Video Game / Beastieball

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Beastieball is a Canadian Indie Game "Volleyball RPG" by Wishes Unlimited, having entered early access for PC on November 12, 2024 with Klei Entertainment as the publisher. It stars a rookie Beastie coach haling from Rutile on their way to reach the top of the Beastieball League, taking over for the old, washed-up coach in hopes of saving the nature preserve of their hometown from the League's plans to build a stadium on top of it. For this, they must find and raise the titular Beasties and form a team capable of climbing through the rankings all the way to the Crown Series tournament, where only the 100 best ranked coaches may compete.

The game's Kickstarter page can be found here, while the initial reveal trailer can be found here. See Monster Racers for another mons-based sports game.

Beastieball contains examples of:

• Achievement Mockery: The game has an achievement call “ACHIEVEMENT OF SHAME” which you get if you “be stupid and ruin everything for no good reason.” Actually Subverted, as you get the achievement for beating the game and making things better, but the Sports King thinks you ruined everything
• All in a Row: While all your Beasties will normally follow you in a straight line through the overworld, they may sometimes stray off when finding something that interests them, most often a ballshroom.
• Ambiguous Gender: All the Beasties are referred to with gender-neutral they/them, even if their appearances lean towards more masculine or feminine forms.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • It is possible to activate the option to instantly win any match by just the press of a singular button, ensuring that skill level is not a limiting factor in finishing the game.
  • Accidentally wiping out or missing a raremorph beastie (this game's equivalent of a shiny monster) doesn't always mean missing out, as an NPC respawns missed or K-Oed raremorphs as roaming encounters, as long as no raremorph of this species has been caught yet.
  • One of the Head Coaches, Callisto of the Magic Moons, is not labeled on the map until you find her school/arena in the far northeast of the map. Because a player focused on the story may never even find her, the game still allows them to reach maximum Rank having beaten seven of the eight possible Head Coaches, preventing them from having to do extra fights in the Crown Series because they weren’t diligent in exploring.
• Art Evolution: Starting with the second version of the demo, the game's artstyle saw a shift towards more abstract, expressive designs with bigger, rounder facial features compared to head size.
• Beef Gate: Scattered throughout the map are guardians, special pre-set numbered teams. There's no guarantee their level is close to the surrounding encounters, though guardians that are significantly stronger than the player put red borders on the screen when they notice the player.
• Blatant Lies: The information signboard in front of the Crown Farms rubber plantation boasts that it is a way to produce new balls "in perfect harmony with nature." There's not a single Beastie to be found there, and it is the one area in the game where the soundtrack is completely silent. This is Truth in Television: commercial tree monocrops are not at all a suitable replacement for actual forest habitats, and have been described by actual ecology experts as "zombie forests"^note A state where trees are still standing, but are unable to sustain themselves and regrow due to climate change causing a mismatch. where very few animals actually choose to live.
• Cap: Can be invoked with the Level Cap option, for an added challenge. A Soft cap will only make you a couple of levels above the average level of any major battles, while a Hard cap makes your levels equal to them, ensuring you're battling on equal ground. The cap won't affect your Beasties' current levels or prevent EXP gain, so you can continue to level them way past the curve.
• Cast from Hit Points: Various moves will reduce the Stamina of a Beastie using it to achieve their effects, most severely the defensive move Torch Pass, which reduces the user's stamina by 100 (the maximum) to remove the incapacitating wiped condition from an ally and then tag them in.
• Character Customization: It is possible to customize not just the clothes, face and skin color of your character, but also their phone color and pronouns, including a gender-neutral "they/them" option.
• Character Level: As is typical for RPGs, Beasties will gain experience and level up at increasingly high thresholds as points are scored in matches. What is unusual is that they will receive experience regardless of if they succeed or not. They will even receive experience when wiped, as long as they were active participants in a match.
• Cherry Tapping: It is entirely possible (albeit long-winded) to defeat an opponent with just scratch damage, like from the Free Ball attack, or even dealing no damage at all by simply hitting empty, undefended lanes (which is called a "No-Touch Point").
• Childhood Memory Demolition Team: The Beastieball League is this to both the protagonist as well as Riley, intending to destroy the nature preserve they spent most of their childhood in to build a stadium in its place.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Regardless of any unique conditions, a Beastie must be defeated in a match to become part of the team.
• Developer's Foresight: Jack, coach of the Mega Beasts, will show up multiple times to battle you and casually throw hate at your team. If you've battled them as a different team name each time, they’ll call you out for not having consistent branding.
