Monster Parlor
Content Warnings
Unsettling imagery, very intense gore, cursing, ringing sound (music (source of the ringing) can be muted in the pause screen).
Monster Parlor is a game in which you run a beauty parlor for monsters, where you have the privilege to make them into something a bit more charming! Strike up a conversation, convince them of your ways, and earn some charms of your own.
Made in 72 hours for the 2023 Winter Melon Jam! The theme was "charm".
Play time: approx. 15-20 min
Disclaimer: The fixed download and web versions were uploaded after the grace period ended. Also, the web version has had a QOL update, but not the downloadable versions.
Optional Tutorial
There is an in-game tutorial, this tutorial is just for refreshers!
In Monster Parlor you run a beauty parlor for monsters, where you make them into more palatable creatures. To do so, you must enter a conversation and lower their esteem. In it you can compliment, persuade, or berate them. In turn, they might become defensive, retaliate, or they might recover some of their esteem. Each monster also has a special ability, so watch out for that!
A monster’s mood greatly affects how the conversation goes - from how effective your words may be, to how a monster responds to them. There are six moods: ashamed, very ashamed, enraged, very enraged, flustered, and very flustered. All monsters have different personalities, so their moods affect the conversation differently. Pay attention, learn their patterns, and you might be able to exploit a little insecurity of theirs.
If you successfully convince a monster they need to be fixed, you get a unique charm from them, which gives you a special ability! You can use one charm per turn, and each charm can only be used once per combat.
Credits
SmallBugGames - AI Programming, "Combat" Design
CoByte - UI Programming, Scrum Mastery
dogoryx - Character Art, End Sequence Illustration
MetaphysicalMonsters - Environmental & UI Art, Sound Design, Writing
Sound effects sourced from Freesound.com - Attributions
Download
Development log
- Update!!Feb 02, 2024
- Jam post mortum - by CoByteJan 04, 2024
Comments
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Spooky game! It brings back a lot of instincts from when I was a kid playing dress up and makeover flash games. Getting each collectible is satisfying despite being horrifying too.
I love the ending! Not sure whether to interpret the protagonist's final actions as a result of guilt, a compulsion as a result of the effect from the item gained from the last monster, or that picking out the "flaws" of other monsters caused the protagonist to become aware of it's own "flaws". Or maybe this was the plan all along and every other monster was a means to an end to get here.
I like to imagine that somehow we had never seen a mirror before
oooh!!! impactante! :S
oh so that actually felt disturbingly relatable (hahahaha being a woman amirite <3)
Ironically none of us are women (anymore) lol. I hope you enjoyed it, though! And I hope you never let anyone pull the metaphorical rusty shears on you
Didn't mean to assume, sorry! I'll keep the lessons I learned here with me <3
No worries! I wasn't trying to correct you, I just find it kind of amusing lol. I'm glad it resonates with people!
I just say the first 3 seconds of the Manlybadasshero gameplay about it and imedietelly came here to play it, I loved the designs and it really made me feel bad playing it, which means it did it's purpose
Lol, why thank you!
I felt bad for doing this to the monsters
Thank you for playing our game! I'm glad you had fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xspH4Ykg4jw
made a walkthrough (with text) using my playthrough… what a cool, intense game! beauty is so sinister…
i love all the monsters a lot. their designs are unique and individually interesting, but i cried a little thinking about convincing the vinegars.
Thank you! I'm glad you liked them!
oh wow, this game is a big surprise didn't it expect to be this unsettling , because I came here with very DIFFERENT expectations + didn't read description lol. I was literally just staring into the screen and trying to understand those monster designs and I was like "wait a minute why did we take this guy's teeth?". Until I understood what it was going on. ~Chef kiss~ a nice surprise that's for sure.
Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed the twist!
The ending was pretty dope. Keep creating!
Thank you!
This game is so cool! What were the inspiration for the monsters? Were they just concepts or inspired by folklore or something?
(IM SO SORRY THIS IS REALLY LONG BUT-) Hi! I’m so glad to hear that you liked the game! :) As for your question, I was the one in charge of making the monsters for this project, so I’ll do my best to articulate my answer. In a nutshell, each of these monsters had their own very unique design process and inspiration! For starters, the first two I initially sketched were Squid (the beloved hand creature) and Rug (silver tongue). Those guys quite literally popped into my mind, I can’t quite describe it… However, I knew immediately that I wanted them to set the tone for what I wanted to see in the rest of my monsters. For Mary and the Vinegar Twins, I also knew instantly what I wanted them to be. Mary was designed around an Evil Eye, and the twins were from a scrapped third horse/unicorn monster that was drawn alongside the initial sketches of Squid and Rug. Meta had also sketched some critter ideas, and I really wanted to include them because they were very cute! So my interpretations of those monsters eventually turned into Hera, George, Jackie, and Dragon. Picasso was the last to be made, and it was decided his theme was an amalgamation of angels, mirrors, crystals, and abstract art. But overall, the one thing these guys all had in common was how I chose to design them around the “charms” they were set to give to the player. The placement of their charms and the type of charms was VERY intentional, because I knew EXACTLY how I wanted all of their “final forms” (aka the gore) to look before the initial monster design itself was even done. The final order in which those monsters went also influenced the placement of those charms/overall design, because the severity of the violence was intended to escalate. Lastly, the artworks from RIKA/@bwusagi, Deerchip/@deerchip_jung, and @submori_521 (all on Twitter) really inspired me and got my wheels turning (especially for Hera). They all have this excellent style that is otherworldly, and it accentuates the anatomy and facial expressions of the beasts that they make and it looks so gritty and real (and also cute!) Anyways, I hope this answered your question, but if you have more, please feel free to ask!
Thanks so much for the answer! I also think I like Hera the most because of the peacock parallel and that being a symbol of the Goddess Hera. I follow 2 of those artists! They're great at making beasts that are uncanny and endearing, and I think you capture that vibe as well! Keep up the good work
That was a genuinely horrifying game. Wow. The mirror charm at the end was a clever moment too. Well done!
Maybe I missed it but I would have liked to have made the game window bigger on my computer so I could admire all of the details of the characters (in their "before" state at least).
Glad you liked it!
we’ll add resolution options in a later update, it looked fine in the dev view so we didn’t realize how small it is lol