Buy Monsterland

Fun topdown shooter that is very similar to Doom in setting and selection of guns, but with something more of a story and well done ASCII graphics. Good music and sound effects too, which enhance the experience of slaughtering M&M's.

And it's written in Pascal.

This game used to be on Desura under the title Dead Colony. Despite owning hundreds of games on Desura through bundles there were only two I actually bought on there individually: this was one of them. The dev was kind enough to give me a key on steam.

This game is surprisingly close to the Doom experience, but played through a tile-based 2d, overhead view. In the original Dead Colony the graphics were servicable but pretty basic and ugly; for this release on steam they have moved to ASCII for everything. It was a wise choice I think: now everything has a more uniform look and the ASCII gives the game a gimmick. Some things could do with a tweak maybe though: for example green squares are exploding barrels, which is not obvious at first.

As for the gameplay, it's pretty much like Doom: run around, changing weapons to use your ammo wisely, health packs rather than regenerating health, locked doors with coloured key cards, lots of monsters etc.

It's a really good game and for the low price I thoroughly recommend it.

-Sees game in store.
-"Hmmmmm... That looks like 'Dead Colony' a bit"
-Watches trailer.
-"...HOLY COW, it IS Dead Colony!"
-Presses the crap out of "buy" button!
-10/10, would fire up Desura client again!

So, my "time played" won't be very long as of writing, but had to point out that this is a re-launch of one of my favorite Desura games, now come to Steam under the name, "Monsterland". The new look adds a good deal "character" to the game. For the price of $0.89 at the time of writing, you should defiitely give it a go!

I absolutely love games like these; in fact I wish there were more on Steam. Monsterland plays out like like Doom in ASCII. It is fast paced, gory, and full of violence. Keyboard-only controls work great, especially for laptops. The sound and voice work was a welcome surprise in something of this calibre.

Pros:
+Quite atmospheric - reminds me of the dark rooms and flickering lights reminiscint of the Doom series
+Fast paced action is really fun
+Its too cheap - even if I payed 10 times this amount (seriously), I wouldn't be disapointed
+Controls are great
+Runs on a toaster
+Menu system feels well developed

Cons:
-The storepage claims it is a short game, which is fine overall, but hey sometimes more is more am-I-right :D

C'mon its less than a buck. What are you waiting for?

When I first saw that Monsterland, formerly Dead Colony in its lesser version (on Desura), was released a little over a month ago I was more than a little surprised. Don’t get me wrong I understand that there has been a revival of classic era-style gaming. Atari recently announced that they were bringing back 100 of their classic games in the spring with multiplayer support to Steam in the northern hemisphere Spring and Sanctuary RPG has been relatively successful on Steam as an ASCII adventure but a text shooter? How was that going to work? Surprisingly well and very playable as it turns out.

The concept of Monsterland is quite simple. You begin in a prison and your task is to get the hell out of there. You’re going to come across a lot of monsters that need to be destroyed before they kill you. Before you can contemplate killing them you’re going to have to find weapons and ammunition in which to kill them withg. You’ll also need to find health (H) so you can heal yourself, key cards in which to unlock doors and you’ll also need to learn how to use the environment of each level to your advantage (or your own death). All of this works surprisingly well. The text doesn’t limit immersion either. In fact, I would suggest that it had the opposite effect on me. It made me trigger my imagination quite a lot more than other games would.

If I was to pinpoint the biggest flaw in the game it would be the AI. When I played I discovered that the tracking that the enemy monsters employed to get to me was far too easy to understand and it became far too easy to pick them off. Other minor issues that I came across was that there isn’t a lot of ammunition spread out across the maps. This, however, can be argued as a positive as it makes you consciously aware of when and how to use the weapons that you have at your disposal and in many ways serves to counteract the issue with the AI. In stark contrast to the lack of ammunition is the at times absurd amount of ‘H’ or health spread across the map. I may have precious little ammunition but until I am overpowered by enemies my trusty little scrap gun will suffice.

I’ve seen other players compare the game to DOOM. Despite the obvious differences in artistic styles it’s an apt comparison due to the way in which you progress throughout the game and in the way you regenerate your health. It’s a smart design choice as it always gives the player something to do – something to find, something to hunt down. It’s one of the strengths of the game. There’s always something to do which fits in well with the quick pace of the game.

Monsterland is a quick three hour long action game that is a helluva lot of fun to play. If you’re an action fan then you’ll want to at least try it.

For similar reviews and our popular daily giveaways please visit http://www.steamified.com/

played this late at night
lights off
headphones
max volume
spooky

I fear the M on my keyboard more than ever before i played this game... Oh my SO MANY Ms IN THIS REVIEW!

Pro's of this game
-story
-fast pace gameplay
-creative gamestyle

Con's of this game
-makes you scared of the letter M
-should be more ammo scattered around the map for guns

It has a DOS-like feel. Something that I like and dislike at the same time. Controls seem a bit imprecise. For instance tapping the 'W' key quickly should move me one unit, not two or more.

Price to content ratio is beyond satisfactory and I foresee myself playing more of this during the upcoming months. To get a better idea of what the gameplay looks like check out a little video I did.

https://youtu.be/L1Bs-KuPOJo

Happy gaming.

This is a very fun Action game. No Roguelike as I've heard some people call it, as ASCII doesn't immediately mean Roguelike, though few other genres use ASCII so it's not hard to see how people get to that answer.

WASD are used to move, Numpad to shoot in the corresponding direction. You travel through the levels, reading the story(no walls of text, btw). The music is alright, and there's a decent variety of guns, though they could have put more ammo in the game.

I definitely recommend this game for a dollar.