Monster Café
A downloadable game
When you suddenly lose your job under mysterious circumstances, you're relieved to find that a local coffee shop is hiring—although, you don't remember seeing this particular café before today... 👁️
But Mosspoint is a weird little town where the strange is a part of life.
Take orders from some of the cafe's strange regulars, learn about their (surprisingly mundane) lives, and maybe brew up a little friendship in the process.
- Four endings
- Nameable, gender neutral protagonist
- Chat with cute monsters—and brew them coffee!
- Three unique characters, two of which can be befriended
- Pursue an implied romance, or develop a purely platonic friendship!
- Fully illustrated, including 2 ending illustrations
- Asbestos free!
Our very first game, and our first time using Ren'py! Made for Nanoreno 2021.
A demonic presence with an energetic personality. Very chatty, and loves sharing travel stories with anyone who will listen. Can come across as overbearing at first, but has a kind heart.
A shy moth who is often nervous to meet new people, but with a little time, he warms up and proves to be quite friendly. Spends most of his free time inside, but has been considering mixing things up a bit...
The proprietor of the Mosspoint Cafe. Has the tendency to mysteriously disappear and re-appear when least expected. Supportive, understanding, and takes great pride in his craft.
Illustrations, story and testing by Kira Night
Coding, story and testing by Vincent Night
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Comments
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lovelovelove this game !!! <3
So glad to hear it. Thanks so much <3
I love it
I love this game
Cool art style, will there be a sequel?
Apologies for such a late reply. I'm glad you enjoyed the style. :) I've got my eye on creating another visual novel with similar themes, but no plans for a sequel to Monster Cafe at this time. Who knows, maybe down the road!
Fails to install from itch client with: «While queuing download: Cannot read property 'build' of undefined». I guess some metadata is missing in the release info. 🤔
Le jeu est bien mais ça serait bien si il était un peu plus long.
This game made me happy stim :]
Monster Cafe is a cute little game about quirky and cute regulars. There's a slight hint of spookiness, but mostly cute fluffy interactions between everyone. It's a nice 1 hour playthrough game for anyone who like slice-of-life drink making story.
I also like the little mini game for making the drinks and the creative ingredients naming options. It's very fun!
jonas....</3
Fennel has my whole entire heart, I adore him. Overall, amazingly cute and funny game. Lord knows we could all use a pick-me-up in these trying times and you certainly delivered. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much! That means a lot <3
A really cute and sweet short game!!! The art and atmosphere is absolutely GORGEOUS I loved everything about it!
I was under the impression that I could date the coffee head boss Jonas and was kinda sad when I found out I couldn't 😭 BUT POPPY AND FENNEL ARE REALLY LOVEABLE NONETHELESS! <3
A really nice and enjoyable game, I recommend it! <3
Aww, thank you so much!! I'm thrilled you enjoyed your time with the game. I originally wanted Jonas to be a datable/friendable character, but there just wasn't enough time! 😭
I'd love to do another game in the future that features him or someone quite similar, because I really do love him! Thanks again for your kind words! <3
"Where the gore??"
"It's right at the bottom of your cup, Sir."
"Oh. Alright, then."
this game was so cute and relaxing to play! i fell in love w/ the art (and fennel) instantly
This was a stunning game and the art is just absolutely gorgeous!!
Thank you so much! <3
Absolutely delightful art! I love how elaborate the backgrounds were, too (especially considering how often they're neglected in jam games)! Made the coffeehouse feel real and welcoming. <3
Solid writing, too, although getting the glitter end right off the bat made me very paranoid about getting the coffee orders down correct. :'D
Thanks so much for the kind words! I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed your time with the game! I had waaaayy more fun with the backgrounds than I expected. :D
The glitter ending is a little intense right off the bat, I totally understand haha.
This game was really fun!! I really enjoyed the coffee-making system and how you can talk to each character to know more about them, plus the atmosphere is really comfortable <3
I absolutely loved it :)
Thank you!! I'm so happy to hear it! :)
^^ <3 !!
Super fun and cute game! I love the world you’ve created here. :)
Thank you so much! So happy you enjoyed it :)
Loved it! :) Really cute and fun, love the characters and character design, omg the art is just GORGEOUS. I want to EAT the colours (or sprinkle them on a latte or something). The coffee making mechanic was fun! Though I saw "jar of ghosts" as an ingredient and for some reason DIDN'T use it and I'm regretting it now bc I want the ghost coffee
Such a sweet comment, thank you! ❤️ I had so much fun working on the art and characters, so I'm glad it made such an impression. And I'm thrilled you found the coffee making fun, too! We'd love to expand on that "crafting" sort of mechanic on future games.
And now I find myself curious about what ghost coffee would be like too...
Such a short but sweet game. I absolutely love it!!! The art is also gorgeous, good job to the whole team!
Thanks so much!
We are trying to download this game to and it seems like the download refuses to populate when we hit either the install button or the specific version that will work with our computer. We are not sure what to do, even going so far as to check and see if other games on the Itch.io app will download (which they will). 8,( It seems like a problem specific to this game. If there is something that you could do, that would be great! We are very excited about your coffee shop game. 8D
What kind of computer do you have because it won't work for me either?
We have tried several things before responding to this! As of right now, it seems like the windows desktop app for Itch does not work to download it, however going to the actual website through a browser will allow us to get the zip file for windows. Maybe this will work for you, too?
Alright, maybe I just don't know how this works. I had gotten the zip file, but when I open it, I just get all the inner game workings and stuff. Is there a way to launch it from there?
