Overview
A detailed Monkey Business guide, provided with a map (with shards and secrets). In here, I’ll give you some tips on how to complete the level more efficiently and maybe even score S rank.
Basics
This level contains 289 Soul Shards that you’ve got to collect in order to get the first ring piece. But, as Bierce said, you’re not alone. There are 3 Murder Monkeys chasing you. Here are some important things to know about their tactics:
- The monkeys can always see you — each of them knows your location. Thus, you have to be running all the time.
- Not only they try to chase you down, but also to corner you. E.g. when there are two ways both ending up in a corner and you’re being followed by the Monkey on one of them, another one tries to cut you off on the second way. That’s why you should avoid corners while being closely pursued.
- They also have a tactic I’d call “two behind, one ahead” — ’cause that’s exactly how it works: when you escaped two monkeys having nearly cornered you and start entering some long pathway (especially one of the outer-most), the third one may try and ambush you ahead — with almost zero chances for you to survive unless you have the Teleportation or are lucky enough to find yourself in the “Ф” pathway (I’ll get on with this later).
What should be your tactics then in order to beat the level? Let’s see.
Here We Go
Here, I put together an advanced map of the level which’ll help you better understand its layout.
Original file: “Hotel secrets” by Kyrope[dark-deception-game.fandom.com] [CC-BY-SA-3.0]
Small time after you start collecting the Shards, a spooky music can be heard and the Monkeys are going for a hunt. As mentioned before, there are three of them and they spawn in the three of four hotel corners (except for the upper left one on the map).
In the beginning, it’s better not to wander in the hotel’s center for you can easily get lost and eradicated by Monkeys. Instead, I prefer the outer-most hallways. But, as I’ve said before, there are monkeys in the corners, which means you’ll have to mislead them a little to safely run through the corridors. Here is the starting path I’ve come up with through the numerous trial and error, indicated by the yellow line:
The green line shows the subsequent path which is relatively safe; red triangles mark the spots Murder Monkeys pop out of if you weren’t fast enough (thus, try not to bump into walls to avoid bumping into the Monkeys subsequently).
The red asterisk (*) is the place where you might get ambushed by the third Monkey, but, in my experience, that happens very rarely. You’ll have to pay attention and listen to the sounds in any case though for this level is not completely algorithmically beatable — even the slightest changes in your route may greatly affect the Monkeys’ behavior, making the whole thing arbitrary and situation-based at some point.
BTW, another good thing about this path is that it lets you collect both secrets (? on the map)at once — which is essential for scoring S rank.
The point is to keep going around, NOT entering the corners I’ve mentioned before in the first place: this gives the Monkeys a benefit in further eradicating, if not even catching you in situ. Better do it in two turns: first time near the corner, run past, and the second time, run into. Do it for all the corners along the way up until you’re ready to proceed to the next stage.
But, before we get to it, one more important thing. There are two auxiliary items appearing in the hallways at the beginning of the game — namely the Reveal Shard and the Stunning Orb. I highly don’t recommend collecting them in the first place — better spare them up to the ending when you’ll really need them. That’s why, if they appear on your way, better find some workaround, just be careful with the Monkeys.
Diving In
So, by this time you’ve collected all of the outer shards (or maybe left some, say, in the “Ф” letter corridor, that’s okay) — and now you’re bound to enter the central hallways. This is where the real thrill begins.
As you must have already seen, there are lots of stacked corners and twisted turns on the inside. That’s why you might want to keep your map zoomed in (toggles by Z key) to see such tough spots and not get stuck in there.
Be especially careful with these two guys:
These are the ones of the most common places where players get cornered and shredded. Also, if viewed from a zoomed out map, they may seem connected with each other which may greatly mislead you and cause much trouble. But, in spite of all that, they can also be useful. If all three monkeys are guaranteedly running behind, you may use one these corners to your advantage: run into one and head right to another. This will make most of the Monkeys take a pretty long route around, letting you collect big clusters of shards with relative safety for quite some time.
Quick note: leave one of the shards near the Altar uncollected, that’ll do you a great favor later.
When there is a small amount of shards left (like 60 or less), you may go ahead and take the stunning orb and reveal shard to help yourself finish it off.
So, after you’ve collected all of the shards, the monsters will enter the so-called Frenzy Mode and you’ll need to proceed to the altar. That’s where one single shard left near the Ring Altar comes in handy — you won’t have to be chaotically running around on your way back as if your last shard collected was at some random place.
After you got the ring piece, everything becomes pretty simple. Just get into the elevator, wait for it to go down, exit it and proceed straight to the portal without stopping. And that’s it!
Summary & Extra Tips
To summarize the whole thing up, I’ll use the level’s chapter name that best hints the desired tactics: “No way back”. There’ll almost always be monkeys ‘hind your back, that’s why you’d rather not make reckless 180 direction changes. However, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take loops — in fact, you need to, at some point. The only difference is that you take detours, not the same road you’ve just run.
Here are some additional tips I haven’t mentioned before:
- “Ф” (Cyrillic “Ef”, Greek “Phi”) letter hallway. This is the place where you can smartly rid of the two monkeys trying to sandwich you — as long as they aren’t too close, of course. The point is that you have to lead the trailing one in the central corridor, and quickly slip into the side one before another monkey enters the “Ф” from the other side, and then just take it all way back and out of the “Ф”. But, of course, this all depends on your skills and timing.
- Stunning orb. Use it wisely on the toughest clusters of shards — try not to end up having run the empty hallways 10 out of 15 stun period seconds and only then having collected a few shards in the corner.
- Reveal shard. If you fail to collect it, you won’t be able to get an S rank. That’s what is represented by the Bonus Shards section.
- Try to stay focused! It may be hard for the first times for the overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety, but, the more skilled you become, the easier it becomes for you to remain concentrated regardless what’s happening in the game. However, brace yourself for sudden jumpscares where you least expect them.
Have fun and good luck!
Guide brought to you by Artemis Infin