Why MiniMonos was More Than Just a Game
As you all know, it is with great sadness that the MiniMonos team has announced the closing of its wondrous game. For some, this may simply be the ridding of a fun pastime, but to most us, I know it is much more. As more myself, I know I am one of those people. For the past two years (well, a little more than), MiniMonos has been my home away from home, if you will. It’s a place that I could go to when I was bored, having a bad day, or just looking for some fun, and I could basically escape the true world. As time went on, the MiniMonos developers continuously found ways to bring more entertainment to the game through constant features and new updates. Some things about MiniMonos, however, just made it pure amazingness for me.
One thing that always amazed me about MiniMonos was the staff’s involvement in the community. In other virtual worlds, that’s just something you really don’t see. With MiniMonos, it’s an often occurrence to find an ambassador (or party master) online. I think even the fact that they had a party master shows how much they truly care. The involvement of the ambassadors, though, just made this such an astounding world. One great example of this would have to be the Pirates vs. Ninjas party. What started as a simple costume party hosted by a few blogs, turned into a huge island themed party with the help of none other than the amazing Badgerfox. That kind of dedication to the community stood out to me more than anything.
As mentioned before, MiniMonos was like my home away from home. A home though, isn’t one without a family there. Through MiniMonos, I made great friendships with people from truly all around the world. Something that’s always amazed me is how close and kind the entire community of MiniMonos was. Kindness was always predominantly shown from every player, even in times when it would be easier to not be nice. The main reason for this I believe was the amount of pride the ambassadors put upon us players for being good to one another. To make such a positive atmosphere constantly is not an easy feat (trust me), and the fact that they were able to keep it so nice just blows my mind. It truly shows how amazing they all are. Through this kind community they made, friendships blossomed and remained long term. As said though, the thing that truly astounds me is how they united people from all across the world. Together, we all united for one common interest in mind- making the world a better place for our future.
MiniMonos’ pure devotion to helping the world is the other thing in my mind that put this world way over the top. In other virtual worlds, the “saving the planet” theme slowly started to creep in. MiniMonos, however, was based around this. Their goal was to change the planet through making the youth of the world want to change it, something they accomplished very well. I mean, they encouraged 1,500 people to go out and make a true difference in the world. While some things may be considered small contributions, every little bit counts, and none of those changes would have happened without the influence of MiniMonos. I’ve always been one to try and stay relatively eco-friendly, but rarely did I go out and make true changes to the world. MiniMonos opened my eyes and encouraged me to go out and help not only my community now, but the future generations of the world. Through its time, MiniMonos never managed to stray from the path of trying to help the world. They showed true dedication to what they believed in and what was right, and to me that is just simply amazing.
As many of you may know, I was greatly involved in the MiniMonos community for quite a great time. As life caught up and got more busy, I began to fade from the community a bit, but still stopped in for a hello when I could. Despite this, MiniMonos still offered me many great opportunities. In my time here, I was able to accomplish many things. Obviously, I opened the blog MiniMonosExpress. Originally, it was just myself blogging, but as time went on, new authors began to be hired and do a fantastic job. With the help of EcoMom (original), I had the opportunity to help lead the EcoMonkey project as the EcoMonkey Team Leader and be the first EcoMonkey. In another instance, with the help of Badgerfox and Bananatastic, the Pirates vs Ninjas party, which I had originally planned to be a small little get together, bloomed into a huge island wide party with tons of monkeys showing up for the original event (that Bananatastic and I led). Another great opportunity that Bananatastic gave me was to help him with a Thanksgiving video, running around asking monkeys to say what they were thankful for. It was a lot of fun to get to know new monkeys by doing this. Through these experiences, I will say that they made me a better person, not just in this virtual world, but in the true world, and for that I thank you all.
Below are some photos and links that I considered of importance. I hope you will view them the same.
Pirates vs. Ninjas Original Party Thread
MiniMonos’ Impact on the World
An old header, one of my favorites.
Blog Certification
Mogger of the Month Awards
EcoMonkey Badges
(I will add in world pictures later, but they are on an old hard drive, so I’ll have to search for them.)
Now, as you can imagine, it’s a bit difficult to blog about a virtual world that’s no longer running. So, I must sadly also announce the closing of this blog. Now, the blog won’t be deleted. I’m going to leave it here as an archive of sorts (and for the nostalgia value). We may also have some occasional postings here still, especially in the following days. I’d like to thank you all for being so amazing and making it possible for us here at MiniMonosExpress to keep doing what we do. You all mean alot to us. Thank you.
