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Digimon Story Time Stranger
Game
Game2014
Always Sometimes Monsters
Developer Vagabond Dog
Always Sometimes Monsters is a 2014 role-playing video game developed by Canadian studio Vagabond Dog and published by Devolver Digital for Microsoft Windows. A later update using the MonoGame framework brought the game to OS X and Linux on 8 January 2015, iOS and Android on 28 May 2015 and PlayStation 4 on 10 October 2017. After Vagabond Dog acquired the publishing rights to the game, a port to the Nintendo Switch… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
193 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Sep 7, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
69
Fresh
129 positive · 57 negative
95% range 62–76%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 129 | 57 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
7 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
1,830 of 2,448 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 193 · most liked firstI competent little RPG maker game that's very from the time when they were all the craze on Youtube. Its a fine story that suffer from both trying to be very adult but shows a very child like understanding of adult life. A true 5/10 for me
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →im sorry but i hated this unfortunately its trying too hard to be edgy or thought provoking and it just comes off as very cringe i like devolver usually but just not this one maybe someone else will like it
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love choose your own adventure games and heard a lot of buzz around this game when I was a kid, so I was really excited to finally play it for myself. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. Gameplay is incredibly repetitive, which I wouldn't have minded if the story felt intricate and nuanced, but this isn't the case. Dialogue options have no bearing on the games important choices, which, despite an in-game insistence that "life is all about choices", are binary and overly simplistic. The…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →(This review contains spoilers, in case that is something one wishes to avoid) I am someone who enjoys achievement hunting, and part of that is doing research on a game before I really play it. That's how I really saw other people's opinions on how this game doesn't truly follow one's choices. Good decision making games have a variety of endings, one where the player might look at it and go 'huh'. Maybe it would incentivise them to play it again to get another ending, discuss with others in…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall a really interesting game whose premise is to put you in difficult ethical/moral dilemmas, and really make you think about your choices. Pros: - Some pretty fun characters - Solid dialogue and a mostly well written story - Art is pretty nice Cons: - Some animations just take way too long - Very easy to accidentally hit the spacebar/A button too many times and choose an option you weren't intending on choosing - This is supposed to be a game about choices, and that's what really drew…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Originally posted on [url=http://www.dragon-quill.net/always-sometimes-monsters/]Dragon Quill. Comments are enabled there. The developers of this game apparently thought the best way to tell a story about the grueling monotony of modern life was to force players to do grueling monotonous tasks. My final playtime was somewhere around 9 hours, and maybe half of that was actually spent on plot. The gameplay consists of nothing but walking around at a mind-numbingly slow pace, talking to people to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Depressing. Usually people play games to escape reality, not try to romanticize it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ugh, this is one of those games, the kind that promises that your choices matter... but really, it comes with a fine print. It should've said, "Your choices matter, but there's only one way to get the good ending." Seriously, this is the perfect comparison when you want to see a game where "choices matter" is done poorly as opposed to something like Detroit: Become Human, the undefeated pinnacle of CYOA-type games. To put it into perspective, DBH really offers freedom in terms of allowing your…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →its been about a decade since i've played this game, but i remember it being one of the more engaging story driven games i've played and it being a fun introduction into the genre. i vaguely remember the morally gray aspects of the game and the authors set out to do what they wanted to do, which was a novel about making seemingly terrible choices in order to win back the love of your life, if you even do win them back at all. while i dont remember the writing in its entirety or some of the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Only an illusion of choice game, no actual choice. You're always the bad guy, unless you follow a guide to pick the right out of 1-3 choices at any given time.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While I liked this game overall, I feel reluctant to recommend it. I really enjoyed the themes of the game: it truly captures how difficult adult life can be. As someone who first picked up the game in high school and play it again in his twenties, the themes feel so much more emotional to me now and I'm grateful I decided to give the game another chance after several years. The gameplay itself I found very enjoyable, even for someone who doesn't typically play choose-your-adventure romance…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →#promosky fav #game series pt 1 A-C Ace Attorney Air Alundra Always Sometimes Monsters Animamundi Dark Alchemist Animal Crossing Angelique Arc the Lad Atelier Banner Saga Baldur’s Gate Blue Reflection Breath of Fire Calico Chaos;Head Chaos;Child Chrono Trigger and Cross Clannad Corpse Party
unlabelledView post →This game is just so boring and uninteresting. It may be relatable to some people ig which would make it more emotional or smth but to me it wasn't. I played through it using a guide, if there wasn't one I wouldn't even bother lol just wanted to get it over with.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Corny ass writing, reads very much as an early attempt at storytelling in video games and ending up overstating what it has to say in the process
