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Bloons Monkey City is a spinoff of the Bloons Tower Defense series featuring more city simulator elements than other games by Ninja Kiwi. The point of the game is to build a city consisting of various Base Buildings (which allow you to have a certain tower type, at a rate of one per building), Upgrade Buildings (which unlock most, but not all, upgrades for your towers), Special Buildings (which help with those upgrades that you can't get with the Upgrade buildings), Player Versus Player Buildings (which enable you to deploy bloons for attacking other players, and generating and storing the necessary Bloontonium to do so), and Resource Buildings (which generate power and create and store money). Also, there are tiles that you must collect to build your city. Tiles that are infested with bloons.

The game has been released on Ninja Kiwi's site and the iOS and Android App Store and Google Play, with the mobile version having all the towers from the mobile versions of BTD 5. (While the original BMC that runs on Flash is defunct as of 2021, both it and the BMC Mobile version are available on Steam for free, the former located [with all online functionality] inside 'Ninja Kiwi Archive', a collection of 50+ no-longer-supported Flash games.)

Most of the tropes in this game are listed in the entry for Bloons Tower Defense, but this page has some tropes listed on here that are specific to Bloons Monkey City.


Bloons Monkey City provides examples of the following:

  • Alternate World Map: Bloon Dunes, featuring more deserts, unique missions, and Monkey Engineers!
  • Art Evolution: The Monkeys look different here than in Bloons Tower Defense 5. Just look at their eyes!
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • Monkey vs. Monkey buildings. They enable you to blow the tar out of enemy players, but they are expensive, and some attacks require Bloonstones to activate!
    • Farm tiers higher than 2. They have higher cash capacities than the level 2 version, but their generation rate doesn't increase with level after tier 2. The mobile version doesn't have farm tiers higher than 2, likely because it can be played more often.
  • Beta Test: Before the game was released, an open beta was made available.
  • Cap: City level maxes out at 40. You can still earn experience after this point and add it toward your total, but it won't do anything beyond level 40.
    • There is a quota for each type of building (towers, resource, etc.) that increases the higher you are in level. Buildings that unlock the capability to research upgrades are limited to one per city.
      • Because of the above level cap, the amount of each building that can be built in multiples also has an ultimate limit.
    • The amount of Experience Points that can be earned from a single tile is 500, but the difficulty has to get pretty high before the EXP reward gets that high.
    • ZigZagged with the power-generating buildings (windmills and watermills) in the Mobile version. Played straight before city level 35, in which both of these buildings follow a level quota like all other buildings. Averted at city levels 35-40,which removes both of these quotas, allowing your city's power to be limited only by the number of tiles you can capture!
  • Classical Elements Ensemble: The four boss Blimps: Bloonarius The Inflator (water) resembles a fish and lives in a swamp. Vortex, Deadly Master of Air (air) casts air shockwaves that stuns and slows your towers. Dreadbloon, Armored Behemoth (earth) resembles a Drill Tank, has armored properties of a Lead Bloon, and can grow a stone shell that takes damage for it instead. Blastapopoulos, Demon of the Core (fire) resembles a magma-filled blimp and throws magma to stun your strongest towers.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In the Flash version, timers on buildings are are color-coded depending on what is happening with the building:
    • A blue timer with a gold border indicates that a building is under construction.
    • A white timer with a blue border indicates that a bulding is being upgraded (if it's a resource building) or a tower upgrade is being researched.
    • A black timer with a red border timer indicates that a building (generally a tower building) is severely damaged from an MvM loss and undergoing repair. During this duration, damaged buildings hamper your in-game tower count.
  • Construct Additional Pylons: Each one of the towers you want to place requires it's own building on the map. In addition, to buy upgrades, you have to buy special buildings to research all of the upgrades. However, the number of buildings on the map is limited by the amount of power you have, which is produced by Windmills or Watermills. Additionally, banana farms when placed on the maps generate city cash. Finally, the amount of City Cash you can have at once is limited by the amount and level of your banks.
  • Damage-Sponge Boss: The boss blimps start out with big health bars, but they gain additional health for every level that you fight them on. If you fight any of them on levels 10 and up, you'll know why the trope is in bold.
    • However, their health does not regenerate if they escape, making it an exercise in whittling it down.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The Temple of the Vengeful Monkey. Despite being black with red eyes, it doesn't attack your towers and is actually the best tower in the series.
  • Double Unlock: Tower buildings give you towers of a certain type, but not upgrades. For those, you need upgrade buildings. Even with those, though, you can only get upgrades if you have enough experience, at which point you have to pay for the upgrade and then wait for it to build. The wait time can be minutes, hours or even days.
  • Easter Egg: Literal ones in the Easter events, where you hunt bunnies that have stolen the King's chocolate eggs.
