Games of the Month: Monster's Expedition, Spiritfarer, Among Us, and more!

What the report says

Games of the Month: Monster's Expedition, Spiritfarer, Among Us, and more!Follow itch.ioFollowing itch.ioUnfollow itch.ioFollow itch.ioFollowing itch.ioUnfollow itch.ioI don’t know about you, but my game playing has spiked during quarantine. The time I used to spend going out with friends, eating in restaurants, and seeing the sun is now my game time. Fortunately for everyone reading this, I’ve been able to sort the great games from the… less great ones and have some real gems picked out and ready for you. 
 
 
 A Monster’s Expedition
 If you’re the kind of person who likes masterfully crafted puzzle games with charming theming and engaging visuals then do I have a recommendation for you.

A Monster’s Expedition is a masterfully crafted puzzle game with charming theming and engaging visuals. 
 If you’ve played any of Draknek’s other games (Sokobond and Cosmic Express are two of my favorites) you can expect Monster’s Expedition to scratch a similar itch. Here you’re a faceless monster with nothing but a backpack and the ability to cut down trees and roll logs all by yourself. Like all great puzzle games this is a simple premise that is then put into a variety of contexts through puzzle design that forces you to engage with all of the possibilities of its toolset.

This time you’re trying to build bridges and rafts to travel from one small island (puzzle) to another by rolling logs as far as they can in one direction, or flipping them end-to-end one square at a time. That’s it! It’s really refined!
 Now what really makes A Monster’s Expedition unique is that it’s what the developer calls a “relaxing open world puzzle adventure.” At first I assumed this was some kind of marketing jargon, but it’s actually a brilliant update that I hope all puzzle games adopt going forward. The setup for Expedition is that you’re moving from small island to small island which is the in-universe justification for having to solve a bunch of small puzzles.

Key details

Where the open world comes in is in that many islands have solutions that push you over to different islands that crisscross paths and let you explore an overworld map at your own leisurely pace. This means you can almost always find another puzzle to try if you’re stuck on whatever path you were working on. 
 I don’t want to oversell it, but there’s a real chance that A Monster’s Expedition will end the year as one of my favorite games of 2020. 
 
 Spiritfarer
 When I read that Spiritfarer was a “cozy game about death” I was intrigued.

As a group we’re pretty awful at talking about what waits for us at the end of the road, so when we do include death in gaming it’s usually dispensed by our player characters or infrequently to a friend in a case of raising the stakes. Spiritfarer is nothing like that Spiritfarer is a kind game about death, one where you’re dispensing death, but only because you’re in charge of ferrying lost souls through the afterlife. Your boat isn’t the little ferry you might expect, but a fully customizable barge. In a sort of Harvest Moon-alike twist you’re collecting different materials during your journey to build new things like quarters for the friends you’re transporting or facilities like kitchens and gardens.

It’s a really big boat, ok?
 But the area where Spiritfarer really becomes great is in how it treats time. If what I’ve been told is accurate (I haven’t gotten to credits in Spiritfarer) the game runs for 20-30 hours but doesn’t require you to be completely engaged for the whole runtime. You don’t actually sail your ship, but select a destination on a map and wait for your vessel to navigate there automatically. During this time (usually anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes depending on distance) and you’re free to engage in all kinds of activities from fishing to hanging out with (and hugging!) your shipmates.

More from the announcement

This downtime forces the game to be played at a relaxed pace and live in the world you’re building on your ship. It’s really great. 
 
 Among Us
 If you’ve been online anywhere over the past few weeks you’ve probably run into Among Us somewhere on your travels. It’s that game of blobby spacemen fixing parts of their ship and then being murdered or shot out of airlocks.