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Always Sometimes Monsters is a multiple-choice RPG where we follow the adventures of a character who is desperate to get to his/her ex's wedding to try to win him/her back. It is above all a visual novel, all in English. The graphics are minimalist, the music is repetitive and can be annoying. Fortunately, you can turn it off by accessing an options menu via the F1 key on the keyboard. The game is divided into successive days (30 days) where you will have to talk to characters and complete…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Always Sometimes Monsters" is perhaps the slowest-paced RPG Maker game ever made, which struggles to put its "oh no, cruel world!" motto in focus with a script resembling a highschool essay. You play as a failed writer. You live in a city full of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, drug addicts and people who are just as responsible as a toddler in a candy shop. You have to option to choose your background as the story goes. All possible combinations of choices lead to a bad ending, except one. The cringiest one, of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not very good, reads like a first draft. Why did I buy this in 2014?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is the absolute antithesis of algorithmic game design. It’s an RPG with basically no combat, where your primary mechanic is extreme financial desperation. The fact that the game lets you choose your race and sexual orientation at a party, and then actively changes how the world and NPCs react to you based on those choices, makes it a staggeringly deep and often brutal narrative sandbox.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played the game during an emotional, confusing, and depressing time, and got personally invested in the story. To put it simply, the story is about MC going through a failed relationship, career, and other stuff - though my situation wasn't about an old flame or anything - some of the hardships they encountered hit close to home past and present. Honestly, I do not know what else I can say because these type of stories might not be for everyone, but at the time I played it, it was a good…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i haven't played this game in over 10 years and i still feel crushed any time i think about it
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wanted to like this, but I couldn’t get into the loop. The story setup was interesting, but the gameplay felt sluggish and unfocused. Maybe it just hasn’t aged well—11 years later, narrative games are a lot more polished. Might’ve hit harder back then.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →fishing = unlimited food gambling = unlimited money
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →We are all always sometimes monsters
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do you want to play the life of loser? Do you want to do in cheap RPG kit graphics? You enjoy working dead end assembly line jobs for low pay. Here is your game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Always Sometimes Monsters is the kind of game that gets under your skin in ways you don't expect — I found myself genuinely wrestling with choices that felt mundane on the surface but quietly revealed something about how I think about people and consequences. The pixel art and soundtrack do a lot of heavy lifting to establish mood, and the RPG Maker framework mostly works even if the minigames get tedious fast (yes, the box-moving and seed-planting drag). My biggest frustration was that the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm actually on the page because I wanted to recommend it to someone! :) I really was immersed in the story and binged it! It's a neat idea, and I loved it. It might be one I've not played for a while, but it stuck with me. :)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm sure this game is great when you go through it more, but I am making this review for everyone else who might be considering buying this game and is also on the ace spectrum or is triggered by NSFW content. Nudity is NOT as far as it goes. This game is mistagged. I think it's great otherwise, and if it wasn't mistagged I wouldn't have bought it and this review wouldn't exist. But as a repulsed asexual person, please do not buy this if NSFW is a trigger for you. In the first 2 hours due to me…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →feels like a college project
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm not sure what more I could say about ASM that hasn't been said by others. You're thrust into the shoes of someone struggling; a creative with the tightening collar of financial pressures, dissatisfaction at one's personal choices and a yearning for the good times which are most certainly gone. The story that then unfolds is the one as old as time itself: going on a cross-country adventure to reclaim lost love. The choices present make it so that's all you get. You can become wealthy by…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →U couldnt imagine of how forgotten this game is in 2026 and it still is playable, this is one of the best games that i had ever played in 2026
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For a 12 year old random indie game I had in my library I actually enjoyed it and had a good time with the game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Always Sometimes Monsters really stuck with me. It’s a narrative-driven game where you mostly walk, make choices, talk to people, and try to deal with life falling apart around you. There’s no heroism here — just messy situations, bad decisions, money problems, relationships, and consequences that feel uncomfortably human. I loved how honest and grounded it is. Your choices matter, but not in a glamorous way — they matter in small, sometimes painful ways that feel real. It’s funny, sad,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →⣿⣿⡻⠿⣳⠸⢿⡇⢇⣿⡧⢹⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣾⣿⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⡐⣯⠁ ⠄⠄ ⠟⣛⣽⡳⠼⠄⠈⣷⡾⣥⣱⠃⠣⣿⣿⣿⣯⣭⠽⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⢢⠏⠄ ⠄ ⢠⡿⠶⣮⣝⣿⠄⠄⠈⡥⢭⣥⠅⢌⣽⣿⣻⢶⣭⡿⠿⠜⢿⣿⣿⡿⠁⠄⠄ ⠄⣼⣧⠤⢌⣭⡇⠄⠄⠄⠭⠭⠭⠯⠴⣚⣉⣛⡢⠭⠵⢶⣾⣦⡍⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⣿⣷⣯⣭⡷⠄⠄⢀⣀⠩⠍⢉⣛⣛⠫⢏⣈⣭⣥⣶⣶⣦⣭⣛⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⢀⣿⣿⣿⡿⠃⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣎⢩⠌⣡⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣆⠄⠄⠄ ⢸⡿⢟⣽⠎⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⠄⠄ ⣰⠯⣾⢅⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠄ ⢰⣄⡉⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠄ ⢯⣌⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⢸⣇⣽⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⢸⣟⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⠈⢹⡧⣿⣸⠿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠗⣈⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠄ ⠄⠘⢷⡳⣾⣷⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⢀⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄ ⠄⠄⠈⣵⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠘⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄⠄
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →anxiety inducing. grow weed & be agay
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Felky Fun Meter ||----------| [0/10] Not fun! This game will either resonate with you if you went through a similar experience; or completely miss the mark and feel like some "weird" story if you can't relate. Not recommend because it didn't work for me, but if you feel like coin-flipping $10 go for it :p Also the soundtrack is top-tier :D
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly this is probably one of my favorite indie games- a big statement I know, but hear me out. This game captures everything I love about indies like an offbeat story, creative environments, choices that actually mean something, and an overall ability to drive its point across. Heck, I loved it so much, I even wanted to play it again, portable on my switch. I don't want to give too much away story wise, but I will say that ultimately what we want in life may or may not happen and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This RPG maker game was not horrible, its alright, but it has a few issues that prevent me to be able to recommend it: - The story is kinda weird and at least the good ending feels very unsatisfying and kinda wrong. I don't know how the rest of them are but from what I seen people saying it is not great. - If you wanna earn a decent chunk of money you have to either play incredibly boring minigames or ones filled with RNG nonsense that are also incredibly unenjoyable to play. I assume at…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Day 11 Results (Game that makes you think about life): Datvi - Wanderstop ☕ MarcG - Shadow of the Colossus 🗿 Joes - Persona Q ❓ Bro - Always Sometimes Monsters 💀 Over a third done! 😁
unlabelledView post →I played this game 11 years ago. I still remember it to this day. Just looking at my achievements was enough to jog my memory about how damn depressing this game was and how much anyone who is hung up on an old flame needs to play it. This was indie art before indie art became a thing.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bittersweet story with no *feel-good* ending, really. Dialogues are well-written but the story feels a little...hollow? Still, was able to get through the full game so definitely recommend playing once. Brief gist (without spoilers) of the story is that you play as a character who gets shafted in terms of career, love, and friendships - so you go on a journey to get closure of sorts. My only gripe is that the characters seem to get closure but the player-closure is lacking
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →calls out girls who cant get over their ex excruciatingly. 10/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Slow and uneven pacing, uninventive mini-games (thankfully easy), strange yet unimaginative story. Not point-and-click, mind you. Arrows and space. Just. Why. Also, language and themes get rather mature at times. Survival element is there too. Kind of a mess, really. Not entirely boring, but very close to it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretentious. I played it with an ex-gf and it was corny af (I don't actually remember much of it, that was like a decade ago)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Mood | Modern love story. Slow-burn gameplay. Controller and couch friendly. Context | Rpgmaker walking simulator. Pixel graphics. Light on gameplay, almost visual novel-esque. Completion | 100% completion, 10/10 achievements completed, 11 hours Highs | Story covers unique subject matter. Choose your own adventure elements of storytelling. Lows | Dull gameplay. Story and characters felt unrewarding. Generic UI and artstyle. Bugs | None encountered.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Steam Deck playable but achievements NOT functional as of Oct 2022 Have played around halfway through this ambitious yet quirky little title - it has catchy music, GBA-style graphics and some reasonably solid writing that veers between offbeat comedy, seething despair and social satire with well-earned confidence. There's little I can add here that hasn't been said before - the experience is relatively unique and varied, there are countless plot threads to follow that are easily missed if…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Eh.. it's alright I guess.. I played it for a while and quite enjoyed it, but eventually got to a frustrating bit and ditched it. I just found it a bit slow. Some parts of it are even intentionally designed to be boring and repetitive to represent the monotony of certain tasks in real life. The story is simple but does the job, and some of the writing is good and funny at times, but it's still not quite enough to keep me coming back. I get that it's meant to be about a deeper meaning with why…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it's like night in the woods but horrible
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The ability to choose not only a character that you feel resembles you, but also choose a partner of either sex/gender and even being able to have a line of dialogue about being transgender in a game from 2014 is honestly so nice and freeing. The choice you make in this game actually do affect the story and your ending, and every character feels fully thought out and realized. There are amazing and touching moments throughout the game, and also very funny and sad moments. It's a story about…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I feel the same about this game, that Peter Griffin feels about "The Godfather."
