Jungle Park is a point and click adventure game that invites the player to explore the titular park. More a walking simulator than a traditional adventure game, it has few goals and instead lets the player discover the park and its surroundings at their own pace.


Released on

Genres

RPG


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Jungle Park is unique in it's simplicity, adventurous and experimental because it does less in gameplay rather than more. It's your prototypical "walking simulator" (as MobyGames calls it) before that was even a genre label.

Being a multiplatform game, it was released on quite a few consoles, it was even one of the few games for the ill-fated Apple Bandai Pippin (I don't blame you if you've never heard of that console before.) Despite being released on about 5 platforms, it never really found any success.

Jungle Park is developer Saru Brunei's second most notable game, the first being "Cubivore" for the Nintendo Gamecube.
I say second most notable, and really, this is pretty much their only other game, if you don't count edutainment titles.

My first experiences with it were somewhat sour. We start off on a pre-rendered island, with our Cubivore-esque primate protag near his traditional Japanese, Sukiya-zukuri house. If he goes into the house, he will smoke a cigarette. You have to lead him out with the finnicky cursor and weird controls, and then what? Well, you have to go behind the house, go up to a very specific place in the water, and he will build a bridge so you can go to the other parts of the island.

The very first puzzle here is classical adventure game-style abtruseness: I had to look up a walkthrough about 4 minutes into the game. It sounds simple from the way I described it, but it's frustrating as all get out, especially if you don't know what to do. It's the hardest puzzle in the game, right at the beginning.

After this puzzle though, the game really, really opens up. There is not really any "plot" here to speak of. Instead, it's just pure "go up to stuff and see what happens", kind of like Cosmic Osmo or those old point and clicks.

The difference is, it's in top-down, third person view (like Moon RPG). This is what makes the game stand out, quite a bit. I really think this is a perspective more point-and-clicks could take, rather than just sticking to the old first person. It makes things seem much more friendly and alive; You are no longer a cold spectator, and seeing your silly little avatar guy brings a new sort of life and different interaction to things.

This POV allows for the adventure game to go into some new territories. It allows for new kinds of humor, such as physical comedy, when you are detached from the perspective of the avatar. Imagine a Buster Keaton film only in first person. I don't think it would be nearly as funny, it would just look somewhat like a parkour video. That's what this game understands and succeeds at going against.

I love the aesthetics of this game also, and that's what carries the whole experience. The pre-rendered look is already one I adore, and this game is just full of beautiful colors, cool little pre-rendered airplanes, motels, theme parks, railroad stations, etc. It's a surprisingly expansive game, but like I said, there's no plot and no pressure (beyond the first puzzle). It's a bit like Zelda, without the enemies, story or linear progression.

I actually recommend this one. Daresay it's a hidden gem. Please check this one out, it's quite different from Cubivore, but it shows some of the origin story of a somewhat unknown company. It is full of what I admire in games: unique stylistics, humor, and being partially a non-game/walking simulator.