Dragon City is a Mon Mobile Phone Game and Spiritual Successor of Dragon Vale introduced by SocialPoint in May of 2012.
The idea is to raise magical floating islands of various magical dragons. As of 2024, there are nearly 2000 species. The other mechanics are the same as Dragon Vale: grow food to feed your dragons, battle them with Elemental Powers, breed them, and participate in events to unlock exclusive ones.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurd Phobia: In his description, the Gingerbread Dragon is said to be terrified of milk. Makes sense, since he is a cookie.
- Allegedly Free Game: Many tasks have long waiting times of hours, in which you'll have to fork your gems, the premium currency, over if you're impatient. Many high tier dragons in events take a lot of coins to reach, which you'll likely have to buy with real money if you want them within the timeframe. Not to mention the VIP Dragons, very expensive and overpowered dragons that will give the rich kids a lot of prestige.
- Atlantis: The Atlantis Dragon is the forme guardian of it and the Atlantean Dragon is the guardian of its heart, which is a stone. The Aquaking Dragon is said to have escaped from it just before its destruction. There was also an Event called the Atlantis Island.
- Basilisk and Cockatrice: The Basilisk Dragon is a purely reptilian creature said to descend from the Basilisk of legend. The Chicken Dragon, with its reptilian wings, claws and tail, strong resembles common depictions of cockatrices.
- Bizarro Elements: The Ancient Elements are a special kind of elements originating from the Ancient World. There are six of them: Happy, Chaos, Magic, Soul, Beauty and Dream. They only have an effect against each other.
- Breath Weapon: Several dragons have various breath weapons. For instance, the Flaming Rock Dragon and the Flame Dragon can breathe fire.
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": There are many "dragons" who vaguely look like dragons, besides their few reptilian features, such as the Cactus Dragon and the fox-like Slugabed Dragon.
- Captain Ersatz: Many dragons were themed after pop culture characters, such as the ones from Idol Island (No Celebrities Were Harmed) and Video Game Island, so much that it would take a subpage to list them all.
Most were replaced with originals though. - Catlike Dragons: The literal Cat Dragon, the Two-Colored Dragon, the Cheshire Cat Dragon, the Neko Dragon and the Kitty Dragon all resemble cats with horns and dragon wings. The Catkun Dragon is a more anthropomorphic panther with draconic wings. There are also other feline-like dragon, such as the Tiger Dragon, the Panther Dragon, the Chimera Dragon, the Mr. Beast Dragon, and the Double Primal Dragon.
- Cherry Blossom Girl: The Sakura Dragon. A guy in this case. His description: “Cherry blossoms represent ephemeral beauty. The Sakura Dragon is indeed beautiful, but his beauty, far from being evanescent, remains eternal.”
- Color-Coded Elements: Brown for Terra, red for Flame, blue for Sea, green for Nature, yellow for Electric, light blue for Ice, silver for Metal, black for Dark, bright yellow for Light, orange for War, purple for Legend, dark brown for Primal, teal for Wind, grey for Time and pink for Beauty.
- Com Mons: The Flame Dragon, the Terra Dragon, the Volcano Dragon, and the Flaming Rock Dragon. As they double as Starter Mon, they are all hatched and recalled in only a minute, while the other dragons take hours to do so.
- Cumulonemesis: The Storm Dragon is made entirely out of grey clouds, loves stormy weather, and fights with rain and electric attacks.
- Delightful Dragon: Most of the baby dragons, and some of the adult dragons (such as the Friendship Dragon), happen to look cute, playful, and friendly.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: There are several dino-themed or dino-looking dragons, like the T-Rex Dragon, the Pterodactyl Dragon, the Brontosaurus Dragon, and The Good Dragon. The Multidimensional Dragon looks like a Ceratopsian. The High Supremacy Dragon is also stated to be a relative of the T-Rex.
- Dragon Hoard: Dragons don't only hoard gold, they generate gold for you.
- Dragons Are Demonic: Some of the dragons take inspiration of a demon, are demons themselves or have something to do with Hell, like the Demon Dragon, the Hellgate Dragon, the Devil Dragon, the Hell Twins Dragon, the Succuby Dragon, the Glutty Dragon, the Cerbery Dragon, the Satanny Dragon, the Diablo Dragon, the Demonic Dragon and the Demon Viper Dragon.
