Developer: Retro Dreamer
Publisher: Retro Dreamer
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Monsters and Monocles – Preview
There are several myths and mythologies regarding evil entities and creatures that want to destroy mankind and every other possible living being. In Monsters and Monocles, it seems that this is exactly what is happening. Monsters have been running rampant and it is your task to kill these bloodthirsty creatures.
There are a lot of special items in the world and a lot of them can be found in curiosity shops. It seems that something new has arrived and after some tinkering, something bad happens. Purple clouds are spawning and a lot of hostility is detected. At least the world has some protectors that float around in a zeppelin, scouting for enemies and keeping everyone safe. They receive word from this new problem and dive headfirst into the pits of doom to cleanse everything.
If you like a more retro graphical style with pixelated characters and surroundings that scream colors and fun, then you’ll certainly like what you get with Monsters and Monocles. Just turning on the game will gets you sucked into a vivid world were the developers did their best to make something beautiful. For instance, the characters themselves stand out quite well in comparison with the background and enemies, while the surroundings are detailed (with the pixelated possibilities of course). In comparison with the graphics, the music matches quite well with the overall feeling of the game, although it tends to loop quite fast. This might not be bothersome at the beginning and give you a nice boost, while it tends to get on your nerves rather quickly as it loops for the fifth time. The sound effects are a fun addition as well, as every gun has its own sound for example, and gives it a nice touch.
As you might expect, you need to kill monsters to save the world from peril. Before you hop into one of the locations, you can equip some relics you’ve found during your previous adventures. How items are selected to be held on to is still a mystery as my character had collected a lot of different items and only two remained after being squished to death. At any rate, these treasures are really handy so it is a good idea to check this and equip some before diving into the next killing spree.
When you enter a level, you will only have your trusty revolver with you, but you’ll find some other weaponry soon enough. Some of the guns you’ll find might not be that effective for that specific location, but you don’t need to worry as there are a lot of different possibilities for you to try. If you can’t choose which weapon to take with you, you can take the best of both worlds as you can hold on to two guns. A realistic, but sometimes annoying, addition is that your weapons heats up when you use it for a longer period of time. This means that you will need to keep an eye on this, as you might get overrun otherwise.
If you think that you’ll get an easy time in Monsters and Monocles, think again. Entering the level is easy, and then everything will try to kill you no matter what. Rooms overflowing with monsters that aren’t that easy to slay will keep you from your goal, namely getting to the next floor. Every time you enter a level, you will get another mission to complete before the stairs opens. This means that you can expect something different every time you go into the pit of doom.
Conclusion
Monsters and Monocles has a good base to work on although there are some small tweaks here and there that would make it even better. For instance, the rather fast looped soundtrack might get on your nerves rather sooner than later but the graphics and fun you get make up for it. Certainly something to look forward to if you like rogue-like games.
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