Play monke game
Never Gonna Start - Shovel Jam 2025's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #11 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Overall | #48 | 4.095 | 4.095 |
| Creativity | #85 | 4.095 | 4.095 |
| Presentation | #212 | 3.905 | 3.905 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Preferred Name
Apol & Bora
Newbie?
Experienced
Nope - I've completed at least one game jam before.
How does your game fit the theme?
The game has you play as procrastination monke who sabotage the brain's neuron, further prolong procrastination. The name of the game is Never Gonna Start, which is a direct opposition to the theme and a callout to procrastination.
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Comments
I was scrolling through the random page and I saw this game, it caught my attention because the title is funny haha
I feel lucky to find this, I really liked it, I find it very funny and it’s fun for quick runs
I think it’s the 1st game I play in the jam that has the 8 directional movement in a good visual way because it has a sprite for each direction which is a great detail! The monke is fun to watch, I really like all the sprites and the little animation when it eats the banana, also it’s good that it is blue to easily see where it is on the screen
I think the only “bug” I found is that if you are in the bottom of the brain, it can flick between the sprite of the brain and the monkey, outside that, I didn’t find any error or something that sour the experience. Maaaybe when I got combo by accidentally picking a banana and then got sandwiched between the brain and 1 neuron with a shield, making it hard to get out of there but it wasn't the big deal or something to stop playing
But the game is too funny, the downgrades are fun too, my favorite is the one that makes the monkey pose when it takes damage hahaha, The ricochet is great if you connect the hit and can help a lot, the slow down in area is very useful and the double dash is my second favorite. Also seeing the hands get bigger is nice to watch hahaha
Oh yeah, when the run ends, I find the text about the high score very funny hahaha
And the pick of sounds and music was good, it really fits the game, also the sprites of the brain waking up and the monke taking damage are great. I’m glad I could rate this game on the last day, monke/10, I would play it again ^_^
Good game, I had a very fun time while playing! :)
Oh wow this comment makes me so happy! Thank you so muchhhhh!!!!
The sandwich thingy is definitely intentional haha. I was playtesting with my brother and he somehow got stuck in between a bunch of shielded enemies, it cause him panic and he come back with a strong hatred for shields and bananas. Fit the vibe so well so I decided to keep it!
So happy when you pointed out the muscular monke! That was me 2 AM at night and I had to find an excuse to add muscular monke. Originally it was supposed to be integrated into another upgrade but I thought it'd be more funny to dedicate a whole downgrade to add a new sprite in. The wide hand is improvise after I forgot to draw a separate sprite. I already spend too much time drawing so I just stretch the sprite, works wonderfully in my opinion.
The New High Score calculator is easy to implement but playing on the web means I have to save the data in people's browser. I don't feel too good about all that so I just go with the trolling method. The code for it is in the game but I choose not to implement it. Now I glad I didn't haha.
Again thank you so much for this comment!! I just started my morning and coming to this message makes my day so muchh!!! Thank you for your monke / 10 review!!!
I see, I think you did good at not changing the shield with banana combo, like isn't common and it's good to have something like that, and as you say that fits the vibe hahaha
In general I can see those decisions you did make a better vibe for the game, it's interesting to know all this :D
Glad the muscular monke got it's own downgrade, it's too good that I always picked it lol and happy to know this made your day better ^_^
Ngl 11 hours of procrastination is too much even for me. The game's fun, has cool animations and music, I loved it!
11 hours are plenty haha don't worry! Thank you for checking monke out!
Great game! Your interpretation of the theme is unique and very funny.
Glad you're enjoying the game! Thank you!!
The sound design and overall game feel is amazing! On top of that, I think this is the first game I've played from the jam that truly made me feel addicted, I could keep playing this over and over. The mechanics are explained well and it gets you right into the action, I loved it. My only criticism is that the "slow-mo" effect when getting an upgrade felt a little bad, and took me out of the excitement of playing the game, but that's an easy fix, awesome game!
Thank you for your feedback!! Glad you're enjoying the game! The whole point of the game is to make you addicted to monke haha (that means procrastination) (seriously hope you didn't procrastinate tho). I'll definitely fix the slo-mo effect in the post-jam update.
Here's a little secret: I initially put the slo-mo to force everyone to appreciate the animation.
