i should start by saying i didnt play the first one. my only exposure to this series was gaming website waypoint’s stream of monster prom when it came out. and that game looked like shit. every joke missed, every character was annoying, every scene seemed to inexplicably be about cocaine. the cocaine jokes weren’t necessarily bad, they just felt very out of place and not very funny. it was a very bad first impression, and it disappointed me because i love the yawhg (the game this series is inspired by). knowing that, i saw this game was on sale and i figured i may as well see if this one was better. and i gotta admit, if nothing else this game is better than monster prom.

for one, they added some toggles for removing more sensitive topic-based scenes from the game (i opted out of drugs immediately, fearing another cocaine situation) and there were mostly new characters. and immediately i matched with a character i actually liked a lot! dahlia aquino is probably my favorite character in the game, and thank god i got her first or i probably wouldve refunded the game. out the gate, i think keeping the system of not necessarily knowing who you are romancing is kind of a bad call. the characters have very strong personalities, so you will probably end up loving or hating each of them with no in between. if you get stuck with a character you hate, tough. there’s no takebacks.

it feels like a lot of this game’s design choices are split between making it a kind of rogue-like dating sim and being a party game dating sim. it wants to be repeatable and hard to learn, but also possible to pick up and play with friends. the problem is, if you just know the game more, you will always win any pick up and play game where your less experienced friends just won’t. with a full group of people who know the game i imagine it’s really fun, but all my friends have better standards than me and don’t want to memorize each character’s romance conditions.

i think at least the parts of this game that are just the yawhg are great. i’ve played the yawhg enough to get tired of it, so this is a good alternative. i’ve probably spent all the time i’m going to on this installment, but i know the third game is coming soon so i’m hoping they continue to improve. my biggest suggestion: just let people pick who they romance, no weird trivia question to decide. please.

Roughly just as good as the last game, but that's inherently means for a score dock in a sequel. The first game is fun for a bit and this one isn't bad, but I don't care for the changes to the line up of love interests, the series' juvenile humor is starting to lose its audacious charm by now, and being saddled with a bestie you might not even like right off the bat defeats the purpose of exploring your options over a longer playthrough. By this installment you're more or less encouraged to pick someone to go after right off the bat and that's kind of a bummer, I felt less restricted to explore hotties in the last game, weirdly.

Won over my dream goth gf Joy though so I can't complain too much. Have a feeling Roadtrip is more the evolution I'm looking for.

More of the same really. More goofy romance antics, more about escalating each joke to whatever height of absurdity it can manage.

The writing feels more polished somehow, which is good given how much longer routes tend to go than last time. The first Monster Prom dealt with general dating sim archetypes with violent twists (and the occasional sincerity hidden beneath the walls). Now in their second adventure, the game takes a lot more swings. Damien's violent fight shtick (with a hidden sensitive side etc etc) settles into genuine character growth, as he just sort of lets himself be sensitive more often. The Slayer in the first game was mostly a violent distraction, with her secret romance route mostly being a joke too. Camp builds off that route's ending of "girl get therapy" to having her genuinely settle down and face her biggest anxieties. Joy the Witch was a Buffy/Charmed joke, but now she's got these interesting workaholic layers as she tries and fails to enjoy her relaxing vacation.

My personal fave is Dahlia. The aspiring General of the Eight Circles of Hell initially seems like Damien 2, but somehow she comes off more adorably earnest than anything. Damien's violence perpetually placed him as King of the Fuck Mountain, while Dahlia has this angle of always striving for something. Its random violence versus purposeful, desperate, eager to please and prove herself violence. Damien's (initially) too cool for school and scared of being called a baby, Dahlia jumps into every single task without shame or hesitation. Its a subtle difference, but its an endearing distinction. The secret endings highlight all of this, as her personality and confidence crumble when she's forced to actually decipher her purpose as something beyond Damien's Rival. It works! Watching her eagerly scramble after scout badges is charming! I was charmed!

It also helps that the female body types are body diverse this time. Joy the witch is allowed to be large and curvy, Dahlia's the muscle god, The Slayer filling out the petite archetypes that most of Monster Prom contained. The male and nb options generally fall into muscled or slim, but its robots and skeletons so. It is what it is.

I only briefly talked about the mechanics in Monster Prom 1, but seeing how they've shifted in this game is genuinely fascinating. Prom featured six different stats: Money, Cool, Charm, etc. Occasionally, you'd have to consider whether to spend a turn at the school store, dropping your money stat in exchange for something new. The money stat and the school store is abandoned. The risk of wasting a turn browsing for items you couldn't afford is no longer possible.

Instead, Camp invents the Drink system. Every two turns, you're required to select a beverage from the campus store. You have a permanent selection of free drinks, but what drinks appear in that alcohol chest are determined by what drinks you've bought on the main menu. (These are bought with "summer memories," which you automatically collect by just playing rounds of the game). If you don't have any of those free drinks, or you just want to add some spice to the playthrough, the bartender will give you a random drink. This can raise stats, lower stats, put you on a secret ending, change your character's name, change the music, change the backgrounds, whatever the fuck. It keeps the game fresh dozens of hours in. It makes the party game much more of a party.