  • Face Ship: The Apprentice School of Wizardry appears to have four turrets. Each one looks like the Apprentice's hat.
  • Fog of War: Your city is surrounded by an opaque black fog that starts to form several tiles away from any of your captured tiles; however, you can still click on tiles that are only partly in the fog and find out more about them (terrain, difficulty, bloon types/strategies). On Mobile, the fog is instead essentially a giant shadow over the affected tiles. However, it limits your map navigation (you can't swipe too far into the fog).
  • Fun with Acronyms: In addition to the already existing M.O.A.B. (Massively Ornery Air Blimp), B.F.B. (Brutal Floating Behemoth), and Z.O.M.G. (Zeppelin Of Mighty Gargantuanness), the new D.D.T. has a name that is short for Dark Dirigible Titan.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: Sometimes the game can disconnect you and reset your level down to as low as 0! If you have captured a lot of tiles, you're pretty much screwed, unless you contact Ninja Kiwi.
  • Guilt-Based Gaming: Message when you try to quit a level: "Do you really want to abandon your monkeys on the battlefield?" Also, when you do abandon the fight: "Loss! You abandoned your monkeys on the battlefield"
  • Hard Mode Perks: Hardcore mode increases bloon speed and rush size, makes upgrades 8% more expensive (similar to Bloons Tower Defense 5's Hard), and decreases cash from bloons by 10%. However, if you win, you will gain twice the normal rewards in every category except experience. This includes City Cash and bloonstones (if NLL) on normal tiles, and double Bloontonium and City Honor in Monkey v. Monkey.
  • Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Tiles are given a difficulty rating based on the auto-generated rounds. As you level up, the difficulty of certain surrounding tiles drops (e.g., a Hard tile at level 10 could become Easy by 15). All possible difficulties order from easiest to hardest:
    • Trivial. This difficulty is so easy that you're given the option to skip it completely. You don't earn experience or bloonstones by doing so, however.
    • Easy. This kind of tile shouldn't pose a challenge for most players (unless on a very difficult map, if that). Useful if you're participating in Monkey Teams challenges for additional rewards.
    • Medium. Easily defeated by most players, .
    • Hard. Experienced players face something of a challenge on this difficulty, while less experienced players will have to be Determinators to beat it. Still may be quite simple on very easy maps like Flower.
      • Several quests require the capture of Hard or harder tiles to complete, and are not retroactive (i.e., a Hard tile you captured before one of these quests will not count).
    • Very Hard. Even experienced players may have difficulty beating this type of tile. Starting with supply crates may be necessary.
    • Impoppable. Good. Luck. Depends a lot on the stage you're in. In the beginning this is, indeed, impossible, since you'll end up buying all the available towers and it still won't be enough. You'll also face problems with leads and camos. Later on, though, very good strategy or Trial-and-Error Gameplay may help you through.
  • Lightning Bruiser: D.D.T.s. They are tied with the Pink Bloon as the fastest bloon in the game, but they have enough health to kill you instantly if they get through. They also have the immunities of every type of Bloon in the game.note 
  • Mighty Glacier: Besides the first 3 MOAB-class bloons, we now have 4 boss blimps known as Bloonarius, Vortex, Dreadbloon, and Blastapopoulos. What makes these blimps so tough is that they gain additional health for every level that they are fought on, eventually to the point of becoming almost impossible to pop without restarting the mission. These bosses also have special abilities of their own.
  • Money Sink: Tier 3+ in-city farms and tier 5+ banks in the Flash version. Each upgrade from those ranks costs 100,000+ city cash and you likely won't need most of your farms or banks upgraded that high unless you want fast Experience Points.
    • On Mobile, the aforementioned tiers are nonexistent (farms cap at tier 2 as outlined in Awesome, but Impractical, and banks max out at tier 4). Instead, you can spend your excess city cash on cosmetic buildings, paths, and even monkeys like the Wizard Lord!
  • Near Victory Fanfare: The Mobile version plays one when you are on the final round of a tile capture or MvM battle. It also plays when you reach the final round you need to beat in Contested Territory before capturing it.
  • Nerf:
    • An update increased the base price of the ninja monkey's Bloonjitsu upgrade to $3,000 from around $2,750. The nerf is relatively small and the 4/2 ninja is still a very viable tower even after this.
    • In the Mobile version, the Armored Stealth Silo cannot be built, meaning ZOMG bloons are the highest tier of bloons that can be sent in PVP attacks.
  • No-Damage Run: Wanna get Bloonstones without paying real money? Then you gotta beat tiles without losing any health. This is easy on some levels, but when you're fighting off several D.D.T.s at once, this can be nearly impossible.
    • With recurring limited-time events such as Monkey Teams (capture tiles with specified towers, often allowing support towers and road items) and Mini Land Grab (every three tiles captured earns an additional reward), it's possible for these events to reward Bloonstones, somewhat easing the pressure of a No-Damage Run.
