History VideoGame / MonsterTrain

''Monster Train'' is a {{Roguelike}} DeckBuildingGame developed by Shiny Shoe and published by Good Shepherd Entertainment. It was released for PC on May 21, 2020, on UsefulNotes/XBoxOne on December 17, 2020, on the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch on August 19, 2021, and on [=iOS=] on October 27, 2022. Its DLC, ''The Final Divinity'', was first released on March 25th 2021.

!!Tropes:

* AmazonianBeauty: Heph the Blacksmith, who upgrades your champion, built like a proverbial brick wall and is taller than even the giant monsters she upgrades.

* CerebusRetcon: While the game was never all sunshine and roses, the plot wasn't really complicated and success meant a happy ending. When The Last Divinity DLC was released, [[spoiler:the backstory of the world became a straight-up CosmicHorrorStory, with [[JerkassGods Divinities uncaring about anything in the world]] [[EldritchAbomination and possessing enough power to make and unmake new worlds on a whim]], while all the struggle in the game is made futile by GroundhogDayLoop, created by the Last Divinity, which is implied to be going insane]]

** Pact Shards, introduced in The Last Divinity DLC, can be accepted on the world map to get additional money, artifacts and spell upgrades or fuse your units to pass some of their stats and abilities from one to another. The price for them is that certain enemies and bosses will receive a significant buff, depending on the number of Shards. [[spoiler:If you defeat Seraph with over 100 Shards, you can fight the TrueFinalBoss, The Last Divinity]]
* CoolTrain: The Boneshaker, which apparently joins Heaven and Hell, and which is powered by the very last fragment of the embers that once lit the entirety of Hell. Plus it's got several floors and [[MechaMooks mechanized stewards]]. The demons themselves, however, seem to find it to be a complete junker and plan to never board it again once their mission is done; though, since the whole rail is a symbol of a Covenant that Heaven broke, it probably brings far too many painful memories.

* CosmeticAward: Clearing a run with a card in your deck will give it a permanent gold frame, which has no tangible benefit. Clearing a run at maximum Covenant (difficulty) adds a crown to the faction combination in the logbook. Clearing Challenge runs, available after clearing the maximum Covenant once, unlocks new frames to replace the gold ones. Finally, as of "The Last Divinity" DownloadableContent, defeating the titular boss adds the faction combination to a new logbook page, as well as adds a stamp to the cards in the deck.
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:The Last Divinity DLC retcons the game's backstory into something from this genre. The world was created by the Divinities, borderline {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, as a toy for their Child, with entire species [[JerkassGods created and destroyed on a whim]].]]

* EternalRecurrence: Starting with the Friends and Foes update, several characters make mentions of cycles of the hellish forces fighting the armies of heaven for eternity. [[spoiler:Explicitly confirmed in The Last Divinity DLC, where you find out that the entire game happens inside a [[GroundhogDayLoop time loop, resetting the state of events over and over again]], created by titular Last Divinity, a borderline EldritchAbomination with complete control over time and barely sane.]]

** The Melting Remnant are The Horde, relying on ZergRush tactics and the unique ability to recover dead units before the end of a battle. While their remold mechanic means that you can easily replenish lost units, it also means their energy usage is quite high, and they rely heavily on managing supplies of creatures much more than every other faction.
** The clan introduced in The Last Divinity DLC, The Wurmkin, are another GatheringSteam clan. They build Charged Echoes from infused cards, which can then be spent on various abilities. Their forces are split between sturdy tanks and [[WeaponizedOffspring fragile smaller units]] that require a lot of echoes to realize their devastating potential.

* TheGhost: Herzal, of the titular Hoard that leaves Artifacts scattered all over, who built the Train and forged Hell's half of the Covenant, and who writes every note in the Logbook. [[spoiler:One of the Cavern events is implied to take place at his frozen corpse.]] The Last Divinity DLC contains more info about his past: [[spoiler:before he came to Hell, he was one of the Judges, beings tasked with creating laws for the world - he specifically wrote down morality. It is implied he got fed up with the Divinities' [[JerkassGods total apathy regarding life of mortals]] and orchestrated an attack against them. However, he came to regret his actions so much that [[LaserGuidedAmnesia he had his memories of that time removed]].]]

** With The Last Divinity DLC, collecting Pact Shards increases the likelihood that you will encounter tougher Shard enemies and bosses. However, you can exchange those shards for benefits like infusing units with essences of others.

