A downloadable game for Windows and macOS

Buy Now$3.00 USD or more

Welcome to Monster Pub!
Why not pull up a chair, play a hand of cards, and make a friend?

Monster Pub is an episodic narrative game about finding new friends in a new town, but, uh, also everyone is a monster, including you! Be a good friend, or a bad friend! Play cards and crush your opponent! Or maybe just try to have a nice time, I'm not your boss.

Try Chapter One for free! Why not!!!!

Chapter Two: https://isoplod.itch.io/monster-pub-2


Questions + Answers

- What's the difference between the trial and the full version?
The trial version is identical to the full game, but to export your results to continue playing in chapter two you'll need to get the full version!!

- How many chapters will there be?
Currently we have plans for 3 chapters, whether we make any more depends on you, dear reader!

- Will this work on macOS Catalina?
Buddy I have NO idea, sorry!! I would STRONGLY advise Mac users to PLEASE try the demo to determine if the game will work on their computer before paying for the full game.


Additional Links

- Hub website: http://www.monster-pub.com

- Soundtrack: https://isoplod.bandcamp.com/album/thats-jazz-baby-monster-pub-vol-1

StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows, macOS
Rating
Rated 4.4 out of 5 stars
(68 total ratings)
Authoralex ilitchev
GenreRole Playing, Card Game
TagsCasual, Monsters, Pixel Art

Purchase

Buy Now$3.00 USD or more

In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $3 USD. You will get access to the following files:

Monster Pub 1 v2.dmg 81 MB
Monster Pub 1 v2.exe 69 MB

Download demo

Download
Monster Pub Trial Version v2.dmg 81 MB
Download
Monster Pub Trial Version v2.exe 69 MB

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

i adore this game. i love playing sandwiches with friends irl (i call it rat slap), and it was very exciting to see it in a videogame! i also have a playing card collection and love unique playing card designs so each character having a special deck was delightful. loved the artwork! another great detail was each game having special rules. i want to add that to my irl games!

Thank you! I absolutely was trying to evoke the feeling of playing card games at summer camp as a kid, and making friends that way.

I really enjoyed this game! The characters are all distinct and the art is super charming! The card games were a fun aspect, too! 

(+2)

I got this game as a bundle, and let me just say...I was DEVASTATED when I couldn't leave a steam review (hadn't bought it there :( ). I'm a huge Undertale fan and I've been looking for cute games to fill the void ever since I played it, and I think I found it.

The quirky characters, the funny interaction and the unique mechanics are all reminiscent of my first time discovering Undertale. It was so, so lovely. "Sandwich" had me smiling the entire time. Amazing. Definitely will be picking up the other 2 chapters sometime in the near future. Keep up the amazing work!

Thank you, I'm so glad you had a great time with it!!

(+1)

just found out i had this and i love the whole series especially clod <3

(1 edit) (+1)

šŸ˜ I enjoy this concept so much. If you're out there reading this and you want to play a very amusing concept, check out Monster Pub. I enjoyed the attention to each individual character's appearance and sound effects. I've written a lot more about it for my blog, if you're interested, I have written about it here: https://mrdavepizza.com/monster-pub/

(+1)

Thanks so much for the kind review! It really warms my heart that people continue to find and enjoy my little game after all these years!

(+1)

I really enjoyed the game and included it in my second Hidden Gems Video. A like/subscribe would help me a ton to continue with this series <3

(+1)

I love this game. I got the first chapter from the Racial Justice bundle earlier this year, and upon finishing it immediately came back to buy the last two chapters. The character design and writing are so great. The art is wonderful. I want Pfeffer to be my friend. It's short, sweet, and a great de-stresser!

(+1)

Aaaaaaa I'm so glad you've enjoyed it! Thank you for playing!!!

