Monster Prom - The Competitive Dating Sim
I first heard of Monster Prom when my fiance went to GDC in early 2017. He told me about this "quirky competitive dating simulator," with monsters twinks that I would love. Since then I've been keeping a close eye on Beautiful Glitches' upcoming indie title. A year later, it's finally arrived.
My fiance and I fired up the game (and streamed our first game), ready to fight over the first adorable monster we see. As the game's intro played we were introduced to our 6 possible love interests. Right away Alex said, "You're going to go for the twinky demon aren't you?" Naturally I was. "Well tough, because I'm going for him too." Thus the stage was set for me and Alex fighting over Damien LaVey.
Monster Prom has charm up the wazoo. It's genuinely funny with a self-aware humour that many games try and fail to achieve. While we played, it quickly became my favourite game of the year so far.
Right off the bat, I was happy to see that when it came to selecting your character you could choose which pronouns that you'd prefer. It's such a small detail but it makes the game so much more accessible and inclusive. Bravo to the developers for that.
It's 3 weeks until prom, you still haven't gotten a date yet. So you need to spend next weeks wooing your chosen potential love interest, while also attending classes to improve your character's statistics.
Like normal dating simulators, you're put into situations where you need to make a decision, choose your own adventure style, and your choices have a different effect on your relationships. Monster Prom gives a fresh spin on the genre by making it competitive!
Before each 'week' you are given a prompt, and whoever gives the funniest answer gets to go first. Then at different points during the game, you are given chances to ruin the potential relationship of your fellow competitors.
It gives such a refreshing twist on the dating sim genre, and makes it a fantastic coach co-op game to play with people. I'm not going to go into any more details about the game because I think this game is better the less you know about it going in. Right now it's on Steam for £9. It's well worth the money.
Jack Dixon is a gamer, cinephile, and more than likely he's the guy who's ignoring you on Grindr. Tweet him @Jackaphobia. Support his writing on Patreon!