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December 27, 2009 | | Comments 3

Monkeys In Space: Escape to Banana Base Alpha in Review – A Familiar Frontier

The human fascination with outer space takes a humorous turn with a new line-drawing game that revolves around rescuing space monkeys bouncing around in space.

Banana Base space stations await the primate astronauts, and your job is to send them off safely to their destination, matching the monkey to the Banana Base station based on color – red, yellow or blue. Simply draw a line from the wayward monkey to the Banana Base Alpha station and take care not to run into other monkeys or objects which can come from anywhere near the edge of the screen. Stringing together as many monkeys as you can means a significant bonus over and above just sending a monkey to his destination. Chain-building is both an incentive and an added challenge, a welcome innovation on the usual path-drawing gameplay.

There are four different game modes available on the latest version – Deep Space being the take off point for beginners, while the rest are unlocked after rescuing a specific number of monkeys for each game mode. The other game modes introduce specific obstacles while retaining the basic gameplay. Three’s a Crowd, the latest level added, introduces the Blue Baboon, another space monkey with higher points and a nicer design.

More than that, Monkeys in Space is yet another attempt on innovating the traditional line-drawing genre. Many line-drawing games I’ve played have very attractive, detailed and colorful animals or objects but are often too small to be appreciated. Without sacrificing the challenge of path-drawing for many objects, making the space monkeys bigger than the usual show that objects need not be tiny for the game to be challenging and fun.

Other than the fairly large space monkeys, the game’s overall look and design don’t really stand out. The recent addition of the smoother and better-designed blue baboon however, shows a promising step in the right direction, and hopefully the graphics will sport a more polished look in future updates. The background music is pretty generic and after a while a bit grating on the nerves. On the plus side, the sound effects are fun and add some oomph to the game.

Thanks to the game’s smooth controls, it’s easy to move the monkeys around. Although paths only run in a straight line and are not free form, the essence of the game is in drawing and building the longest manageable chain as possible.

Other than the game modes, one’s options are quite limited in finding a comfortable degree of difficulty with which to engage the game. Only Asteroids and Three’s A Crowd make for truly exciting gameplay. While Planetary Chaos introduces gravity as a form of challenge, gameplay is too easy and in effect, hardly distinguishable from Deep Space. Open Feint online leaderboard integration, to an extent, provides a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction through competing with other players but it’s not enough to remedy the game’s lack of levels of difficulty and consequently, a real challenge.

All in all, while Monkeys In Space offers a solid and engaging path-drawing game that doesn’t quite hold up to the challenge and excitement expected from the genre and the game is not compelling enough to make the experience of playing it particularly memorable.

A few tweaks to the graphics and gameplay just might make it more compelling than your usual path-drawing game.
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App Summary
Title: Monkeys in Space: Escape to Banana Base Alpha Developer: Streaming Colour Studios
Reviewed Ver: 1.1 Min OS Req: 2.2
Price: $0.99 App Size: 6.8 MB
  • Path-drawing objects are bigger than usual
  • Chain-building is a nice twist
  • Smooth game controls
  • Graphics and music are just average
  • Game is too easy – no calibration of difficulty
  • 2/4 game modes do not offer a significant challenge

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Filed Under: Arcade • Games • Review