Parecía una imitación de Hotline Miami, pero no.

En Ape Out no podemos avistar a los enemigos desde lejos. Un efecto de profundidad hace que las paredes tapen nuestro ángulo de visión hasta que nos asomamos por ellas. Esto lo cambia todo, porque evita que planeemos nuestros movimientos con antelación. Además, la posición de enemigos y otros elementos del escenario cambia tras cada intento, no vaya a ser que tiremos de memoria. Vamos, que el diseño propicia un estilo de juego reactivo: que el jugador no se acomode, que opere sobre la marcha, que improvise.

En Hotline Miami entrabas al edificio, observabas la situación y operabas en consecuencia. No es que trazásemos un plan, pero existía cierto cálculo, cierta táctica. En Ape Out tiras pa'lante y te adaptas a lo que surja. Y tiene todo el sentido: uno es un juego de asaltar, el otro de huir. En uno vas armado, en el otro estás indefenso.

Por eso Ape Out tiene tanto que ver con el jazz, por eso encarnas a un primate (en vez de a un humano) y por eso el objetivo es escapar. La acción ha de sentirse improvisada, urgente, desesperada incluso. Y lo consigue.

GORILLA SMASH: The Game.
You are a gorilla that escapes from the zoo so you must kill the guards by smashing them against the walls.
The gameplay is kinda Hotline Miami-esque but feels worse for some reason I can't fully put into words.
The visuals seem cool but I had to stop playing after every 20 minutes because I was getting nauseous.
The amazing part is the music, it's a jazz jam session in which you choose how the drums sound by throwing the guards around which affects the other instruments as well, really really cool idea.

Um joguinho divertido e curto para te distrair um pouco. Aqui você é um gorila que precisa escapar de 4 lugares diferentes, dependendo de qual fase você escolher: Um zoológico, um edifício, uma base militar (eu acho?) e um navio de carga. O jogo é só isso mesmo, podendo ser zerado em um tempo bem pequeno (eu mesmo comecei ontem antes de dormir e terminei hoje depois do almoço). A jogabilidade lembra um pouco Hotline Miami, só que bem mais simplificado e até mesmo repetitivo, o jogo vai do começo ao fim sem nenhuma mudança na gameplay. É um jogo legal, mas que não possui nada que eu considere incrível nem nada do tipo, sendo legal de se jogar rapidinho e nada muito além disso.

THE APE
by Herbert, age 6
The Ape
He destroyed his cage
Yes
YES
The Ape is out

Control an Ape attempting to escape from a variety of settings including a lab, ship, jungle, and office building while smashing enemies against walls or each other. Jazz drumming and expressive colors follow your destruction as you make your way out of each level. Enemies explode in bright blood and body party, fires start from enemy flamethrowers and barrels exploding, the power dies and flashlights and flames help to guide your paths and your enemy's view. It's a loud and intense game separated by four albums that act as 8-10 stages each with their own area focus, each album can be played on a more difficult setting for greater challenge.

Rooms can change with each level reset causing the need for improvisation matching both the state of the ape and style of music, this can cause extremely easy or extremely difficult set ups where you can pretty much easily walk through the level or where you will be suddenly killed if you have the slightest hesitation in performing a nearly perfect improvised plan to get by.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1145063511829045248

Having a great soundtrack is a common reason for games to be considered memorable, but what “great” really means in this context can be complicated. There’s the obvious quality of being catchy and fitting for the action on screen, but music can also be evaluated for its mechanical conveyance. If a player is dropped into a graveyard with a gun, the sound of whispering wind and mournful violins will probably make them walk slowly and cautiously, but the player who hears heavy drums will start swiveling around looking for the demons to pop in. While that’s an obvious example, the principle of using different tracks in this way applies even within a singular game to help players understand the pace. That’s where Ape Out succeeds with its soundtrack, even in the absence of music that most people will find catchy. It’s dynamically generated jazz, where the loud, chaotic, all-percussion soundtrack reacts to the player’s actions by changing the intensity, adding crashing cymbals, and matching the speed based on the player’s own pace through the level. While it doesn’t lend itself well to listening to individual tracks, the freeform nature of the music encourages players to take the same approach, and rely on improvisation more than the methodical iteration common to top-down action games. Most other titles in the genre have your character dying to one bullet, but Ape Out lets you take a decent amount of punishment before facing a restart, recognizing that as soon as players stop feeling like a rampaging ape and start tactically checking corners, the energy of the music and flow of the gameplay would immediately become discordant. It’s a fascinating little system to experience, but in a way, the interactive nature of the soundtrack is let down by the limited options you have to actually experience it. Running through rooms and smashing people as a gorilla is a silly enough little concept, but your entire agency boils down to punch, grab, and move. I was left wanting gameplay that was fittingly special for a game this unique with its visuals and sound, even while understanding that it makes sense to give players a simple bedrock to ground the more unfamiliar aspects. It’s good enough to hold up its hour-and-a-half runtime, but not enough to turn the stylistic successes into a true great.