Today I learned that competitive dating sims not only exist, but are wildly specific in their focus. At least that’s the impression I came away with after checking out the Kickstarter campaign for Beautiful Glitch’s Monster Prom.
An absurd mixture of choose-your-own-adventure and dating sim mechanics, Monster Prom offers one-to-four person local multiplayer. Players have a limited number of turns to explore their monster school. Along the way they meet their classmates and engage in bizarre monster school events. With 6 classmates to woo, each choice and interaction offers the potential for success or failure in landing a date to the Monster Prom.
Players can compete for the affections of the love interests or aid each other on their separate paths. The game will feature over 1,000 different possible scenarios as well as multiple endings. Right from its trailer it is clear that Monster Prom doesn’t intend to take itself too seriously and instead embraces the absurdity of its premise. Combined with decent graphics and humorous nods to modern romance (selfies, dick pics, and dating apps) the game actually looks reasonably fun. A quirky visual novel to share with your friends.
Sharing is Caring?
I feel like this crosses a line somehow.
For such a silly game it’s also surprisingly progressive. Monsters can be romanced by either gender and have no preferences regarding sexual orientation. Beautiful Glitch admits that it was just less work on their part to do away with such petty limitations, but what the hell, I’ll take it.
The campaign is a little unclear about how the multiplayer mechanics work. There is also no mention of how the single player experience measures up. You know, just in case you don’t have a handful of friends willing to help you romance a vampire hipster. Monster Prom is seeking $8,703 on Kickstarter with an expected digital release as early as March of 2017.