Haha, well, we may not know much either, to be quite honest. Based on what we're seeing, you'll want to extract the entire monster_cafe-1.01-win folder (as neither of us is actually sure what pieces you need, we figure to be safe rather than sorry??). Once extracted, you can pick either application in the folder (both start with monster_cafe, Scandal thinks the monster_cafe-32 is the 32 bit version for Windows 10) and you should be able to play the game directly..? Sorry we cannot be more particular, we are new to much of this.
Greetings! What system are you trying to download the game for?
Will it not download at all? Or it won't run once you've downloaded it?
Windows 10.
Correct, it will not download at all through the Windows Itch App. However going to the actual Itch website through a browser will allow us to get the zip file for windows. As it stands, we are trying to get the Itch client to recognize the file and run it.
Interesting. Let me knows if that works, I wasn't even aware there was an itch.io app! This is our first upload to this site, do you know if that's a matter of uploading a different version or checking a box somewhere?
There is one! It's been the thing we're most familiar with on our computer (rather than using firefox/chrome/etc to browse to the Itch homepage).
It seems like the Itch client/browser doesn't recognize the game file we've extracted! When we started with Itch, we were under the impression that it was meant to be *like* Steam's client (for what extreme little we comprehend) - you download/purchase games and play them through the client/browser in order to send data?? On top of playing games?? Maybe?? We are sorely lacking, our apologies (it could be largely just a platform for creators to use). There may be a way to upload (maybe a particular file is required??)/a switch that would need to be flipped in order to make the game available through the client, but we are unaware of how to do this regardless of our interest in assisting.
As it stands, we have been able to at least extract the game and can choose to run either of the executable game files, so at least it works now! We appreciate your time. We hope to play/review the game soon!
Glad you were able to get it working. My apologies for not being able to be more helpful! I'll keep looking into this and see if I can find a solution.
I am 100% pro-moth representation. Way too cute, fantastic work. Keep it up, love to see where you go, keep writing!
Yesssss absolutely. Moths are so wonderful. And thank you for the kind and encouraging words!
Now that I've played the Poppy and Fennel endings through and I still love Fennel's the most, Poppy is delightful but I cannot possibly imagine anyone cuter than that soft moth boy. I hope you never stop drawing him! (or them, enby softmoth would be...well, swoon)
Thanks again for this fantastic bit of pure coffee-flavoured candy.
I'm so glad! Thank you!
As much as I love Poppy, I have to agree—Fennel is my favorite. Such a cutie. And I just can't resist big soft monsters 😭❤️I've gotten pretty attached to Fennel, so I hope to draw more of them at some point! And we actually conceived of both Fennel and Poppy as canonically non-binary. Fennel uses he/him and they/them pronouns. :)
OMG. Y'all just broke the awesome barrier and made my little queer heart explode.
this is absolutely delighful!!! i love all the characters so much. i particularly love fennel what a wonderful moth with wonderful friends.
Thank you!! I had so much fun with all of the characters, and I'm glad you love them! Pretty sure Fennel is my favorite. I love a shy fluffy moth man 😭
Witty and delightful! I enjoyed the balance of narrative to gameplay, just right to feel like I had agency but still be immersed in the story. The art is the crown jewel of this game, I took a few minutes just appreciating the aesthetic in the shop!!
And my favorite part was the names of the strange bonus ingredients. "Spiders," "stale air," and the running joke of "seriously, whose memories are these??" lol
A fun and very pretty game :)
This put a big smile on my face—thank you for such a kind comment! I'm so glad you enjoyed your time with the game, and it's especially encouraging to hear that you were so immersed in the art and story. :)
So I haven't played the full thing yet, but I felt drawn to it right away. I absolutely love the art and the writing style, and even though I've only just met Jonas and Fennel (and haven't even seen Poppy yet!) I'm officially hooked. It's hard to make a man with a teacup for a head attractive, but somehow, you pulled it off. I am so looking forward to playing more... and am already hoping to see more of this (or at least more like this) from your team in the future!
(PS: This game wound up being one of my top picks for my NaNoRenO 2021 Spotlight. :) )
Wow, thank you! That’s so kind! I’m thrilled you’re enjoying your time with the game and the characters. I had so much fun designing them, and I really wish we could’ve made Jonas a bigger part of the game with the time we had. I kind of fell in love with him.
My partner and I are interested in continuing this idea somehow—possibly another game in the same universe—so it’s great to hear folks are interested in the concept too. :)
And thanks for featuring the game in your spotlight! Everything on your list looks lovely, I’m going to have to check them all out!
The art and backgrounds are so lovely!! And the routes are really cute so far. 💕
Thank you!! So glad you're enjoying it so far ❤️
What a charming game! Lovely art, and very endearing characters. Fennel and Poppy are both adorable and likable. I even really liked the player character's (who I so cleverly named Entername) chill and friendly demeanor.
A pleasant and relaxing VN, and I would love to support the game further. Do you have a Ko-Fi I can donate to?
Thank you for your kind words! I'm so happy you enjoyed the game, especially the characters. I had so much fun designing them, and I definitely fell in love with them a bit. :)
And thank you for your offer to support further. It really means a lot! I do have a ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/kiranight
Hey, when I click the .exe file, it says my PC can't run it. Help?
Hello Naomi!
It's possible if you have antivirus software, the Ren'py launcher is often flagged as something suspicious. I'd check to see if that is blocking the .exe from running.
If not, let me know and I can try some more troubleshooting.
My antivirus software did mark it, but I marked the game as not suspicious. Even then, it still wouldn't run. ^^;
Interesting! I just uploaded a 1.01 version. Give that a download and let me know if that one is working.
Yay, that worked! ^u^ Thank you!
Fantastic!