* JerkassGods: [[spoiler:The Divinities originally created the world solely as a toy for their Child. According to one of the flavour texts, entire civilizations were raised and later cast aside when The Child got bored with them. Now the last of them [[GroundhogDayLoop trapped the Boneshaker in an eternal time loop]] and it's implied it's going insane.]]

* TheMafia: A significant part of the Melting Remnant's creatures, follow the 1920's movie mafia aesthetic.

* MotiveMisidentification: Hinted at. [[spoiler:Several of Fel and Seraph's comments suggest they didn't betray the Convent and invade Hell solely out of ambition, but because someone close to them (or Heaven itself) would die if they didn't. Seraph even says that Herzal betrayed ''them'', and lore from The Last Divinity DLC does indicate that Herzal orchestrated an attack after tiring of their apathy towards mortal lives.]]

* PlantPerson: The Awoken, monstrous flora that specializes in tanking damage and Thorns ([[CounterAttack inflicting damage when attacked]]).

** The [[TheGoomba Train Stewards]] are a general-purpose one, being the cheapest, most basic unit available to the player, regardless of build. They have lousy stats and no special traits, and largely exist to be space-fillers and meat shields until you can replace them with something better...unless you have the [[EliteMook Advanced Prototype relic.]]

* SinisterMinister: Rector Flicker is at once the spiritual leader of the Melting Remnants and a mob boss putting his own clan at odds with the other for profit.

* SocketedEquipment: Like most games in the genre, most cards can be upgraded. Unlike most others, the upgrade system is modular, attaching "stones" bought from merchants or earned in a RandomEncounter that grant specific bonuses. There are separate sets of stones for units and spells, but they follow the same general pattern of adding stats, reducing costs, or adding keyword abilities. By default, cards have 2 sockets, but an artifact exists for each card type that will add a 3rd socket. Champions and Blights are the exception; Champions upgrade at the very beginning of the game and after each boss, while Blights are permanent deck debuffs and thus can't be upgraded at all.

** A large amount of information about the world is kept by the hidden Wurmkin clan, who were released in the Last Divinity DLC.
* SquishyWizard: The Stygian Guard specialize in very powerful magic abilities, but generally have very low health. Embodied by their champion Tethys, who takes up next-to-no room and augments magic, but can literally be {{One Hit Kill}}ed by the very first angels that hit your train. To help compensate for this, they have a line of StoneWall units that get beefier as more spells are cast - get a spammy enough build going and they can become virtually unkillable.
* StarterEquipment: In addition to your Champion and cards provided by each clan, you get several Train Stewards as unaligned MechaMooks to fill up space while you get other monsters. Wurmkin uniquely starts with an artifact that infuses one of three cards founds.

** The Umbra's Shadowsiege is an even bigger and harder to summon unit, with a massive cost of 6 Ember and is generally impossible to summon without increasing floor capacity, but comes with gigantic base stats of 200/150

** The Melting Remnant give as good as they get in this department. Rector Flicker's default card isn't the usual spell, but instead a 0 Ember, 1 space monster that he can be specced to return them to your hand (and with some upgrades, the returned version will be buffed ) after they die.

''Monster Train'' is a {{Roguelike}} DeckBuildingGame developed by Shiny Shoe and published by Good Shepherd Entertainment. It was released for PC on May 21, 2020. Its DLC, ''The Final Divinity'', was released March 25th 2021.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Umbra unit Shadowsiege is the single toughest thing you can summon, with a wall of health and enough damage to OHK even end game mooks. It costs twice as much energy to summon as base maximum, and while it could previously fit on a standard size floor, a balance patch changed it to require ''six'' slots and thus can only fit on an upgraded floor. Only a floor-extending focused deck with plenty of energy generators can hope to use it.

** Certain Covenant levels add a clan champion to your starting deck instead of making the game harder.

* AmazonianBeauty: Heph the Blacksmith, who upgrades your champion, built like a brick proverbial and is taller than even the giant monsters she upgrades.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monster_train_header.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:]]

* TheGhost: Herzal, of the titular Hoard that leaves Artifacts scattered all over, who built the Train and forged Hell's half of the Covenant, and who writes every note in the Logbook. [[spoiler:One of the Cavern events is implied to take place at his frozen corpse.]] The Last Divinity DLC contains more info about his past: [[spoiler:before he came to Hell, he was one of the Judges, beings tasked with creating laws for the world - he specifically wrote down morality. It is implied he got fed the Divinities' [[JerkassGods total apathy regarding life of mortals]] and orchestrated an attack against them. However, he came to regret his actions so much that [[LaserGuidedAmnesia he had his memories of that time removed]].]]