(+1)

I had such a great time with this! It made me so happy to just chat with everyone :') I didn't really notice that I was going to be playing cards with everyone (It seems I didn't read the description too thoroughly lol) so when it happened in the game I  was like oh wow !! and I love how everyone has their own deck designs,, I had some long matches with these folks and it was great especially since I haven't had the chance to play cards with friends or anyone in a while ,,, anyway thank you for this game it's so lovely :D

(+2)

Oh I'm so glad  you had a good time with the game! And thank you for leaving this nice note!!

(+1)

Honestly, I'm usually terrified of saying the wrong thing - especially in video games, where a wrong move could mean anything from being locked out of the "good" ending or having the character be soured to the interaction and lose interest in you. It can quickly turn into a game of being everyone's yes man and worrying about saying the "correct" option all the time. It surprised me when Pfeiffer told me it's okay to make missteps when talking to people. I've never heard that in a game before! I was still a bit cautious, but this idea really shone through when talking to Baobabo. I suggested the AU option for his story, and though he initially wasn't fond of the idea, he really took a shine to it as the conversation went on! It ended up being my favorite dialogue in the chapter. I can't wait to play the rest!

(I received this game as a part of the bundle for racial justice) I love this game! the card game was so much fun and the patrons are so interesting! I honestly didn't expect to enjoy my time as much as i did and i can't wait to learn more about the patrons Great job Alex!

Thanks Iā€™m glad youā€™re enjoying it!!

loved this game! faves are b.r. keeper and baobabo. definitely considering getting chapter 2! :D

(1 edit) (+2)

just finished playing and i'm in love with b.r. keeper, its official!!  it took me a while to understand the card games but in general i think i spent almost two hours playing, its a very cool first episode and i can't wait to play the other two !!!! honorable mention to bao writing fanfic and "orbs" (and it took me way too long to realize what show the rose blue [...blue rose?] files were inspired on... :P )

Game broke during a game of Samson and lost all my progress :( 

Got stuck, unsure how to reset, tried to pause, game gave me an error and then crashed. Wish I could give you more info 

(+1)

Sorry that happened! There's not much I can do about it now, but I would definitely suggest saving between conversations. Despite all my bug testing I am just one person so things inevitably still go wrong. šŸ˜” Luckily each chapter is probably less than an hour long, hopefully you will give it another shot!

Definitely will in the morning. Those card games are fun, but then I look up, and an hour has passed... TwT Just to be safe, what do I do when I use up my whole deck in Samson but there are no more moves I can make? 

(Also!!! I would never have guessed there was only one person behind this omg... it's SO COOL all the characters are so cute. Mad props to you, this is one of the coolest games in the bundle so far! really inspiring haha... maybe I should get back to work on one of my own game projects instead of scrolling endlessly through the bundle page ;w;)

(+1)

I got help with the writing from the very talented Magnolia Porter (https://www.monster-pulse.com/) but yeah the rest is me! And just like regular solitaire, you can get into an unwinnable state in samson, but luckily you can get partial credit for clearing some of the board. There are also less chances of getting an unwinnable board than in regular solitaire.

Hey, Alex! Love the game so far, encountered the same bug as chantolove. Don't know if you can still go back to a 5 year old game to fix bugs, but it happened because I also got stuck in samson and mindlessly clicked everywhere until the game tried to give me more cards (like when you want to add a card to each pile to continue matching) and it crashed, probably because the card holder array was empty. I would remove the trigger for drawing cards after emptying the deck and adding an option to leave the samson game, just in case you don't want to program a way to check if the game softlocks and there's no more moves.

Definitely gonna give it another try, maybe avoiding that minigame now.

Unfortunately I don't think I can even access the original builds of the game at this point without a legacy install of GMS, which I don't have... I wish I could easily do a refresh/remaster of the game but 5 years later it would probably be more effort than it's worth :(

Regarding Catalina: Pretty sure Catalina requires 64-bit code. If this game is 32-bit, it will not run under Catalina; if it's 64-bit, maybe?

