Monkeys & Dragons

Review

You’re in an alternate universe that is much like our own, except that this is a world of warriors, bards, adventurers and magic, along with seemingly normal people like Lana (our hero) & Jack (her husband) who have taken a cruise to an exotic tropical island for their honeymoon. As they arrive at the island, they are admiring the beautiful scenery that lay before them on the beach, when suddenly out of thin air a man appears, and he seems to know Jack! When you ask him who he is, he claims to be your husband’s ex-boyfriend.  Then as suddenly as he appeared, he disappears, taking Jack with him. Confused with what just happened, you regain your composure and realize that you must save Jack. Our adventure now begins as we explore the beach for clues that may help us in our quest. Gathering whatever items we can, we will move deeper into the island's interior in search of Jack.

Monkeys and Dragons was released and self-published on Apr 2. 2019, by the developer Benjamin Rommel Games, this is their second release on Steam. This is a casual, point & click adventure that also has puzzle-solving elements built into it. It is presented in a comic/cartoonish pixel art style and has a lot of video game references hidden within. The musical score is fair; it is a bit repetitive but does change with every zone. Personally, I toned the volume down some, but not completely, as there isn't really much audio except for an interaction sound. For settings, you have a language selection (English, Deutsch, Pусский, Francais), graphics has resolution and window/fullscreen mode, sound has music and master control, and in the gameplay settings you can change the text speed and walking speed to your taste (nice feature). With unconventional adult-ish humor, interesting characters to meet along the way, and about 5 to 6 hours average play time, it is a fair value for the price.

My main complaint about the title is the Sodoku puzzle at the end of the game in the bunker. I expected a point & click adventure game, not a puzzle of this type in this genre of game. As it's a genre that I had never played before, I was lost initially, although I finally figured out how to play (whether or not I am able to solve it remains to be seen; I am calling in help). I was so excited to be at the end of the game! You will want to take this into consideration if these are not your types of puzzles. The rest of the puzzles were not really difficult for me. The highlight mechanic is a little finicky, the hitboxes are really tight and you need to highlight items in just the right spot for the function to work properly. Also, the icon for travel between the levels is quite small; for most of the areas it is easier to use the map function to quick travel.

Our gameplay starts out with our husband being kidnapped by an evil wizard who claims to be your husbands ex-lover, we comb the beach for clues then head into town and enter the Guild Hall. Inside Lana talks to the guild leaders to see what she must do to save her husband. They tell her that she must become an adventurer in order to do so, and give her 3 quests to perform in order to begin the process. We will explore the town, along with other areas of the map that are unlocked, to gather the necessary items to complete our quest. Some items are used in combination with others that you have in your inventory (this is the key to success), along with items in the environment. Once we complete our first quest lines, we return to the guild leaders who inform us that we must be stronger in order to face the wizard who is holding our husband prisoner. We must complete more quests from the quest board and continue our journey to become an adventurer. Once we are strong enough, we must face the wizard and challenge him. Once we finish him off, we discover that Jack needs to be cured of the wizard’s evil spell.  At this point we head to the bunker and face its puzzles to get to the conclusion of this bizarre experience and move on with life!

Review written by DamageInc.for Zeepond.com!

Monkeys & Dragons Steam Store Page