Monsoon Games
Monsoon Games is a small indie game studio that creates cozy, narrative-driven games where choices matter. We are passionate about making games that feature diverse characters and forefront underrepresented stories & perspectives.
Website | Patreon | Ko-fi | Discord
Whether it’s about pursuing glory and forging lasting relationships in the coming-of-age sports game (College Tennis: Origin Story), or the bittersweet struggle to figure out where ‘home’ is, when torn between two worlds (Merry Crisis), or quietly carving out a new life running a space diner on a distant moon (Space Diner-WIP), our games are united by a deep focus on character-driven storytelling.
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College Tennis: Origin Story
Sports x Slice-of-life x Romance x Coming-of-age x Found-family x College x Modern
Step onto the court and into the whirlwind life of a freshman at Cargill University, where tennis isn’t just a game—it’s everything.
College Tennis: Origin Story is a thrilling, character-driven interactive fiction game that plunges you into the heart of a journey to reclaim the NCAA Div I championship title. Compete in fast-paced singles and doubles matches alongside your teammates, all while navigating the pressures of college life.
Forge lasting friendships, pursue budding romances, face fierce rivals, and experience the emotional highs and lows of pursuing greatness both on and off the court.
Will you make a name for yourself as one of the most promising college tennis players in history? Or will the pressure prove too much for you to handle?
Demo | Dedicated blog | Main Post | Characters | Dev log | COG forum | Crowdsourced playlists
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Merry Crisis
Non-Euro-centric x Romance-focused x Slice-of-life x Queer x Coming-of-age
Merry crisis is an intimate, contemplative visual novel about figuring out whether home is what you’ve left behind, or where you’re headed.
Your carefully-constructed life in New York has just fallen apart. Your 4-year relationship has unraveled, you need to find a new apartment to rent, and career-wise, you teeter on the edge of burnout.
Now, you’re flying back to Singapore for Christmas, and your family will most certainly ask when you’re returning home for good.
Between family dinners that turn into interrogations, a tense reunion with your first-love, unexpected sparks with a charming neighbor, and late-night walks through a city both familiar and foreign, the week back home throws up more questions than answers.
As the days tick down to the New Year, you’ll need to decide: will you hold onto the life you’ve built in America, or circle back to the one you left behind in Singapore? Second chances or fresh starts?
Steam Page | Steam Demo | Official Press Kit for VN
Text-based demo | Dedicated blog | Features | Cast of characters | Dev log | COG forum | Crowdsourced playlists
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Author corner
About me
Allie, 28, she/her. Useless dumb-jock who lives for good coffee, sunshine, hikes/bikes, and slow sunday mornings. Urban planner by day, writer by night.
Send in asks, and messages to: @allieebobo (main), or at the dedicated blog handles @collegetennisoriginstory and @merrycrisis-if.
What I’m currently:
- Writing: Chapter Six for Merry Crisis
- Reading: The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai
- Listening to: Buffalo replaced by Mitski
- Watching: Better Call Saul
Anonymous
sent a message
Now I'm curious about what other ifs you play. I know you've played love island and thth but I mean more the small creator community. Any recs?
Ooooh, buckle up because this is gonna be a long trip. I’ve got so many, though you probably know most, if not all. (I really should start reblogging other authors if they have a Tumblr).
Let’s stick to text-based stories. I haven’t had as much time to play lately so I may be missing newer, cool stories. I’m going to have to leave some out; otherwise this post will be never-ending and it’s already half a bible.
Might do another with more stories. How lucky are we that people write so many marvellous stories? And for free!
Number one is my first love and the main reason I started reading text based IF when I used to focus on visual novels:
Wow! Really honored to have CT:OS and Merry Crisis mentioned amongst such a stellar line-up of games! Thank you so much—it means so much.
Anonymous
sent a message
Before I played CT:OS, I literally had no interest or knowledge about tennis.
Now after playing it like 5-6 times (and doing most of the RO’s route. I LOVE THEM.), I am so hooked into the damn sport now. Like I’m debating if I should try it out for funsies/as a new hobby, but I’m kind of scared to try it.
