I am not a Monster: First Contact

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3.6/5

( 24 Reviews )

3.6

24 Reviews

English & 5 more

Overall most helpful review

Posted on: December 2, 2019

Aplomado

Verified owner

Games: 135 Reviews: 13

Frustrating

There are several things I like about this game: -The visual style is excellent -You can combine weapons to make interesting gadgets to use in combat -Some of the missions are entertaining The game has serious flaws however. -The combat system is awkward. You get two "actions" to use per turn. You can use the first one to attack, use a device or other object or two move. However, your second action per turn can only be used to move. So, you can't run up to a door an open it. You have to wait for the next turn. You can't walk up to a monster and hit it with your sword... you have to wait, and hope the monster hasn't moved out of range next turn. Or more likely, mauled you to death while you were sitting there waiting for you to be able to swing the sword, You will find yourself wasting half your turn often. -The worst problem with the game is that it uses save points. The save points also do not save if you must shut down your session. You must complete each mission in one session. The missions have a puzzle-like structure and require large amounts of trial and error... if you find some monsters, and they close in on you, you are dead meat. You have to know where to expect the monsters to deal with them. This leads to re-doing significant chunks of each mission over and over ad nauseum... because you can't save your own mission, you just have to hope a save point is close enough to where you made a fatal mistake (which can't really be anticipated. I made it to the mission on the surface of the ship before I decided re-doing the mission over and over again just is not fun. It is tedious. If you want a strategic turn based game, I recommend the Shadowrun series, and Xenonauts, both available on GOG, and a lot more fun that this game.

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Posted on: November 16, 2019

danebramage

Verified owner

Games: Reviews: 30

An adventure game with tactical combat!

I get it. I got it. I like it. I'm giving it five for the pickle juice alone. I probably should dock a star for the inadequate "tutorial," but I'm enjoying the game enough to not resent having to figure everything out as I go along. Just realize that, despite how it may look at first glance, this is not a strategy title. It is an adventure game with tactical combat, and the combat is "simultaneous turn-based"--and not simultaneous in the way you may think, but with a strict order imposed that is not spelled out very well beforehand. For instance, when you plan your upcoming move, you need to know that, when you hit "go," the enemy will always move and attack before you actually get to move. On the other hand, there are other actions that you will perform before they get to move, but what those are and why is not explained well beforehand. A good example of the kind of thing you're facing in this game comes with the spiderbots: When you create one of these little defensive robots, the only way you know you can make them follow you around, rather than leaving them frozen in one spot, is by trying to create one in the same square you're standing in. But since each spiderbot occupies its own square, just like you do, how many people are ever going to try doing that, or only after how long? You only find out stuff like this in I am not a Monster by trial and error. Luckily, however, the game is forgiving enough that it doesn't totally infuriate you and destroy the experience. Everything else is a plus: the writing, the visuals, the overall style, are all well above the norm (not that the graphics are cutting-edge--they're intentionally retro, after all--they just look retro in the best way). I don't mean to turn anyone off the game with my negative comments about the lack of guidance, as I'm enjoying the heck out of it just the way it is (I'm giving it five stars, after all!). I just thought this should be mentioned. For $5 American, this game's a steal, imho.

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Posted on: November 16, 2019

cristims

Verified owner

Games: 591 Reviews: 21

A fun turn based squadron strategy game.

This game is a real gem as turn based squadron games are extremely rare and most of them are quite low quality. Is well made, fun to play and has an unique retro-scifi design that I found to be quite refreshing. The story-line is divided in sections and each section is actually a combat map where you must help various heroes of the story survive an alien invasion aboard a luxury space ship. There are dialogues, mission goals, a lot of turn based combat and even a bit of puzzle elements. The graphics are quite nice, isometric, the interface is OK (I would not mind larger pop-up fonts to be honest for my laptop screen) and the gameplay is simple to understand. Is fun, sometimes challenging, it does not take itself too seriously and brings back memories of original Commandos, UFO and Star Trek Away Team, games that I truly enjoyed back in their time.

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Posted on: December 29, 2019

sikakraa

Verified owner

Games: 592 Reviews: 2

Good but, broken save system

The game has quite a bit of great ideas with good execution. The good: - great core gameplay and great ideas - slightly different twist on turn based combat - adventure with multiple characters & stylishly cheesy plot that fits the setting The bad: - Save game system is broken - Some of the areas / 'puzzles' are poorly designed and require trial, error & restart mission -loop to complete. Sometimes multiple times. The game saves on 'plot points' on missions. Those points are too rare and often the game is saved in unwinnable situation. Loading the game on that point only results in death on the next turn. Retrying the long missions is not fun and often the trickiest parts are on mission ends. Also you cannot quit the game in the middle of mission. That is really bad because some of the missions are quite long and the failure points are often in the end. Some missions require a lot of trial and error to complete and do not guide the player properly. This means that the player needs to play the mission halfway, fail and restart the mission to know where to go. This could be easily fixed with either good autosave -system or allowing the player to save game. For example there's some places in the 'Thrusters' mission where it's hard to determine where you should teleport next as the game didn't give the option to teleport to 'correct place' immediately (possibly a bug?).

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Edited on: October 8, 2025

Posted on: May 12, 2021

Andre_geo

Verified owner

Games: 371 Reviews: 27

Not a bad game, in a way...

So I have managed to finish the game, with rather mixed feelings. The story is ok but, at times somewhat odd but the combat system... . The combat system on the other hand is like child of a dog and a cow after a very hard party night and an unholy tête-à-tête on a bale of hay. Unlike in any “conventional” turn-based games here the order of actions is, let’s call it “novel” and very strictly regulated. Figuring this out is annoying as you have literally no guides to this game, and you need to waste some time to get the inner workings of the combat on your own. Firstly, you can attack only before walking that is possibly the most brainless idea I have seen for a long time. This means than elements of melee combat are useless and repositioning to get the best shot is not possible. Do you think it is all? Nope, authors got even more creative. You cannot put items down and pick them up later… . Sometimes you cannot loot corpses for goodies and mission ends automaticaly. Opening a door is more often than not a death wish. Just some of the “shing stars of WTF”. What, there is more. You give orders to all your heroes and then they execute them SIMULTANEOUSLY with the enemy. Would you like to have some tactical gameplay and eliminate some more dangerous enemies before the act? meeee??? Technically it is possible but dang hard to execute. If you shoot dead a melee character their action is interrupted but if you shoot dead a guy with a gun, he shoot you too before dying… . My first impression was WTF. The second was WTF and then came aaahhhhaaaa. The order of such actions is: EM weapons; teleporter;, special actions;, utility/weapon;, melee;, walking btw. If you get this, you can start enjoying the game. Well, to some extent anyway. I really liked the system of special actions btw. It was a combination of utility and weapon triggered by morale. Nice feature indeed. The variety of characters was also nice. If we forget about the third mission from the end where my stomach urged me to find a very voluminous bucket, all it all It is not bad 30h or so entertainment if you can wrap your brain around the truly bizarre combat system.

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I am not a Monster: First Contact

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