Games Journo Sim: Always Sometimes Monsters Demo

"Brilliant but flawed" is how Ben described Always Sometimes Monsters, an RPG which sprawls and branches and reacts in squillions of ways depending on who and how you play. You're a struggling writer making one desperate lunge at life, out of money, kicked out your apartment, and pining for a lost love. It's perhaps a hard sell, so last week developers Vagabond Dog released a demo with an extra framing narrative to perfectly fit that horrible loser theme: you play a games journo who goes to the launch event, plays Always Sometimes Monsters, then writes a review.

You rock up to the event, get to wander around a horrible soulless room, engage in pointless discussion, eat miniature hamburgers, drink cocktails, get a dose of PR speak, and play a chunk of the demo. You can also walk right out, which is the correct decision to make should you ever end up at a press event. Having not played ASM myself, I couldn't tell you which part of the game the 'demo build' is from, but it feels like the start.

I did not dig the demo. Leaving the event, I wrote a review rating the press event build low enough that, in a later scene, the devs grumbled about losing their Metacritic-dependent bonus.

The demo is up on Steam, where the game's also on sale--half-price at £3.49.

[The definitive games journo simulator is, of course, RPS pal Brendy's Games Journo Story.]