Monkey Quest Isn't Monkeying Around

[Greg Tito]

Monkey Quest Isn't Monkeying Around

American kid-centric TV channel Nickelodeon is no stranger to games, but the new virtual world Monkey Quest is pretty ambitious.

Playing games is integral to the Nickelodeon brand. Ever since the days of Double Dare and Legends of the Hidden Temple, game shows have been a staple on the Viacom-owned kids TV network. With the rise of the Internet, Nickelodeon's website became a hub for casual and kid friendly games that allowed people to interact with the channel's brands. Then in 2008, Nick bought out the company behind Neopets, a website that allowed kids to have their own pet online that they had to care for. The division was rebranded as Nickelodeon Kids & Family Virtual Worlds Group, and the team recently announced its first big project. Monkey Quest is an MMO where the players inhabit monkey avatars from the mystical land of Ook. It's currently in the beta phase of development, and Nickelodeon plans to release it in April 2011. The game will operate under the free to play model, with a tiered subscription system and microtransactions to pay the bills.

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The extended trailer above shows a lot of promise and the high-production value speaks volumes as to the game's polish. The trailer feels like it could be advertising a movie of the same title. Of course, no actual gameplay footage is shown, just pre-rendered CGI cinematics, but what is shown seems top-notch. We should learn more about the game at this year's GDC in San Francisco.

If nothing else, I hope that Monkey Quest is an MMO that doesn't feel watered down or "for kids." But if it trains the next generation in MMO mechanics and gets them excited for gaming in general, I'm definitely on board.

Looks like I might have found my unborn child's first MMO.

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[Not G. Ivingname]

It has monkeys and... more monkeys... huh.

 

[lobster1077]

Anything with regard to monkeys, no matter how ill-conceived automatically warrants some investment in my eyes.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

Looks like some sort of competitor to Club Penguin. We'll see, but it seems promising.

 

[potemkin.hr]

Damn, and I thought it was something related to WoW [http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/monkey-quest.aspx].

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I know it's for kids but...

It really bugs me when people speak of "worlds beyond your imagination," I mean seriously? You think my imagination can't think up anything better than stereotypical rainforests with cliched tombs and secret (banana shaped) treasure? Really?

In fact children have the biggest imaginations anyway, this is just insulting to their creative minds!

 

[Zechnophobe]

AHHAHAHHAHAHLKGHGHLKJ.

Mankinds closest relative IS NOT A MONKEY. If this wasn't a tv station for kids that was, somewhat, meant to be educational I'd just leave it as a random mistake. But... Ugh.

 

[Zaverexus]

I hate when things like this don't even show any actual gameplay footage.
This could be the crappiest game of all time despite an interesting trailer, how would we ever know

 

[HentMas]

looking at the screens from the site, it looks like it will be a platformer sidescrolled with puzzles that the kids will have to work toguether to solve and move ahead

its not that bad, i think this could work

at first i thought it was going to be another WOW clone dumbed down for kids, but nope, its not, its actually quite different

i kind of love Nickelodeon...

 

[HentMas]

I hate when things like this don't even show any actual gameplay footage.
This could be the crappiest game of all time despite an interesting trailer, how would we ever know

go to the site and look round there are screens about it, and give you an idea of how things work

 

[Zaverexus]

I hate when things like this don't even show any actual gameplay footage.
This could be the crappiest game of all time despite an interesting trailer, how would we ever know

go to the site and look round there are screens about it, and give you an idea of how things work

I'm not actually interested in the game, that was just a general all-encompassing complaint. Trailers need to show gameplay

 

[HentMas]

I hate when things like this don't even show any actual gameplay footage.
This could be the crappiest game of all time despite an interesting trailer, how would we ever know

go to the site and look round there are screens about it, and give you an idea of how things work

I'm not actually interested in the game, that was just a general all-encompassing complaint. Trailers need to show gameplay

oh, ok then, i´m just going to go ahead and head over here *backs away slowly*

 

[Zaverexus]

I hate when things like this don't even show any actual gameplay footage.
This could be the crappiest game of all time despite an interesting trailer, how would we ever know

go to the site and look round there are screens about it, and give you an idea of how things work

I'm not actually interested in the game, that was just a general all-encompassing complaint. Trailers need to show gameplay

oh, ok then, i´m just going to go ahead and head over here *backs away slowly*

You can't escape the misleading advertising!
NO! STOP! You're backing up into the Superbowl time slots!!

 

[person427]

Ha, when the Rift advertisement played before it, I thought that was the start of the trailer. Therefore, my first two thoughts were "This looks amazing!" and "Wait, where are the monkeys?"

 

[Urgh76]

Ha, when the Rift advertisement played before it, I thought that was the start of the trailer. Therefore, my first two thoughts were "This looks amazing!" and "Wait, where are the monkeys?"

The same exact thing XD

OT: As said, it could work, and it could also be killed with fire

 

[Jason Danger Keyes]

Wow, that must have been a really tall tree the monkey in the beginning went skydiving off of.

 

[Price0331]

You can play the beta for free now, it actually has some pretty interesting mechanics, I'd compare it to maple story + WoW with monkeys.

 

[Wertornion]

Playing the beta and it's fun. But on the other hand i got some crashes already. One of the nice things is that you just need to instal an browser plug-in of 690kb and the fun can begin. Even on mac using chrome based flock as browser. The controls aren't ideal jut though.