- Dragon Variety Pack: The game has lots of dragons species which come in different shapes. Included are Western dragons like the Flame Dragon, basilisks like the Basilisk Dragon, hydras like the Hydra Dragon, serpentine Asian-style dragons like the Jade Dragon, and other dragons which don't really tick the typical boxes (including the fox-like Slugabed Dragon and the Unicorn-like Unicorn Dragon).
- Elemental Dragon: Dragons can have one to four different elements which change their appearance to match. Breeding different elements together can create stronger dragons that tend to reflect a combination of those elements — for instance, a Flame Dragon and a Terra Dragon can create a Volcano Dragon.
- Elemental Powers: You betcha. There's Terra, Flame, Sea, Nature, Electric, Ice, Metal, Dark, Light, War, Pure, Legend, Primal, Wind, and Time. There are also Ancient Elements: Happy, Chaos, Magic, Soul, Beauty and Dream.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: The battles use the elements to gauge strength and weakness in attack, based on the first element of the dragon. In a twist to the standard, Sea and Flame are mutually effective against each other. Ancient Elements only have an effect against each other.
- Eyelid Pull Taunt: In one of Nyx's sprites, she mocks the player by her pulling down one lower eyelid while sticking out her tongue.
- Fairy Dragons: Fairy Dragons are insect-winged creatures that were created as intermediaries between dragons and fairies.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Although the game's focus is dragons, a few (see Hybrid Monster) imply that the other fantasy creatures also exist.
- Feathered Serpent:
- The Ozone Dragon is a serpentine, legless creature with a bird's head and four feathered wings.
- The Quetzal Dragon is based on modern depictions of Quetzalcoatl as a winged creature, and hails from the Mesoamerican jungle.
- Fiery Salamander: The Salamander Dragon, who has the Fire element.
- Fingore: According to her description, the Nature Dragon has eaten "a finger or two".
- Fire/Ice Duo: The Ice & Fire Dragon is a two-headed (and two-tailed) dragon with one side ice-powered and the other side flame-powered.
- Floating Continent: The main setting of the game takes place on floating islands, with nothing but sky all around. You can unlock different types of floating islands that match the different habitats, like a big ice or lava island, as you progress.
- G-Rated Sex: In the Breeding Den, dragons will just walk around each other to breed.
- Guest Fighter: The Monstrous Dragon is Musu from Monster Legends.
- Heart Symbol: To further imply what's happening, pink hearts show up near the Breeding Den when two dragons are breeding.
- Hot Wings: Dragons with the Flame element often have these.
- Hybrid Monster: A handful, including the Nisse, Unicorn, Chimera and Fairy Dragons.
- I Taste Delicious: Some food-themed dragons lick themselves in their animation. This is the case for the Ice Cream Dragon and the Froyo Dragon. The Jelly Dragon is shown eating the tip of her tail.
- Kraken and Leviathan: The Leviathan Dragon is an immense, serpentine sea dragon said to have destroyed entire civilizations.
- Living Dream:
- The dragons with the Dream element are said to be this according to the description of the Dream habitat.
- The Blue Fire Dragon is this according to its description: “Some kids dream of strange creatures while sleeping. That’s the case for Blue Fire Dragon, who came from a kid’s dream straight into Dragon City!”. Despite this, this dragon doesn’t have the Dream Element.
- Lost World: The Ancient World, the home of Ancient Dragons, where you can mine gems, craft some of them, use them to summon Ancient Dragons, then breed the latter to obtain and bring dragons with Ancient Elements into your island.
- Master of Illusion: The Illusion Dragon, although he does that because he likes to test other’s mind, not for bad intentions. The Wandering Dragon, the Cubic Dragon and the Strange Dragon are also one.
- Mon: Your goal is to collect dragons, feed them to level up, put them in battle, and breed them to receive new dragons.
- Multiple-Tailed Beast: Some dragons have two tails or more, like the Ice & Fire Dragon and the Mwahaha Dragon.
