Do Not Feed the Monkeys, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the surveillance state

Do Not Feed the Monkeys preys on the fear that drives people to put tape over their webcams. In it, you’re tapped into surveillance cameras that spy on different locations and people going about their lives. But developer Fictiorama Studios did not necessarily mean to make it dark or dystopian. The studio describes it as a “digital voyeur simulator” that lets you peek into other lives and sometimes affect them. It’s slated for a PC release in early 2018 with possible console versions to come in the future.

I was a bit disturbed but intrigued when I played the demo at Double Fine’s Day of the Devs indie game showcase last weekend. I was a part of the Primate Observation Club, a shadowy organization that gives its members access to cameras all over the world. In return, members have to help grow its system of mass surveillance, buying a certain number of new cameras by the end of the month to renew their memberships. Each camera is referred to as a “cage”; the unwitting people in them are “monkeys.” As the name of the game implies, the club insists that its members don’t interact with the monkeys at all but remain silent observers.