''Ape Out'' is a

beat 'em up The beat 'em up (also known as brawler and, in some markets, beat 'em all) is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in scrolling, two-dimensional (2D) levels, ...

game developed by Gabe Cuzzillo and published by

Devolver Digital Devolver Digital, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Austin, Texas, specializing in the publishing of indie games. The company was founded in June 2009 by Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults, and Mike Wilso ...

. The game was released for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

on February 28, 2019.

Gameplay

''Ape Out'' is a

single player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usuall ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

played from a

top-down perspective A variety of computer graphic techniques have been used to display video game content throughout the history of video games. The predominance of individual techniques have evolved over time, primarily due to hardware advances and restrictions ...

. The player controls a

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...

running through a

maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...

while evading enemies in the form of gun-wielding humans. The human enemies are easily killed with a single attack and can also be grabbed and used as a

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry or projectiles such as arrows, by means of a ...

; however, as they are armed with guns, they can quickly kill the player as well. The principal aim of the game is to escape each level and killing enemies is not technically required in order to proceed. The maze design is randomized and is slightly different on each play, making it impossible to memorize the layout of a level. One of the game's main themes is

jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major f ...

and each of the game's four chapters are represented as jazz albums with each level representing one track. The gameplay features a loud and chaotic, all-

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

jazz soundtrack composed by Matt Boch (associate arts professor at

NYU Game Center The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the ar ...

) which reacts dynamically to the gameplay, for example by increasing in intensity as the player faces more enemies, crashing

cymbals A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs soun ...

each time an enemy is killed and adjusting the volume according to one's speed and number of kills. In order to provide a reactive and procedurally generated soundtrack for each playthrough, the game draws from a bank of thousands of recorded individual drum sounds, some recorded by Boch with others sourced externally, and combines them according to player movement. The system will also match the location of what is happening on screen to the drum or cymbal which matches that approximate location on a real

drum kit A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player ( drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsti ...

. Each chapter of the game also features a different style of jazz percussion, with Boch describing the first chapter as the most quintessentially jazz, whereas other chapters feature more unusual instruments for jazz music. The end of the last chapter features the song "You've Got to Have Freedom" by

Pharoah Sanders Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", San ...

. The game also features a minimalist art style which has been compared to that of

Saul Bass Saul Bass (; May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos. During his 40-year career, Bass wor ...

Development

''Ape Out'' was developed by Gabe Cuzzillo using the

Unity game engine Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a var ...

. ''Ape Out'' was Cuzzillo's second game, after ''Foiled'', which he developed with Aaron Taecker-Wyss and released in 2014. Development on ''Ape Out'' began when Cuzzillo entered into game development courses at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(NYU), where he also worked on an

independent study Independent study is a form of education offered by many high schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. It is sometimes referred to as ''directed study'', and is an educational activity undertaken by an individual with little to no supe ...

with

Bennett Foddy Bennett Foddy is an Australian video game designer based in New York. Raised in Australia and trained as a moral philosopher on topics of drug addiction, Foddy was a bassist in the electronic music group Cut Copy and a hobbyist game designer w ...

. Foddy contributed to ''Ape Out'' art, while Matt Boch, an associate professor for NYU's Game Center, worked on the game's music system and

sound design Sound design is the art and practice of creating sound tracks for a variety of needs. It involves specifying, acquiring or creating auditory elements using audio production techniques and tools. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including ...

. ''Ape Out'' was part of the NYU Game Center Incubator and partially financed by

Indie Fund The Indie Fund is an organization created by several independent game developers to help fund budding indie video game development. The Indie Fund was created in early 2010, its purpose aimed "to encourage the next generation of game developers" b ...

. ''Ape Out'' was a finalist for the 2016

Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...

's "Best Student Game" award but lost to ''

Beglitched ''Beglitched'' is a 2016 match three video game. It won Best Student Game at the 2016 Independent Games Festival Awards. Gameplay ''Beglitched'' is a match three game with themes of hacking, computer viruses, and spam. Development Jenn ...

''. Publisher

announced their involvement in ''Ape Out'' in March 2017, when they released a playable trailer for the game and announced a projected release date of "summer 2017". The publisher announced in December 2018 that ''Ape Out'' would be released on February 7, 2019, for

and

. However, the game was delayed by three weeks and was released for both platforms on February 28, 2019.

Reception

''Ape Out'' received "generally favorable" reviews on both platforms, according to

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. The PC version scores an 83 from 34 international critics on Metacritic, and a score of 84 from 31 international critics on the Nintendo Switch.

Awards

The game was nominated for "Best Visual Design" and "Best Audio" at the

2019 Golden Joystick Awards The Golden Joystick Awards, also known as the People's Gaming Awards, is a video game award ceremony; it awards the best video games of the year, as voted for originally by the British general public, but is now a global event that can be voted ...

, and for the Off Broadway Award for Best Indie Game at the New York Game Awards, and won the award for "Audio Achievement" at the

16th British Academy Games Awards The 16th British Academy Video Game Awards was hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts on 2 April 2020 to honour the best video games of 2019. Though originally planned to be presented at a ceremony at the Queen Elizabeth Hall ...

, whereas its other nomination was for " Debut Game".

References

External links

* {{Bennett Foddy 2019 video games Beat 'em ups Nintendo Switch games Top-down video games Video games about primates Video games developed in the United States Games financed by Indie Fund Windows games Single-player video games Fictional gorillas BAFTA winners (video games)