  • The tutorial fight against Riley is made to ease you into the general flow of the game, and as such, the game expects you to win fairly easily. If you lose the match (something you pretty much have to do deliberately, as when your Beasties' stamina is low enough, Riley will exclusively use Free Attacks.^note  1 Damage "attacks" that also don't need to be volleyed, meaning you don't need to use an action Volleying. and will never target a Beastie at 1HP unless both of them are.), unique dialogue will play where Riley gets excited about winning, but is willing to call it a draw because you started at a disadvantage.
• Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors: Averted - Unlike most other games of its genre, Body, Spirit and Mind attacks do not feature any natural advantages against each other. All proficency with and resistance against a certain type is based on the specific stats of a Beastie.
• Experience Points: Regardless of winning or losing, when a point is scored, all Beasties that have played since the last one will gain experience points, and may level up, even while still in a match.
• Fantastic Flora: By trope definition, the various mushrooms count as this, growing practically anywhere and when picked, regrow immediately. One variety even suddenly springs from the ground and forms a net whenever an outdoor Beastieball match starts up.
• Fantastic Science: The study of Beasties and their relationship with nature is a recognized field of science, even if the official Beastieball league seems to look down upon the study, and rather just focuses on any advancements that benefit them directly.
• Foreshadowing: Simge, a schoolgirl in Beryl, grumbles about a girl who is a "big stinky liar" for having seen an extinct Beastie during a camping trip. Extinct Beasties are, in fact, not extinct, and can be found hidden off the beaten paths in the world. An Extinct Beastie even crashes the Crown Series!
• Friendly Rivalry: Beasties on your team can potentially develop rivalries with each other, both having a mutual desire to get stronger against each other.
• Fungus Humongous: Ranging from the edge-of-realistic volleyball-sized ballshrooms up the above human height mushrooms forming the supports for the nets of outdoor playing fields.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Reserve Beasties aren't kept in any sort of storage, but left to roam their original habitats. Sure enough, if you return you can encounter them and even challenge them to another Beastieball match. They'll even gain experience in the process. Calling them to substitute for another Beastie also takes time for them to show up, as they're physically catching up to you on-foot.
• Green Aesop: Corporations can lie to you all they want about "eco-friendly" products and initiatives, but if rampant consumerism goes unchecked and funding for environmental conservation and research is axed, nothing will stand in the way of companies killing the planet just to make a few bucks or keep their favorite pastimes running. The only way to ensure that nature is well-protected is for everyone to take a stand against corporate interests — there are more of us players (of both sports and video games) than there are of the suits, and the future of gaming doesn't have to mean playing on a husk of an ecosystem.
• Idle Animation: The protagonist can be seen breathing when standing still, and every beastie has (or will have by the end of early access) fully hand-animated poses reflecting their personality.
• Inevitable Tournament: The Crown Series, where only the 100 highest ranked Beastie coaches may compete. It is the target of the protagonist to compete, if not win it.
• Level Scaling: Future ranked teams increase in level as you defeat other ranked teams.
• Monsters Everywhere: Practically all pathways are jam-packed with wild (and the occasional trained) Beastie teams ready to challenge you, sometimes even being lead by your own Beasties if you've put them into the reserve. Areas without wild Beasties that aren't towns should generally be taken as a reason for alarm.
• Mon Game: Featuring the namesake Beasties, creatures that come in various shapes and forms, and who's natural goal it is to travel the world and reach their full potential.
• Mon Tech: Besides the self-updating Beastiepedia application, there are also the specially crafted jerseys made from a type of mycelium that is precious to Beasties. Give one with a dense enough weave to a Beastie you've impressed with your balling skills, and it will join your team.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Rowdy Beasties break the otherwise universal limits of 100 health and three-choice movesets, have a special permanent noisy status that ignores effects which bypass noisy, use support plays during their opponents turn, can volley the ball to themselves, and have plays akin to the player's teamwork plays. Most of it is necessary for a 'team' of a single Beastie to even function, while the extra health is balanced by them being required to score three points to the player's one.
• Necessary Drawback: A core part of the game design. Any move above 90 power has a significant drawback, such as inflexible targeting, dropping the user's stats, buffing the target, hitting the target's strongest defense, inflicting a status effect on the user, or requiring specific field positions to use.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: A Beastie that hits 0 Stamina is "Wiped", and are too tired to do anything beyond Free Ball, Move, or Tag Out. Even then, a wiped out Beastie can get back in action in an exhausted Sweaty state when rested on the bench for long enough.
• Palette Swap: Besides the typical variation a Beastie may have within its color palette (and a few even come in common variants, such as Woolie's white-wooled morph and Humflit's yellow-winged morph), they may also appear as Raremorphs with an altogether different palette.
