Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
Promotional poster in the style of a film poster
Developer(s)	Pocketwatch Games
Publisher(s)	Pocketwatch Games (PC) Majesco Entertainment (X360)
Designer(s)	Andy Schatz Andy Nguyen
Artist(s)	Adam deGrandis Ben Swinden
Composer(s)	Austin Wintory
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Mac OS X, Linux
Release	Windows April 24, 2013 Xbox 360 May 10, 2013 Mac OS X July 3, 2013 Linux October 25, 2013
Genre(s)	Stealth, action
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is a stealth and action video game released in 2013 for the Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux; the latter three were developed and published by Pocketwatch Games and the Xbox 360 version was published by Majesco Entertainment.

Separate from the game's single-player mode, Monaco's cooperative mode allows up to four players to partake in heists and robberies in different locations. Players choose one of eight characters, each of which has a unique and beneficial skill. The story consists of four acts; the first three follow characters' recollections of prior experiences and the final act is played from the perspective of the police.

Development of Monaco began while lead developer Andy Schatz was working for TKO Software and before he founded his independent company, Pocketwatch Games. The soundtrack was composed by Austin Wintory. Andy Nguyen—whom Schatz met while he was looking for playtesters—helped with the development of Monaco as a level designer and producer, and also worked in festival booths. Majesco Entertainment handled the release of the Xbox 360 version after Microsoft Game Studios rejected it twice because of marketability problems.

The game was positively received by reviewers and won two awards at the 2010 Independent Games Festival. Critics praised the cooperative modes highly but said the single-player was inferior because there was less gameplay. Many comparisons were made between Monaco and other media, most commonly the heist film from 1960, Ocean's 11. Reviewers liked the art style and said the minimalist design suited the game.

Gameplay

Players can work together to pull off heists in many locations.

Monaco is a stealth and action video game with a top-down perspective. It features both single-player and cooperative modes, allowing up to four players to partake in heists and robberies.^[1] There are eight characters, each with different traits and advantages; the Locksmith, the Cleaner, the Lookout, and the Pickpocket are available immediately while the Mole, the Gentleman, the Redhead, and the Hacker must be unlocked by completing levels.^[2][3] The Locksmith can open doors twice as quickly as the other characters; the Cleaner can put guards to sleep; the Lookout is able to see enemies who are not in the player's direct line of sight; the Pickpocket owns a coin-collecting monkey; the Mole can dig through walls and open vents quickly; the Gentleman has the ability to temporarily change his appearance, making the player less detectable to enemies; the Redhead can charm enemies into not attacking and making characters follow her; and the Hacker has the ability to upload computer viruses to security systems, shutting them off temporarily.^[4][5]

Many in-game items, including smoke bombs and C4 explosives, as well as firearms including a shotgun and machine gun, can be picked up.^[6][7] The quantity of the gun's ammunition is limited and replenished by collecting ten coins that are scattered around the game's map. In the cooperative mode, only the player who collects the coins receives more ammunition.^[8][9] Levels can be completed in many ways based on the characters chosen by the player or players.^[10] Players work together to complete the levels; if one of the players dies, another must revive him or her before finishing the level.^[9] When playing the single-player mode, unlocked characters can be used to play through any level.^[2]

Plot

The Locksmith is being questioned by Inspector Voltaire about his recent actions with the Pickpocket, the Cleaner, and Lookout. They discuss the characters' imminent deportation from prison in Monaco and escape on a truck alongside another inmate, the Mole. They meet the Gentleman while stealing passports and money to be smuggled out of the country; the Gentleman says he is under house arrest but manages to leave. They board the Gentleman's booby-trapped yacht and try to leave harbor; while doing so, the Gentleman receives a telephone call from a man named Davide, after which the boat detonates. After receiving medical care at a hospital, the thieves help the Gentleman dispose of evidence from a previous heist and rescue his girlfriend, the Redhead. The group steal valuables and hire the Hacker. While attempting to steal from a casino, they are caught by the police and taken back to prison.

The Pickpocket is next to be interviewed, and Inspector Voltaire declares the Locksmith has already told him everything. The Pickpocket remembers the events differently. His recollection is that the Hacker, the Redhead, and the Gentleman were also on the getaway truck. The Gentleman had experienced legal turmoil in his financial affairs, which caused the thieves to escape from prison and retrieve the money. This intrigues Inspector Voltaire, who believes the money was used to smuggle them out of the country, while in fact it was used to smuggle weapons. The Pickpocket reveals the crooks purposefully blew up the boat to distract Interpol. Unbeknownst to Inspector Voltaire, the Gentleman is actually Davide, whose murder had been altered by the thieves. After confessing all of this to Inspector Voltaire, the Pickpocket reveals he was a spy sent by Interpol. The Pickpocket claims the Gentleman has assumed Davide's identity and that if Inspector Voltaire attempts to confirm the story, the Gentleman will know one of his accomplices is a spy.

