Ape Affect is something like a 2D physics monkey platform climber … sandbox … thing. Maybe best described as a mix between Octodad and Goat Simulator with the difference that you control a monkey and it’s 2D.
In this game you control each hand of the monkey separately with a dual stick controller and you can grab and hold onto almost anything--this way you are able to climb freely, swing like crazy and toss objects around as you like, thanks to the Box2d physics engine. It works surprisingly accurate … with time … when you get the hang of it ;)
So, no classic controls were you can simply walk in one direction--here, you move the hands and the rest of the monkey follows.
What the final game will have:
What we have so far after two months:
The controls
Ape Affect will only be controllable with a dual stick controller (tested with X360 Controller), as you need to move the hands of the monkey independently. Which probably won't work so smooth with a mouse + keyboard combo.
The left stick is for the left arm, the right stick is for the right arm. Pulling the left trigger lets you grab with the left hand and vice versa. And that's it. More buttons won't be used in the game. Except maybe for the menu.
Trivia
At the beginning, we thought we have something like a unique gameplay concept (You always think that, don’t you?). But circa one month into developing Ape Affect, we found out about the game “Mark of the old Ones” which uses a similar concept for the controls. At first it was kind of a throwback, but ultimately it is a very different game. And it motivates us to make Ape Affect even funnier and dumber :P
We aim to release the game on Steam sometime next year probably.
We hope you like what we have to offer so far. Feedback is appreciated.If you’d like to have your hands on something like a pre alpha techdemo, leave a message. We plan to update this devlog regularly. So we will be back with some updates soon (hopefully).
Enjoy:
More graphics! We also changed the game play controls a bit and added new physics objects.