Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster  (Read 4648 times)

SeriousConcentrate

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Hollow Street Hero
    • View Profile
SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« on: May 09, 2016, 10:14:09 am »

During the Devolver Digital Sale, I noticed that a game I quite enjoyed - Always Sometimes Monsters - was getting a sequel: Sometimes Always Monsters. One of the features advertised for this was save importing and it occurred to me that... I don't have a save ready for when it comes out, not since I switched computers and all. And I thought maybe people that were curious about this game might like to join me on my trip through this game, and also for my first LP here on B12.

Updates won't be very long; for one thing, I'm just going to summarize most of the dialogue instead of providing a screenshot for every line of it. Partially this is because I have slow internet and I can't spend all day uploading screenshots, and partially because... well, you can consider it motivation to play the game yourself too? I'll be the first to say that maybe this isn't necessarily a great game (the Salt City location alone kind of disqualifies it; more on that when we get there) but I found it an interesting exercise; enough to gift a copy to my friend Tiruin a year or two ago, and I don't often throw games I like at people.

So what is Always Sometimes Monsters about? Put simply, it's the story of a failed writer making a last ditch, cross-country effort to crash the wedding of their old flame and maybe see if the spark is still there. One of the selling points is that you don't necessarily have to be a white dude chasing a white girl; you get to select your character and your love interest from a variety of pre-made characters and you can play gay, straight, or interracial if that's your preference. Premise aside, it's an RPG Maker game that focuses mostly on your decisions - usually between the easy, immoral way and the difficult, moral way although occasionally there is a third option. Essentially you ask yourself what matters more: the means or the end. You're on a tight schedule before that wedding takes place; is it worth it to steal the spare change out of people's coats at a concert to make sure you have the bus fare to quickly reach the next city, or do you sacrifice the time to earn the money legitimately?

Hopefully I've intrigued you at least a little; perhaps enough to read the rest? Without further ado, let's begin...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The game begins in a dark alleyway as an older man is yelling at his employee to return. It quickly becomes obvious that the older man is a very shady character as he all but says the younger man is a contract killer, but the young man blows him off and walks away...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...until, at the end of the alley, they are stopped by a bum asking for spare change. The older man gets hostile, but the bum is bemused, noting that this encounter seems familiar. After a few more moments of bluster, the bum escalates matters.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The bum offers them a choice: listen to their story, or pull the trigger. And yes, you can straight up murder them for one of the multiple endings. Since I don't think that would make an interesting post, I chose to listen instead. The bum begins their story at a party, and here we're introduced to our first major player in the story: Larry, the publisher. He's in the center of the picture below.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He's throwing a party at his apartment for all sorts of creative types: writers, artists, etc. You can even find the developers of the game in this first section (they're in the lower left corner) and talk to them a bit, but I chose to skip them in favor of progression. This is how we choose our protagonist; each character in the apartment save for Larry's significant other will offer him a drink, and who you choose to drink with is who you will play as.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This douchebag is Ron. I thought about playing as him because he looks a little like me and bourbon is my drink, but I can choose what I want to look like and in that case it's not going to be someone who looks like me. :P

