iPhone Appidemic: Catch the Monkey

Catch the Monkey before he eats all your spuds. I never realized monkeys liked potatoes so much, or that they were so ticklish.

What is it?

The new offering from mirthwerx is a sort of action/arcade game that keeps the violence out while you have to keep the monkeys out. You need to defend your crop from the little brown horde using feathers to tickle them, bananas to distract them or whatever tools you have handy.

All the distractions you can employ give the farmer time catch and release the prehensile invaders. Everything is tap and swipe, so all you really need is a modicum of control over where you point.

How does it work?

The first “weapon” in your arsenal is a feather with which you can tickle your furry foe into submission. Just tap and swipe the monkey you want to tickle. If you want to tickle a different monkey, you need to lift your finger and swipe at the new simian. As soon as you do this, the first monkey will recover and start foraging for your potatoes again. It’s a bit like spinning plates but you do have other tools you can use. Toss a banana in the garden and this will keep one monkey busy for a few seconds. Give them a rubber duck to play with and you can occupy two monkeys (in succession). The most aggressive tool early on is a mallet (looks like an inflatable toy) you can use to bop a monkey on the head, which only makes him laugh for a few seconds.

There are plenty of other “weapons” the game will make available, such as gum to stick to the monkeys to slow them down, scarecrows, and so on. Your mission includes tapping/collecting stars. The stars can be used to “purchase” boosts in the Star Shop, such as a sports drink to charge up your energy points, a spray to recover energy faster for a while, or an encyclopedia to teach the farmer which monkey will be the most critical to capture first.

Be careful about how often you use the boosts; it takes much longer to collect them than to use them.

Is it contagious?

Catch the Monkey is a game that will be fun for kids, especially if they have good hand-eye coordination. It’s also good for the older crowd if you really like games with a higher than average “cute” factor (“…the little monkeys are soooo cute”). When the monkeys laugh, it sounds like a recording of a human infant laughing. This would normally carry a high cute factor, but it is the same, single sound bite for all monkey laughter so it may get a bit irritating based on repetition. Turn the volume down and the game will throw enough monkeys and tools at you to keep your index finger quite busy.

All things considered, not a bad game.

Category: Game
Developer: mirthwerx
Cost: $1.99
Buy: Catch the Monkey