Description

Monster Therapy is a stealth-infused deckbuilder game where a group of anxious monsters must overcome mental struggles while spreading fear and eliminating sinful humans. Build a clever deck of supernatural powers, set up traps to eliminate targets while keeping your anxiety in check. Your choices while on the mission will influence your relationship with the other monsters and help you gain their support and their knowledge.

History

Inception

After Yaga, we felt like a short project that allows for looser creative constraints was something beneficial for our team. Our artists love making scary and gruesome stuff mixed with a touch of humor, and after years of drawing cool cute characters that fit a folktale, it was time to allow them to venture more into the darker side of their creativity. On the writing side, after focusing on fairy tales and clear-cut good vs evil themes, we wanted to explore the gray areas of humanity and day-to-day struggles: anxiety, uncertainty and mental health issues.

Monsters & Therapy

Besides being interesting and visually exciting, monsters are a representation of our fears of uncertainty and lack of control, ever-present in the modern world. One one hand, by letting players embody monsters, we aim to allow them to embrace their darker sides in a safe space, free of judgment. On the other hand, what better way to explore that space than have those monsters have their own anxieties, biases and traumas, trying to overcome them in group therapy? Ultimately, our game tries to use the lens of dark humour to examine mental issues that come up in a world filled with rules, norms and expectations set by sometimes monstrous humans. We chose to explore those through the relationships, rivalries and friendships that develop inside a group of humane monsters.

Aesthetics

We wanted to keep a certain charm we developed in Yaga, but present it in a different light without compromising on the humor. The visual direction stems from old cinema monster movies of the 50s and 60s: monsters that are creepy enough to give you "the chills", but unrealistic enough to maintain a sense of detachment and safety. The grayscale palette of these movies meshes well with our intention of exploring gray areas of human behavior and the limited use of accent colors is a tool that allows us and the players to focus on the important issues of the game.

What's Next

We're currently hard at work exploring the concepts, creating the characters and building a vertical slice. We'll soon start sharing more about the game, and start preparing for the next steps in our journey. Taking our lessons from Yaga, we now set a high priority on early involvement of players, so expect to hear more words from us like: early, playtesting, access, crowds, players, alpha and builds.

Features

• Play as one of seven monsters, learn to navigate each character's psychological issues and take advantage of each of their monstrous powers.
• Build a clever deck of cards and adapt it over time to handle anything the levels throw at you!
• Each victim can be approached with your own play style. You can freely combine stealth, brutal attacks or manipulate the victims as long as the targets end up in a bloodpool.
• Grow stronger as a group by learning new skills and sharing them among monsters based on mutual approval.
• Go on the missions The Institute assings you and help rid the world of the evil hiding in charming places: country fairs, drive-in cinemas, movie sets and many others.