** The clan in the first DLC, The Wurmkin, are another GatheringSteam clan. They build Charged Echoes from infused cards, which can then be spent on various abilities. Their forces are split between sturdy tanks and [[WeaponizedOffspring fragile smaller units]] that require a lot of echoes to realize their devastating potential.

* GogglesDoNothing: Heph's goggles.
* HardModePerks: Largely averted - there isn't a concrete benefit for playing on higher Covenants other than bragging rights, though certain Covenants do provide you a benefit rather than just making the game harder. Played straight by "Trials", optional toggles on non-Boss battles where you can give the enemies a significant advantage in exchange for an extra reward, usually a random artifact or (a lot of) gold. Played even straigther by Pact Shards, introduced in The Last Divinity DLC: on the world map you can accept them to get additional money, artifacts and spell upgrades or fuse your units to pass some of their stats and abilities from one to another. The price for them is that certain enemies and bosses will recieve a significant buff, depending on the number of Shards. [[spoiler:If you defeat Seraph with over 100 Shards, you gain access to TrueFinalBoss, The Last Divinity]]

* JerkassGods: [[spoiler:The Divinities originally created the world solely as a toy for their Child. According to one of the flavour texts, entire civilizations were raised and later cast aside when The Chiled got bored with them. Now the last of them [[GroundhogDayLoop trapped the Boneshaker in an eternal time loop]] and it's implied it's going insane.]]

* BadBoss: Seraph, and apparently a lot of Heaven, all seem to be terribly neglectful of their servants. Daedalus and his cohorts are constantly trying to impress them to get ''some'' kind of attention, and the Clipped all lost their wings as punishments. Seeing what they did to their enemies, seems [[LightIsNotGood par for the course]].

* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:The Last Divinity DLC retcons the game's backstory into something from this genre. The world was created by the Divinities, borderline {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, as a toy for their Child, with entire species [[JerkassGods created and destryed on a whim]].]]

* EternalRecurrence: Starting with the Friends and Foes update, several characters make mentions of cycles of the hellish forces fighting the armies of heaven for eternity. [[spoiler: Explicitly confirmed in The Last Divinity DLC, where you find out that the entire game happens inside a [[GroundhogDayLoop time loop, resetting the state of events over and over again]], created by titular Last Divinity, a borderline EldritchAbomination with complete control over time and barely sane.]]

** The clan in the first DLC, The Wurmkin, are another GatheringSteam clan. They build Charged Echos from infused cards, which can then be spent on various abilities. Their forces are split between sturdy tanks and [[WeaponizedOffspring fragile smaller units]] that require a lot of echos to realise their devastating potential.

* TheGhost: Herzal, of the titular Hoard that leaves Artifacts scattered all over, who built the Train and forged Hell's half of the Covenant, and who writes every note in the Logbook. [[spoiler: One of the Cavern events is implied to take place at his frozen corpse.]] The Last Divinity DLC contains more info about his past: [[spoiler:before he came to Hell, he was one of the Judges, beings tasked with creating laws for the world - he specifically wrote down morality. It is implied he got fed the Divinities' [[JerkassGods total apathy regarding life of mortals]] and orchestrated an attack against them. However, he came to regret his actions so much that [[LaserGuidedAmnesia he had his memories of that time removed]].]]

* TheMinionMaster: The Umbra clan's dynamic is the production of Morsels, weak allies that give benefits when the [[DevourTheDragon larger demons eat them.]]

* ShieldBearingMook: The angel waves are very often led by one that does little to no damage but has a lot of health and/or armor, protecting the more fragile wings unless you have a way around it.

* SocketedEquipment: Like most games in the genre, most cards can be upgraded. Unlike most others, the upgrade system is modular, attaching "stones" bought from merchants or earned in a RandomEncounter that grant specific bonuses. There are separate sets of stones for units and spells, but they follow the same general pattern of adding stats, reducing costs, or adding keyword abilities. By default, cards have 2 sockets, but an artifact exists for each card type that will add a 3rd socket.
** Champions and Blights are the exception. Champions upgrade at the very beginning of the game and after each boss. Blights are permanent deck debuffs and thus can't be upgraded at all.