- Never Grew Up: The Never Grow Dragon and the Child Forever Dragon look almost the same as they were in their baby form. The only differences between their baby, young and adult forms is their color scheme and their growing horns. The reason for their non-grow is explained differently in their description:
- In the Never Grow Dragon's case, it is his wish of staying young that was granted by Deus.
- In the Child Forever Dragon’s case, it is because she has been stuck by purple lightnings as a baby, which froze her appearance in time.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Our Alebrijes Are Different: The Alebrije Dragon is categorized as a Light Dragon. Its description reads that as a dreamwalker, the alebrije dragon's appearance is subject to whatever the dream dictates it to be.
- Our Dragons Are Different: There are over 1000 different dragons. They're typically reptilian, or avian, or both in some form, can have wings, can use Elemental Powers, and live on plants.
- Our Hydras Are Different: The Hydra Dragon is a wingless, four-headed creature (two-headed in their baby form, three-headed in their young form, and four-headed in their adult form) described as having poisonous breath — although in practice their attacks are all electricity- or water-based — and are rumored to be able to grow back two heads for every one cut off.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Most of the dragons are fairly normal, while others are more surreal. Example: The Mojito Dragon is literally a mojito glass with clawed arms and legs and facial features.
- Our Wyverns Are Different: The Wyvern Dragon.
- Palette Swap: A few. An example would be the Alpine Dragon simply being the Volcano Dragon with white palette.
- Pattern-Coded Eggs: Eggs have the same theme as the dragons that hatch from them. For example, the origami dragon hatches from an egg made of folded paper. They can also have body parts, such as horns, and accessories of the species. The Bananoss Dragon’s egg even shows the head!
- Pink Is Erotic: Pink hearts show up while dragons are breeding to imply what's happening.
- Planimal: There are a lot of dragons that are part plant, most of which have the Nature element.
- Product Placement: Several YouTubers who were sponsored by Social Point have dragon versions of them in this game, such as Mr. Beast and Lachlan.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: A rare non-player example. The dragons have confirmed genders, as seen with "he/she" pronouns in their descriptions, and some have Tertiary Sexual Characteristics to prove it, but their genders don't really matter beyond that. Their randomly-generated names can be Gender Blender and the player can breed any dragon despite their described gender.
- Rainbows and Unicorns: The Unicorn Dragon has a rainbow-colored mane.
- Scales of Justice: A few examples exist.
- A dragon called the Zodiac Libra Dragon can be found in the Epic Dragon Pack, said dragon has scales hanging off it's horns and the constellation has long since been associated with law.
- A dragon called the Justice Dragon exists emulating Lady Justice with her blindfold, though instead of having actual scales it just has a emblem on it's chest and egg with the scales on it.
- Seahorses Are Dragons: The Seahorse Dragon, who looks like a giant seahorse with wings.
- Sea Serpents: Several dragons with the Sea element as primary, such as the Sea, Nessie, Leviathan, Monstrous and Twister Dragons, possess the serpentine bodies and reduced or absent limbs of these creatures.
- Secret Character: The Butterfly Dragon was not available in the store, but could be bred. This was fixed in later versions of the game, however.
- Takes One to Kill One: The Legendary Type is only weak against the Legendary Type.
- Technicolor Fire: The Cool Fire Dragon's flames are blue/white and the Dark Fire Dragon's flames are dark purple.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Some female dragons have eyelashes (like the Amethyst Dragon) but their genders aren't otherwise apparent in their designs.
- Unicorn: The Unicorn Dragon, a rainbow-maned hybrid that can cure any disease and smells like cotton candy. The Dainty dragon is a distant relative of them.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: The Food of the dragons all consist of plants and are represented by red berries. Some dragons are shown to be eating insects, and the Pure Sea Dragon eats fish, but those are meant to be aesthetic animation.
- Video Game Perversity Potential: There's no filter when naming your dragons, so don't be surprised if you see a dragon with a profane name in the Leagues or Arena.
- Wings Do Nothing: The Soccer Dragon, the Gold Dragon, the Platinum Dragon, the Pirate Dragon, the Korean Soccer Dragon and the Storm Dragon have wings, but they are never seen flying.
