those you call monsters
A downloadable game
You wake up in an unfamiliar forest. You don't remember how you got there, or why. You're all alone, until you stumble upon a strange creature.
This game was made in one month for the 2021 Spooktober VN jam.
Features:
- A story that spans the expanse of a mysterious, eerie forest, two entirely separate character routes and over 20,000 words
- A customisable player character whose backstory and personality depend on your choices
- Multiple endings, including friendship or budding romance with either of the two main characters
- An unlockable polyamorous epilogue
Characters:
Decay - the Caretaker (they/them)
Catastrophe - the Sentinel (she/her and he/him)
Credits:
Leon T. (Itch | Twitter) - Narrative designer, lead writer, programmer
Seth Lucien Black - Writer, main menu art
Cosmofauna (Itch) - Sprite artist, concept artist, game menu art
D'ray (Twitter) - Sound effects
The music featured is by Michael Levy, a composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity. Michael Levy's music is available to stream at all major digital music platforms. Hear hours more on Spotify.
Learn more at Michael Levy's website.
Content warning:
This story contains discussion of environmental degradation (destruction), death, and grief, as well as descriptions of insects and mentions of dismemberment.
Thank you for playing! Please consider leaving a comment to let us know what you thought.
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Comments
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I really enjoyed this game! The aesthetics and the art is beautiful, and I loved the somber, eerie tone paired with the romance. I liked being able to go through all the different options and the different endings, it was a lot of fun to read :)
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it <3
Posted on the Gamejam submission page, but sharing here on the main page too. Thank you for putting this one out there. I saw it on my Twitter feed and it caught my interest.
I am impressed at just how broad the dialogue options are in this game. The Catastrophe/Decay points system worked really well. The backgrounds were great but above all I adored the music. It fit the mood of the game so very well.
Thank you so much for giving this a go, and for leaving the comments! I'm very glad you enjoyed it, and that the more interactive dialogue system works. Also, happy you liked the music! I feel like it does tie the whole atmosphere together.
So, I want to play this game, but whenever I attempt to install or download, it tells me something about the build, and how it cannot be read.
Oh no! I'm sorry to hear that. Someone else was having a similar problem while using the Itch client. If you're using the client too, can you try to download the game from Itch's web version instead? Then after it's downloaded, you only need to extract the .zip.
I'll do that, I like downloading through the app, but if shenanigans are about with it, then that's okay. I still want to play this game.