Introduction

"Monkey King: Five Elements Survival" is an unique puzzle game with a backstory rooted in the mythical story "Journey to the West". The game's core mechanic is inspired by the ancient Chinese philosophical concept of [i]Wuxing/i, where elements promote and suppress each others in cycle, in rock-paper-scissors fashion. You need to utilize this rule to solve the puzzles.

Backstory

Taishang Laojun threw the monkey king in his alchemy furnace in hope that it will kill the indestructible monkey. The monkey has to keep moving, but every time he moves, the space in the furnace becomes less accessible. Use arrow keys to move the monkey and help him survive longer as less and less space are available.

Game Mechanics

There are five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

Metal counters wood, wood counters earth, earth counters water, water counters fire, and fire counters metal.

Every time you move, The block at your previous location will get destroyed, and depending on the direction you are moving to, all blocks will try to move in the same direction and destroy at most 1 adjacent block in that direction if its element is being countered. In addition, every game (level) the monkey will be assigned with an element. If you step on a block that counters your element or there is no direction you can move, the game is over.

Game Modes

The game has two modes with the same core mechanics but different win conditions, which totally change how you play.

Puzzle Mode

In this mode, you'll be solving pre-designed puzzle mazes. There are one or more exits to each maze, and the mazes might look easy at first, but things get tricky as every time you move blocks get pushed around and destroyed. You are gonna need to learn how to ultilze the block movement and element countering mechanic in your favor, in order to reach the goal.

Survival Mode

In this mode, you need to survive as many steps as you can on the randomly generated board, while every move you make, fewer blocks become available. There is no exit, so death is certain, but the time is not, all you can do is help the monkey king live longer.

Make Your Own Puzzles

Where is the fun in new puzzle games without a way to make your own puzzles?

A built-in level editor is included, so you can make your own levels and share it with your fellow players in steam workshop. Let's see who can make the most interesting and challenging puzzle mazes!