Ape Out (2019)

One of the only words to describe Ape Out is… Wow. This game visually stuns right out of the game. From the word Start, this game is one of those rare smaller games that just has such a unique style and overall presentation that it will stick in your head for life.

Ape Out is a simple game yet difficult to master. With an overhead view, you are an Ape that is confined to a cage and breaks free. As your building goes into lockdown mode, it is your job to escape. That’s it. It’s very simple but everything about the game is just fun and interesting.

While you try to escape, there are guards that are trying to put you down. Rushing at them was my main way to get to the lower floors, as making a beeline for the guard will result in a chaotic split moment of fear as you aren’t sure if the guard got off the shot, or if you were able to successfully rip their arms limb from limb.

As gory as the game is, the art style covers a lot of it up. The best way I can describe Ape Out is a mixture of squiggly vision and construction paper. There is a shading style here that I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it before. It’s really interesting the way light is shown by the different colors. The first few levels are pretty basic, but they get much more overly complicated and also the colors change to reflect that.

With very little sound effects, the music is key to understanding yourself and the environment in relation to your enemies. The Soundtrack here is absolutely stunning and has to at least be one of the top contenders this year during game of the year discussions. With its relatively non-existent beats, the tribal drums hit with a certain hardness that is only suiting of a majestic gorilla.

Like I said, Ape Out is really hard to put into words, but it’s a game that just works better being shown. Even with a smaller completion time of around 2.5 hours, I completed it in two sittings in a single day, it deserves the recognition it gets as a quality indie game that should be on everyone’s playlist.