Once you collect a few shards the monkeys come out in force, clattering down the halls to give you a Five Nights at Freddy’s-esque death performance. There are no power pellets (or shards, or whatever edgy thing they would be here) to save you from the monsters, though. Luckily they’re littering the halls at regular intervals, like the dots you collect in Pac-Man. That’s two hundred eighty-nine things you need to collect and then return to the entrance with. After a brief intro littered with jumpscares you arrive in the maze, and are directed to collect 289 soul shards. The first maze Bierce ushers you into is cheekily called Monkey Business, a twisting hotel serviced by giant, satanic versions of those clanging monkey toys. She’s a caustic, sardonic presence who guides you into hellish mazes to hunt up fragments of gemstones you need to make the ring out of, I think? Seriously, whatever story you’ll find here is so forgettable your first few ragequits from the game will wipe it from your memory. Lucky for you, you’ve got Bierce to guide you through this ordeal, basically Elvira if you tack on 30 years to her prime and allow her breasts to defy the laws of physics. Supposedly this is a “story-driven” title but all you’re going to get is that you’re in trouble and you need a magic ring to fix things. And while they clearly tried to expand upon the idea, they did so with a busty grandma and cheap jumpscares instead of anything worthwhile. That didn’t stop the folks behind Dark Deception from turning it into a game, though, a straight twist on the classic formula that goes out of its way to be frustratingly cruel.

Oh, you haven’t heard that one? Probably because it’s a terrible idea. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: It’s Pac-Man, except you run around in the maze in first-person and you can’t see the ghosts until it’s too late.

Dark deception wiki monkey