Spy on total strangers in this wacky puzzle game - Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099 quick review

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play it, especially if you like resource management and unconventional puzzle solving. Like its predecessor, Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099 lets players watch unsuspecting strangers and snoop on their lives. While the original Do Not Feed The Monkeys was set in a world that resembled the present day, 2099 takes things into the future, making way for some truly bizarre scenarios. While I was free to sit back and watch events as they played out, I preferred to take a more active role in the lives of the people I was spying on, collecting clues from their videos and scouring the internet for more information. Sometimes I made things better, and sometimes I made things much, much worse, but I always had a great time.

TIME SPENT

I spent over ten hours with Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099, which gave me enough time to complete multiple playthroughs and unlock a variety of endings. Finishing playthroughs gave me access to more gameplay modes and features, like a mode that makes resource management easier and the ability to speed up time. I was hoping to check out “Free Mode,” but unlocking it requires discovering every video feed, which I still haven’t managed to do. I’m not sure how many scenarios there are to view, but many of the game’s puzzles have multiple solutions, so I’m sure I’ve got lots more spying ahead of me.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Immersive and addictive gameplay. When I started playing Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099, I spent most of my time waiting for things to happen, but once I got into the swing of things, it was hard to take my eyes off my screen. There are some in-game deadlines to meet, but I was generally free to do whatever I wanted during my playtime, which usually resulted in me becoming completely obsessed with a few of my video feeds. Sometimes, I’d get so absorbed that I’d forget to have my character eat or sleep, and even in the real world, I struggled to put the game down.

• Unique, challenging puzzle-solving. Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099 might look like a voyeurism sim at first glance, but it’s packed with investigative puzzles. While I was spying on subjects, I could look for clues that might give me more information, like the title of a book or a topic that a person mentioned. After I finished peeping, I plugged those clues into a search engine to find more information. Sometimes, a search term wouldn’t bring up anything relevant, but combining it with another phrase gave me new insights. Once I gathered information, I could pass it along to interested parties, ignore it, or feed the monkeys and directly interfere with people’s lives. This free-form approach makes scenarios much more satisfying to solve.

• Amazing storytelling. In a successful playthrough of Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099, players will unlock twenty-five video feeds, giving them the chance to experience all kinds of stories. In some feeds, the action happens on screen, but other tales are mostly told through fictional media, like newspaper articles and Wikipedia pages. While Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099 doesn’t aim for realism, interactivity makes it easy to get invested in the lives of characters. If I couldn’t figure out how to rescue a character on a freezing planet or help prisoners pull off a jailbreak, I felt like I was responsible for whatever happened next. The video feeds are the star of the show, but there are also lots of background details that provide insight into the game’s strange dystopian world, like newspaper articles, investment trackers, and store catalogs.

• Tons of replay value. I’m not sure how many video feeds there are in Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099, but after five playthroughs, I still haven’t seen them all. Even when the same feeds showed up on my screen, I could approach them in new ways. In one playthrough, I turned in a woman trying to scam her way into a job. In another, I fed her information that helped her pass the employment test. When I regretted turning a robot counterfeiter over to the authorities in one playthrough, I found ways to help her in another. It was always exciting to see a new feed on my screen, but I had even more fun searching for ways to change the stories I’d already seen.

WHAT SUCKS

• Tracking search terms. There’s no way to see your search history in Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099, so I had to rely on my memory. Some video feeds only had a handful of searchable phrases, so it wasn’t that bad, but others gave me tons of phrases, which quickly got overwhelming. I mostly played the game in bed via my Steam Deck, but I suspect the best way to play is with a notebook and pen by your side so that you can keep track of what you have and haven’t done.

• Certain events can overwrite each other. Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099 is primarily about snooping on unsuspecting strangers, but there are also events that take place outside of video screens. If certain events happen simultaneously, one event will overwrite the other, which can lead to game-ending problems. In one playthrough, I decided to try ignoring the neighbor that constantly knocked at my door. His persistent knocking kept people I owed money from showing up at my door, and I was eventually taken into custody. Part of the fun of replaying Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099 is experimenting and trying new things, so it was frustrating that trying to play the game a certain way made it impossible to proceed. The devs are aware of the issue and working on a solution, so hopefully this won’t be a problem for long.

💬 Will you entangle yourself in the lives of strangers in Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099, or would you rather mind your own business? Share your thoughts in the comments!