More of the same really. More goofy romance antics, more about escalating each joke to whatever height of absurdity it can manage.

The writing feels more polished somehow, which is good given how much longer routes tend to go than last time. The first Monster Prom dealt with general dating sim archetypes with violent twists (and the occasional sincerity hidden beneath the walls). Now in their second adventure, the game takes a lot more swings. Damien's violent fight shtick (with a hidden sensitive side etc etc) settles into genuine character growth, as he just sort of lets himself be sensitive more often. The Slayer in the first game was mostly a violent distraction, with her secret romance route mostly being a joke too. Camp builds off that route's ending of "girl get therapy" to having her genuinely settle down and face her biggest anxieties. Joy the Witch was a Buffy/Charmed joke, but now she's got these interesting workaholic layers as she tries and fails to enjoy her relaxing vacation.

My personal fave is Dahlia. The aspiring General of the Eight Circles of Hell initially seems like Damien 2, but somehow she comes off more adorably earnest than anything. Damien's violence perpetually placed him as King of the Fuck Mountain, while Dahlia has this angle of always striving for something. Its random violence versus purposeful, desperate, eager to please and prove herself violence. Damien's (initially) too cool for school and scared of being called a baby, Dahlia jumps into every single task without shame or hesitation. Its a subtle difference, but its an endearing distinction. The secret endings highlight all of this, as her personality and confidence crumble when she's forced to actually decipher her purpose as something beyond Damien's Rival. It works! Watching her eagerly scramble after scout badges is charming! I was charmed!

It also helps that the female body types are body diverse this time. Joy the witch is allowed to be large and curvy, Dahlia's the muscle god, The Slayer filling out the petite archetypes that most of Monster Prom contained. The male and nb options generally fall into muscled or slim, but its robots and skeletons so. It is what it is.

I only briefly talked about the mechanics in Monster Prom 1, but seeing how they've shifted in this game is genuinely fascinating. Prom featured six different stats: Money, Cool, Charm, etc. Occasionally, you'd have to consider whether to spend a turn at the school store, dropping your money stat in exchange for something new. The money stat and the school store is abandoned. The risk of wasting a turn browsing for items you couldn't afford is no longer possible.

Instead, Camp invents the Drink system. Every two turns, you're required to select a beverage from the campus store. You have a permanent selection of free drinks, but what drinks appear in that alcohol chest are determined by what drinks you've bought on the main menu. (These are bought with "summer memories," which you automatically collect by just playing rounds of the game). If you don't have any of those free drinks, or you just want to add some spice to the playthrough, the bartender will give you a random drink. This can raise stats, lower stats, put you on a secret ending, change your character's name, change the music, change the backgrounds, whatever the fuck. It keeps the game fresh dozens of hours in. It makes the party game much more of a party.

It also just feels like you have more control of the game that before. Since secret endings are more tied to drinks than random events, its much easier to direct the game towards the scenes you want to see. Both MP and MC have achievements tied to seeing every event and outcome. Outcomes being every successful or failed stat check. There was no way to catalogue that in MP, you just had to take notes and hope for the best. MC provides a complete list of every event and checks off what prompts you succeeded or failed. I'm never gonna go for all the outcomes bc, you know, I have things to do, but I like that the feature exists. It also provides a list of "special stuff", signaling events that might provide unique characters or outfits that could be missed on a regular playthrough.

However, this can be limiting too. Giving the player this much control cuts down on repetition, but it does end some of the random factor. It took me 25 hours to see the secret endings I wanted in Monster Prom 1, it took me 15 hours for Monster Camp. This is probably for the best. I've played 40 hours of these two games combined, I understand the flow of these events. I know the pattern of the jokes. Its a game designed for short absurdist bursts with friends.

More personally, I did the co-op romance ending with my partner and I don't know how to explain that the compatibility quiz made me cry with how seen and connected I felt. Beautiful night. We did it months ago, during a time when I wasn't sick, but I still think fondly of it. Gotta give it a good grade for that at the very least.

Unfortunately, the sequel to monster prom is less engaging than the original - I think it's still a solid enough game, particularly if you enjoy the characters enough to want to see more than them. I can imagine this still being fun for playing casually with friends also, it just wouldn't have hooked me like monprom did.

The upsides:
- The routes continue to be fun. Highlights are darkest ending and Liam father.
- aaravi and dahlia here
- campfire is cute
- special events
- drinks are fun first time round

Downsides:
- event length
- no of events
- the drinks shop
- side characters feel less integrated into the game.
- no wolfpack :(
- no Miri :(

I am gonna come back and edit this review into non bullet points I need to do other stuff

I do think this game is an overall improvement from the first game. The writing is honestly better, it still has at times borderlands levels of humor based purely on knowing pop culture references but when it is not that its a pretty decent time. I do ultimately think I am not the biggest fan of the core concept of these games of making a dating game as a party game you can play with friends. By making each round at most an hour long I do not really get much out of it as I would an actual visual novel. Still I like the characters and art, and I would even say I far far like the cast here then the first game. I think the party game aspect is a little pretty here also though I do not like the drinking minigame at ALL. Ultimately still not a game that I am in love with in any way but I could see myself playing more of it if ever in a mood. Helltaker girl being a playable character took me by massive surprise.