* StoryBreadcrumbs: Cards and Artifacts in the Logbook have brief snippets of lore written in-universe by Herzal, that paint a clearer picture of just what is going on.

* WeHaveReserves: The Melting Remnant and the Umbra both operate on the assumption that you'll be throwing fodder units away with abandon. For the Remnant, their Reform keyword will bring them back for another go, while the Umbra power up their large units by feeding them morsels. One upgrade path for the Hellhorned's alternate champion does this as well, giving you weak imp units every turn (in fact, you'll want to make sure they die so you have room to play the next ones).

* ZergRush: The angels will often throw large groups of low-health Clergymen or Witherwings at you, which can be devastatingly effective if they do it before you've built up your defenses. One of the challenges which gives a level a better reward is to have the entire train flooded with these enemies right off the bat.

* SaveScumming: Much like ''VideoGame/SlayTheSpire'', you can restart the level by exiting to the main menu, as long as the Pyre death animation doesn't finish. However, while it's useful for undoing misplays, it's much less effective at salvaging a lost run due to the fact the game has way less card draw and no external hand manipulation effects, meaning that bad hand you drew likely won't change next time.

* ResurrectionDeathLoop: The Melting Remnant's mechanic. If the angels don't get them many of their units 'burn out' after a set number of turns anyway (since they're candle people). But they have any number of ways of being reborn, [[CameBackStrong usually coming back even stronger.]] In essence they have a bunch of [[GlassCannon glass cannons]] that keep mending themselves.

* StarterEquipment: In addition to your Champion and cards provided by each clan, you get several Train Stewards as unaligned MechaMooks to fill up space while you get other monsters.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Umbra unit Shadowsiege is the single toughest thing you can summon, with a wall of health and enough damage to OHK even end game mooks. It costs twice as much energy to summon as base maximum, and takes up an entire unupgraded floor on its own. Only a floor-extending focused deck with plenty of energy generators can hope to use it.

* MotiveMisidentification: Hinted at. [[spoiler:Several of Fel and Seraph's comments suggest they didn't betray the Convent and invade Hell solely out of ambition, but because someone close to them (or Heaven itself) would die if they didn't. Seraph even says that Herzal betrayed ''them.'' There's no evidence to back up their claims... yet.]]

** A large amount of information about the world is kept by the hidden Wurmkin clan, who will be released in the Last Divinity DLC.

* ZergRush: The angels will often throw large groups of low-healthed Clergymen or Witherwings at you, which can be devastatingly effective if they do it before you've built up your defenses. One of the challenges which gives a level a better reward is to have the entire train flooded with these enemies right off the bat.

* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:The Last Divinity DLC retcons the game's backstory into something from this genre. The world was created by the Divinities, borderline [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]], as a toy for their Child, with entire species [[JerkassGods created and destryed on a whim]].]]

* FinalDeath: Cards with the Purge keyword do not return to the player's deck after being played, not even at the end of a battle.

* BraggingRightsReward: After a run, the game displays what you unlocked and ''the highest Covenant level your Steam friends have unlocked.''

* AmazonianBeauty: Heph the Blacksmith, who upgrades your champion, is seven feet tall and built like a brick proverbial.

** One of the upgrade options for the Shardtail Queen champion has her kill any friendly imps in the same room as her to deal damage to all enemies. With a good build she should be using this ability every turn.

* BodyOfBodies: Morsel-Made, a hive mind of morsels that severed themselves from the Umbra Shroud, aggressively adding any morsels in their path into it's entity.

* LivingShadow: The Umbra faction, which specializes in creating Morsel units that other monsters devour for buffs.
* {{Macrogame}}: The player's total score is kept between runs, unlocking new factions at certain totals ([[DoubleUnlock plus high enough total kill counts or unit summons]]), as well as more cards for whichever factions were recently used.

* TheMinionMaster: The Umbra faction's dynamic is the production of Morsels, weak allies that give benefits when the [[DevourTheDragon larger demons eat them.]]

** The Melting Remnant have large numbers of cheap, small units and a keyword mechanic (Reform) to get them back.

* OrderVersusChaos: This game's Heaven and Hell fall more along these lines than those of Good versus Evil. The forces of Heaven are tightly regimented and are quick to hand out harsh punishments to any and all who don't meet their high standards of both behavior and being. Hell, meanwhile, is a wild land whose people are made of many completely distinct tribes and cultures. The clans were not unified in any way until Herzal, an outsider to Hell, proposed the alliance.

