Age of Apes

My Experience with Age of Apes

I’m retired and I don’t have the patience for complicated video games. My son bought me a OnePlus 11 for my birthday back in March, and I mostly use it for reading the news and checking my email. But last Tuesday, I was browsing the app store after my afternoon coffee and saw Age of Apes sitting there with a bunch of stars. I figured why not give it a shot. Three days later, I’m still playing every evening after dinner. The whole ape theme is silly but they made it work. You start with a little camp full of apes and you have to build them houses and farms. I didn’t need a manual to figure out the basics. The opening tutorial walked me through tapping on things and dragging stuff around. I made my first mistake by building a barracks too early and ran out of food, but that was my fault, not the app’s. Now I’ve got a proper little settlement with bananas growing and some wooden walls. I even joined an alliance called Banana Republic because it sounded funny. The other players are friendly enough. One guy named “KingKong99” sent me some extra wood when he saw I was struggling. I appreciated that. I like that I can check in for ten minutes, do a few tasks, and put it down without losing my place.

Features Worth Noting

The graphics are way better than I expected for a phone game. The apes look grumpy and funny. You can zoom in and see them walking around and scratching themselves. That made me laugh. The city building part is what I spend most of my time on. You drag buildings onto empty spots and upgrade them with resources you collect. The game rewards you just for coming back each day. I got a chest this morning with some extra gold in it. There is also a battle part where you send your apes to fight wild animals or other players’ camps. I’m still too weak to win many fights, so I focus on gathering. The alliance feature is nice because it makes the game feel less lonely. You can chat with people and ask for help if you’re low on something. There is a whole global event that happens on weekends but I haven’t tried it yet. I like that the screen isn’t cluttered with ten thousand buttons. The layout is clean enough that even I can find my storage building and my town hall without squinting. There’s also a speed-up option where you can use items to finish construction instantly. That feels like cheating to me but I’m sure younger folks love it.

What Needs Work

The game is fun but it definitely wants you to spend money. Every time I finish a task, a pop-up offers me some special pack for four or five dollars. I tap the “X” to close it but sometimes I accidentally buy something because the button is too close to where I was tapping. That happened once and I didn’t even get anything good for my three bucks. The learning curve is real. I’m still confused about what certain buildings do. There is a forge that I built but I have no idea how to use it. The tutorial teaches you the basics but then it drops you off and expects you to figure out the rest on your own. I wish there was a simple help button that just told me in plain English what each thing is for. Also, the game takes a while to load when I first open it. I sit there staring at a loading screen with a spinning banana for almost a minute. That’s not a huge problem but it happens every single time. One more thing—the chat is full of people speaking different languages. I see a lot of Chinese and Russian and I can’t understand a word. It would be nice if there was a way to filter to only English speakers.

Pricing

The app is free to download and you don’t have to pay to start playing. I haven’t spent any real money yet and I’m doing just fine. But the game constantly reminds you about special deals and limited-time offers. I counted three different pop-ups in one five-minute session. There’s a monthly subscription thing that gives you extra resources and a second builder. That’s probably worth it if you play a lot, but for a casual player like me, it’s not necessary. You can also buy bundles of gold which is the premium currency. I can see how someone with more money than patience would spend a lot here. The prices range from one dollar up to one hundred dollars. That hundred-dollar pack is for whales, not retirees like me. I’ll stick with my free bananas.

Developer Notes

The developer is called tap4fun. I looked them up after I downloaded the app. They seem to make a lot of similar strategy games. Age of Apes gets updated pretty often. I already saw a notification about an event coming this weekend called “Banana Frenzy.” That’s encouraging because it means the game isn’t abandoned. The app store says they have a 4.5 rating but I’ve also read some reviews from people complaining about bugs. I haven’t hit any bugs in my three days so I can’t confirm that. The game runs smooth on my OnePlus 11. No crashes. No freezes. Just the slow loading I mentioned. I appreciate that they tried to make a game that runs on older phones too because not everyone has a new device.

Security & Privacy

I don’t know much about this stuff but I can tell you the app asked for permission to access my storage and my photos when I first opened it. That made me pause. I clicked deny and it still worked fine. I think they just want it for saving screenshots or something. The game does require you to make an account or sign in with Google or Facebook. I used Google because I don’t use Facebook. I haven’t seen any weird ads or strange behavior from the app. My phone didn’t get hot or slow down while playing. I will say I read a review from a guy who claimed the app was stealing his data. That scared me a bit but then I saw he had only written one review ever and it was negative. I’ll trust my own eyes. Nothing fishy so far.