
Upon these tiny foundations of success, you evolve. That seems like a shockingly low rung in the evolutionary ladder, I know, but it’s not. For example, one of the first abilities you can unlock is switching hands with a held object. The other side of progression happens in an almost sterile, microscopic view of the neurons growing and firing in your ape’s brain, building pathways to new unlockable skills. As you bring outsiders in to bolster your community and build your social bonds with other apes through grooming and communicating you’ll unlock your societal potential with abilities like being able to call the entire clan together to perform group tasks and hunting.

“As you explore and make discoveries by climbing, leaping, and swinging through the forest canopy you'll begin to unlock new skills that let you interact with objects in new ways. That probably saved my ape, and who knows, maybe my whole clan since I was running low on age-appropriate apes to create the next generation. Luckily I had stopped and listened to the forest for whatever was making those strange sounds, immediately seeing the warbling aural lines coming from it and giving me the precious seconds needed to scurry up a tree. And in one particularly close call, I had scampered within five feet of a giant adder and its venom-tinged fangs.

It's tough to spot predators at night, even under the clear view of the Milky Way overhead. But you also rely on the bestial heightened senses to listen to the sounds of the environment, pinpointing threats, lost clan members, or outsiders to soothe and welcome into your growing community. Like a prehistoric mashup of Curious George and Batman, you're a primitive detective, with the catch being about 50 percent of the things you encounter can make you sick, kill you, or eat you.


Scanning the forest in this way turns you into an inquisitive detective, marking things to go and pick up and turn over in your hands. “As an ape, you flex your budding intelligence to scan the forests for points of interest and investigate them: food, unique locations, dangerous animals and plants, and more.
