Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines Review

Work is da poop

I would never have predicted that another artist I follow would make a game of their own. This time randomly finding them through Twitter, I have been following hcnone for a while now as I liked their artwork and their OCs. So when I saw they were making a game, a visual novel one to be specific, and saw the cute artwork I was instantly looking forward to it. A surprise game release later and here I am writing a review after completing the game!

Considering all the characters have already been established through comics and zines hcnone made, I’m sure there are those that are wondering how it stands on its own. Well, I do think you can play this game and still understand everything even with little to no previous knowledge on the Endless Monday characters. You may not get the references or know the characters’ personalities going in, but I feel there is enough to go on just in this game. Heck, I didn’t even know these characters were a part of a zine, or there was some sort of a storyline outside of the occasional funny comic, until recently (I didn’t even know Skye quit her job until I played this game haha).

I relate so much to Penny lol

Anyway, Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines has us play as Penny in a situation that a lot of us has been in. It’s Saturday and Penny has a project that’s due on Monday. A project that she has made zero progress on. It’s not like Penny didn’t have more than enough time to do it, she had a couple months to do it, but she just didn’t have any inspiration other than drawing Tiger-chan. So what is this project? Penny, as part of the Creative Team, was tasked to create at least six illustrations with a pleasing aesthetic and motivating slogans for advertising campaigns for something called a ZINEBOT 6000. ZINEBOT 6000 is, as you can guess, a robot, but it looks kinda ugly and Penny has no idea what it even does as the project document is pretty vague on it. Honestly, I understand Penny having no inspiration, I don’t even know what I would make in this situation.

So here she is, after months of procrastinating and drawing Tiger-chan instead of working, she’s stuck at the office on a weekend late at night. Even worse, Miss Whiskey calls Penny while she’s out drinking to invite Penny and Miss Whiskey might have had the impression that Penny was almost finished. She didn’t want to disappoint Miss Whiskey and sadly her lies caught up to her. Since just sitting at her desk isn’t bringing in any inspiration, you’ll be exploring the office as Penny to hopefully get struck by inspiration. There are various parts of the office you can go to and you have the option to think, talk to someone if there’s someone in front of you, or do an action like guessing a password or snooping. You can also bring up Penny’s phone where you can check her “to do” list and call someone to talk to and maybe get some information out of them.

Skye! ❤️

The story goes in directions that you might not suspect, but it all fits together without seeming out of place no matter how weird it may be. I think it helps that it is a humorous story and everything is treated like it’s possible within the universe. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it ranges from finding out how other characters are doing to dreaming about your succulent plant being a judgy buff dude. You also do get to interact with the other characters pretty often and it was a delight learning about the characters and some of their backstories or how they’re doing. I also really liked the writing style here. Each character’s personality and their current emotion easily shines through and even adds some social commentary without feeling overly obvious, preachy, or out of place; all while keeping everything comical and light.

There are a couple of endings you can get depending on what you do. A lot of them depend on how far you get (or don’t get) on the project before Monday, but some are based on certain choices you make while playing.

Aside from the minigames that are tied into the story, there is a minigame you can go and play in most scenarios. This minigame is called Lumbar Lass and it takes the form of a phone game. It’s pretty simple, you play as a young lass, which looks suspiciously like Hana, happily chopping down trees, running forward to the next tree to chop, and repeat endlessly…or until you’re too tired to continue playing. All the logs you gain are accumulated as your score and there is a leveling up system that ups your power when meeting certain level milestones. You also have a chance at getting a speed or power power-up (or both so you can go log wild) from trees and every so often you come across a shop manned by Skye. Although, considering the shop is a log cabin and the young lass may be Hana, you chop it down and grab all the air fryers to get a big 2x bonus to your log count. As you continue playing you do get more logs per tree from what I can assume is a passive leveling up perk.

It’s honestly pretty addicting, which definitely fits it being a phone game, and I had to set milestones (like stop after the power ups wears off or after getting X amount of lumbar) so I could tear myself away and continue through the game’s story.

I don’t really have any big complaints against Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines. After finding out that the ability to skip text (and to quickly complete the current text box) was just an option toggle away, the only complaint I have is that I wished you could hide the textbox. Penny may possibly have taken up the favorite character spot, but Skye was there first and I just want to see her cute sprite without the textbox being in the way. Plus the other characters, but especially the Skye. Other than that, I can see some not liking the short runtime (about 2 hours for a first playthrough). Personally, I didn’t mind the runtime and I think the length fit the story well.

Verdict

To be honest, the reason I mainly picked this game up was because I follow hcnone and I really like their artwork. Plus, the preview showing part of a conversation with Skye made me laugh and it seemed it had the type of writing style I enjoy (as Skye was my favorite character). Well, I can safely say that I really enjoyed Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines. I loved the artwork (which is a given), the story is enjoyable and funny (even with limited knowledge on Endless Monday), the music is great, and I loved Penny as a main character and being able to interact with the other Endless Monday characters.

If you’re looking for a short, funny, and enjoyable visual novel look no further than Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines! It’s definitely worth picking up.

Now excuse me, I must get a high score in Lumbar Lass as I totally not procrastinate.