Either way, I LOVE how this game made me fall in love with its characters and story, as well as become interested with Tennis! <33
Thank you for your hard work and dedication for this game! It’s so beautifully done!
Woohoo so glad that you like the game and its characters! I love that you gave CT:OS a try!
As for trying out tennis (or any racket sport) definitely give it a go if you’d like, it’s a lot of fun! If a normal ball feels like too much commitment, don’t be shy with using a bouncier squishier ball, sometimes with friends who are completely new to tennis, I find that starting on those can be an enjoyable way to ease into the sport!
Chapter 8 Early-Release
Chapter 8 is out for Ko-fi supporters and Patreon supporters!
Following the National Doubles tournament, this update is more slice-of-life focused, and takes us to the week right before Finals. And yes, the big mom reveal is here.
Release dates
Early release (less polished): TODAY!
Early release (more polished): May 15
Public release: May 29 or earlier
Chapter 8 (58k words) features:
WOWW!! Congrats @when-life-gives-you-lemons-if!! Such a big milestone :D Can’t wait to read it in one breathless go and be super sleep-deprived and deranged after!
Apr Dev Log
Sorry for the slightly late dev log this month, my family was visiting me and I spent the past week taking them around.
This is the second month of my sabbatical, and I gotta say—this month really flew by. I spent the first week of it traveling, but managed to settle down and get down to business (CT:OS chapter 8) after that.
We're kicking off a month-long celebration of interactive fiction this May—and we want you to be part of it!
Over the course of the month, we'll be building curated recommendation lists across a range of IF genres, highlighting standout games, and featuring interviews with the creators of these games.
Objectives:
We hope that this will be a fun, community-driven way to:
- Keep Interact-IF's recommendation lists up-to-date
- Allow authors to share their work with a wider audience
- Help everyone discover new, awesome interactive fiction games!
How to participate:
- Now–May 8: Submit your own games or nominate others (multiple allowed) in each genre.
- May 10–17: Community voting on submitted games by genre.
- After voting: Winners get short feature interviews.
- By May 22: Final showcase published with all submitted games + rolling interview features.
Genres for this round^:
- Fantasy
- Sci-Fi
- Action/Adventure
- Modern/Slice-of-life
- Historical Drama
^We might do other genres in the future!
WIP and completed games, twine, choicescript etc. games are all welcome, so long as they are 'interactive fiction'! Do try to tag the game as (WIP), (COMPLETED) when submitting if you can, though!
Love, Interact-IF team
sent a message
Jumping on the ask about the visual novel vs text versions of Merry Crisis: aside from the "visual" side, will there be differences between the two versions? Like in the text / content I mean
I think it’ll be a bit like book vs movie adaptation! The book usually describes the scene and inner thoughts more, while the movie cuts a little more of these descriptions in favor or pacing!
Anonymous
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Will there be an option for the reader to not have merry crisis as a visual novel?
Yes! I’ll also be releasing Merry Crisis as a fully text-based game using Ink. More on this when I’m a little more ready with a demo!
Anonymous
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Hi! Love your IFs; you really know how to breathe life into your worlds and characters. I'm happy to have found not just one but two slice of life IFs!
A random thing I noticed... I love your Monsoon Games profile picture, but was it intentional to not make "Monsoon" centered? I was looking at your dev log post and noticed it was off centered to the left and I can't stop thinking about it all day.
This is true… I’ve gotta fix this at some point. HAHAH. Clearly I am in sore need of some OCD bone in my body. Thanks for your kind words though!
Anonymous
sent a message
Nooooooooo, Felix isn’t an ro?! My life has loft all meaning now. /k Was hoping he’d soften up like G, but oh well. I’m sticking with our G, then. 🫶
As always, ur writing is a work of art. It’s cozy, but also quite cinematic in the right moments. I enjoy all of your stories! You have such a way with interactions and dynamics between characters.
Thank you!!! Such a giant compliment oh my goodness. I do love a good character-focused story, so I’m glad you enjoy the character dynamics in CT:OS!
As for Felix not being a full RO, yeah… They’ve very clearly attained major side character status though, I think slightly above “fling” now.