and now the new demo is up! Wow!
https://josh-bossie.itch.io/village-monsters#download
(Available on Windows, Mac and Linux)
It's free and available to everyone, so why not try it out, eh?
I've had really tremendous response to this demo compared to the last one I put out in January. Gives me a great deal of hope that maybe this whole thing will work out after all
New trailer is up!
It's been nearly 2 years since the last one, so it was long overdue. I know I've made a lot of progress because I can't even look at my old trailer without getting violently ill all over my keyboard and monitor. Hopefully this one ages better
I've been meaning to resurrect this topic for a while!
Hey, my name is Josh and I've been an ally for a long while. In early 2017 I quit my job (after a long time scrimping and saving) to make a major change: becoming a indie game developer. I've been working on Village Monsters ever since!
I used to have a dev log here but fell off of it to focus more on development. Since then I've done tons of work and am nearing a really major milestone: releasing my first game!
Phew, ok, let's look at the boilerplate...
Quick Info
Village Monsters is an open-ended village life set in the world of a long-forgotten video game. You play as a human living in a community of (mostly) friendly monsters
Live a different kind of life in a different kind of world!
Befriend dozens of whimsical monster villagers, each with their own quirky personalities, interests, and problems to solve.
Engage in a variety of daily tasks and activities like earning money with a part time job, joining in village events and holidays, going on adventures - or just hanging out with your monster pals and watching some TV.
Buy a fixer-upper and sink your entire life savings into it to make it your very own comfy-cozy homestead.
Pursue many interesting hobbies that let you hunt for treasure, collect and train creatures, cultivate mushroom gardens, and catch legendary fish.
Unravel unique personal stories as you build friendships and learn the history (and secrets) of the village and its inhabitants.
Explore vast and strange areas outside the village ranging from vibrant forests, arctic deserts, fog-choked valleys, and the ruins of a best-forgotten empire.
Immerse yourself in a truly simulated world that boasts shifting weather patterns, sweeping seasonal changes, and interesting system interactions.
Harness the glitches of a run-down game and use them to empower your skills and fix this neglected world.
Night in the Woods. A fantastic and strange game, but one I can't really recommend due to all its problems
I don't think I've played a game where the writing is so hot and cold. Its characters are fun and it tackles themes that nobody else does with a grace and level of understanding that is so dang admirable. But then it has characters who act like they learned how to speak from watching Juno hundreds of times, and the tone is never quite sure if it wants to be Twin Peaks or Scooby Doo, and there's all this setup without any sort of payoff, and then the game just ends almost out of nowhere
It's a very deliberately paced game which is not an inherently bad thing, but you need to commit to either "slice of life" stuff or a tension buildup to an exciting climax, and the game doesn't do either. Left a bad taste in my mouth
I disagree strongly with this change.
From a purely emotional perspective the stars are part of the EZA brand for me. To lose them means giving up a major part of its identity, and that's a bummer.
But it also doesn't even make sense within the context of their explanation.
This is not a site that reviews bad games. We will never, ever see a game rated 5 or less. So what's the point of making the scale bigger?
Further, numerical scales always invite comparison in a way that stars do not. reviews will always fall apart when you start comparing them, especially across different reviewers.
This must be due to some outdated notion that Metacritic in any way provides visibility. It doesn't. Think of other sites on the same strata as EZA - how many use 20 point scoring scale? How many score games at all? Not Kinda Funny Games. Not Giant Bomb.
You're removing something that makes EZA unique and replacing it with something that has no benefits. It's impossible to be happy with that.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!!
It was a long, strange journey, but I could not be any more grateful for all the support I've had for my dumb little game.
I ended up taking the weekend off for the first time in forever, but I'm back at it this week. Lots to do, assess and analyze...but I'm ready for it. It's going to be a hell of a year.
Love & Respect!
What seemed like a depressing longshot has turned into a possible victory in the 11th hour - uh, literally.
An insanely generous user at another forum has breathed new life into this campaign, and it looks like it could actually make it
Please consider backing my game on Kickstarter if this seems interesting to you!
Last week I released a new demo for Village Monsters, and today the Kickstarter campaign crosses the 50% funded mark!
Time is starting to run out if you want to grab an exclusive Kickstarter reward, including:
Many of these rewards are limited and won't be around forever, so what are you waiting for?
Click Here to Back Village Monsters!
Click Here to Support our Thunderclap!
Definitely wouldn't mind if he brought this exact format to EZA. Kyle monologues are great.
It's almost like Nintendo just lucked into Club Nintendo, because My Nintendo is absolutely terrible
@binarymelon said in [Official] What are you playing?:
Super Mario Galaxy (never played either and need to get ready for Odyssey)
I Am Setsuna (I needed something to play on the switch. Already owned it on PS4, but never got around to finishing it.)