I know this is a long post, but I think this is a topic that deserves it. However, I’ll try to wrap this up.
To the MiniMonos Staff,
If there’s anything I want to be taken from this, please do not view MiniMonos as a failure. In my eyes, as I hope it is in yours, it was a great success. Speaking for myself, I know MiniMonos greatly changed me for the better. Logging into MiniMonos used to almost always be the highlight of my day. Getting on to talk with the ambassadors and all my friends that I had made was just such an amazing feeling. Being able to come to this virtual world for just even 15 minutes a day as an escape from the real world really helped me through some rough times. MiniMonos truly helped out. Obviously, I’m not the only one affected by you, though. I know for certain many other members felt the same way as I do about MiniMonos. Being apart of such a great community has truly been one of the greatest experiences of my lifetime. The 35 months I’ve been here have truly been fantastic months. All the joy in this time that MiniMonos has brought me cannot even come close to being expressed in words.
I’d also like to congratulate you on reaching the one main goal you set out to do- changing the world for the better. Think simply of all the monkeys who have joined the game- it’s well over a million. All these people came here with one common interest, saving the planet. You united us all to do something that is difficult to do by oneself, while also proving that every little contribution by every person helps. With all the players, EcoMonkeys, and more, you have truly helped to change the world for the future generations. Whether a monkey was compelled enough to do an ecoproject or not, you at MiniMonos help changed the way they view what they do and how it hurts the environment. Through their experiences here at MiniMonos, all players have learned to care about the environment, and such a powerful influence from the staff has led to us all making real life changes on the world. That is just astounding. A virtual world, full of people around the globe, coming together to save the planet we love because of your influence. If you ask me, I’d say changing millions of kids’ outlook on the world is in no way a failure. Thank you so much to all the friends I’ve made here on MiniMonos. Thank you so much to all the staff that worked so hard to make all us players enjoy being here. You have truly changed my life and all the other player’s life for the brighter.
Thank you MiniMonos.
Thank you.
MiniMonos says Farewell @Minimonos
Hey Monkeys,
as you may have heard, MiniMonos will be closing its gates on May 12th. MiniMonos has been a great game and I would like to thank all the current and resigned staff (old EcoMom, AlwaysMonkeys, MissDawg etc.) I was digging through old posts here on MiniMonosExpress and found some posts and images all the way back to 2010 (Alpha) as well as some others!
Here are some pictures:
Original MiniMonos Island:
Map before:
Map now:
Pie table at treehouses!:
Now for the posts:
Very first Pirates vs. Ninjas Party!
Traderz show decks and ninja showdown release
All in all, MiniMonos has come a very long way from 2010 to what it is today!
This blog and it’s pages will remain up for memories 🙂 I also have zip files of characters and alpha items from the first MiniMonos Wiki so if you are interested just leave a comment with your email or send me a tweet on twitter @hayitsyawn
Original post from the Go Bananas Blog:
Hey there Monkeys,
It is with great sadness that I must announce the closure of the online virtual world MiniMonos.com, as of Sunday, May 12th 2013. MiniMonos has been a huge joy and massive amounts of work by many people. We can no longer keep the world going, and develop the apps that we are so excited about at the same time.
Everyday for the last four years we have been delighted, moved, and inspired by the community of kids who are part of MiniMonos. Our team has worked so hard to make the world what it is because we are excited by what kids can do to make the world a better place.
Almost 1500 of you have had eco- projects approved. Hundreds of awesome monkeys have commented on our blog, written guest posts, created your own fan blogs, and contributed art and fun into our world. You have helped us to adopt orangutans through Orangutan Outreach, made donations to Born Free Foundation’s Lion project, WWF’s Tiger Initiative and helped provide clean water for other kids in India with Buy1Give1! You monkeys are amazing people!
Thank you awesome monkeys for the love you have shown us, and each other. You are the most inspiring group of people I have ever had the joy of knowing and monkeying around with.
Like us, many of you will be sad, disappointed, and maybe even angry at this news. Those are normal and OK feelings to have. We have been feeling the same way! I hope you use these last few weeks of MiniMonos to hang out with your friends, complete the levels and make some last memories of the world. Get together with your friends and party on… Bananatastic will be hosting parties right until the last day!
