Play Monster Maker Online

Monster Maker is this weird little RPG on the Game Boy that feels like someone mashed up Dragon Quest with a deck of playing cards. Everything—monsters, towns, even the world map—looks like it’s made of cards, which gives it this oddly charming, slightly janky vibe.

You start by picking one of four characters (I went with the warrior, obviously) and immediately get thrown into the classic RPG loop of scraping together gold for better gear. The inn lets you recruit more party members, which is handy because the overworld’s full of face-down cards you "flip" to explore—sometimes it’s an item, sometimes it’s a monster waiting to jump you.

Battles are first-person, turn-based affairs, and the coolest quirk is how monsters cycle in mid-fight. Only three can be on-screen at once, but as soon as you take one down, another pops up from the "deck" to replace it. Makes fights feel way more chaotic than your average RPG grind. It’s definitely rough around the edges, but there’s something oddly satisfying about the whole card-game-meets-RPG thing.