Monster Prom 3: Monster Roadtrip released on October 23, bringing fans of the indie dating sim franchise their third adventure with Beautiful Glitch's cast of colorful monsters since 2018. Monster Roadtrip is just the second part of the "Holiday Season" package, a three-in-one "sequel" to the original Monster Prom exploring other staple settings: a summer camp, cross-country road trip, and the yet-released Monster Retreat set in a snowy ski resort.
Monster Resort is still set to follow Monster Camp and Monster Roadtrip, but this isn't all Beautiful Glitch has up its sleeves. Creative director Julian Quijano said the studio will be focusing on post-launch support for Roadtrip, but hopes to internally brainstorm ideas "both for future Monster Prom games and new IPs" in early 2023. Game Rant spoke to Quijano about building out the Monster Prom universe and other indie game endeavors.
Monster Roadtrip Shakes Up the Series' Dating Mechanics
There are "two-to-three other games under the [Monster Prom] umbrella that are being discussed," Quijano said. The Holiday Resort Kickstarter in 2019 (which raised over 500,000 euro above its 32,000 euro goal) only discussed Monster Camp, Roadtrip, and Resort, but fans blew past a stretch goal to "work on a 4th adventure." According to Quijano, the original metric for Monster Prom's success as a "garage project" was selling 20,000 copies in two years. It sold as much in two days, and the studio has been refining and experimenting with new mechanics to improve itself ever since.
"We are forever grateful to all the people who chose to support this weird little game (now weird little franchise). We have such a loyal and wonderful fanbase."
Using "prom" was meant to be a universalizing experience, as Quijano - a Barcelona-based developer - felt even non-Americans would understand the trope and what it symbolized in terms of romantic plots. Monster Roadtrip similarly started off from the lens of a universal experience "that could lead to hilarious adventures," but it became a hybrid survival game because the road trip subgenre is often associated with long, difficult journeys.
Because dating sim mechanics aren't the primary focus in Roadtrip, this ironically created an opportunity for Beautiful Glitch to pack extra romance options into its "more shallow" framework - 12 were included in Monster Prom 3 at launch. In terms of returning characters, Quijano said the team aims to both revisit fan-favorites and explore monsters with little-to-no development. "But of course, we sometimes take that as a challenge to making players fall a bit in love with less popular characters too."
Monster Prom's Increased Franchise Worldbuilding
As the franchise develops, Quijano said the team has become more interested in "proper worldbuilding" for the Monster Prom universe beyond its recurring cast of characters. Worldbuilding elements are dosed in bit by bit - particularly in Monster Roadtrip, which has "subtle kernels of bigger implications" that nobody has picked up on yet. Quijano remarks that there "will be a time and place for more" given other games are lined up, but Beautiful Glitch wants to leave some mysteries for players to uncover on their own.
Yet, while Beautiful Glitch enjoyed trying to expand the world it's building, this has caused problems. Because there were no assumptions that the "silly garage project" would become a multi-game franchise, the original intent was to throw in more purely comedic elements. "We sometimes discuss these things with no discernible goal in sight," Quijano said. "We ask ourselves these questions, and for some time we found no answers."
A lack of sturdy worldbuilding early on means there are a lot of now-outdated "official but not canon" elements that sometimes made true worldbuilding feel like an "arduous, often useless endeavor." Whenever an aspect of reality in the Monster Prom universe is defined, it may be contradicted by "joke lines" that were said in passing years ago. "We don't have the bandwidth to search all those instances and edit them," Quijano said.
An official "Lore Book" that spells out what is canon rather than a joke has been discussed "many times," but Quijano said Beautiful Glitch may never have the muscle and time to pull it together. He isn't even sure if everything about the universe will be properly explained by the time Beautiful Glitch moves on from Monster Prom, but the studio intends to keep trying.
Beyond Monster Prom 3: Monster Roadtrip
Despite the original Monster Prom being staged around a high school experience, the characters were designed to be around 20-25 years old - reflecting the age of Quijano and his friends. While there has not been a concerted effort to bring these characters into new stages of their lives, Quijano "felt more comfortable exploring that" idea as he also grows older. Beautiful Glitch may be willing to explore further eventually.
"At some point a mobile game was discussed in which we did some of a time skip, but the project didn't progress. Who knows? I still appreciate the stories we started shaping there, and I'd love to eventually bring them into reality."
In the meantime, more than just Monster Prom games are being discussed by the indie studio. It has already dipped its toes in other ventures with MAZEMAN, a $5 USD arcade-inspired game about gathering collectibles throughout labyrinths using various unique heroes. Released in 2021, Quijano said MAZEMAN was an internal exercise to shake things up mid-production on Monster Prom titles. However, there are additional ideas not currently in development that the team would like to explore, focusing on new IPs.
It's likely Beautiful Glitch will never truly escape Monster Prom's shadow, but the devs don't seem to have an issue with that. Fan-made art, memes, and animatics "fuels us to keep creating games," true for both original team members and newcomers adding characters to the Monster Prom universe. "I am constantly marveled by it," Quijano said. "Imagine creating something with such an impact that talented individuals decide to invest time and effort into creating another thing that celebrates and re-imagines it."
This impact is "beautiful and humbling," especially after Monster Roadtrip's deviations from the dating sim formula left the studio nervous it "spoiled the broth." Luckily that appears to have not been the case, and Beautiful Glitch is excited to start planning the next phase of its life. "We pour lots of effort and love in these weird little games we make, and it is wonderful to see how they resonate with people."
Monster Prom 3: Monster Roadtrip is available now on PC.