Monster Crown: Sin Eateris an upcoming sequel to the 2021 monster-taming RPG that’s known for being an adult alternative to games likePokemon.Monster Crownamassed a dedicated following but received its fair share of criticism in the process. Because of this,Monster Crown:Sin Eateris faced with the challenge of living up to its predecessor and finding the room to grow its own identity in the process.
Monster Crown: Sin Eatercurrently lacks an official release date, but developers have already released a playabledemo on Steam. Game Rant recently spoke with Studio Aurum lead Jason Walsh, programmer Kyle Toom, “Monsterologist” RacieB, and game director APE-AHAB about what setsMonster Crown: Sin Eaterapart and the team’s ambitious plans for this sequel, which include a massive array of diverse monsters, complex mechanics, and a player-driven narrative complemented with complex and interesting characters.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Monster Crown: Sin Eater Boasts Impressive Plans for Monsters and Exploration
Q:Monster Crown: Sin Eaterhas more than 1000 Monster sprites. How do you manage such an ambitious number of monsters and make them all feel different?
Jason:This always remains a challenge! There have been designs in the past that I’ve worked on that seem to be re-treading the same ground or offering something that can already be found elsewhere in the game. To ensure each monster feels special, I cut the monster or design when these scenarios arise. We have a wealth of designs from the first game that serve as a basis for the re-done art in the sequel, but we have new monsters as well. Our dedicated artist Racie is able to focus purely on this work now, which allows us a lot more scale, effort, and overall quality than we could ensure in the past. Fans seem to be really enjoying the new level of effort and cohesiveness.
Q: What goes into creating a monster? From a gameplay perspective and an artistic perspective.
Jason:When people work onmonster-taming games, they often stretch themselves too thin. First forms, second forms, often when their real inspiration and effort was into the third stage. Stretching concepts like this can lead to three average designs rather than one killer one. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry so much about that; our monsters only transform into another form if we have something interesting to say via that additional design. For that reason, a very strong initial design making solid use of design fundamentals is key for us.
One monster example is Sarcocylis, a boss you can encounter in the demo. I designed 15 monsters, then chose the very best of them to share with the team, who further helped iterate on designs and narrow it down to one. This is sort of inspired by how musicians approach albums (or so I’ve heard), often producing upwards of sixty songs before choosing the 11 or so that make it onto the final product. This ensures fans get the ‘cream of the crop’.
Of course,monsters also have to have value in the battle system, and inSin Eaterwe’re taking things much further than in the first game. Some monsters have powerful stats, others, useful skills or ‘traits’ (our game’s version of abilities, with every monster having one positive and one negative). The monster is balanced for where it will appear in the game, and we ask ourselves - design aside - why would players want this monster? There’s a lot of effort that goes in but when we see how fans react to new monsters it’s so worth it.
Q: What separates your game’s designs from any other creature collector?
Jason:We spend a lot of time studying our inspiration’s inspirations. So, not just what our favorite creators do, but their favorite creators that came before them. We also read all the design material we can get our hands on, from older artbooks,Disney design methods, historic aspects of anime, even things like monster design in horror movies. The same core principles prevail regarding shape and personality.
As for the game itself, I think you might expect I’ll say “the crossbreeding system”, and while that is true, the most important pillar ofMonster Crownis “responsive depth”. That means there will be a large world, but if you explore a lot, you’ll find areas opening up that make it feel even larger. If you breed monsters, there might appear to be a lot, but in experimenting, you access a whole new level of depth and monster transformations that opens up even more options. The battle system offers similar concepts. Designing a game like this takes a lot of work, but it means we get to make our most hardcore fans the happiest, no matter what type of player they are.
Q: Monsters appear to have different behaviors in the wild, with some fleeing the player and others being more aggressive or sinister. Can you speak more on how this system is designed?
Kyle:From a programming perspective, it is very important to me that the monsters feel a little less predictable and robotic than players initially expect to make them feel really alive. For this I have a lot of levers for the designers to pull to really dial in individual monster personalities. One such lever is the fact that each monster has its own vision cone and vision radius! In real life, it’s pretty common for prey animals like rabbits to have nearly 360 degree vision while us humans have a mere 180 degrees, for instance. You can see this in how Apo very quickly sees and flees from you, while the slow-moving Teedon mostly ignores you unless you get in its way.
Racie:I’m a big fan ofvirtual life systems, and really want to give the feeling that you’re exploring an ecosystem, so it’s important to me to give our wild monsters different kinds of procedural reactions to their environment. In the full game, this is also planned to expand to include different types of interactions with the player, such as nocturnal stalking behaviors, or predator/prey relationships between different species of wild monsters.
Q: And how should players react or adapt to monsters' diverse personalities?
Kyle:In the end, the differing personalities are mostly just there to spice up your playthrough and further immerse yourself. Whether a monster runs or chases you should be pretty immediately obvious and easy for players to work around without having to disrupt your play much, but hopefully it means an unexpected scenario crops up every once in a while.
Racie:Players should be able to observe wild monsters to figure out the best way to approach or avoid them. Is this monster a carnivore or a herbivore? Is it unbothered by your presence, or has the time of day made it more aggressive than usual? Is it more interested in chasing something else? In at least one instance, a normally dangerous species will even ignore you if you happen to be riding one of their own.
Monster Crown: Sin Eater Offers a Player-Driven Story and Conflicting Factions
Q: How doesMonster Crown: Sin Eaterbalance monster-taming gameplay with a more traditional RPG storyline? Are there any story inspirations you can speak to from outside of the genre?
