We posted a teaser trailer for Monkeys in Space back in September. It’s a new game from Streaming Colour Studios that builds upon the line drawing genre with a new chaining mechanic that allows you to score big points. Shunning the wobbly, hand drawn rules for straight, linear lines, making connections between the primates is very straightforward.

Like in all variants of this theme, collisions between monkeys are strictly prohibited—although when chained they can collide. You must direct each one to the matching space station which is either red or yellow. Yellow monkeys are slightly larger than their red brethren, which makes it a little easier to draw a line between them. Note that a chain can be extended even when the monkeys are headed towards a station—so you can allow the combo to continue for a while.

Mastering the combo system is the key to progressing through the game quickly, although the scarcity of maps is a great shame. We’ve criticised similar games for a lack of content, and indeed the same issues are present here. They’re slightly exacerbated by the combo system itself, as the third and final map in the game only requires 200 overall primates rescued to unlock. We had unlocked this within five minutes of tapping on the game icon.

Whilst the first map isn’t anything really special—it merely teaches you the basics of the game with ample room for chaining—the other two maps are more interesting. One involves the space stations orbiting a planet with its own gravitational pull, and the other involves the stations in a circular orbit around nothing, along with a couple of asteroids that mustn’t be collided with. Of these obviously the planet (and the gravity element it brings to the game) is the most interesting piece of the puzzle, and this should be explored further.

Presentation is pretty sparse, it won’t win any awards but it does its job well. Monkeys are cute, clean and colourful, and although there’s only minimal animation what you do get suits the game down to the ground. For those with OpenFeint, you’ll be pleased with the online leader boards here. The music feels a little out of place though, as it sounds like a jungle setting rather than space. We’re guessing it’s something to do with those apes, but we’re not sure the composer took the right route on that one.

The only thing holding back Monkeys in Space from being one to come back to over and over is the lack of content. Throw in some more maps and you have something that stacks up against the competition rather nicely—however as it is the chaining mechanic alone isn’t going to make the game stand out enough. If these issues don’t bother you though the price is just right at 59p.

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