Monster Camp is an improvement over its predecessor in terms of gameplay, writing, and replayability - but I still wish it was a bit more transparent with how parts of the game worked.

My wife and I played Monster Prom a few times and never felt like we fully grasped it - you could perform seemingly quite well while wooing your preferred partner, and then still get turned down for prom. It wasn't until we looked up a guide that we learned your results are based on stats not performance. Sadly, there's little incentive to keep replaying the game once you've gotten a couple endings, so we dropped it. Monster Camp fixes most of those issues.

The Monster Prom series is basically a multiplayer dating sim where you’re all trying to romance someone and get them to agree to go on a date with you - either to prom in the first game, or to the meteor shower in the sequel. A dating “run” attempt takes anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the game length you choose and how many people you are playing with. Most of the time, my wife and I played just the two of us, but we did manage a couple games with more friends which was quite fun.

Monster Camp's new cast of characters is immediately more likable as a whole, and fan favorites from Monster Prom come back as either romance options or as guest characters. The writing throughout had us genuinely laughing far more than I expected to and the art for every scenario is fantastic. I didn’t love the new drinking “minigame” at first because it’s totally random and can completely screw up your run if you get a bad drink that nukes your stats. Thankfully, you can unlock the ability to bypass the drink randomization through the new in-game shop.The addition of a currency you can earn and spend in the “Meta Shop” gives you something to work toward and a reason to keep doing runs. You can spend that currency on frivolous things like fun costumes, or on actual gameplay benefits like stat-boosting drinks to help you in your runs. I would actually really love to collect everything in the shop, if the runs didn't take so long and didn't have so much dang reading.

My biggest gripe with the game is that it still doesn't correct the opaqueness of Monster Prom. We knew what we were doing because we played the original and looked up guides, but this game still does not explain how anything works which is not friendly to new players. You can buy instruction manuals in the Meta Shop, but they shouldn't lock basic things like "how do I play this game" behind in-game unlocks.

Overall, Monster Camp is a nice step-up from Monster Prom, so much so that we wanted to keep playing to see more of the delightful writing and goofy situations, and to unlock more in the Meta Shop. We loved our time with the game, but wished parts of it were explained better.

+ Goofy and surprisingly funny writing
+ Great cast of characters
+ New in-game unlock system that adds to replayability
+ Fantastic art throughout
+ Fun multiplayer

- Little-to-no explanation of the core game mechanics
- Runs take a long time and I found myself getting impatient with all the reading

Monster Prom but Twoer.

Still has the same problems as the original (being pigeonholed into a single romance path at the very start of the game through a semi-vague question, answers to scenarios being l0lrandom enough where it's difficult at times to discern what stats they draw from, the writing itself being super hit-or-miss, special endings requiring you succeed at most three sequential events in a row or else you fail it for the entire run, knowing you had an essentailly 50/50 chance of actually having fun or just being treated like a jackass, etc.) The difficulty is also unexpectedly high, my friend essentially aced every question with Aaravi until the very last event, which caused him to fall out with her at the very last second. It's also like, really hard to keep up the energy to read out loud for even the short games when you're not a YouTuber (~90 minutes). But hey, it's more Monster Prom, so if you like that I guess you'll like this one as well.

(Also also also the amount of Whedonisms/Lampshade Hanging in these games is sometimes just...too much? We encountered the Evil Capitalist Billionaire CEO who threatened to bulldoze the camp to make a shopping mall like, 4 different times. Yeah, I get it, it's a common camp trope and you're intentionally drawing light on it for comedic effect, write something else it's getting tired)

In many ways, it’s just as cute and fun as its predecessor. But in comparison, routes go on for noticeably longer and can become a drag. I also have mixed feelings about the new drink system. If the routes were shorter, then runs getting messed with by the drinks wouldn’t be a big deal, but since they’re as long as they are, depending on how the drink affects your run, it can be very frustrating to have your progress hindered by them. It’s still a fun time, but you’ll get tired of it faster than Monster Prom.

Also, Zoe is no longer a dateable character, which is a huge disappointment (though they did add her as a playable character, which is great for trans inclusivity. I just miss having her as a dating option…).

Roughly just as good as the last game, but that's inherently means for a score dock in a sequel. The first game is fun for a bit and this one isn't bad, but I don't care for the changes to the line up of love interests, the series' juvenile humor is starting to lose its audacious charm by now, and being saddled with a bestie you might not even like right off the bat defeats the purpose of exploring your options over a longer playthrough. By this installment you're more or less encouraged to pick someone to go after right off the bat and that's kind of a bummer, I felt less restricted to explore hotties in the last game, weirdly.

Won over my dream goth gf Joy though so I can't complain too much. Have a feeling Roadtrip is more the evolution I'm looking for.