* PlantPerson: The Awoken, monstrous flora that specialize in tanking damage and Thorns ([[CounterAttack inflicting damage when attacked]]).
* RedShirt: Several, depending on faction:
** The [[TheGoomba Train Stewards]] are a general purpose one, being the cheapest, most basic unit available to the player, regardless of build. They have lousy stats and no special traits, and largely exist to be space-fillers and meat shields until you can replace them with something better...unless you have the [[EliteMook Advanced Prototype relic.]]

* SinisterMinister: Rector Flicker is at once the spiritual leader of the Melting Remnants and a mob boss putting his own faction at odds with the other for profit.

** Champions and Blights are the exception. Champions upgrade at the very beginning of the game and after each boss. Blights are a permanent deck debuffs and thus can't be upgraded at all.

* CerberusRetcon: While the game was never all sunshine and roses, the plot wasn't really complicated and success meant a happy ending. When The Last Divinity DLC was released, [[spoiler:the backstory of the world became a straight-up CosmicHorrorStory, with [[JerkassGods Divinities uncaring about anything in the world]] [[EldritchAbomination and possessing enough power to make and unmake new worlds on a whim]], while all the struggle in the game is made futile by GroundhogDayLoop, created by the Last Divinity, which is implied to be going insane]]

* TheGhost: Herzal, of the titular Hoard that leaves Artifacts scattered all over, who built the Train and forged Hell's half of the Covenant, and who writes every note in the Logbook. [[spoiler: One of the Cavern events is implied to take place at his frozen corpse.]] The Last Divinity DLC contains more info about his past: [[spoiler:before he came to Hell, he was one of the Judges, beings tasked with judging right or wrong in the world. It is implied he got fed of it and had a hand in attack against Divinities, which he regretted so much that [[LaserGuidedAmnesia he had his memories of that time removed]].]]

* HardModePerks: Largely averted - there isn't a concrete benefit for playing on higher Covenants other than bragging rights, though certain Covenants do provide you a benefit rather than just making the game harder. Played straight by "Trials", optional toggles on non-Boss battles where you can give the enemies a significant advantage in exchange for an extra reward, usually a random artifact or (a lot of) gold.

* EternalRecurrence: Starting with the Friends and Foes update, several characters make mentions of cycles of the hellish forces fighting the armies of heaven for eternity. [[spoiler: Explicitly confirmed in The Last Divinity DLC, where you find out that the entire game happens inside a [[GroundhogDayLoop time loop, resetting the state of events over and over again]], created by titular Last Divinity, a borderline EldrichtAbomination with complete control over time and barely sane.]]

* AsteroidsMonster: The Legion of Wax of the Melting Remnant Clan is designed around this mechanic. When the base unit is defeated, it instead splits into two units with slightly lesser stats. When each of these units is defeated, they split again into two smaller, again slightly weaker units. Despite the reduction in base stats in each split, all "offspring" retain the base enhancements and bonuses obtained prior to and during the battle. With the proper upgrades, buffing, and/or a key artifact, this can result in [[GameBreaker an obscenely powerful, nigh-unending wall of fighters that can absorb countless attacks and deal incredible damage]].

* BlobMonster: The Melting Remnant faction is a wax-themed variant, whose candle soldiers break apart into smaller units when damaged.

* FactionCalculus: Each of the five tribes specializes in a particularly style of game play, with each run involving two tribes.

** The DLC faction, The Wurmkin, are another GatheringSteam faction. They build Charged Echos from infused cards, which can then be spent on various abilities. Their forces are split between sturdy tanks and [[WeaponizedOffspring fragile smaller units]] that require a lot of echos to realise their devastating potential.

* TheMafia: A significant part of the Melting Remnants creatures, follow the 1920's movie mafia aesthetic.

* OurMonstersAreWeird: The Umbra faction have some monsters that make their ten-limbed, xenomorph-headed champion Penumbra look relatively tame.

* SeaMonster: The Stygian Guard faction, consisting of mermaids, squids, and serpents, and specializing in Frostbite (damage over time) and heavy duty spellcraft.

* UnlockableContent: The player only has access to a few cards from the Hellhorned and Awoken factions at the game's start. The three others, and many cards and relics corresponding to each, must be unlocked through various means.

** Averted for the other factions. The game's basic rules make it so that spells will constantly reshuffle per normal for a deckbuilding game, but killed units are gone for the rest of the Battle.