In exchange for asylum, Inspector Voltaire then interrogates the Lookout for information on the thieves' backgrounds. He asks about the Mole, whom she says has already been caught. She then tells him about herself and says she steals because of "a moral debt".^[11] When discussing why the Locksmith disregards the law, she recalls the time when he had his hand broken after being caught counting cards in blackjack. The Lookout informs Inspector Voltaire that the Pickpocket used to be rich before he was arrested and that the Hacker had also been in trouble before; he was caught trespassing in Interpol's headquarters. She says the Gentleman garnered the nickname "The Rat" because he was responsible for notifying the police and getting everyone back jail.^[12] The Lookout tells Inspector Voltaire that the Redhead used to be called the Blonde and was caught burgling the Gentleman's house, ultimately falling in love. The final thief she tells him about is the Cleaner, who she says is acting on behalf of his disabled brother. After disclosing this information, they begin discussing asylum.

Finally, Inspector Voltaire and Candide, a constable are told the Locksmith, the Lookout, the Pickpocket, and the Hacker have escaped from prison. The two try and fail to recapture the thieves, who meet the Gentleman, for whom Candide works. Candide poisons Inspector Voltaire and the Mole disposes of the body.

Development and release

Andy Schatz displaying Monaco at the Game Developers Conference in 2010

The idea for Monaco was first prototyped when Andy Schatz was working for TKO Software, a video game development company based in Santa Cruz, California. The game was inspired by the top-down mini-map used in the Hitman series that Schatz described as being similar to Jason Rohrer's 2014 video game The Castle Doctrine during Monaco's early stages of development.^[1][13] His original plan was to develop and release Monaco as an Xbox Live Indie Games title. He described it as "The Sims meets Diablo meets Hitman". The development at TKO was done in three weeks while the company solicited paid work. Schatz later left TKO and founded his own independent company, Pocketwatch Games.^[13] After Pocketwatch Games experimented with simulation games, such as with 2006 Independent Games Festival finalist Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, Schatz developed an early version of Monaco using Microsoft XNA to see if it worked on the Xbox 360 after fifteen weeks of development. This won the IGF award for "Excellence in Design".^[1] Shortly later, Valve Corporation approached Schatz and offered to publish the game on the Steam distribution platform.^[1]

Andy Schatz accepting the award at the 2010 Independent Games Festival for "Excellence in Design" after fifteen weeks of development

When Andy Schatz pitched the game to Microsoft Game Studios, it was turned down. Schatz responded, saying "they were crazy", and asked if he could repitch the game, to which Microsoft agreed.^[13] He worked on it for another year to make it more marketable before repitching it; Microsoft again rejected the game. After these events, Schatz thought the game would not be released on the Xbox 360, disappointing him. He felt the platform and its marketplace were easy to work with and that it would have made an ideal platform for the game. Schatz considered releasing the game on PlayStation 3 but did not.^[13] Empty Clip Studios was hired to port the game to the RapidFire engine so it could be released on the PlayStation 3, but the port was never finished.^[13] To publish the game on Xbox Live, Schatz partnered with video game publishing company Majesco Entertainment.^[1][14]

Schatz met Andy Nguyen while looking for playtesters in 2011; he described Nguyen as a man he "clicked with" who made an energizing work environment.^[13] Schatz hired Nguyen to work in festival booths and to sell the company's merchandise at events. Nguyen did not know how to program, but eventually became a level designer and producer for Monaco,^[1] leaving his job at Citibank to devote more time to the game and to Pocketwatch Games.^[1]

The soundtrack for Monaco was composed by Grammy-nominated Austin Wintory, who had previously composed scores for Flow and Journey. The original soundtrack and a remixed album called Gentleman's Private Collection were released on April 24, 2013. The soundtrack incorporates pianos and drums into what Christian Donlan of Eurogamer said was one of Wintory's best works yet.^[15] Schatz originally used licensed music but asked Wintory to replace some of it with original pieces. Wintory later persuaded Schatz that a complete original soundtrack was warranted.^[16] Wintory was excited by the request because it involved using humorous "old-timey piano", saying, "when else am I ever going to be asked to write anything remotely like this?"^[16] Gentleman's Private Collection contains remixes of the original soundtrack by other composers, including Peter Hollens, Tina Guo—who played the violin in the Journey soundtrack—and Chipzel who composed the soundtrack for Super Hexagon.^[17] The full soundtrack and Gentleman's Private Collection were released onto Wintory's microsite on Bandcamp.^[18][19]