Will fix it tho.
10/10 ABSOLUTE CINEMA, Monke masterpiece. SUper fun, love the tone of the game and stuff too. I only got like 9 hours something haha. But the panic I felt when we were about to reach enlightenment. Man this game was a blast. Not sure the downgrades were all really downgrades though. I loved the art, sound effects and mechanics and the concept was a fun twist where we have to keep ourselves from starting. If you could improve the difficulty add more enemies and mechanics, basically make this game feel really good I coould easily play this foor another half an hour, really good and very fun.
Heyyy happy to see that you're enjoying the game!! Trust me man, I'd have more if time allows, I even plan to add boss fights with deadlines and empty wallets. And the downgrades are downgrades depending on which side you're on haha.
Fun: Dashing and throwing things was really fun, and the upgrades, very well made
Presentation: I tutor, the art style is good, and the sound effects fit well. I like it when the monkey gets damaged
Creativity: great idea, keeping your brain rotting so you don't start the game, fit the theme well
Thank you for your feedback! Glad you're enjoying monke.
your welcome 😊 id love for you to try my game, im sure you gonna love it 😁
THIS GAME IS SO COOL !
I love it it's well balanced and really funny ! Well done !
So is that what's happening in my head 24/7 ?
Very glad that you're enjoying the game! Yes pretty much monke is wrecking havoc in all of our brain. I suggest eating some bananas.
Very fun and addictive. The art style is very cool and the particles give that juice for the game! Honestly i would love to see a steam game based in this! For additions, i think would be cool you had some type of passive attack, like a turret?? I don't now, what you can came up with!
Thank you for your suggestion! I actually plan to add more animals as representation of other brainy phenomenon (brain rot and such) but time doesn’t allow it :( Will definitely expand more if I decided to come back to the project tho
Very good presentation, the real monkey sprite especially made me laugh lol. While playing though I really didn't use the throwing that much, and sometimes I was clicking too fast so I ended up picking some random upgrades by accident, but thats just me. Great game!
Ooh yeah that was on me, I’ll make sure to add a better warning next time. Glad you’re enjoying monke!!
i like the mechanics and the upgrades, also the hit animation was funny
i found it easier to just attack dash the enemies than throwing the balls, but maybe this is just me
Thank you for checking us out! Glad you’re enjoying monke! A lot of people told me they prefer dash more as well, you’re not alone haha
12 hours 27 minutes ... until the banana betrayed me...
Im not sure what i can say... I had fun, I was engaged, loved the monkey art...
If i had to think about any improvement... maaaybe icons or visualisation for the upgrades menu, oh and maybe a mechanism, that if you press mouse to attack but the level up pops up, you don't select randomly one trait.
Overall my verdict is:
monkey / 10 - would banana again
Thank you for your banana / monke feedback! Happy to hear that you had fun! The icon was within the list of stuff I wanted to do too, but time is so little I couldn't afford to add more visuals. Sorry for the misclick, if I'm ever gonna update the game I'll be sure to find ways to get around this.
I'm in the middle of playing it and I have one criticism: I wish that you could have chosen for the monke not to follow the direction of your mouse, but the direction of your character instead if you very well choose to play solely from the keyboard . But the hurt animation is so funny =))) Also how cheeky he looks when he is holding something
Yup that was part of the planned featured. I lay the ground work for if you press space you'd dash but soloing the development makes me forget haha. Glad to see you enjoy the game! Thanks for checking monke out
great game loved the art style and the 8 dir of the money also loved the upgrades and the banana eating animation, great job.
Thank you! Great to hear you enjoyed it.
nice game loved the particles for the attack
thank you! spend a great deal on vfx for the game :D
This game is really amazing, loved the idea and presentation. I absolutely laughed multiple times. Great work!
glad to see you are having fun with monke! thank you!!
Fantastic game! The presentation is awesome, the turorial right after running the game made me feel really immersive, very good choice on the sound effects and the art was incredible. Really good concept, for a solid idea, dont have much to say because the game looks good and solid.
thank you so much for your feedback! glad you are having a blast with monke game!
Fun game with a fun interpretation on the theme and creative upgrades- I mean downgrades. Great job!
glad to see ur time wasted on monke was enjoyable! thank you so much for checking us out!