Village Monsters is a solo dev project from Josh Bosser. It’s a pixel art town sim that departs from conventional titles with an alternative community of friendly monsters. The game plays on similar genre themes as Stardew Valley but the content goes into the outsider/quirk genre of games with its monster acceptance communicated in each character’s unconventional friendliness.
It departs from too much comparison by offering a vast amount of exclusive unique story concepts in each character’s backstory and dialogue. Players can also enjoy activities like treasure hunting, fishing, exploring, working, and contributing to the town itself. Village Monsters is pleasantly surprising and the subject of this indie game collective showcase/review post. So, let’s see what’s inside!
This game is available on Steam.
The Progressive Charm of Village Monsters
There is a lot of thought packed into the charming presentation of Village Monsters. There is no leaf unturned when it comes to the purpose of the world’s layout, although I had approached the whole thing sort of skeptically at first due to the promised scope of the game. It really is all here though, and the threads of its connectedness are not unraveled into inconsistency. Instead, the game offers a solid experience is offered. The result of exploring Village Monsters is interesting and rewarding.
The premise of the game starts with a casual plotline involving being the first human to visit the village of monsters in ages. As this is fairly disruptive to some villagers, your character awaits trial by a court at the day’s end to determine what will happen. This introductory period is enough time to explore the main spots in town and see who is who and even make a few friends. That’s helpful since this is basically the main premise of the game.
I really enjoy the variety of characters and hobbies in Village Monsters. It’s not by any means a horror concept; actually, it is very definitely a cozy title, and not to a fault. I’ve had a generous interest in monsters for years. One thing I love about the topic is how neatly they wrap a metaphor into a character by merging appearance with its archetypes. Friendly monsters become the foreign mutant/alien counterpart that exists to fill the remaining areas of monster lore. In Village Monsters, this form of expression is the purpose of its story. It is also an interesting dip into what I consider the outsider art area of the indie game community.
Screenshots of Village Monsters
Features of Village Monsters
The game is available by purchase, but no fret because there are tons of features that allow for some vast replayability and quality value.
- A diverse world filled with friendly monsters.
- Hobbies like treasure-hunting, fishing, gardening, and collecting/training creatures.
- Make friends and learn a well-written backstory
- Check out other areas of the world with different climates
- An immersive environment with seasons, weather, and corresponding events
- Cozy pixel art that engages monster themes in a fairly pleasant way
- Get your own place by refurbishing a fixer-upper
- Find yourself bobbing your head to a pleasant soundtrack
- A storyline quest involving collecting “glitches” and fixing the game (intentionally)
- Discover secrets and explore!
Additional Thoughts
My exploration of Village Monsters fills a void for me in the town sim genre. While cozy games are nice, I like a little more creative diversity sometimes. There’s a massive chasm to the games out there that bounce between ultimate comfort and its awkward weird counterparts. There’s plenty of room for all, but I often just want to skip the social hyperbole and just escape into a neat game. That’s what’s here, and it gets a near full pie of recommendation for me. There are a couple of features that I couldn’t figure out the intentionality of, but I suspect this is explored further in the Village Monsters’ gameplay.
So, I guess another IGC game has managed to captivate me by helping me try a game on the leading edge of artistic indie games for you. If you’re looking for something a little more unusual but comfortable to play, there’s a whole world to explore here with lots of story-rich characters. Make sure to check out the game’s listings on a whopping profile of consoles and PC/Mac.
And as usual, thank you for reading Mr. Dave Pizza, be sure to explore the many reviews and articles on this site.
For information on the Indie Game Collective, go here.
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