Everyone’s gaga for catching and training monsters. It’s a shockingly popular genre, which makes its overall lack of representation on the App Store all the more odd. That’s not so say that no one’s ever tried, but there just aren’t that many choices at the moment. Greyhound Games, with help from ZigZaGame, is looking to do their part by releasing Dragon Island.

The overall concept of Dragon Island is as expected: capture monsters, level-up monsters, evolve and combine monsters to create new monsters and fight other monsters with said monsters. What sets it apart from the scant few other games in the genre on iOS is the use of actual time instead of energy or mana, setting a specific lineup for monsters (think “batting order”), a sprawling map full of places to explore and dungeons. The dungeons are of particular note because they’re not only randomly-generated, but can also contain special monsters, treasures, their own towns and even other dungeons.

Currently the game is about 75% complete (according to the developer), and they’re looking to the community to take it well beyond the 100% mark. They’ve set up a Kickstarter page to raise funds so that they can include more of, well, everything. More monsters, more dungeons, more items and more game in general.

What’s there is already looking really good (placeholder graphics notwithstanding). I’m particularly fond of the monster illustrations. And the thought of Roguelike dungeons in a monster-collecting rpg has me salivating something fierce. If anyone echoes my sentiment, then I urge them to look into Dragon Island. Don’t forget to take a gander at the handful of monster images (20+ out of 200) in the gallery below, either. Also, “LOL” at Unhappy Bird.