Dev here, wanted to ask a few questions

[devotedtoneurosis]

Hi everyone,

It's me, Jason, the developer of Monster Crown, I wanted to make a post that will sort of meander over a few things, but fundamentally, I'd like the help of any players tuned into these discussions, ESPECIALLY those of you that feel negatively toward the game.

I won't retread a lot of detail already posted about in years past, but I had some serious health issues that affected me late in development like amnesia, and could not get a great feel for the quality of the game, for that, I really do apologize and I wish the game had been really really solid day 1 of release.

That being said, I have worked on patches over the years since release, and generally the feedback I get from my team or the discord is that things are relatively good now. Reading recent discussion and reviews that is obviously not the case, and I'm just really unhappy about the whole thing in general.

What really surprises me is that reviews seem split right down the middle, either people have really good experiences with a couple of minor bugs and complete the game in full, or it seems the game doesn't even run and it sounds like 4 major glitches happen within 10 minutes and the game crashes and they give up. I'm not really sure why there's this dichotomy, it has been on my mind for a long time now and I'm sure different people have different tolerances for bugs, but I can no longer believe that it's just a matter of some people not minding bugs and others do, it has to be more than that.

Reading recent discussions, I can see a few core areas that bug people:

- UI getting into a state where it cannot be exited properly or multiple menus/submenus are toggled on at once.
- Overlapping overworld elements (especially NPCs/wild monsters/your monster)
- Monsters spawning where you cannot reach them

There are many other things mentioned in say, one review, but I tried to get a feel for the aggregate issues that affect many people. I'm going to dig into and fix the above listed items - I don't care if I have to remake these game subsystems entirely to do it (for example UI, overworld entities, etc.), I'm going to remove these problems for good now.

But am I actually on the mark? Am I missing something? Try to help my arguably hampered cognition here and let me know if you have some insight into this that I've missed. Monster Crown was my first game, and I was not a game dev before that in any way (even projects for fun) so yes, the core systems that a thousand things layer on top of could be MUCH better, but there's no reason I can't select specific subsystems (like the UI, or overworld entities for example) and just fix them, even if I make new ones from scratch (only difference you should notice if I do is that it works right!).

Also, the TCG is made by Spudmay and not me. I do post about it of course to help promote it but I promise I'm not working on the TCG or Monster Crown 2, and I do truly care about the players of this game deeply and all the support everyone has shown Monster Crown over the years.

I want to improve things, I want to figure out the 3-5 "main" things that need a revamp. So feel free to throw your thoughts at me, I'm all ears!

[devotedtoneurosis]

Thanks folks for the notes above, I'll be reviewing them and making adjustments!

[Azzie]

Hi Jason, hope I'm not too late to give feedback.

I've recently started and played an hour of the Switch version but I think you could improve the games reception by revamping the start of the game.

Putting leaving the farm area behind level grinding is not fun and made for a poor first impression when its combined with the monsters often spawning out of bounds on the map it's just obnoxious to even get an encounter you can reach.

Restricting players access through a literal level gate is not good, I've never seen anything but a grindy MMO do that sort of thing. Then having the game soon quickly grant you freedom to only following up with another level gate with the monster on the bridge just takes the cake,

I'd recommend reviewing how Pokemon Red/Blue started. As soon as you got your starter and pokedex you could generally straight through multiple routes and towns all the way to Pewter City before the first real boss fight and even Brock is there to ease the player into the game. I'd say you want to gradually ramp up the difficulty and let the player make more progress before introducing anything that could bar their progress.

I'm sure you put a great deal of effort behind this and can see the passion in some aspects even this early on and I know how tough solo devving can be. But Monster Crown unfortunately has a miserable start to the game even if you ignore the bugs and performance.

I think you could vastly improve the experience by both removing that level up requirement to leave the farm and being more player friendly in the opening section. Don't put anything too difficult at the point where the player is still getting grips with it, otherwise you'll filter out everyone except the most dedicated players.

[Radiowavehero]

On PC at least the enemies are not spawning out of bounds anymore.

Perhaps you mean the very first task you get to go catch a specific monster , the game won't let you go too far until you do.

You should still be able to get enemies to spawn right next to you unless the switch hasn't updated yet. This isn't level gating , it's the typical "go catch me a pidgy" type quest that shows up in pokemon games.

You just need to catch the right monster and it should be only 2 or 3 different monsters showing up so it's not hard to get the right one.

As for the bridge boss , you shouldn't need to grind it if you just use the game mechanics , talk to your mother to learn how to charge up in battle , (just defend or swap until you can pull off a big move and do a lot of damage to the boss) , then catch it to end the fight.

No grinding required unless you skipped every fight on the way , then you can only blame yourself , the game gives you the freedom to do that but it can backfire.

[FruckDaTruck]

Monsters spawn to frequently and repetitively from the same spot when out in open world. Monsters have abilities that differ from their main type at early levels. I could see them picking up skills later but when you want to use advantage types against your enemy it can be rough. I'm not a veteran to this game, and I have only played pokemon games before that were similar to this.

[Nina]

For what it's worth, I first played this game around a year or two ago and I had to drop it because it was so incredibly buggy, I got softlocked practically everywhere. I returned to the game last week and just finished it. A LOT changed for the better and it actually became fun! It was still a little buggy here and there, but it's now fully playable, and I could finally see the charming spirit of the game itself. So, hats off to you mr developer for sticking with it and trying to fix it :) I am looking forward to the new game!