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Website: http://monsterprom.pizza/
Price: $9.59 USD (GOG/Steam)
Blurb: “Embark on a road trip like no other in this co-op narrative survival adventure. Visit fun locations, meet wacky characters, and manage your resources wisely. And yes: you still can date some hot monsters“
Monster prom 3 is a game you can play solo or with up to 4 players.
Before considering this game, know that this game is squarely aimed at “Furries” and while it is not my bag baby, it may be yours!
The main reason I am looking at it, is because it currently has a demo on Steam, where it is rated “Overwhelmingly positive”. I have not played any of the other games in the series, so I cannot compare it to them.
Monster Roadtrip is the third entry in the Monster Prom series on game. However, this one differs from what I now know about the previous ones, instead of playing through decisions, to accumulate stats and impress specific crushes, you're traveling through the desert to reach a desired “Roadtrip” Destination!
The main game loop reminds me of IXION, hold up, hear me out. You travel to a destination, and make a choice or choices that affect your stats, allowing you to move forward or not. The “side gig” in IXION was city building and resource management, and in this it is supposedly romance and resource management. IXION had a real-time feel and this has a visual novel feel.
In Monster Prom Roadtrip, you have six resources you need to keep an eye on as you travel: Hype, Magic, Mind, Money, Soul, and Stamina. Events at every stop will raise and lower these resources based on the choices you make; your job is to keep them above zero to reach the end of the game.
The game is decked out in all the bells and whistles, you have achievement and badges and stickers and whatnot for your meta game-play progression. A lot of effort went into making the game fun and if it were not for them pushing some political agenda, it could have been a lot more fun. That said, this is not a game for the little ones, there are a lot of expletives in the game, I think it is referred to as “strong language” and adult themes.
On the positive side, it runs on a potato. (But you do need a display card, so VM won’t cut it) I tested it on a Core2Duo laptop with a Radeon 300? and it runs. So if you have a machine less than 10 years old, with enough memory, chances are, it will run fine. Ubuntu is officially supported, so there are no installation issues with dependencies etc.
The music in the game tries to keep to a theme and the voice acting is not bad at all. You get to choose between four types of music too, before you set out on your adventure. The music is structured so that it does not feel too repetitive or get on your nerves. (There is even an alternate soundtrack)
The graphics are simple and colourful and do give off a cartoon vibe with smiling characters in almost every frame.
The charm of this game is not in the graphics though, they are all really well done, but in the writing / dialogue. The humour is sometimes completely off the wall. It will have you smiling and grinning to completely sitting back laughing in no time. If you choose an easy difficulty, there is no way for you to fail deep dialogues, so go for crazy. The choices always seem to have a “good” and a “bad” choice, but the “good” choice may have “bad” choices within. The very first turn, you have a choice between a motel and a biker bar. The image of the motel looks run down, the biker bar is all shiny and hovering over each, the tooltips even feel positive and negative. However in the biker bar, you get into a fight, which I doubt would have happened in the motel. Do note, every encounter has the chance to drain one of your stats and raise another, so choose wisely. Though this is one of the core mechanics in the game, it is also the main flaw, as some choices affect one thing this time and another the next, making it feel like you are tied to a roll of the dice.
Overall, it is thoughtful, providing alternate soundtracks for streamers and trigger warnings for the more adult stuff. If the imaginary issues like pronouns and so forth rile you up, I’d avoid this game, if you can look past that and the swearing, there may be a bit of fun to be had. Is it worth ten bucks? Maybe. It all depends on your sense of humour.