What if the greatest indie title ever was in development right now – but you just didn’t know it? From my research, that could just be the case. Up and coming dev RujiK the Comatose is currently making one of the best looking monster tamer games I’ve ever seen. While they’ve gotten a little publicity for their project – currently named Critter Crosser – overall their work has gone largely unappreciated. In this article, I want to give this talented game dev more of the attention they deserve. Here’s all you need to know about RujiK and the best monster tamer game you’ve never heard of.
Background
RujiK made their first appearance on Youtube in June 2020, unveiling their game (then called Beast Socket) with a behind-the-scenes video showing monster design. Even though they’ve only released four devlogs since then, their subscriber count has absolutely skyrocketed – standing at over 116K today. And why? Because Critter Crosser looks absolutely dope.
In each upload gamers can see the painstaking effort RujiK puts into their project. The game’s 2.5D environment looks great, and the attention to detail in its monsters’ designs is incredible. Every monster tamer fan dreams of a title with limitless creature variety and a huge world to discover. And from I’ve seen, Critter Crosser is the closest a game has come to this yet.
Gameplay
Taking inspiration from Nintendo classics (particularly Dragon Warrior Monsters), this title is an action RPG where you catch, breed and battle monsters. In a world overflowing with indie games however, RujiK has gone the extra mile to make their project stand-out. Using real-world animals as a base, this dev has procedurally generated a huge range of creatures for players to discover. On top of its unique monster designs, the game also includes weapons, species mutations and best of all, an unrestricted breeding system.
In Critter Crosser, you can crossbreed literally anything. Want to breed a scorpion creature with a dragon? No problem! RujiK has code to fuse whatever parent creatures you choose to make a completely unique offspring. There’s even a system that ensures repeatedly breeding two creatures won’t give you the same result every time. Sounds awesome, right? Check it out in the video below.
Sadly, we’ve gotten no updates about how combat will work. We do get to see a menu showing standard stats like ‘Strength’ and ‘Speed’ – which also includes ‘Magic’, excitingly. We also know this title will be a rare action based monster tamer, so fights should look similar to what we’ve seen from other projects like Kindred Fates.
While all of RujiK’s devlogs mainly focus on creatures, we know that players will control a human protagonist. The story however, is a complete mystery. If we’re to go off of the game’s aesthetic and inspirations, it’s likely to be a light hearted game with low stakes. Similar to many games in the genre, it could tell coming of age story – just be your standard a monster taming adventure.
Release Plans
There hasn’t been a concrete release window yet – and that’s no surprise. For all we know RujiK is still making this game on their own, which is a mammoth undertaking. The developer did confirm however that they’re planning to release on PC, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
RujiK enjoying one of the many errors that can happen while coding
There’s sometimes radio silence on development progress, which can be a little worrying. However, RujiK has been consistent with their work since they first announced the project, even if it does sometimes take a couple of months for an update. Whatsmore, they genuinely seem to be passionate about what they do. While a lot of indie games can fizzle out before their release, RujiK’s talent and ingenuity gives me hope Critter Crosser will make it to consoles eventually.
Conclusion
There you have it – one of the best monster tamer games you’d probably never heard of till now. I hope this article was able to bring this project some of the attention it deserves. As I’ve said many times before, it’s not easy being an indie developer – so when you see someone making a game that looks promising, be sure to give them your support! You show RujiK some love on their Youtube channel here. The more people in their corner, the more likely they are to finish their passion project and create a game that thousands can enjoy.
