Montabi

The big picture

Monster trainers usually have an excellent arrangement: the creatures do the dangerous work while the human stands nearby offering extremely confident suggestions. Montabi makes the trainer participate. Its battles use a compact three-by-three grid, and losing your trainer ends the run. Suddenly the person pointing at everything needs a sensible position too, which is a terrible development for anyone who entered the profession mainly to shout encouragement from a safe distance.

Mankibo's creature-collecting roguelike deckbuilder, published by Akupara Games, launched in full on August 6, 2026. It is available on Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Earlier playtests were separate, not an Early Access debut. The publisher's overview gives the central twist a clear purpose: selecting creatures changes your tactical tools, while positioning determines how those tools and their vulnerable organiser survive together.

Protect the person who keeps volunteering

Trainer styles add another choice. Some help move allies into position, others join the fighting, and others support creatures through food. The human isn't simply a fragile object you must drag around. They have a contribution to make, which creates a more interesting tension between using them effectively and keeping the run's failure condition away from trouble.

A trainer who can help directly may tempt you to commit more aggressively. A supportive style might encourage a different arrangement. The important relationship is between the trainer's role and the creatures surrounding them. Protecting a leader is more engaging when the leader has something useful to do beyond looking worried in the safest available square.

Equipment and charms add further ways to shape that relationship, while levelling and evolution introduce moves. These layers are appealing when they change how the team works, not just how impressive its members look in isolation. A powerful collection still needs a workable formation. Nine squares leave limited room for everybody to express their individuality simultaneously.

Small board, genuine decisions

The compact battlefield should appeal to deckbuilding players who want positioning without managing a sprawling map. Constraints make differences between creatures matter. A card can be useful in one arrangement and awkward in another, while a good-looking group can reveal a practical weakness once everyone has to occupy actual space.

That also makes Montabi more demanding than a relaxed collecting project. There are card interactions, spatial consequences and a run-ending trainer to consider. If the main attraction is finding creatures and keeping every favourite indefinitely comfortable, pay attention to the roguelike structure. The team is being built to function through danger, not merely pose together in a very small garden.

The city's wider run structure includes more than thirty randomised events and cafés where health can be recovered. Saving the city from the X Gang supplies a straightforward purpose, leaving the systems to provide the complicated decisions. A café is also a pleasantly civilised feature in a game that otherwise asks whether your entire plan can survive the trainer standing in the wrong place.

Pick a starting point that suits the experiment

The official Steam update history records September's version 1.0.5, which lets players choose from unlocked starter Montabi or randomise the selection. Random trainer and starting-charm options are available too. Version 1.0.6 then restored Classic Mode, offering a choice from three starters. Those are PC update details, not proof that every console has received identical patches on the same schedule.

The options support different kinds of curiosity. Choosing a familiar starter lets you revisit a specific idea or learn a deck more deliberately. A limited selection asks you to work with what is offered instead. Both can be enjoyable, and neither needs to be declared the only respectable way to play. Sometimes you want an unexpected puzzle. Sometimes you want your favourite strange little teammate back because the previous attempt ended before the idea had a fair chance.

Keeping that choice is more useful than forcing surprise on everyone. A run-based game can support experimentation through both control and uncertainty. The player trying to understand a particular combination and the player trying to improvise from an awkward beginning are doing different, equally reasonable things with the same system.

Montabi makes its clearest case where creature collecting meets tactical curiosity. Individual decks give companions a job, the grid makes their relationships physical, and the trainer ensures the person issuing instructions shares the risk. If building a functional team sounds as satisfying as finding its members, that combination has a good reason to exist. Just remember that the human needs protecting too. Enthusiasm is not a defensive statistic.