NOTE!
This is a repost of a review I posted earlier on the forums. I copied it here, as this is the place all my indie reviews go to now. Also note, that I called myself and Jani "moderators" in this review... That is because we both were moderators back at the moment the original review was written, but neither of us still are at the present day. A completely new review will appear in this section on December 20th (Dutch local time taken in mind of course).

"Monster in the House" is a cute short game by my good friend, and parter-in-cri... I mean, fellow forum moderator, Jani Nykänen (@jani-nykanen ). The game was originally written for a jam (the Ludum Dare 2015), and had as such to be written in an extremely short period of time. Due to this you should not expect a full "masterpiece" or anything, but yet, the game is worth to give a try.

Overview

Well, you are a wife of the most terrible kind. You husband just received some extra bonus from his job, and in your view he wants to waste it on paying off debts, the rent, and all other kind of crap. You want that money to be spend usefully on much of candy ice cream and more stuff like that. So, you're gonna beat that money out of him. Beware though, you still love your kids and if you accidentally them them they'll die instantly, and that means game over. It's just a little arcade game with a funny approach.

Well you gotta forgive me for putting that meme picture up as it really comes to mind when seeing the concept of the game.

And so far the bad jokes :P

Presentation

Jani has a pretty unique hand-drawn art style that really marks a game like one of his. Monster in the House is no exception. The music is not very dominant, but that only works in the game's favor. It still has a dark feeling which fits the kind of wife you play pretty well. The graphics appear a bit "bones-like", I guess that's the standard nowadays (not very fond of it myself), but it suits this game well. The husband being shaped like a ball makes him bounce nicely, but I also feel kinda sorry for him.

The game starts with a screen explaining the controls to you, which is only perfect, this way it's clear how the game works, and since the controls are easy to understand and since you can't miss this page, you always know what to do.

Gameplay

Basically it goes like this, you hit your husband with your club and euro coins will drop from his body. When you touch those coins you scored the money, however if you hit one of your children he/she will die instantly and the game is over.

Game Jolt API

Monster in the House features the Game Jolt API, and as a result you can earn yourself some trophies and try to outscore other Game Jolt users. I guess it shows pretty clearly that I pretty much suck in this kind of game, I shall admit that, but the concept is nicely set up.

A few final words.

The game is written in HTML5 and should therefore be supported by any modern browser, regardless of the OS you use. You need a keyboard and a mouse to play. Of course since this is a jam title you should not expect too much, and this is not a title for "really serious gaming" however, if you have a few minutes to kill and you want to prevent boredom, "Monster in the House" makes a very good pastime.
The game does what it was set out to do and it makes a very good jam title.

You can play the game: here!