Monaco was released for Microsoft Windows on April 24, 2013; the Xbox 360 version was delayed until May 10 that year.^[20] The Mac and Linux versions were released on July 3 and October 21, 2013, respectively.^[21][22] Since the official release, Pocketwatch Games has updated the game to include more levels and mini-games, including two campaign entries titled "Origins"^[23] and "Fin", the final chapter, was released to allow the developers room to focus on Tooth and Tail.^[24]

Reception

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
Review scores Publication Score PC Xbox 360 Destructoid 9.5/10[6] N/A Edge N/A 8/10[25] EGM N/A 8.5/10[26] Eurogamer 9/10[27] N/A Game Informer N/A 8.75/10[28] Game Revolution [29] N/A GameSpot N/A 7/10[30] GameTrailers 8.4/10[31] N/A Giant Bomb [2] N/A IGN 9/10[3] 9/10[3] Joystiq [32] N/A OXM (US) N/A 8/10[33] PC Gamer (UK) 90%[5] N/A Polygon 7/10[34] 7/10[34] Digital Spy [35] N/A The Escapist N/A [9] Aggregate score Metacritic 83/100[36] 81/100[37]
Awards Publication Award Independent Games Festival Seumas McNally Grand Prize[38] Independent Games Festival Excellence in Design[1]

Monaco was positively received by critics, garnering "generally favorable reviews" for both the desktop and Xbox 360 releases.^[36][37] Despite praise, the Xbox 360 release sold poorly and Andy Schatz believed this was because of the weak demonstration version, the delayed release, and the bugs in the multiplayer mode.^[39]

The cooperative mode, one of the main selling points of the game, was lauded by reviewers. Marty Sliva (IGN) regarded it as being one of the best co-op experiences he had in a while, stating that the gameplay mechanics made it one of the most unique and addictive games released in 2013.^[3] This sentiment was echoed by Jeff Grubb (VentureBeat), who complimented the game's ability to be both an arcade and a strategic game,^[40] and James Murff (GameFront), along with Aaron Riccio (Slant Magazine) and the Edge staff, commended the replayability.^[41][42][25] Riccio described it as a "well-oiled four-player game", as well as going on to compliment the plot progression.^[42] Despite almost universal praise for the cooperative mode, reviewers did not express the same admiration for the single-player mode. Grubb said the game should be skipped if there were no plans on playing it cooperatively.^[40] Scott Nichols (Digital Spy) agreed and remarked that while the game contained lots of content to discover, it is best done cooperatively.^[35] Danielle Riendeau (Polygon) considered the single-player mode unfinished and said it needed work.^[34] Roger Hargreaves (Metro) differed from the many other reviewers and said that despite their preference for the cooperative modes, he called the single-player "surprisingly compelling".^[43] David Sanchez (GameZone) called the game "bold", and, like Hargreaves, enjoyed both gamemodes.^[44]

Some reviewers criticised the repetitiveness of the levels. Francesco Serino (Eurogamer Italy) criticised the variation and complained it was not long until he saw similar levels because of the game's simplicity. While saying they were usually well made, he opined that they were often made for certain characters, which adds more gameplay because of the time it takes to discover the best strategies.^[45] Alex Navarro (Giant Bomb) proposed a similar viewpoint, stating some of the later levels turned into "tedious exercises in trial-and-error".^[2] Conversely, Anton Bjurvald (Eurogamer Sweden) said he fell in love with the simplicity of the graphics. However, he took issue with the artificial intelligence, critiquing them as being too easy to fool.^[46]

Reviewers compared Monaco to other games and films; the most common of which was the 1960 heist film, Ocean's 11, viewed in relation to Monaco by Nichols for its "ensemble cast, daring break-ins and carefully laid plans".^[35] Bjurvald also made this connection.^[46] Hargreaves agreed, additionally noting its similarity to Metal Gear Solid and linking its maze-like levels to those of Pac-Man.^[43]

Monaco sold enough copies for Andy Schatz to have "no complaints".^[47] By March 2014, the game had sold over 750,000 copies^[48] and by that September, it had sold over a million.^[49]

References

External links

• Official website
• Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine at MobyGames