      • Contested Territory has Occupation Rewards for holding the territory for as long as possible, and Milestone Rewards for beating given rounds, up to 100. Both of these can reward Bloonstones, among other utilities.
      • The Mobile version even gives you 100 Bloonstones for beating round 100 in a CT Milestones event. Considering that you get fewer bloonstones from NLL tile captures, this is quite a hefty reward. The catch is that you may have to endure a longer run than in Flash due to the increased number of ZOMGs and the absence of Super Ceramics (Ceramic bloons that have 30-odd HP but don't spawn nearly as many children) that appear on round 31 onward in Flash.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: In the Engineer Rescue mission, if all five caged engineers disappear after touching a bloon, you'll lose regardless of your lives left. The easiest way to prevent this is to save at least one of them with cash.
  • No-Sell: D.D.T.s are notably immune to every kind of unupgraded tower, thanks to its combination of Lead (can only be hurt by explosions) and Black (immune to explosions) traits. Even if you have ways to ignore its immunities, you still need to detect it as it's Camo as well.
  • Not the Intended Use: Invoked by the monkey knowledge that enhances activated abilities. At high enough levels, activating an ability can increase the popping power and attack speed of all towers for a number of seconds. Then, there are two free abilities found in the Flash-only Bloon Dunes: Anti-Camo dust, which temporarily removes camo status from onscreen and incoming bloons, and Cuddly Bear, which grants 20 bonus lives. Combine the monkey knowledge benefits with the above abilities, and players may end up spamming them to replace monkey boosts, which cost bloonstones (unless you have free ones).
  • Patchwork Map: Let's see...
    • Bubblegloop Swamp: The terrain that houses Bloonarius. You can only get to it by completing a Bloon Beacon tile during the Bloonarius event.
    • Death Mountain: The Mountain terrain (you are not allowed to place Dartling Guns, Banana Farms, or Monkey Aces, but Ice Monkeys cost less), which often is located next to a Volcano or a Cave.
    • Dug Too Deep: The Cave terrain. (Same rules as Mountain terrain, unless you are replaying in your tracks) The boss stage for Dreadbloon also qualifies.
    • M.O.A.B. Graveyard: The M.O.A.B. Graveyard special terrain. (Three rounds consisting of 10 M.O.A.B.s, 6 B.F.B.s, and 2 Z.O.M.G.s. All towers allowed.)
    • Gangplank Galleon: The Shipwreck special terrain. (All towers except for Monkey Buccaneers cost twice as much. You can use Whirlpools to destroy groups of bloons if you're in a pinch.) Well, at least it used to be one.
    • Ghibli Hills: The Tranquil Glade special terrain. (Only Dart Monkeys, Sniper Monkeys, and Ninja Monkeys allowed. All bloons are camo.) It even has a rabbit!
    • Green Hill Zone: The Grass terrain. (Aces (and on mobile, Bloonchippers) are favoured, which can only mean Ground Zero (Or Super-Wide Funnel/Supa-Vac).)
    • Gusty Glade: The Hill terrain. (No Dart Monkeys, but Tack Shooters are favoured.) There is also a boss map that Vortex goes through.
    • Jungle Japes: The Jungle terrain (No Monkey Apprentices or ice towers, but Glue Gunners are favoured which is quite useful.) Oh, and the Sticky Sap Flower special terrain. (Use the flowers to glue every bloon on the screen with their sap. Apparently, it comes out of the flower part of the plant.)
    • Lethal Lava Land: The Volcano terrain. (No Monkey Villages, Ice Monkeys, or Boomerang Throwers. Mortars and Apprentices are favoured. You can place towers anywhere but on on the lava.) Blastapopoulos also appears on this terrain when you fight him.
    • The Lost Woods: The Forest and Heavy Forest terrain. (Bonus on Ninjas and Snipers, respectively, but you cannot farm. Tack shooters are also not allowed.)
    • Power Crystal: The Phase Crystal special terrain. (25 rounds of bloons that move twice as fast. The crystals have an "Instant Death" Radius ability.)
    • Roaring Rapids: The River terrain. (No Ninjas or Bomb Shooters. However, Farms are favoured.) Also, it's the only place for the construction of Watermills.
      • Also, Lake terrain. They have the same restrictions (Buccaneers are favoured on this one), but you can't build Watermills on them.
    • Shifting Sand Land: The Desert terrain. (No Super Monkeys or Spike Factories, but Bomb Towers and Boomerang Throwers are favoured.)
    • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Snow terrain (No Dart Monkeys, Dartling Guns, or Boomerang Throwers, bonus on Ice Monkeys) and Glacier special terrain. (All towers allowed; bloons move at half speed, but give half the money they normally give)
    • Temple of Doom: The Consecrated Ground terrain. (Only Monkey Apprentices and Super Monkeys. 10 Nintendo Hard rounds.