We hope you will take pictures and post your memories to our blog, and tweet us too! If you send us some of your favourite pictures, we will post them online. I still have some wonderful screenshots (remember the first 50 monkeys? The first x-powers?), and I would love to be able to collect yours too. Please send your screenshots and pictures to us at mutt@minimonos.comWe will be planning some big events coming up to the last weekend and will keep you posted on what those are! We will be having a HUGE party on the 12th, keep an eye out for details. We are hoping that a lot of the staff will be around that day to party up and say goodbye.
We are really sad to say goodbye to the virtual world, but super excited about what a difference you will make in the real world.
— AlphaMonkey and The MiniMonos Team
Please email any queries to info@minimonos.com
Epic Earth Day Weekend!
In celebration of Earth Day on Monday on April 22nd, we’re going to be partying ALL weekend on MiniMonos!
Bananatastic will be hosting HEAPS of pop-up parties with EPIC prizes!
Grab your buddies, gift EPIC earth xPowers to eachother, and get ready for an EPIC Earth Day weekend!
BONUS ‘Go Macaws’ xPowers!
All of your buddies will be FLYING around with excitement once they see your NEW ‘Go Macaws’ xPowers!
Purchase Shells, Banana Chips or a MiniMonos Gold membership between now and midday on Monday and get 40 BONUS ‘Go Macaws’ on MiniMonos!
Offer ends midday Monday April 22nd, Monkey Time (GMT).
Win a RARE MonkeyMe iPhone Case!
What is your favorite item or pack on our new app, MonkeyMe? Everymonkey who lets us know will be put in the draw to win a REAL MiniMonos iPhone case!
In addition, everymonkey who tells us what MonkeyMe item they think is bananamazing will win 1,000 Banana Chips on MiniMonos!
Let us know your favorite items soon… the contest ends April 22nd! Click here for more information on how to enter this EPIC contest!
Monday Mix-up: Our favorite fashions!
Here’s a mix-up of our favorite fashions this week from our new app MonkeyMe and MiniMonos island!
Snowbody knows how to rock a Snowboard like Xmanhunter and Caitlin1998!
Let’s make some noise and BUG OUT for these awesome outfits!
Silly faces and viking helmets are a perfect match!
VIPER, Tipski, and Jas1206 paint themselves pink!
Do you know anymonkey that always rocks a cool outfit? Give them a shout out in the comments below!
Eco Hero updates on MiniMonos!
Jump into the GOLD ONLY VIP room at Bimini Rocks this weekend to pick up NEW Hero xPowers!
Guardian, Inventor, and Warrior xPowers will be avaliable to grab as you visit the VIP room!
There’s a new mission for all monkeys who are following the Way of the Guardian. Help save mother macaw to earn Guardian XPs during Wildlife Rescue!
BONUS Beefeater Costume!
Jump around in this EPIC Beef Eater costume this weekend when you make a purchase on MiniMonos!
Purchase Shells, Banana Chips or a MiniMonos Gold membership between now and midday on Monday and get a BONUS Beef Eater costume on MiniMonos!
Offer ends midday Monday April 8th, Monkey Time (GMT).
Have you tried MonkeyMe yet? We want to hear from you!
Have you tried our NEW iOS app, MonkeyMe?
You can style a monkey, enter it in the daily competition, and vote on other monkeys! It’s monkeylicious!
After you’ve given MonkeyMe a try,please rate & review it in the app store on iTunes for us!
Writing a review and rating will only take a few seconds, and we would LOVE to hear what YOU think!
Happy MonkeyMe-ing!
World Book Day Giveaway Winners!
On March 7th, we celebrated World Book Day, which encourages all over the world to pick up a book and start reading!
We teamed up with some bananatastic authors for two World Book Day giveaways, and it’s time to announce the winners!
After reading our Interview with Francesca Simon,Bluie9 won a prize pack filled with Horrid Henrybooks by Francesca Simon AND a 1 Month MiniMonos Gold Membership!
Dynamo12 was the lucky monkey who won our second giveaway! He won a 1-Month Membership and a pack of books byLiz Pichon, author of The Brilliant World of Tom Gates! Check out our Interview with Liz Pichon here!
We would like to thank Liz Pichon and Francesca Simon for helping us celebrate World Book Day 2013!
Are you currently reading any awesome books? Let us know in the comments below!
MiniMonosExpress 