the peculiar sensuality of Here Be Monsters

[jinian]

I'm playing two browser-based games pretty intensively right now. They've thoroughly distracted me from a replay of Dragon Age and even from Super Mario 2, proving once again that "casual gaming" can be anything but casual. The first is Flight Rising, which has elements of JRPG battling (but could we have quests or someing though please), breeding simulator, and actually casual gaming (the Fairgrounds includes a match-3 switcher, bubble puzzles, memory game, etc.). You've probably heard about it already. FR's dragons are incredibly cute, and it does the breeding sim thing very well, though I've got to say that when your genetics are explicitly non-Mendelian restricting your inbreeding to five generations makes less than no sense; I assume that bit is attempted social engineering.

The game that I'm spending more time with, because unlike Flight Rising it is really good at getting your sustained attention and real-world money, is Here Be Monsters. I never played Glitch, but I first heard about HBM as a substitute for it: crafting, farming, making your own little settlement. There's fishing, gathering of herbs and trees, and trapping of magical creatures -- you're some kind of humanoid magical creature yourself, a "Folk", but the story is that corrupting meteorites are hitting the world and you have to trap your sentient magical buddies, who get demented enough to be trapped when they're corrupted, so you can cure them. They give you magical items and gold as thanks for being healed.

The startling thing about HBM to me is how sensually appealing it is. I mean, I'm amused by the almanac entries (written in character, and she cannot even with abalone), most stuff is visually pleasant, and crafting is satisfying enough to hold my interest. But people spend a lot of time and energy on their homes, when there's very little reason to design them that heavily. I take great pride in my naturalistic Australian-bush arid place, and oh my GOD have some of my in-game buddies gone to town. One has planted flowers to produce a giant logo of what I assume must be their favorite sports team. Another has the largest possible home area crammed with every object available, which has to have cost substantial real-world money -- and they reorganized the entire thing into a different layout last week.

The appeal of the food is the most surprising part. I find myself foraging for blueberries when I'm someplace that has them, because mmm I haven't had blueberries for a while. I am tempted to pick mangosteens and rambutan, even though there's no good reason to do it now that I have far more efficient food. Crafting all the kinds of food possible is fun, and I am very tempted to set up a cost-benefit spreadsheet on them because I know some of them have a much better return than others, but the ones I tend to settle on are optimized for how many energy points I have at the moment vs how many they restore... and also how yummy they sound.* I cannot eat the Caramelized Silver Perch; it is made of electrons and thoughts. But it sounds so good, and I am drawn to it.

There's no reason to make food I would really like to eat, or to grow catnip around my settlement, yet I do those things because they're pleasurable in my mind. I am relentlessly practical in other ways! The house serves no in-game purpose other than looking like a house, so I still haven't upgraded my tent. Herbs, trees, and food, though, I am all over, because they appeal to my sensual imagination. I haven't encountered a game that did quite this before, and it's fascinating.

* Okay, sometimes how adorable they are too. The inarizushi! We have to do this with inarizushi in real life sometime, rushthatspeaks!

Comments

[submarine_bells]

Here Be Monsters sounds like just my cup of tea - I love games with a strong harvesting/crafting component. And it turns out that there's an iOS version, so I'm downloading it to my iPad now to investigate later on when I'm not supposed to be working. :-7

[jinian]

Oh good! I hope you enjoy it. It's not apparently possible to add people as buddies without being in the same location in-game, but we should arrange to meet up if you like the game so I can add you. Buddies get to send each other presents!

[submarine_bells]

OK, so where in-game are you located at? I'm doing bits of the tutorial (in between working) and I've gotten to the part where I choose a location to place my homestead. Can I set it up near you?

[jinian]

You can, but you can also teleport to buddies' places for free, so it's actually better to be far from each other! I'm in southeast Australia. The middle of China will eventually be very useful to you if you want to plan ahead for quests; otherwise, up to you.

[submarine_bells]

Any other tips for locating a homestead?

[jinian]

Not really. You get one of either grassy, icy, arid, tropical, or sandy depending on where you land, but I'm not sure how precisely you can choose that. It only makes a difference in looks.

Oh, don't remove the stumps for the Creep Trees when you get to that point, they'll regrow and you can farm them. :)

[submarine_bells]

Well, no promises regarding how long I'll stick with it, but it's amusing me so far. I normally loathe the timer-based games (Pay Extra To Speed This Up!) but I'm finding enough other stuff to do that I'm inclined to live with that aspect of it, at least for now. :-7

So yeah, wanna meet up somewhere in-world and say hi? London, say? The character I'm playing is called Tula, and has brown hair and a red shirt, if that helps any.

[jinian]

Yes, there's usually enough to do with the multiple crafting sites and quests running. I've only been frustrated a few times.

Sometime yes! I had gone to sleep a bit early last night, so I missed this, but I'll normally be up at the time you posted it. We can try tonight. :)

[submarine_bells]

Okay, let me know when, and how to find you. What's your character's name?

[jinian]

Now is fine if you're free. I'm Jinian, brown skin, pink hair, and black-and-white outfit. I'll come to London.

[submarine_bells]

On my way! (who needs to write theses anyway? ;-) )

[submarine_bells]

I don't see you....

[jinian]

I wonder if there are stealthily different servers or something, I'm hanging out at the square.

[jinian]

Let's try Stonehenge instead.

[submarine_bells]

I'm now at Stonehenge, next to the henge. I don't see you there, either. I'm wondering if it's a different server thing... I'm playing on the iOS version; maybe it and the browser version are separate? Or maybe it's a geographical issue. *shrug*

[jinian]

Yeah, I don't see you either. Drat! It would have been fun to have buddies I actually knew!

[submarine_bells]

Yeah, that would have been great! I'm doing a quick websearch to see if I can find any info on this issue, but not having any luck so far. Let me know if you come up with a solution somehow, too. Oh well. Such is life...

[maevele]

your description of the game has enticed me to try it

[maevele]

and stay up til six am playing.

[jinian]

Haha, now I feel like I should apologize. Though honestly I can't tell how Hardison feels about it.

If we can get our characters in the same place at the same time I'll add you as a buddy and send you goodies. Somehow the goodies are manufactured from nothing when you send them rather than anyone needing to have them in stock, so it's an excellent way to generate items.

[maevele]

hardison feels like it was a better way to stay up til six than the usual insomnia.

[oyceter]

OMG Here Be Monsters! It's been so long since I've logged in... but yes, I love all the different recipes, and while it's not quite as weird or quirky as Glitch, I appreciate the fact that I can make a lot of Chinese food (despite some writer's thing against abalone. Whatever person.)

I have also been really bad about Flight Rising, largely because of Pokemon and Hay Day on my phone (it's not actually great, but it is soothing, especially when I am brain dead). And then I got Fantasy Life for DS, which has crafting and cooking and carpentry and stuff, which I am sure is going to be a giant time suck.

[jinian]

Yeah, Fantasy Life sounds dangerous. :)

I might actually be getting a little stuck in HBM since I posted that -- I'm running into quests that need Expert's Workshop and I don't have it yet. Dismay!