How to catch monsters in MonsterCam.

The three steps to catch any monster

1. Open the MonsterCam app and tap the camera tab. Make sure at least one credit is ready — credits show as a green pill above the shutter button.
2. Point your phone at any interesting scene. Indoors, outdoors, weird corners, the bookshelf, the park, your grandma's garden — anywhere works. Rarer monsters tend to live in unusual scenes you don't normally photograph.
3. Tap the shutter. The screen flashes, and after about 5 seconds your photo reappears with a monster inside it. The card flips and adds the catch to your Dex.

Tips for catching rare monsters

The spawn engine weights monsters by how well your scene matches their preferred habitat. So if you want to maximize rare pulls:

• Go to new places. The same room every day will dry up — variety is the single biggest factor.
• Try unusual scenes. Under the sink, the back of a closet, the parking lot at night, the cereal aisle. The spawn engine has scene tags for these and they unlock different monsters.
• Check the Monster Dex to see which Common monsters you're missing — their habitat hints tell you where to look.
• Pay attention to time of day. Some Legendaries only show up at night (Cosmoo lives in the night sky), others prefer daylight scenes.

How the spawn engine actually works

When you tap the shutter, the server picks a monster using a weighted random selection. The weight for each monster is computed as:

Base pull rate × scene-match factor × habitat factor × time-of-day factor × indoor/outdoor factor

About 15% of catches are off-scene — meaning even if no monster matches your scene strongly, you still get a "wild" pull. This keeps catching feel rewarding even when you're photographing something the system doesn't have great tags for.

What if I run out of credits?

Free trainers get 3 starting credits and earn 2 more every 6 hours, up to a small free cap. If you want to hunt more often, you can buy a credit pack at one of four flat prices ($1.99, $4.99, $9.99, $19.99) — there's no gacha, just a credit count.

Why my friend caught a different monster from the same scene

Every catch is unique. Even taking what looks like the "same" photo as your friend, you get different pixels — and even with identical pixels, the spawn engine includes randomness in the final weighted pick. Two trainers will never catch the same instance of a monster.

Common questions while catching

Why does my catch take 5–10 seconds to appear?

The server is generating the composite image with an AI model. That takes a few seconds. We've optimized it down with provisioned compute so most catches resolve in under 7 seconds.

Why does the monster sometimes look weirdly placed?

The AI does its best, but very busy scenes or scenes with lots of human faces can confuse it. Try a scene with one clear focal point (a sink, a chair, a tree, a corner) for cleaner composites.

Can I retake a catch I don't like?

Catches are final — that's part of the collection ethos. But you can catch the same monster again later in a different scene; each catch is a unique card in your Dex.