Yea thatā€™s my concern; I built this for 32 bit and have no 64 bit apple device to recompile it on. I also have no way of knowing if thereā€™s some backwards compatibility in place, because I canā€™t try to play it anywhere! The joys of indie dev :p

Trying to run this on Catalina and I end up getting this error. :( I wanna play it so bad

I found this in another game's FAQ, perhaps it will help here as well??? Just replace the game name :P (and also check out Long Gone Days it looks gorgeous!) Sorry that's the best I got!!!

I tried this method and though it worked for other games, it sadly didn't work here :( 

(1 edit) (+1)

I just tried to launch the game on Catalina (10.15.7) and it worked fine. I haven't played yet, but could start a new game without any issue.

Ahh, so the problem fixed itself, just as planned. :P Seriously thanks for letting me know, if people have problems I can at least direct them to try upgrading to this version of Catalina!

This is one of the first games that caught my eye in the justice and equality bundle, and I honestly adore it!!! I love the character designs, and the card game keeps me focused on playing without detracting from the characters' stories. One thing is, I'm not really sure how the friendship levels affect the game, and therefore I can't tell what the advantage of importing data into each chapter is. But regardless, it's definitely a game I'll keep coming back to play.

I'm so glad you're enjoying the game! The friendship levels have a minor effect on the way characters interact with you, particularly as you progress through the chapters. But there's no "bad ending" just a little extra fun scene for each character at the end if your friendship is high enough!

Got a hold of this game in the justice and equality bundle, absolutely loved it! The dialogue and characters were all so charming, gave me a bit of an Undertale vibe (which is always welcome). I'm not great at cards so it took a little while to get a hang of the rules, but once I did, it was really enjoyable! Definitely playing Chapter 2 as soon as I can!

Thank you!!!

Hi there! I got this from the bundle for racial justice and equality. I very much enjoyed chapter 1.  I'm having difficulty exporting my results for chapter 2. Is the version in the bundle the trial version, not full? It lets me click on the export option after the credits, but when I launch chapter 2 and select import, the file isn't in the folder it saved in. If it is the full version, do you know how I might get it working?

And I just have to say I love Baobabo. I want to sit and write with them all day. 

Thank you!

Hi,

My immediate guess would be that you accidentally deleted the file extension while creating the export file. Make sure the extension on the file matches the extension that chapter 2 is looking for when you choose to import.

(1 edit)

I bought this as part of the bundle for racial justice and equality, but when I download the file it opens a page that says "game not found!" along with the icon of the game. I'm using a mac if that's important but is there any way to fix this? It looks really interesting.

Sorry mac has all kinds of issues with independently made software, and I have not updated the game since before Catalina launched. I have a few fixes you might try though;
1. Try moving the app file to a different folder
2. Try renaming the file name to not have spaces in it
3. Try extracting it into a different folder than the one you chose

Let me know if any of those help!

Unfortunately none of those worked :( it's probably just my laptop, thank you for the response and help though!

The same problem happened with the demo and chapter 2 :( maybe it's my software

If I play the demo version, and then decide to buy the full version, will my save carry over so I can export it?

Unfortunately the save files from within the demo can't be pulled up in the full version of chapter 1.

I just played this and it's really cute! However at the credits, the default is "don't export and exit" which I pressed by accident as the arrows were really close together! I wanted to export to start in Chapter 2 so it's a shame! Not sure if can be fixed but I really enjoyed it.

Oh no! Well, if you saved your progress up to then you should be able to load save and get back to export fairly quickly!

Alex don't worry - I didn't realise there's 2 options right at the end - I assumed one was a title and one was an option. It's all good, I'm looking forward to chapter 2!

FYI the game runs, but Windows Defender doesn't trust it due to unknown publisher - not sure if it's something you can fix on your end!

This was a really cute friendship game with cards! Thanks so much - 

Hey I'm getting a "no compatible downloads" error. Is this no longer available or updated? I'm on Windows 10 & using the latest itch.io client

(+1)

Hi, sorry you're having issues getting the game. Could you try downloading it from the itch.io website instead to see if this is a client problem?