By Omar (@siegarettes)

• Always Sometimes Monsters
• Developer - Vagabond Dog
• Publisher - Devolver Digital
• PC (Direct from Developer, Steam)
• Rating - N/A

I made a decision and a man died. I didn’t have to. I knew that it might happen before I made it, I had the chance to back out but I still went ahead. I did it because I was selfish, because I wanted to get to where I needed to be faster, not because it was the only way. I hovered over the “LOAD GAME” option and realized that I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fair. I knew what could happen, and now I needed to live with it. 

This was the moment that defined my experience in Vagabond Dog’s Always Sometimes Monsters. Monsters is largely built around giving you choices void of “correct” choices. Even so, in this instance I was wrong. My moral compass told me I had betrayed the vague sense of values I’d lived by. I deserved to live with the consequences. Even then, the game never came out to punish me for it. Somehow, that made it worse.

There were a lot of moments preceding and following that moment, however. In some ways, Always Sometimes Monsters is an uneven game. There’s a certain quality to it, but it isn’t consistent across the whole game. There’s a defined and at times charming art style, but the cityscapes can feel bland. Character portraits for side characters don’t hold to the same quality as the main characters. Likewise, there is an excellent score provided by Laser Destroyer Team, but the town themes often overwhelm by pure repetition. For the most part, the aesthetics work well enough. They get across what they need to, and give Monsters enough style to differentiate itself from a sea of other RPG-esque games. This inconsistent quality curve levels itself out across the presentation, but cuts harder into the writing and design.

Always Sometimes Monsters begins with a garish, melodramatic opening that serves to frame the coming story. A killer for hire and his boss, a man who is essentially a cameo for Devolver Digital’s face of PR, Fork Parker. From there a hooded figure stops them, telling the story that will take place across the rest of the game.

While the opening lays it on thick, it actually leads into what turns out to be a highlight of the game. You’re taken to a party to mingle with friends, and from there you’ll decide your character and their love interest by engaging in conversation. It’s a clever piece of design, and additionally makes the effort to allow homosexual relationships. I even managed to find a character that sort of looked like me. It should be also noted that certain characters will change their attitudes to you depending on your race and orientation, so others who play it will likely have a different story than mine.

From there we’re whisked away in time. A few years distance, a dissolved relationship, an eviction notice and a sudden invitation to your past lover’s wedding. This is where it begins, with you homeless, penniless and on a trip to the wedding of someone who probably doesn’t love you anymore. It’s a grounded story in a medium full of extravagant circumstances, making it more relatable and getting you quicker to an understanding of why you should give a damn.

Always Sometimes Monsters will make you work. To get enough cash to get yourself across the country, or even just keep your belly full, you’ll have to work odd jobs. Reporting, box pushing, seeding, it’s all mundane work that you’ll take up to bring it just enough cash to get by, and bring you into contact with a variety of odd characters. The jobs are by and large very pedestrian, and at times even boring, but it works. There is just enough balance between the mundane repetition and engagement that it keeps your attention while driving you to make the next buck. It feels appropriate, and I found myself actually respecting that decision.

What doesn’t work as well are the minigames. There are a few parodies of other indie titles (Coldline Toronto, etc.), but they’re half-hearted efforts for a joke that feel more like programmer testing rooms than games. They’re optional, so they feel less bothersome than the story required minigames. One arc in particular had me navigating a series of vents and performing hacking (a thin clone of Frogger dressed up in computer icons) that went on for far too long.

This stumbling approach bleeds into the world building as well. Companies like Microshaft, and shops named The Master Baiter fall flat in delivery. Likewise, callouts to other indies feel forced. While the collectible set of indie figurines is fine, catching a fish for example pops up with a message stating “RIDICULOUS! YOU CAUGHT A ___”. While I was able to catch it as a shoutout to Vlambeer’s Ridiculous Fishing, it feels out of place and will likely go over a lot of heads. Along with some author self insertion, there are numerous examples of these fourth wall shattering instances and they consistently cut into the fiction of the game. Humor can highlight and even intensify a serious story, but here it distracts and dulls the impact of story beats.

It’s a symptom of overreaching. Vagabond Dog has tried to cover so much here that it’s inevitable that some areas would take a hit in quality. Sure, you can spend your money on liquor and drugs, but why? There are no benefits or drawbacks. You can become hungry and unable to sleep or get sick, but as long as you keep the minimum it becomes more an annoyance than a need. Sex feels strangely unexplored, despite coming blatantly into play sometimes. You can peek on a couple having sex and find perverted secrets, but it appears with an inconsistency that fails to make it meaningful or even voyeuristic. There was a particular moment with a non-monogamous couple that stood out to me. They explain that they feel monogamy restricts their capacity to truly love, but when it is preceded by obtaining a key to the place by buying drugs for one of them and walking in on, and being invited into a sex act, it paints a painful picture. As much as I was happy to see a non-monogamous lifestyle represented, what is left unsaid says more the subject than the words used to describe it.

This is a problem that carries through the game. Ideas that need more to feel properly at home. Skeletons without flesh, ornamented with half told jokes. It’s a shame because Monsters is full of genuine and empathetic moments and characters. At the heart of it are stories and characters with real problems and believable moments. Monsters manages to pull off the beauty of a simple conversation, the warmth of trying to help out another person through a painful time. The decisions it presents you with rarely fall into the trap of the black and white morality systems of other games, and it leaves it up to you to decide what the appropriate course of action is, even if there is never truly a right answer. Nobody here is dealing with the guilt of helping bring upon the genocide of a species, or seeking revenge for their dead squad mates. There’s just a few people dealing with their demons, trying to live a happy life, and struggling to relate to their fellow humans. Here Always Sometimes Monsters feels at home, asking you to live in another’s headspace, being more aware of how you impact others, even through simple negligence. “Are you the person you thought you were?”, it asks.

The rest of it, flaws and overreaching feel as if Vagabond Dog wasn’t quite confident enough with the core of the game to lean upon it. These characters and their lives, messy and even sometimes despicable, this is the core of Always Sometimes Monsters, and this is the part that is worth playing for. It tells a simple story, but it does so effectively and even when I could sense the direction it was going it worked. Monsters brought about a sense of empathy that even AAA games with Hollywood quality performance capture can fail to do. That alone can make it worth coming to, or even returning to after it’s done. For me, I’ve made my story, and explored my monsters. This first time will always be the real story, but maybe when the memory settles I’ll come back to it. 

In that way, maybe it makes sense for Always Sometimes Monsters to have such a mix of successes and flaws. There’s something on its surface that makes it difficult to approach, difficult to understand where it’s going, but maybe that’s about right. Maybe that’s what makes it…human.