God I'd love to play Galaxy for the first time again
@Quecken said in Divinity: Original Sin 2 (PC):
@CGamor7 The game is mostly awesome. I say mostly because there are still a couple of annoying bugs. One of which causes some quests in Act 1 to not finish if you do the objectives in a certain order. It's happened to 5 quests for me. According to
they're working on it though.Otherwise I can't recommend the game enough! I'm about 30 hours in and not out of Act 1 yet. The world is gorgeous, the voice acting is really good and the combat is so rewarding. The characters are interesting as well.
@jipostus Wow that looks nice! And yeah, it really does feel like a solid RPG experience.
Yeah, the only 'problem' I have with Larian games is that it never feels like a good move to grab their games at launch - not only do they suffer from bugs, but inevitably they change some pretty major things in future patches.
I'm hyped to get started on this game, but I may end up waiting a few months just to see how it shakes out
The whirlwind rages on.
It's stressful, sure, but there's also something fun about running around like your hair is on fire - it makes the days feel a lot more productive
I'm foregoing the typical weekend digest this week because a) I don't have time, and b) I didn't really do a whole lot on the game this week/ Still, I do have a few things to chat about, so let's make like a gun and bullet.
Oh, and again, I'd be silly to not link to the Kickstarter at the top of the post! If you like what you see in this topic and want to support me, then please consider sharing or making a pledge.
[### Regarding the Game...
Well, that'll do it for now. Hopefully this coming week is a bit slower, as I'll be able to get more done on the game - including more dev streams!
I was blown away by Mario - like, that's an overused phrase, but it's incredibly apt this time. Like Kyle I had to just look away for most of it because holy hell, there's a lot going on that I want to experience myself
Xeno2 was cool and confirmation of 2017 is all I needed. Octopath is rad. EO5 demo on the 3DS was rad. I'm looking forward to the 3DS being retired, but it's having a good time of it.
Still, biggest bummer? No Animal Crossing. I mean hell, I'm literally in the process of Kickstarting an AC-clone so a new AC would probably hurt me a lot, but I was desperate for something. Anything!
I don't even want to play the mobile game, but the fact that it was delayed and then just hasn't been talked about at all is so mysterious to me. It's been half a decade since New Leaf, and the Switch (and the WiiU!) are both perfect Animal Crossing platforms. Yet we've heard nothing - not even a teaser
Where is it?!
I can't stop playing old games! This time I grabbed Enslaved for $5 and played a couple hours this morning.
It's soooo good
OP updated. Thank you to all the allies for your support!
Thank you guys so much!!! <3 Love my fellow Allies.
I still have to update the OP at some point - it's so old and...bad! Hopefully later today.
Because man...what a whirlwind the last 36 hours have been. I'm not exactly sure how much sleep I've grabbed since this thing launched, but it's surely not a lot
Hopefully I'm not being too annoying spamming this, but I'd be remiss not to include a link to the Kickstarter at the top of this post :)
A few notes!
Things will most likely slow down from here on out if previous Kickstarters are any indication. I'm very ok with that, as I'll use the 'downtime' to resume working on the game. I'm hoping to get out several new releases between now and the end of the Kickstarter, though of course they'll be smaller in size than the previous bi-monthly demos.
Thanks as always for following along!
Oh, hello! Got some big news!
Village Monsters is officially LIVE on Kickstarter!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/389391560/village-monsters-a-monstrous-life-sim-game
There's also a new trailer!
Later on today I'll also update the OP, though I'm a bit busy right now :)
Hello monster friends!
It's the weekend, and that means another edition of the [B]Village Monsters Dev Diary Digest[/B] (VMD3)
The marathon continues! This past week saw the release of the latest demo, and it was a big one.
I want to thank all the people who took the time to share feedback! You are making Village Monsters a better game. You can expect another release tomorrow that contains more features and bugfixes reported via feedback
The Kickstarter is coming soon. Real soon. As in, in the next 48 hours! I'm so pumped. And nervous. Mostly pumped!
As with last week I'm going to keep the text at a minimum and make this a screenshot blitz. Let's get to it
I did a fair amount of work on the last hobby prototype, [B]Cooking[/B]. It's far from where I want it, but it'll improve over time
Remember the potion system? I went and combined it with food effects to open the door for all sorts of goofy fun. Snowberry Shrooms now properly chill you to the bone, while Spicy Shrooms put an extra kick in your step
A new area, the forest, has been implemented. This is also your first chance to investigate some of the glitches and faults ruining the world outside the village
The first of many quests have been added - meet all villagers in town! There's no reward for finding them all (yet...), but it's a good way to track your progress
Finally, more helper text has been added to Home Customizer mode. You also are automatically placed in this mode when placing a new piece of furniture
Booted up an oldie buy a goldie today - F.E.A.R.!
The AI is a bit over-exaggerated in terms of how good it is, but it still feels better than nearly any other FPS created in the last 5 years