Mega Menagerie animal guide: which monster to pick and why
Every animal in Mega Menagerie can flatten every city, but they don’t all get there the same way. The differences are real: a goat wrecks a building noticeably faster than a rabbit, and a sheep shrugs off almost half of every hit. This guide compares all seven, using the numbers from the game, and covers eating and the army.
THE SEVEN ANIMALS
Speed, jump and climb are shown relative to each other, so higher is better. Window-smash chance is how often one punch goes straight through a window instead of just cracking it.
| Animal | Speed | Jump | Climb | Window-smash chance | Damage taken | Strength | Food |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Binky the rabbit | 1.2 | 5.9 | 1.15 | 15% | 100% | 100 | Carrots |
| Rufus the dog | 1.1 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 75% | 100% | 100 | Bones |
| Tiddles the cat | 1.2 | 5.3 | 1.65 | 15% | 100% | 100 | Fish |
| Gruff the goat | 1.05 | 5.4 | 1.2 | 55% | 100% | 100 | Tin cans |
| Baabara the sheep | 1.0 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 20% | 60% | 100 | Turnips |
| Daisy the cow | 0.92 | 4.7 | 0.9 | 45% | 100% | 135 | Hay |
| Nibbles the hamster | 1.3 | 5.2 | 1.1 | 15% | 100% | 100 | Seeds (eats double) |
WHAT THE NUMBERS MEAN
- Window-smash chance is the biggest difference between animals. A window takes two steps to break, cracked and then broken through, and a strong punch does both at once. Rufus has the hardest punch and averages 1.25 punches per window, while Binky, Tiddles and Nibbles need closer to 1.9. Over a whole city, that’s a lot of punching.
- Gruff punches faster than anyone, about a fifth quicker than the others. He needs about 1.5 punches per window, but he gets through them quickest of all if you keep hitting the button.
- Damage taken applies to everything that hits you: bullets, shells, bombs and falling buildings. Baabara’s wool is listed as stopping bullets, but it actually takes 40% off every hit.
- Strength is how much damage you can take before you shrink. Daisy has a third more than anyone else.
- Climb is how fast you go up a wall. Tiddles climbs faster than any other animal by a wide margin, which matters most in tall cities like New York and Tokyo.
WHICH ANIMAL TO PICK
- For your first go: Baabara or Daisy. Both are hard to put down. Baabara takes 60% of the damage anyone else does, which makes her the toughest animal in the game: her 100 strength lasts as long as about 167 would for anyone else. Daisy has 135 strength, and smashes walls far faster than Baabara, but she’s the slowest mover.
- For the fastest cities: Gruff. The best wall-smasher, with decent climbing and jumping. There’s no downside except ordinary toughness. Rufus runs him close, with fewer punches per window but a slower swing.
- For tall buildings: Tiddles. The cat gets to the top floors and the helicopters quickest, but takes longer to bring the building down once there.
- For playing on the move: Nibbles. The hamster is the fastest on the ground and gets twice the good out of everything it eats, so it can stay alive by eating rather than by being tough.
- Binky jumps highest, which helps you reach a wall or a helicopter from the street, but it’s the weakest smasher of the lot.
EATING
Every bite heals you, and some bites heal much more than others:
| What you eat | Strength back | Points |
|---|---|---|
| A civilian | 4 | 100 |
| A soldier | 6 | 200 |
| Any food on a windowsill | 12 | 500 |
| Your favourite food | 32 | 1,000 |
Nibbles doubles all of these. The computer’s monsters only get 60% of the value, which is part of why they fade as a city goes on.
Your favourite food heals almost three times as much as any other, so keep an eye on the windowsills. It’s worth climbing a building you were saving for later to get to it.
THE ARMY
The army builds up as the tour goes on: soldiers from the start, helicopters from Shrewsbury, tanks from London, jets from Berlin and artillery from Washington.
- A falling building takes 15 strength from anyone still on it, before your damage reduction. When a building starts to shake, jump off.
- Soldiers in the windows are the main threat early on, and they’re also your best food. Punch them out of the window and you eat them.
- Helicopters hover just out of reach of the street. Climb to their height and punch them from the wall.
- Tanks sit in the road and fire upward. A ground slam (punch down in the street) or landing on them from a jump deals with them.
- Artillery marks its target with a flashing crosshair first. Move out from under it, unless you’re on a wall, in which case the shell does your demolition for you.
LIVES
You start with your current life plus two in reserve, shown as hearts. When your strength runs out, you shrink, scurry off, and the next life drops in from the sky with full strength and a moment of invulnerability. Type 1234 at any time for unlimited lives.
The controls, the story so far and how the game was made are on the Mega Menagerie page.