It also just feels like you have more control of the game that before. Since secret endings are more tied to drinks than random events, its much easier to direct the game towards the scenes you want to see. Both MP and MC have achievements tied to seeing every event and outcome. Outcomes being every successful or failed stat check. There was no way to catalogue that in MP, you just had to take notes and hope for the best. MC provides a complete list of every event and checks off what prompts you succeeded or failed. I'm never gonna go for all the outcomes bc, you know, I have things to do, but I like that the feature exists. It also provides a list of "special stuff", signaling events that might provide unique characters or outfits that could be missed on a regular playthrough.

However, this can be limiting too. Giving the player this much control cuts down on repetition, but it does end some of the random factor. It took me 25 hours to see the secret endings I wanted in Monster Prom 1, it took me 15 hours for Monster Camp. This is probably for the best. I've played 40 hours of these two games combined, I understand the flow of these events. I know the pattern of the jokes. Its a game designed for short absurdist bursts with friends.

More personally, I did the co-op romance ending with my partner and I don't know how to explain that the compatibility quiz made me cry with how seen and connected I felt. Beautiful night. We did it months ago, during a time when I wasn't sick, but I still think fondly of it. Gotta give it a good grade for that at the very least.

This game is definitely better than the first, only if marginally so. The systems are so much deeper, the "event collecting" idea is pushed harder, and the characters just seem to have a lot more life and fun in them, overall, this game really does follow the first well, so much so that I not only am making this review after my FIRST RUN (knowing I will put another 10 hours into this game minimum) but also definitely sold me on the follow-up. While giving the games a similar score, I will give credit that Monster Prom 2 is definitely more fun than the first (so far) I'll add more details the further I get.

In many ways, it’s just as cute and fun as its predecessor. But in comparison, routes go on for noticeably longer and can become a drag. I also have mixed feelings about the new drink system. If the routes were shorter, then runs getting messed with by the drinks wouldn’t be a big deal, but since they’re as long as they are, depending on how the drink affects your run, it can be very frustrating to have your progress hindered by them. It’s still a fun time, but you’ll get tired of it faster than Monster Prom.

Also, Zoe is no longer a dateable character, which is a huge disappointment (though they did add her as a playable character, which is great for trans inclusivity. I just miss having her as a dating option…).

Monster Camp is an improvement over its predecessor in terms of gameplay, writing, and replayability - but I still wish it was a bit more transparent with how parts of the game worked.

My wife and I played Monster Prom a few times and never felt like we fully grasped it - you could perform seemingly quite well while wooing your preferred partner, and then still get turned down for prom. It wasn't until we looked up a guide that we learned your results are based on stats not performance. Sadly, there's little incentive to keep replaying the game once you've gotten a couple endings, so we dropped it. Monster Camp fixes most of those issues.

The Monster Prom series is basically a multiplayer dating sim where you’re all trying to romance someone and get them to agree to go on a date with you - either to prom in the first game, or to the meteor shower in the sequel. A dating “run” attempt takes anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the game length you choose and how many people you are playing with. Most of the time, my wife and I played just the two of us, but we did manage a couple games with more friends which was quite fun.

Monster Camp's new cast of characters is immediately more likable as a whole, and fan favorites from Monster Prom come back as either romance options or as guest characters. The writing throughout had us genuinely laughing far more than I expected to and the art for every scenario is fantastic. I didn’t love the new drinking “minigame” at first because it’s totally random and can completely screw up your run if you get a bad drink that nukes your stats. Thankfully, you can unlock the ability to bypass the drink randomization through the new in-game shop.The addition of a currency you can earn and spend in the “Meta Shop” gives you something to work toward and a reason to keep doing runs. You can spend that currency on frivolous things like fun costumes, or on actual gameplay benefits like stat-boosting drinks to help you in your runs. I would actually really love to collect everything in the shop, if the runs didn't take so long and didn't have so much dang reading.

My biggest gripe with the game is that it still doesn't correct the opaqueness of Monster Prom. We knew what we were doing because we played the original and looked up guides, but this game still does not explain how anything works which is not friendly to new players. You can buy instruction manuals in the Meta Shop, but they shouldn't lock basic things like "how do I play this game" behind in-game unlocks.

Overall, Monster Camp is a nice step-up from Monster Prom, so much so that we wanted to keep playing to see more of the delightful writing and goofy situations, and to unlock more in the Meta Shop. We loved our time with the game, but wished parts of it were explained better.

+ Goofy and surprisingly funny writing
+ Great cast of characters
+ New in-game unlock system that adds to replayability
+ Fantastic art throughout
+ Fun multiplayer

- Little-to-no explanation of the core game mechanics
- Runs take a long time and I found myself getting impatient with all the reading