Ahab:I wouldn’t really say thatSin Eaterhas a traditional storyline or structure, given that the game becomes effectively nonlinear after the first major boss and the map opens up near enough in its entirety. How you choose to tackle the remaining objectives, the order you do them in, the resources you have access to, theside questsyou do in between - all of this is decided by the player. Eventually, this funnels into the final dungeon, Meru Spire, at the exact center of the map. This makes everyone’s playthroughs unique (some choices will invariably lock you out of others, or you may encounter some things earlier or later than others), and the game becomes that much more replayable.
The major boss fights represent knowledge checks, basically. On the recommended difficulty (the hardest one), you will be expected to breed andfuse a party of Monstersstrong enough to overcome the challenges ahead. For those not looking for such an experience, lower difficulty levels will be offered.Monster Crownhas been about “responsive depth” since the very beginning; the more you put in, the more you get out. That hasn’t changed here.
The main story inspiration forSin Eateris Dharmic myth and the concept of cycles of rebirth. The protagonist Asur, his eventual archenemy Lord Taishakuten, and even the Crown Nation itself, are all stuck in cycles.Sin Eateris about breaking these cycles to build something new.
Q: To accommodate the game’s more ambitious story, what can you tell us about the major supporting characters players meet? What role and personality will the protagonist take on?
The first major supporting character you’ll meet is the Asur’s older brother, Dyeus. He’s far and away the most skilled and respectedMonster Tamerof the time, and he teaches the player the very basics at the start of the game. Dyeus is greatly concerned about ideas of personal liberty and self-determination, which are values he attempts to impart upon his little brother. Following on from that, though, there are a few major players who all have an interest in helping Asur on his quest to overthrow The Holy Order.
First among them is Deckard. Deckard is another skilled Tamer, and he seems to know Dyeus very well. Though he poses as a high-roller at the casino in the desert oasis of Niokyo City, he seems to have ulterior motives and an agenda all his own. In reality, he’s the leader of the Sepnal Suicide Corps, a covert militant faction based out of the island of Sepnal southwest of the Crown Nation. Deckard is looking for a means to revive a certain Monster to use as the lynchpin of a full-scale assault.
Second is Professor Mycroft XIV. She is the administrator of the lonely island city of Hewston, just off the northeast coast of the Crown Nation - a community composed entirely of scientists. A ruthless intellectual, there’s very little she doesn’t know about the nature of men or beasts. She looks for an impartial solution to the conflict; a viral weapon that will simply kill all of Lord Taishakuten’s forces where they stand, and leave humans and monsters alike untouched. She takes an almost immediate interest in Asur and seems to have some kind of connection to Lord Taishakuten.
Third is Sabahat, the Beastman Model: Surgus. Sabahat was formerly Lord Taishakuten’s doctor and chief engineer of the Beastman Project, before they escaped and set up a small encampment on a small island to the northwest of the Crown Nation. Together with other Beastman escapees known as the Bannerless Beastmen, they try to make the Beastmen’s remaining years as comfortable as possible before the inevitable cancers come to ravage their bodies. Sabahat has been alive so long that they do not remember their time as a human, or even whether or not they were male or female.
The protagonist, Asur, is a set character this time around, compared to the previous game which let you create your own player character. Asur is an inquisitive and curious individual (As allgood RPG protagonistsought to be!) but his dialogue is characterised by a sort of dry, practical approach to everything. His exact path through the Crown Nation is determined by the player, and all of the dialogue options that are presented are equally likely things for him to say. He can ally himself with any one of the major faction leaders or none of them at all.
Q: As far as the game’s tone and story are concerned, what kind of feelings are you hoping to invoke in players?
Ahab:Unease, unfamiliarity and hostility. This is a world that’s out to kill you. Monsters are allies of convenience - never forget this fact. Whether you’re confronted with the horrors of the Beastman Corps - horrific splices of Man and Monster - or the myriad secrets that lay teeming just under the surface of the Crown Nation, there are very few places in the game where safety is truly guaranteed. It’s a war against the world, but if you’re resourceful and have enough grit, you can make it.
Q: Are there any major callbacks returning players should look out for? Anything unexpected new players should know?
Ahab:Many places in the Crown Nation share names and appearances with locales from the original game’s setting, Crown Island, but in completely different places. A big part of the mystery inSin Eaterfor returning players is why, exactly, things are the way they are here. Many players who dug deep into the first game’s secrets will also find a continuation or conclusion to some subplots from the first game.
New players should approachSin Eaterwith an open mind. Take everything as it comes, because it’s a story that works as a standalone and also works as a continuation of theevents and themes from the firstMonster Crown.
Q: What is the biggest lesson you learned from the firstMonster Crowngame?
Jason:That a dedicated team, each excellent in their domain and better than me in that talent area is really the way to go if you’re making a large game. While I was a decent jack-of-all-trades, I’m certainly thankful that those days are over and we can now makeMonster Crownas a real studio effort. I learned a lot about producing projects, project management, and “completing and shipping” - the essential, and perhaps hardest, final chapter of game development since Ifirst startedMonster Crownin 2016. I once heard a quote “People, working with people is how you do anything of value”, and as a guy who has mostly preferred solitude in my past, I’ve learned that’s quite true. Our team is made up of a bunch of really fun people, so it’s a hell of a lot more fun too!
[END]