    • The Wild West: The Badlands terrain in Second City.
  • Player Versus Player: The aptly-named Monkey vs. Monkey mode, in which you can send bloons at other players' cities to try and raid cash and honor from them. Of course, this means that you can be forced to defend against other players' attacks, too.
    • When you receive an attack, you have 24 hours to defend your city against it. Letting this time expire is treated as losing when attempting to defend.
    • In this mode, the rounds are non-stop, bloons from each round can overlap, and you don't gain cash between rounds, similar to BTD5's Apopalypse mode.
    • If you send an attack at a player and they fail to defeat it, you will steal some of City Cash from them. The mechanics for this very between Flash and Mobile:
      • On Flash, the amount of cash stolen is based on the number and tiers of a player's Monkey Banks, ranging from 50% for tier 1 to 20% for tiers 5+, potentially leading to 'tens of thousands of cash from one raid!'
      • On Mobile, the amount is based on the victim's city level and a constant multiplier, capping the raid amount at 6,000 (9,000 during a Warmonger event) if the victim is level 40.
    • In addition to stealing cash, you can temporarily hinder your opponents' performance in future games. Specifically, some of their tower buildings can be severely damaged and the repair times are equal to the construction times for those buildings (meaning that it takes only a minute to get a damaged Dart Monkey Hall back, up to a whopping 'four hours' for a damaged Super Monkey Villa.
      • In the Flash version, having enough cash saved up in the event of a failed MvM defense can prevent building damage. In 'Mobile', however, at least one building is always damaged regardless of stored cash.
  • Production Throwback: The Blimp Monkeynote  in the mobile version. It hijacked a blimp!
  • Purposely Overpowered: High Monkey Knowledge ranks, especially 11-15, seem to be this in most cases.
    • Subverted with the strategies around sniper supply-drop farming (which you will probably need to utilize if you want to make money for high Contested Territory rounds on maps that ban Banana Farms) as the benefits given to certain towers ironically makes these forms of farming 'harder'.
    • For regrow farming, regrow removal can harm the wizard's ability to multiply regen bloons and bombs and ice can hit their WeaksauceWeaknesses.
    • For ice-stall farming, the sniper's increased layer damage means that the stalled bloons will be destroyed much faster, shortening the rounds vastly. Also, said damage increase also further hampers the above regrow farming if you attempt to buy a High-Energy Beacon to decrease ability cooldown time, because the sniper speed-up can easily result in the farm ending early if you aren't generating enough bloons in the farm(and maybe even if!).
  • Steel Mill: A near miss by the Thermite Plant Special Building that activates the Ring of Fire upgrade. It looks like one, but makes thermite.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: The Temple of the Vengeful Monkey is this to the Temple of the Monkey God, and considering the TOTMG was already the strongest tower in the game...
  • Unobtainium: Bloonstones. They are very hard to obtain in the later part of the game, because you must capture a tile without losing any lives at all.
    • Not all that hard to obtain if you send Monkey v. Monkey attacks every so often. Quite useful for long treks to the Consecrated Grounds to build the Temple Complex or the Phase Crystals for the Crystal Fusion Array, where you're likely, unless you capture tiles frequently, to face Impoppable after Impoppable for those damn tiles, as well as defeating them and enough other tiles to construct the fucking things.
    • The Flash version rewards 5 bloonstones for every NLL tile (10 if Hardcore was active). The Mobile version only rewards 2 per tile, and doesn't have a Hardcore mode. Ninja Kiwi compensated for this by removing the bloonstone costs for researching third and fourth tier upgrades and for restarting an MvM defense in the event of defeat.
  • Wizarding School: The Upgrade building for the Monkey Apprentice.
  • You Require More Vespene Gas: Bloonstones are rarely required, but if you want to do pretty much anything quickly, you'll need Bloonstones, and a lot of them.
    • Bloonstones are required to research any level 3 (20 Bloonstones each) and level 4 (50 Bloonstones each) upgrade for the towers, as well as the PVP Bloons.
      • Not so for the Mobile version; these upgrades only cost city cash, and completing them instantly takes fewer Bloonstones on top of that.
  • Zerg Rush: Several examples, in addition to the obvious premise of popping many waves of Bloons:
    • Early on, you will find yourself using dart monkeys. Lots of them! Combined with their Triple Darts upgrade,, spamming Dart Monkeys will be quite viable for a while.
    • Some Monkey Teams events may include weaker towers that you will have to place more of if you want to win the additional reward (especially if it's Bloonstones).
    • In Boss Bloon events, spamming Tack Sprayers can be a good way to do fast damage early into the battle, (unless it's Dreadbloon.

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