it heals other monsters. The rest are Octo-ooze, Bolt, Fink, Ichi, Bandito, Fang, Brain, Crabatron, Project X and Teratorn. In our own testing only Pokeys have been taken through raising and launching, so expect to experiment with the others.
To attack, open the Map, pick a tribe and press Attack. In the battle window, press the + button on the left to add monsters to the Flinger (hold it down to add several), then click where to drop them. The drop-zone circle must be white, because you cannot fling monsters too close to buildings. Your monsters loot the resource producers, and when the base is down you win and a results window shows your loot.
You can only attack wild tribes: Legionnaire, Kozu, Abunakki and Dreadnaut, each with five difficulty levels and yards that the server generates. You need monsters in your Housing, and the tribe must be inside your Flinger's range, which grows with its level. If a tribe was already beaten, the game says so and tells you to come back later. Other players appear on the map but are always protected.
Everything is done with the mouse. Click and drag to move the yard around, click on the grass to place a building, and use the buttons at the bottom right: Buildings (with tabs for resources, defense, specials and decorations), Quests, Store and Map.
Above the game, the website's header shows your level, an XP bar, your resources and your Shiny. The account menu holds My account, Active sessions, Password and security, Support and tickets, Report a problem, Donate, Full screen (only when your browser allows it), an option to reload the game, and Sign out. You change the game's language from My account and reload the game afterwards.
The most common stumble is forgetting to collect. Quest rewards are only paid when you press Collect, and the Quests list always shows what to do next, so open it after every big step. Producers also stop when they are full, so press Bank before they sit idle.
If the game shows Oops, something broke!, press Reload. If the loader does not arrive you get a message with Retry. If you use an ad or content blocker, try pausing it for the game's page. When a message says your session ended, sign in again: your yard is saved on the server.
The game saves by itself every few seconds, but what you did in the last few seconds before closing the tab may not be kept, so give it a moment before you leave. If a bug keeps showing up, open a ticket from Support with a screenshot.
Three steps and you're in.
From this home page. Each game opens at its own address, with its own start screen.
A quick sign-up inside the game. Your progress is saved on the server, not in your browser.
You play in your browser, with no Flash and no downloads, on a computer and, depending on the game, on your phone too.
Go to backyardmonsters.fbgamesweb.com, choose Create account and play, and fill in a username, a password and, if you like, an email. You are signed in straight away and the Backyard Monsters tutorial starts. It is free, it runs in your browser with no Flash, and it does not need Facebook.
A new Backyard Monsters yard has a Town Hall, a Twig Snapper, a Pebble Shiner and a general store, all at level 1, with 1,600 twigs, 1,600 pebbles and no putty or goo. Storage holds 10,000 of each resource until you build Silos, which raise the limit.
Each resource has its own producer: the Twig Snapper, Pebble Shiner, Putty Squisher and Goo Factory. They work until they are full, so click one and press Bank to collect what it made. Storage has a limit and Silos raise it, so collect often instead of letting your Backyard Monsters producers sit full.
Click the building and choose Speed Up. Close Enough is free for upgrades with five minutes or less remaining. Finish Building NOW! is the paid option for longer jobs and costs Shiny. A second worker, which the tutorial helps you hire from the Store, lets you build or upgrade two things at once in Backyard Monsters.
Build a Hatchery, open it and click a monster to add it to the queue; click again for more. Monsters cost Goo, and a Pokey is 250 Goo each. Raised monsters live in your Housing, so build that first. In Backyard Monsters, unlocking more monsters and keeping the Hatchery busy takes putty and goo.
Open the Map, choose a wild tribe and press Attack. Press + on the left to add monsters to the Flinger, holding it to add several, then click where to drop them. If you cannot fling, check that the drop-zone circle is white, that you have monsters in your Housing and that the tribe is inside your Flinger's range.
No, not yet. This edition of Backyard Monsters lets you attack wild tribes only. Other players show up on the map, but they are always protected, so there is no combat between players. Alliances, mail and gifts between players are not available either, and the game has no chat.
If Backyard Monsters shows Oops, something broke!, press Reload. If the loader does not arrive you get a message with Retry, and the account menu has an option to reload the game. Pausing an ad or content blocker for the page can help. If it keeps happening, open a ticket from Support with a screenshot.
Brand notice: Backyard Monsters is an original game by Kixeye. Facebook is a trademark of Meta Platforms, Inc. FB Games is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Kixeye, Facebook or Meta. This is a browser edition.
Creating an account takes a minute, and you play straight from your browser.