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is Donovan. To me he resembles a light-skinned, punk rock Cinder and he has the same name as my middle name. He's the best looking male in my opinion and so that's who we're going to be playing as. Now that we've picked our character, Larry asks us to go get our 'friend' so we can all toast together. So we head out to the patio.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All of these characters (except for the dude with white glasses and light hair and the guy he's talking to) are our potential love interest. The guy with white glasses is our friend Darkeff; we'll talk to him more in Beaton. The dude he's talking to is one of the guys who wrote the soundtrack in another cameo, if that floats your boat.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is Kira. She's hands-down the best looking love interest of all the available picks; sad to say, most of them kind of suck. However I'm not straight and neither is Donovan so we're not picking her. I just wanted to show her off.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is Eric. The male love interest selection is slim pickings, and he's the only one that doesn't look like he both carries a pocket protector and can get his ass kicked by a decaying raccoon. Ain't nothing wrong with blasian love, unless you're some kind of bigot. Anyway, once you've made your selection, your love interest asks you to sign the card for Larry, prompting you to enter both your name and theirs. You can name them whatever you want, but I'm going with the canon - as an aside, the only way to find out their 'real' names is to not pick them and then run across them later in the game, but someone was helpful enough to make a guide on Steam that lists most of them.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We head inside as the title drops, and the game resumes with us talking to Larry and his girl. Everyone makes a toast, and we get to choose what we want to toast.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I chose To The Future! because Not Screwing Up! is literally impossible. We fade to black as everyone drinks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The premise of the gameplay - such as it is - is laid out for us, and then we see our character sleeping as we get the credits along the bottom of the screen and someone slips a letter under the door. I skipped it for your convenience. Eventually our alarm goes off, but it turns out we programmed it wrong and we spend a few moments resetting it before we're given control of our character. There's a few miscellaneous things we can do here, but I immediately hit the menu to save the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now the game truly begins. We're alone in our apartment. There's no cash to our name and all we have in our inventory is our alarm clock, our beeper, a sandwich (yes we slept with a sandwich in our pocket), and thirty blank pages in our journal. I'll end it here with a question: when we begin, we'll need to get some cash. So do we honor a promise, or do we assist someone in need? And just how honorable should we be?
« Last Edit: May 10, 2016, 03:09:11 pm by SeriousConcentrate »
Logged
SerCon Shorts: This Is How You Do It - Twenty-three one minute or less videos of random stupidity in AC:U, Bloodborne, DS2:SotFS, Salt & Sanctuary, and The Witcher 3.

Iituem

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2016, 10:30:30 am »

Let's honour a promise.  No way that can horribly backfire!
« Last Edit: May 09, 2016, 10:53:15 am by Iituem »
Logged
Let's Play Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magic Obscura! - The adventures of Jack Hunt, gentleman rogue.

No slaughtering every man, woman and child we see just to teleport to the moon.

Haspen

  • Bay Watcher
  • Cthuwu
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2016, 11:25:25 am »

PTW. Also:

Let's honour a promise.  No way that can horribly backfire!
Logged
SigFlags!
Fire Emblem on Forums: 8! + 6re!
Quote from: Draignean@Spamkingdom+
Truly, we have the most uniquely talented spy network in all existence.
Quote from: mightymushroom@Spamkingdom#
Please tell me the Royal Physician didn't go to the same college as the Spymaster.

A Thing

  • Bay Watcher
  • I'm here for ya, kid.
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2016, 11:46:52 am »

I'll end it here with a question: when we begin, we'll need to get some cash. So do we honor a promise, or do we assist someone in need? And just how honorable should we be?

If that is the choice the game is giving you, this is off to a bad start. What is the promise? Is it to kill a man? To walk someone's dog? To watch someone's house while their away? Despite what the game might have just said about evaluation this choice is so vague I might as well be rolling a dice. With that being said, here is my vote.



I guess that'll be to help someone in need. As for honor? Sure, honor is cool I guess. Not far enough in the game to see how feasible being honorable is yet, but let's be honorable man.

Also, I don't really mind the summation but I don't exactly see why you would have to screenshot every bit of dialogue otherwise. Why not transcribe the major points and summarize the rest?
« Last Edit: May 09, 2016, 12:01:59 pm by A Thing »
Logged
Wasteland 1 & 2
"Power Couple: Markus Athing & Cyborg 45"

Makes me curious, can cyborgs have future babies too?
On the offchance they can, I know who I want my daddy to be
(finished)Age of Decadence

SeriousConcentrate

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Hollow Street Hero
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2016, 11:57:40 am »

Nah, the game makes the choice obvious. I'm the one being vague, for dramatic purposes. :P
Logged
SerCon Shorts: This Is How You Do It - Twenty-three one minute or less videos of random stupidity in AC:U, Bloodborne, DS2:SotFS, Salt & Sanctuary, and The Witcher 3.

A Thing

  • Bay Watcher
  • I'm here for ya, kid.
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2016, 12:07:19 pm »

I can sorta understand that, but this seems like the wrong choice to do it on. Should probably save the vague choices for the more morally decisive things.
Logged
Wasteland 1 & 2
"Power Couple: Markus Athing & Cyborg 45"

Makes me curious, can cyborgs have future babies too?
On the offchance they can, I know who I want my daddy to be
(finished)Age of Decadence

SeriousConcentrate

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Hollow Street Hero
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2016, 12:11:00 pm »

Fair enough, and I'll do that in the future. As said, this is my first LP (hopefully not my last :P) so I'm going to be fumbling around a bit until I can get a style worked out.
Logged
SerCon Shorts: This Is How You Do It - Twenty-three one minute or less videos of random stupidity in AC:U, Bloodborne, DS2:SotFS, Salt & Sanctuary, and The Witcher 3.

