played with the Second Term DLC
Each time I do runs of Monster Prom, I'm surprised at how much I enjoy it. I don't mean this as a put down I use to mask my insecurity or the veil of "guilty pleasure", I mean it more so as to how many elements in this are and are not my thing.
I don't like how the conversational function of the RNG is executed. It's not that there's too many variables or whatnot, more so that it's hard to parse. Alongside the general wooing from each interaction - doesn't even have to be a successful one, but obviously doing it correctly nets the bigger bonus - there's a hidden check behind the scenes that'll tick on whether your chosen candidate will take up your offer to prom, yet the game never so much as to allude to the fact, meaning you're sort of supposed to figure it out either by guess work, careful assessment of the game's stat system and how they would correlate with a certain character, or a flat-out guide. There are sentences that are either easy to make educated assumptions as to what stat represents them, or are like worded in such a way they can refer to multiple different ones instead. Also not helping is that, if two stats for an event are tied in numerical value, you sometimes get the "fail" state anyway. Again, you more or less have to bust out a guide for this, even if some can be rather unfinished due to how many events and outcomes are available with or without the aforementioned DLC.
There's also the writing. As someone that has largely abstained from going "this is just [WEBSITE] bait" since it sounds super fuckin stupid and asinine, even I gotta admit the prose and general dialog is particularly Tumblr-aligned: meta humor, hyperspecific pop culture nods of varying years, different ties into fandom culture (I didn't get the event this time unlike in 2021, but they can sometimes talk about Starco and Markypoo, ship names in regards to Star Vs The Forces Of Evil. I am not making this up.), gags relying on overly simplifying a character's main trait, some strangely focused angles on fetishistic kinks here and there, stuff of those nature. In fact, if you squint your eyes real hard, you can even feel traces of Homestuck seeping in the depths of the fish girl Miranda Vanderblit, or how werewolf Scott Howl is literally just a stand-in for Arin Hanson, right down to being voiced by him! I'm pretty sure JackSepticEye also voices a character introduced in one of the game's updates... Also there's a Kappa character in the Second Term DLC that's pretty clearly supposed to be a manifestation of right-wing shitheels, but it isn't really like, funny, he annoys me just as much as the real ones do.
It has a number of strains, but thankfully I'm not jaded from online shenanigans just yet, so I can just sit back and enjoy the ride still. In my replay, I have done things such as
- car breeding
- a wild conspiracy journey about the meaning of the Caganer with literal hothead demon prince Damien and hipster vampire douche Liam de Lioncourt
- convincing the bitchy gorgon Vera Oberlin to cut off one of her snake heads to set an example for the others
- somehow ended up teaching yaoi to Liam, as a heads up for the imgur album, there's nothing explicit but it is rather raunchy
- brought a corpse to prom
- Zoe. Just, just Zoe. She was my favorite from the whole game despite being limited to the DLC.
Also sad to announce I did find some of it funny. I even laughed hard at a couple of lines, mostly the intentional ones anyway. It seems I too am just as wired to the infrastructure like some people are. Aw well. Really the only main lead I didn't laugh with was Scott for obvious reasons, Polly can be fun. Plus, I said the conversational RNG is rather bad, the other forms such as which events are triggered and increasing the stats are pretty easy to game the system on. I play this solo so I can't quite say for certain how they'd work for a multiplayer session, nor am I a diehard completionist so I'm not willing to see how bad this can get, but for casual endeavors at least it's competent and solid.
Hopefully the abundant of imgur images I've uploaded has shown the great artwork by Arthur 'CptHamburger', who's pretty active on social media and has an ArtStation page to boot. Even the protag designs are slam dunks, which makes me pretty glad the game has a pronoun option (no custom ones, only he/she/they) so I can just pick whichever when I feel like it. Already showed one of Zoe's routes is about her trans status, and I think there's supposed to be a polygamous ending in the DLC too? I'm cis and strictly monogamous, so I dunno how enticing and well-meaning these elements can be to other LGBT+ folk, but I feel there's enough of a grasp of honest intent and learning available to commend their efforts.
Should be noted that it's best to approach this as it's structured, which is mainly as a party affair than a strictly VN-like experience. I mean, you could do that, but considering you're dealing with either a 30 or 60 minute session with the potential of seeing the same sort of flow and dialog over and over, it's an easy way to obtain burn out. Just go with the flow.
I do have Monster Camp and Monster Trip, so I should take a look at those down the line, see if they improved on the formula or not.