• Planimal: All Beasties in general are evolved from the fungi that make up the world's mycelial network, which is maintained and propagated through the spread of Ball Mushroom spores. Of all the Beasties, Sprecko is the most explicitly mushroom-like, and is described to be covered in a sticky fungal growth.
• Predatory Business: The Beastieball League is implied to be this, wanting to destroy the Rutile Town nature preserve seemingly for nothing but their own gain.
• Railroad Plot: The Beastieball League's plans to build a new stadium over the Rutile Nature Preserve are temporarily halted once a new coach emerges, and may end up scrapped entirely should they prove successful.
• Relationship Values: Beasties that interact with each other will eventually form bonds, which grant both of them access to a powerful combo move. Beastie relationships come in four types: Sweethearts, Besties, Partners, and Rivals.
• Rock Theme Naming: It appears all towns in the game are named after gemstones (Rutile, Jasper, Beryl, ect.) with Geo City as a slight thematic outlier, but perhaps fitting for what appears to be the largest settlement in the area.
• Saving the Orphanage: The protagonist sets out to defeat the ranked coaches of the Beastieball League to gain a better ranking and thus more influence, in hopes of stopping the league's plans to destroy the nature preserve of their home town.
• Scratch Damage: The effect of a low level Beastie trying to attack one of higher power. Also the result of the "Free Ball" attack, which always only deals a singular point of damage.
• Shout-Out:
  • After defeating Marlin's team, he'll ask you if you watch sports anime. Answering with "I don't believe in sports anime" will make him respond:
    Marlin: Well, you'd best start believing in sports anime... You're in one.
  • Occasionally, you'll run into teams with Beasties named after characters of a series. Yuji's team, for example has bird Beasties named Nico, Sanji, and Tony.
• Starter Mon: Axolati, Kichik and Bildit, as well as Sprecko all fall into this category, the first three being presented to the player as a choice, while the final is given to them during their first match regardless of their previous decision.
• Status Effects: Called "Feelings", emotional states that affect their performance. They're split between Good and Bad based on the effect they give.
  • Good:
    • Jazzed: Boosts Beastie's power by 50%, ignores any negative power boosts, as well as ignoring the receiving Beastie's defensive boosts.
    • Noisy: A Draw Aggro state that forces all plays to target the designated Beastie, regardless if they would auto-target elsewhere.
    • Tough: Beastie only takes 25% of incoming damage, and blocks secondary effects of plays. They will also survive with 1 Stamina if it would wipe them out, unless they have 1 Stamina left when receiving.
  • Bad:
    • Tired: The Beastie is too tired to perform plays, and can only do basic actions.
    • Stressed: A feeling that eventually turns into Tired unless the affected Beastie is tagged out.
    • Blocked: Damage from the blocked Beastie's play is reduced by 2/3, and turned into an Easy Receive, which allows plays to be performed without a Volley.
    • Sweaty: Drains Beastie's stamina by 10 each turn. This can be stacked and persists in the overworld unless remedied with rest or some Water. A special version of Sweaty can affect Beasties about to metamorph, which can only be cured once they undergo metamorphosis.
    • Nervous: The Beastie is too nervous to move, locking them in their current position.
    • Shook: The Beastie is too frazzled to go on the offensive, preventing attack plays.
    • Tender: The Beastie's defenses are weakened, equal to having defenses lowered by two stages.
    • Angry: The Beastie is too angry to do any actions that aren't attacking.
    • Wiped: The Beastie is down for the count and is unable to do anything other than Free Ball, Move, or Tag Out. Wiped Beasties can recover when tagged out for a set amount of turns, but they will be Sweaty when back in action.
• Sports Story: Centered around the titular Beastieball, a volleyball-like game that Beasties apparently naturally enjoy playing.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Even a small level advantage allows you to fire balls dealing well over 500 stamina damage... while the maximum stamina never exceeds 100.
  • Alternatively, using various support moves, minimum stats and traits, records of over 28 million points of damage have been achieved.
• Three-Stat System: Body, Spirit and Mind respectively, which individual species of Beasties may be more or less effective at.
• Thriving Ghost Town: Including the player character, Rutile Town is only shown to have 9 inhabitants.
• Twice Shy: Two Beasties with a budding romance may experience this, and it takes a few matches with them together for them to finally spit it out. This can be reflected in the matches, with the pair becoming Nervous for a turn.
• Weird Trade Union: The finale of the campaign involves all of the Ranked coaches choosing to organize, publicly walk out of the Crown Series en masse, and refuse to play in League matches altogether until the League changes its ways, finally getting the wider public's attention about the ecological damage the League's current management is causing.
• Wheel o' Feet: The protagonist has one as their running animation.