A Thing

  • Bay Watcher
  • I'm here for ya, kid.
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2016, 12:22:05 pm »

I can certainly understand, it took me until part 6 of my first LP before I realized what style it was going to be.

Having looked up the decision it seems like helping someone in need is what I would've chosen anyway so I'll keep my vote on that.
Logged
Wasteland 1 & 2
"Power Couple: Markus Athing & Cyborg 45"

Makes me curious, can cyborgs have future babies too?
On the offchance they can, I know who I want my daddy to be
(finished)Age of Decadence

Harry Baldman

  • Bay Watcher
  • What do I care for your suffering?
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2016, 12:37:13 pm »

Let's honour a promise.  No way that can horribly backfire!

Yeah, let's do that.
Logged

SeriousConcentrate

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Hollow Street Hero
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2016, 01:38:17 am »

All righty, let's have us an update.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We pick back up in the apartment. There's a few things we can do here; for example, we can use the dartboard and watch Donovan throw darts at it, or try to change clothes only to be told he's not changing. Let's just focus on the important things.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yay.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The first time I played this game, there wasn't actually a penalty for starving. I'm going to take this food just in case anyway.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Always Sometimes Monsters Love You. Let's check our mail next.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah that's a problem.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We promised our friend Darkeff we'd help him out, and this is a reminder of that. In light of what A Thing said, I probably could (and should) have cut the first update in a couple of pictures, but I'll do better on this one. Pinkie swear.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is our apartment building; our room is 43 on the far right. You can peek into Room 42 to see poor sprite sex if you care, and Room 41 for someone smoking a bong, but I didn't bother taking screenshots. On the far left is Mrs. Tewilager; she lives in Room 40.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We chat with her a bit. This sweet old lady gives us an offer to help her clean her apartment, but we're helping Darkeff out right now so I turn her down and take the elevator down.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I will NEVER find all of these things, but if you decide to play yourself, I'll go ahead and document all the ones I do find to help y'all out.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You said it, Donovan. Even with the lights off, our mean old landlord catches us sneaking out and demands we either give him $500 by the end of the day (difficult, but doable) or hand over our key right now. We do have the option to run away with the key, but there's not much point; we don't actually need our apartment any more. We'll be fine sleeping on the street as long as we put our cash in the bank first. In any case, the check from our publisher isn't in the mail, so I head outside.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is Bellinger, a friend of ours. He hooks us up with an action figure worth $25 because he's a cool dude. Anyway, I decide to explore Dubtown (in my first update, I referred to it as Beaton; that's a later city, but I have to live with my mistakes) before heading over to the club. Right next door is the office of the developers, Vagabond Dog.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Naturally, the indie figure in their office is a dog. Still, one more for the collection! I wonder if getting all 60 actually does anything? Probably an achievement, at least.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You don't say?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This seems like a bad idea, but YOLO

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah, you get a non-standard game over for stealing the funds to develop the game. I thought it was amusing enough to share.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...Yum? I'm not a fan of seafood, and dumpster seafood sounds even worse.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When I tried to leave the alley the old man called me a dirty lunch stealer, so I gave him his fish back. He was still unpleasant so I headed off to the bank.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wow, $14 is all we have to our name. And I'm about to blow it on dog food for a poor mutt in the alley.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also here's another figure next to said mutt. The dog will run away until I go get that dog food, so it's off to the super market.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

