Frankenstein's Monsters, Inc. by AtkinsSJ

[raw]
made by AtkinsSJ for LD33 (COMPO)
What if Dr Frankenstein started a monster-building business?

Controls: Mouse, and left mouse button.

---

You are Dr. Frankenstein. Like any self-respecting entrepreneur, you've turned your monster-building experiments into a business! And why get your hands dirty when you can delegate?

Body parts are unearthed at the graveyard, are sewn together in the operating theatre, then zapped to life with a healthy dose of lightning. The resulting monsters can then either be assigned to work for you, or sold for a healthy profit. Human beings will also apply for jobs, and are about 4 times more effective, but cost 4 times as much in wages.

Your actions understandably generate public outrage - the higher it is, the fewer people will want to work for you, and if it ever reaches 100% an angry mob will burn down your premises. Try to avoid that, by spending money on charitable works.

Win by earning enough money to retire!

Ratings

Coolness 45% 1415
Overall 3.44 237
Audio 2.96 353
Fun 3.24 313
Graphics 3.12 453
Humor 3.32 199
Innovation 3.32 267
Mood 3.23 304
Theme 4.04 87

Feedback

RoboNebula
23. Aug 2015 · 20:56 UTC
Nice and simple game! I was hooked to this for an entire hour, on my Ipad! It works on mobile!
EmanP
23. Aug 2015 · 21:25 UTC
Ahh.... I always wanted to sell enough for a lovely trip to the caribbean... With my business strategies, you can too! But a vacation awaits me... so I'll tell you businessmen later, ok?
rogual
24. Aug 2015 · 13:28 UTC
Really good mechanics. I started by putting all my monsters into digging, then realized it was really all about finding your bottlenecks, so started to spread them more evenly. I lost when I ran out of money, because the instructions didn't mention that would make me lose! They just say you win if you retire and lose if public outrage hits 100%.

Old English money was a nice touch, and I liked the various PR options.

I think in a game like this UI is really important, and could have benefited from some more time spent choosing colors that stand out for the text, and aligning the various figures so it's easier to see at a glance what your situation is.
PTSnoop
24. Aug 2015 · 17:37 UTC
My thoughts:

- I kinda feel like all those hospitals built in the endgame should have had some effect on the rate of body part acquisition... :P
- I was struggling to read the text in the top-right box - it might be worth moving the monster's head down a bit, so the light text is on a darker background.
- Also, it might have been worth giving monster workers some advantage or disadvantage over human workers - at the moment, as I understand it, 4 monsters = 1 human, so there's not really any situation where you'd choose monster workers over human ones (unless you're not getting any applicants because of public outrage, but I never had any problems there).
- On the plus side, the difficulty curve seemed just right - not so simple as to have an obvious cookie-clicker "right answer" the first time round, but not so opaque that us players have no hope of figuring the system out. Which in this sort of game is a tricky balance to hit, so well done!
LogGiant
25. Aug 2015 · 01:00 UTC
Everyone was getting upset at me, so I reminded them who I am! By building hospitals and orphanages of course.
I only wish that the monster/person I clicked on was selected instead of the first one in the room. Otherwise I had a fantastic time!
🎤 AtkinsSJ
25. Aug 2015 · 15:14 UTC
Thanks everyone! :D I'm really glad people are enjoying my silly little game.

The text is indeed hard to read in places. I had adjusted some things to make it easier, but that was *before* I drew the top-right image at the last minute. Sorry about that.

The humans being equal to 4 monsters is dull, but I didn't at the time think of any way to make them different without making one obviously superior to the other. Maybe monster workers should cause more outrage. Originally workers were going to have randomised statistics, but that got cut.
DruhinM
25. Aug 2015 · 15:25 UTC
Good job. simple to play. Loved it
Legulysse
25. Aug 2015 · 15:56 UTC
Hard to understand at the first time, but cool to manage by the way
Pusty
25. Aug 2015 · 16:09 UTC
Nice to play :D
tuturto
26. Aug 2015 · 14:19 UTC
Fun game and I loved all various body parts flying from the grave. Very innovative idea too.
McFunkypants
26. Aug 2015 · 17:34 UTC
Cool concept. The time management and "consumables" were initially confusing but once I got the hang of it I liked imagining the simulation. Good work!
HotBoxGames
27. Aug 2015 · 21:06 UTC
Like the management take on the theme, first game I've seen like this! Quite addictive too, you feel like you have to keep playing until you're rich! I wish I could build a hospital for £3 xD
Xanjos
28. Aug 2015 · 16:52 UTC
Took some time to find a good way to generate that cashflow but I like the gameplay idea a lot.
refreshgames
28. Aug 2015 · 21:50 UTC
I should have retired 3 years ago! Fun game, I died a couple of times at the start then used my newly found business acumen to really churn those monsters out! Nice touch with the music and olde english imperial currency :)
BlackQuiltro
03. Sep 2015 · 22:07 UTC
I really like this type of games :)
Good balance on the mechanics, simple yet you can achieve a lot with them. I would make clearer the cost of human labor and changed the money format to something simpler (I am not from an English speaking country)

Liked the graphics, the music was good but a bit monotonous.
Nice work :)
shawn42
04. Sep 2015 · 00:46 UTC
nice and addictive. lost far too much time to this game! great entry!
Daniel X. Moore
06. Sep 2015 · 05:30 UTC
Best Dr. Frankenstein's business simulator 2015.