Overview
If you are new to the game (as I am) and have encountered some prime apes (the monkey mobs), then do check out my guide 🙂
Prime apes are prime trouble
If you stumble upon an island with prime apes, make sure you NEVER EVER attack them. If you do, they will all go crazy with rage and beat their chests and screech at the top of the voices and throw manure at you. This will initiate your sanity drain and it drains pretty fast, especially if it is also dusk and worse when close to night time.
It is kinda cool to watch them go ballistic but if your sanity is pretty high, then it is fun but if it is low, then their manure throwing can be potentially fatal.
As they screech and make monkey noises, they will also chase you in a large mob, with more and more prime apes joining their friends. From afar they will begin to throw manure at you. Now, this is a great way to get a lot of manure without having to do much work but the manure missiles tend to drain your sanity as well, even when they do not hit you.
The prime apes will continue to chase you and follow you until night descends, after which they go to sleep. They are pretty cute when they are asleep ~ all curled up and looking mighty innocent of all the troubles they have caused.
This is why I stopped attacking them after my 2 unfortunate encounters with them. They are also impossible to kill and can scamper about pretty fast so there is no reward to attacking them anyway.
Why they drive me crazy:
1. They steal my stuff. If I am chopping down a tree or hacking some bamboo and a prime ape is lingering around me, chances are it will steal the bounty from my harvest! They are often quicker than I am so all that wasted chopping makes me mad.
And if you try to grab something from them before they steal it from you, be careful of your weapon. If you happen to accidentally hit them with it, then they will begin to attack you. See above for my warning about their aggression.
2. They eat mandrakes. As soon as they see a mandrake, they will make a beeline for it and eat it before you can even say “Man…” Seeing as mandrakes are rare, this is mighty infuriating!! So if you happen to see a mandrake on monkey island, get ready to RUN and get your prize!
The prime apes are useful for 2 things though:
1. They kill snakes. All kinds of snakes! 🙂 If snakes are coming after you, just run towards the prime apes, leading the snakes towards them and then great mayhem and hissing+screeching sounds will ensue. This is mighty entertaining to watch!!
Once the snakes are dead, you can pick up any snakeskin left behind ~ snakeskins are item drops but they do not happen all the time so you just have to hope for the best. Sometimes ~ though rarely, in my experience ~ a monkey may die from the battle and then you can pick up a morsel for eating. One good thing about these prime apes: they are definitely not cannibalistic!
2. Their little prime ape huts are a treasure trove for bananas. If you smash their hut with your hammer, you can harvest 4 bananas from the debris, as well as logs and twigs. The prime apes will stay away when you smash their huts but they will make upset noises and if there are many of them around, they will attempt to snatch the bananas you are attempting to steal from them.
Also, if you destroy too many of their huts, all the prime apes will end up falling you everywhere since they don’t have any homes now. This large mob of followers can really make it tough to harvest bamboo, vines and other materials because they surround you until you cannot even see the materials you harvested.
If you happen to accidentally attack them while trying to pick up materials (e.g. if you are holding a machete while trying to pick up bamboo), they will descend on you and your sanity drains INCREDIBLY FAST. I died twice when I accidentally attacked them so this is very dangerous.
All in all, I have the most fun observing the prime apes. I am still hoping that some day soon they will make some prime ape babies and then I am sure I will be smiling from the cuteness overload. Of course, I am also guessing they will become very aggressive then.
Happy Monkeying around! 🙂