$10 for dog food and $2 for dog treats. I'm basically broke.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The dog ate the food and ran away, but dropped its collar. Being a video game protagonist Donovan yoinked that. Then he ate the dog treats because the dog didn't want them and I wasn't about to let the $2 go to waste.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We can't go any further east this first day. However, that employment center on screen will come in handy later on.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is the pawn shop. You can sell stuff you don't need here, as well as buy a couple of things like a guitar. I didn't find a use for any of it except the fishing pole on my first playthrough, so I'm not gonna bother with it just yet.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This game does feature speculation; a sandwich is the trade item. Unfortunately I forgot how you're actually supposed to go about speculating and gave the sandwich to the bum. Which is good for him I guess, but I didn't get anything out of it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This one is in the house to the east of the club.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And this is the club. We can talk to the black haired woman for a miniquest involving getting her drugs (or just walking off with her $50 if you so choose), but I decided not to do it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This bouncer's a dick, but we manage to defuse the situation by explaining why we're here. Time to go meet our buddy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Darkeff is a recovering addict and musician. Since we're being good guys, I chose to encourage him to stay off the heroin and that he'll be great. Anyway, he wants us to set up the stage for his show tonight, and he'll give us $100 bucks for doing so.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Seems easy enough.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, shit. Here's trouble. This is Viper, Darkeff's ex-girlfriend. She's here with a present for Darkeff!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I told her off and she threw the heroin at me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Of COURSE I'm going to take it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The only thing I found tricky about this is that I couldn't tell from the drawing which was the guitar and which was the bass. Luckily I guessed correctly that the guitar was on the left and the bass on the right.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Benny's a dick and clearly trying to cause trouble, same way he hassled us at the door.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I told him yes and showed him the heroin, but I didn't let him have it. He got mad at first but realized he still had a long way to go before he truly kicked the habit and called Donovan a good friend.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We might. For now I'm going to follow him into the bathroom.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm the king of pep talks and Darkeff could use one. While we're here, we can flush the heroin, but I'd prefer to keep it in my inventory for the moment to make absolutely sure no one else can get at it. I dunno if that's actually a thing or not, but I'm not taking the chance. I'll toss it later. Also, in front of the far left stall (hidden by the talk sprite), there's something to pick up.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It might come in handy, so it's mine now.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So now, what do we do next? Do we stick around and encourage Darkeff some more by helping out further at his concert, or do we go see what Mrs. Tewilager wanted?
« Last Edit: May 10, 2016, 03:13:23 pm by SeriousConcentrate »
Logged
SerCon Shorts: This Is How You Do It - Twenty-three one minute or less videos of random stupidity in AC:U, Bloodborne, DS2:SotFS, Salt & Sanctuary, and The Witcher 3.

Harry Baldman

  • Bay Watcher
  • What do I care for your suffering?
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2016, 08:59:51 am »

Quote
So now, what do we do next? Do we stick around and encourage Darkeff some more by helping out further at his concert, or do we go see what Mrs. Tewilager wanted?

Bros before hos, man. Bros before hos.
Logged

Haspen

  • Bay Watcher
  • Cthuwu
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #11 on: May 10, 2016, 09:13:14 am »

Also can you spoiler them pics so I don't have to scroll them all when I want to find something? v;
Logged
SigFlags!
Fire Emblem on Forums: 8! + 6re!
Quote from: Draignean@Spamkingdom+
Truly, we have the most uniquely talented spy network in all existence.
Quote from: mightymushroom@Spamkingdom#
Please tell me the Royal Physician didn't go to the same college as the Spymaster.

A Thing

  • Bay Watcher
  • I'm here for ya, kid.
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2016, 11:35:45 am »

I say stay at the concert since it seems like the bouncer is incompetent and something bad will probably happen otherwise.
Logged
Wasteland 1 & 2
"Power Couple: Markus Athing & Cyborg 45"

Makes me curious, can cyborgs have future babies too?
On the offchance they can, I know who I want my daddy to be
(finished)Age of Decadence

SeriousConcentrate

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Hollow Street Hero
    • View Profile
Re: SerCon is Always, Sometimes, a Monster
« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2016, 03:14:59 pm »

OK, I spoilered the pics for you Hasp. I'll give it a few more hours just in case, but I'm pretty sure we'll be sticking with Darkeff.

EDIT: Blah, storm kept knocking out my power yesterday so I didn't make any progress. This week I have to work Wednesday (today) & Thursday and my job is a 12 hour shift plus an hour transit to and from, so the next update will be Friday.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2016, 08:53:56 am by SeriousConcentrate »
Logged
SerCon Shorts: This Is How You Do It - Twenty-three one minute or less videos of random stupidity in AC:U, Bloodborne, DS2:SotFS, Salt & Sanctuary, and The Witcher 3.