APE OUT by Gabe Cuzzillo - Quinn's Curios

First, a word from the publisher: “APE OUT is a wildly intense and colorfully stylized smash ‘em up about primal escape, rhythmic violence, and frenetic jazz.“

What Worked For Me:

The game has a distinct visual style that stands out from the “AAA” crowd. The aesthetic is simultaneously minimal and info-rich, allowing the player to succeed without a traditional heads-up display (HUD).
The game’s controls appear simple on the surface but hold a deeper complexity. Beyond twin-stick movement, the eponymous ape has two main ways to interact with the world: shoving and grabbing. The shoving is a hair faster, and is the main way to dispatch enemies (by smashing them into walls, into each other, etc). Grabbing allows for a more precise throw, and also allows the ape to more-or-less use the weapon of the human they’ve grabbed. By combining this system with a variety of enemy types and environmental challenges (e.g. fire, ledges that can be fallen off, etc), Ape Out is able to challenge the players in a variety of ways.
The music is a perfect complement to the gameplay. Aside from the fact that it is reactive, responding to your actions in game, it also matches the vibe. If you’ve ever listened to a drummer play along to a full episode of a sit-com (not just the theme), you’ve begun to understand what to expect from Ape Out. Its music is definitely chaotic and a bit off-the-wall at times, but it definitely works with the game’s aesthetic and tone.
I was able to beat the game in about three hours. As I’ve said before (and as I’m sure I’ll say again), I much prefer shorter games that eschew the padding and micro-transaction bait often associated with AAA titles. Also, there’s still technically more for me to play if I wish (I never fully finished hard mode, for example).
There are certain parts of the game that elicited a visceral enjoyment from me, whether it be yelling “reject humanity, return to monkee!” at the screen or throwing enemies out of sky-scraper windows, there are parts of the game that always felt fresh and enjoyable.

What Didn’t:

The enemy placement was, as far as I could tell, random. I guess this makes some sense in-universe, as guards have patrol routes or might get distracted. It also makes some sense as a game design choice because it helps keep the game feeling fresh, focusing on improvisation over memorization. I am listing this as a struggle, though, because it meant that the game’s difficulty could be really “swing-y” from one run to the next. This was especially prevalent in later levels of the game, where certain enemies were progress blockers (flamethrowers) while others could easily be worked around (heavy shotguners).
The game crashed my system the first time I tried to run “hard” mode. It also crashed when I switched from mouse & keyboard to controller while one of the levels was on a title screen (“Adrift”). Given that I have a pretty beefy system (12th-gen Intel 12700 and an RTX 3080) this was perplexing to me.
(Nit-pick) The start to “overboard” is long compared to others in the game. I’m listing this as a nit-pick because it’s one level among many and it’s only a few seconds difference.
(Nit-pick) As much as I liked the music in context of the game, I’m not sure I would listen to it on its own. It feels so connected to APE OUT‘s gameplay that it would almost feel like different songs to have the music not be “reactive.”

Conclusion:

APE OUT is a visual and auditory spectacle that is worth picking up for those who like any of the following: twin-stick shooters, jazz, or “going ape.” Though the game has a somewhat inconsistent difficulty curve and occasional bugs, it’s combination of unique protagonist, frenetic and reactive soundtrack, and visceral gameplay means it is definitely worth a look.

Check it out here.

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