Always Sometimes Monsters

I competent little RPG maker game that's very from the time when they were all the craze on Youtube. Its a fine story that suffer from both trying to be very adult but shows a very child like understanding of adult life. A true 5/10 for me

overall good. can recommend it.

Always Sometimes Monsters is a multiple-choice RPG where we follow the adventures of a character who is desperate to get to his/her ex's wedding to try to win him/her back. It is above all a visual novel, all in English. The graphics are minimalist, the music is repetitive and can be annoying. Fortunately, you can turn it off by accessing an options menu via the F1 key on the keyboard. The game is divided into successive days (30 days) where you will have to talk to characters and complete objectives to move to the wedding venue. These often involve finding something to eat or earning money by completing repetitive tasks or somewhat insipid mini-games. The story is interesting, the dialogues and events are the most important elements of the game. A lot of different things can happen depending on the choices you make and the resources you have at your disposal, but these are just some details, the overall structure of the game remains the same regardless of the choices. I recommend it to those who like visual novels.

i haven't played this game in over 10 years and i still feel crushed any time i think about it

I wanted to like this, but I couldn’t get into the loop. The story setup was interesting, but the gameplay felt sluggish and unfocused. Maybe it just hasn’t aged well—11 years later, narrative games are a lot more polished. Might’ve hit harder back then.

Always Sometimes Monsters não é um jogo. É um tapa na cara disfarçado de pixel art. Você começa como um escritor falido, abandonado pelo amor da sua vida, despejado do apartamento e com um convite para o casamento do seu ex. E aí o jogo pergunta: “vai atrás ou aceita o fracasso?” O jogo é um RPG sem combate, sem magia, sem fantasia. Só você, decisões difíceis e uma cidade que não liga pra sua existência. Cada escolha importa! Não porque o jogo te diz isso, mas porque você sente. Dormir na rua, trabalhar em empregos humilhantes, lidar com vícios, preconceito, abandono. Tudo está ali, cru e sem filtro. Temas pesados como drogas, prostituição, alcoolismo, preconceito e suicídio estão presentes. A arte é simples, quase feia. A trilha sonora é melancólica. E o ritmo é lento, como a vida real. Mas é justamente isso que faz Always Sometimes Monsters funcionar. Ele não quer te entreter. Ele quer te fazer pensar. E às vezes, te fazer sofrer. Você pode escolher ser de qualquer gênero, etnia e orientação sexual e o mundo no jogo reage a isso. Às vezes com empatia, muitas vezes com preconceito. O jogo não te dá respostas fáceis. Só perguntas difíceis. Muito bem escrito, por sinal. Esse jogo não te recompensa com loot, XP ou finais felizes. Ele te dá realidade. Te dá dor. Te dá escolhas que machucam. E no fim, te pergunta: “você foi o monstro ou só tentou sobreviver?” Se você quer algo que te desafie de verdade, não no reflexo, mas na consciência, esse jogo é pra você. Profundo e imperdível! 9/10

Played the game during an emotional, confusing, and depressing time, and got personally invested in the story. To put it simply, the story is about MC going through a failed relationship, career, and other stuff - though my situation wasn't about an old flame or anything - some of the hardships they encountered hit close to home past and present. Honestly, I do not know what else I can say because these type of stories might not be for everyone, but at the time I played it, it was a good story for me. Playstyle is very similar to the "To the Moon". The choices you make, how you spend your time affect the outcome -or rather how easy or hard you get there, because at the end you don't have MANY choices and although you have an option to end your story one way or the other, one of them is like the true/correct choice. Considering the game is like a dollar during the sales, it's worth its price.

This is the absolute antithesis of algorithmic game design. It’s an RPG with basically no combat, where your primary mechanic is extreme financial desperation. The fact that the game lets you choose your race and sexual orientation at a party, and then actively changes how the world and NPCs react to you based on those choices, makes it a staggeringly deep and often brutal narrative sandbox.

Always Sometimes Monsters is the kind of game that gets under your skin in ways you don't expect — I found myself genuinely wrestling with choices that felt mundane on the surface but quietly revealed something about how I think about people and consequences. The pixel art and soundtrack do a lot of heavy lifting to establish mood, and the RPG Maker framework mostly works even if the minigames get tedious fast (yes, the box-moving and seed-planting drag). My biggest frustration was that the ending felt detached from the hundred small decisions I made getting there, like the final 30 minutes mattered more than everything before it, and the moral report card the game hands you at the climax comes across as preachy and reductive. That said, it's one of the few games where I genuinely felt like I was inhabiting a character — broke, directionless, trying to make decent choices in situations that didn't offer decent options — and that experience stuck with me long after the credits. Grab it on sale if you're in the mood for something emotionally heavy and imperfect; just don't expect the choices to carry the weight the game implies they will.

Always Sometimes Monsters really stuck with me. It’s a narrative-driven game where you mostly walk, make choices, talk to people, and try to deal with life falling apart around you. There’s no heroism here — just messy situations, bad decisions, money problems, relationships, and consequences that feel uncomfortably human. I loved how honest and grounded it is. Your choices matter, but not in a glamorous way — they matter in small, sometimes painful ways that feel real. It’s funny, sad, awkward, and heartfelt all at once, and it doesn’t shy away from showing how hard life can be. A very human story, and one I’m glad I experienced. Thanks Vagabond Dog! :)