Played “Monkeys and Car Keys” a parser game by Jim Fisher. From the title, I expected it might be some kind of word play game, but that’s not what it is. Set in the jungle, a troop of monkeys have stolen your car keys. The game has an early 2000s feel about it; short, puzzle centric, story light. but more elaborately written than an 80s game played on a computer with limited memory. This work includes in-game hints, which were another convenience that became popular around the turn of the century.
The puzzles have a certain logic to them, but the parser isn’t quite robust enough to support them. One of the central props of the game were a circle of three stone monkey statues (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). They behave differently from one another, but the error messages for trying a useful action on the wrong monkey are sometimes misleading. The words “monkey” and “statue” can sometimes be used interchangeably, and sometimes not.
The setting and characters are whimsical enough to keep me motivated. Who doesn’t like a monkey, or a mechanical puzzle involving a barrel of monkeys? But before the end, it started unraveling. I hit a non-fatal processing error (which I’ve reported to the author). Then started using the hints, then reached a point where even the in-game walk through wasn’t allowing me to make any progress
>put banana in monkey mouth
It’s just scenery. You don’t need to do anything with it.
Anyway, there is another review posted (VG) which suggest that the game can be finished, so I wonder if I’m just playing a different edition of the game (I see there was an update posted on September sixth. I’m not entirely sure which version I’m playing, but I assume it’s the update.