Each time I do runs of Monster Prom, I'm surprised at how much I enjoy it. I don't mean this as a put down I use to mask my insecurity or the veil of "guilty pleasure", I mean it more so as to how many elements in this are and are not my thing.
I don't like how the conversational function of the RNG is executed. It's not that there's too many variables or whatnot, more so that it's hard to parse. Alongside the general wooing from each interaction - doesn't even have to be a successful one, but obviously doing it correctly nets the bigger bonus - there's a hidden check behind the scenes that'll tick on whether your chosen candidate will take up your offer to prom, yet the game never so much as to allude to the fact, meaning you're sort of supposed to figure it out either by guess work, careful assessment of the game's stat system and how they would correlate with a certain character, or a flat-out guide. There are sentences that are either easy to make educated assumptions as to what stat represents them, or are like worded in such a way they can refer to multiple different ones instead. Also not helping is that, if two stats for an event are tied in numerical value, you sometimes get the "fail" state anyway. Again, you more or less have to bust out a guide for this, even if some can be rather unfinished due to how many events and outcomes are available with or without the aforementioned DLC.
There's also the writing. As someone that has largely abstained from going "this is just [WEBSITE] bait" since it sounds super fuckin stupid and asinine, even I gotta admit the prose and general dialog is particularly Tumblr-aligned: meta humor, hyperspecific pop culture nods of varying years, different ties into fandom culture (I didn't get the event this time unlike in 2021, but they can sometimes talk about Starco and Markypoo, ship names in regards to Star Vs The Forces Of Evil. I am not making this up.), gags relying on overly simplifying a character's main trait, some strangely focused angles on fetishistic kinks here and there, stuff of those nature. In fact, if you squint your eyes real hard, you can even feel traces of Homestuck seeping in the depths of the fish girl Miranda Vanderblit, or how werewolf Scott Howl is literally just a stand-in for Arin Hanson, right down to being voiced by him! I'm pretty sure JackSepticEye also voices a character introduced in one of the game's updates... Also there's a Kappa character in the Second Term DLC that's pretty clearly supposed to be a manifestation of right-wing shitheels, but it isn't really like, funny, he annoys me just as much as the real ones do.
It has a number of strains, but thankfully I'm not jaded from online shenanigans just yet, so I can just sit back and enjoy the ride still. In my replay, I have done things such as
- car breeding
- a wild conspiracy journey about the meaning of the Caganer with literal hothead demon prince Damien and hipster vampire douche Liam de Lioncourt
- convincing the bitchy gorgon Vera Oberlin to cut off one of her snake heads to set an example for the others
- somehow ended up teaching yaoi to Liam, as a heads up for the imgur album, there's nothing explicit but it is rather raunchy
- brought a corpse to prom
- Zoe. Just, just Zoe. She was my favorite from the whole game despite being limited to the DLC.
Also sad to announce I did find some of it funny. I even laughed hard at a couple of lines, mostly the intentional ones anyway. It seems I too am just as wired to the infrastructure like some people are. Aw well. Really the only main lead I didn't laugh with was Scott for obvious reasons, Polly can be fun. Plus, I said the conversational RNG is rather bad, the other forms such as which events are triggered and increasing the stats are pretty easy to game the system on. I play this solo so I can't quite say for certain how they'd work for a multiplayer session, nor am I a diehard completionist so I'm not willing to see how bad this can get, but for casual endeavors at least it's competent and solid.
Hopefully the abundant of imgur images I've uploaded has shown the great artwork by Arthur 'CptHamburger', who's pretty active on social media and has an ArtStation page to boot. Even the protag designs are slam dunks, which makes me pretty glad the game has a pronoun option (no custom ones, only he/she/they) so I can just pick whichever when I feel like it. Already showed one of Zoe's routes is about her trans status, and I think there's supposed to be a polygamous ending in the DLC too? I'm cis and strictly monogamous, so I dunno how enticing and well-meaning these elements can be to other LGBT+ folk, but I feel there's enough of a grasp of honest intent and learning available to commend their efforts.
Should be noted that it's best to approach this as it's structured, which is mainly as a party affair than a strictly VN-like experience. I mean, you could do that, but considering you're dealing with either a 30 or 60 minute session with the potential of seeing the same sort of flow and dialog over and over, it's an easy way to obtain burn out. Just go with the flow.
I do have Monster Camp and Monster Trip, so I should take a look at those down the line, see if they improved on the formula or not.