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →so bad its like all the worst parets of a kevin smith movie. all the boring relationship talk i guess if you know your going into an indie romance movie walking sim. ppl like me played 10 hrs! thinking the story would finally start.... 2/10 nah 1 ... yeah 1
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An underrated game... I dunno if it's "underrated" as more just kind of unknown? Always Sometimes Monsters is a story of being a writer, being broke, and going to your exes wedding. It leans into a cruel world, and your choices MATTER.
unlabelledView post →This is a fun little game that I enjoy coming back to every now and then to see what different outcomes I can achieve. Nothing in it is too complicated, and the story is fairly straightforward and, at times, humorous and emotional. The writers don't hold back on offering the player the chance to determine their own morality and that of the characters with whom they interact throughout the game. There are very few decisions in this game that don't carry some kind of sacrifice or weight behind…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pretty fun game. When you start out it's pretty obvious that you start out as a lazy deadbeat flake who is a month behind rent whose girlfriend left him for being a lazy mooch (and also a bad friend who scooped up his friend's crush) but with a little effort you can teach this little punk the meaning of hard work, pay off all of your debts and become someone who has enough disposable income to help people instead of being a mooch.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Apparently I bought this game in late 2014 but never really played - well, or tried to play it - until today. For some reasons Steam says that I already did 15 minutes but in reality the game the game does not even load. Since 2014 I have already upgraded my PC plenty of times and surely this is not a title that requires much. As this was a very old purchase, I cannot get a refund anymore, not that I even remember how much I paid for it at the time anyways... Unfortunately I cannot recommend a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A game about the many morally gray areas in life, and many things that not everyone may ever have to deal with first person. Some of the presentations suffer because of the game engine used, but they did a damn good job of overcoming those limitations. Some choices we make a minor and matter little, but so many we may not realize just how significant they are. The game / story has a few quirky moments that I cannot mention because spoilers, but they were quite cleaver! Despite the medium…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game got me bored in 15 minutes. It's ugly, it's slow, it feels weird (I love weird, but this is the wrong kind). I immediately disliked the writing. If I had anything to say, I'd kill everyone in the first scene and move on : game over, ALT-F4, end of story. The only reason I didn't got rid of it is because, as usual, I kept it for weeks before finally starting it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can't in good conscience recommend this game for anyone. The game's premise is it's only strong suit, with good start for the story. But it fizzles out quite quickly when you have to do lot of unnecessary busy work, that is more complicated than necessary. Good example is for when you get temp job to get money in tofu food factory, for you to make even small amount of money, you will have to go through time consuming minigame that has lots of unnecessary steps in it. On the whole it feels…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Originally I played this game 6 years back and I remember falling in love with it. The seemingly absent storyline, unpredictable content, and the messages of the game are open to the player's interpretation. I have never played anything like this game. I recall pondering about this game for years to come, obsessively checking the 2020 SAM release date. I treasured it among the top 5 games I've ever played. I mean to say this game has been meaningful for me. Now playing this game for the second…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was such an unfortunate disappointment. I played through it two and a half times. It’s one of those games where the illusion of choice replaces actual choices. This is arguably thematic based on ASM’s social critiques, but it’s still frustrating that it ends up going to the same places. I don’t think that the writing is as bad as some of the other negative reviews say, though it’s extremely hit and miss regarding some of the heavy topics.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hated it. What upsets me most is I bought it when I was poor and didn't even know about Steam's refund policy until some time later.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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