Less than 24 hours ago I had the great pleasure to playthrough Deceptive Games 2D comedy point-and-click adventure game “The Secret Monster Society“. Well, to be exact. I played through a short alpha demo of the game. Nevertheless, I got a pretty good idea about what Deceptive Games is trying to achieve with “The Secret Monster Society”. And right off the bat, the game´s graphics and art style is very appealing and cool looking (think 90s Saturday morning cartoon shows, and you’re not far off when it comes to the visual aspects of TSM). And the same could also be said about the characters that you meet in the demo.
I would also like to point out that I found a liking to the fact that TSMS (“The Secret Monster Society”) looks and feels like a mix of “Monsters Inc“, “Aaahh!!! Real Monsters” and “Gus goes to cyber town” (with some Addams Family vibes on top of that). And the plot of the game has it´s charm as well (the same could also be said about the dialogs and the voice actors). As you play as a dream monster (Blithe Dalrich) from the under world , whom is trying to stop an evil villain (with the help of Dalrich friend Aphonic) from destroying human dreams. However, the very first demo of TSMS is a rather short one. In the matter of fact, the demo is over in less than ten minutes (if you don´t go around talking and examining every little thing, there is).
So, let´s just say that I wish that the demo would have lasted a bit longer at least. I´m also somewhat curious to find out if TSMS will continue to be a child-friendly kind of game, or if Deceptive Games intend to toss in some more mature content in the full version of the game? Time will tell I guess, but I think it leans more towards the first option. As that´s the vibes that I felt while playing the demo. Even so, I still think that TSMS will be the kind of game that people of all ages will be able to enjoy. So it´s going to be really interesting to see what the final production of “The Secret Monster Society” will offer in terms of gameplay value and mature Vs child-friendly content.
Sadly enough though, there is no release date for the first episode TSMS at this time (on the game´s steam page it just says “as soon as possible”). So it´s hard to say if the released will take place later this summer, autumn or during the winter holiday season. Oh well, we shall find out soon enough I suppose. Besides, you could always watch my gameplay video of TSMS and enjoy the demo of the game for yourselves while waiting for the official release date announcement.
Pros:
+ Awesome art style and graphics
+ Funny and talented voice actors
+ Interesting and entertaining dialogs
+ A mix of “Ahhh Real Monsters”, “Monsters Inc” and “Gus goes to Cyber town”
Cons:
– The demo is very short (it´s about ten minutes long)
– Where´s the music?
– The puzzle parts were to simple
Robin “V-Act” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround
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Tags: Adventure games, Deceptive Games, Indie games, PC games, Steam, The Secret Monster Society