{"id":107189,"date":"2026-03-16T09:17:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/16\/todays-games-can-feel-soulless-but-can-punch-the-monkey-change-that\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T09:17:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:17:37","slug":"todays-games-can-feel-soulless-but-can-punch-the-monkey-change-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/16\/todays-games-can-feel-soulless-but-can-punch-the-monkey-change-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Today&#039;s Games Can Feel &quot;Soulless,&quot; But Can Punch The Monkey Change That?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/a\/uploads\/screen_medium\/1179\/11799911\/4664088-gettyimages-2262116703.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Punch the monkey, an adorable macaque born last July in Japan, captured the world&#8217;s attention recently. He was abandoned by his mother and rejected by his community, only to find solace and comfort in a $20 orangutan plush toy from IKEA. His story tugged on the heartstrings of people worldwide who felt bad for the little guy and wanted him to find companionship.<\/p>\n<p>He eventually did, and Punch&#8217;s prospects are seemingly better now. But Punch still lives in a zoo&#8211;the Ichikawa City Zoo&#8211;and that&#8217;s not sitting well with everyone. A new video game, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/viral-punch-the-monkey-story-becomes-a-video-game\/1100-6538524\/\">Zoo Fighter<\/a>, has players taking on the role of Punch and &#8230; punching bullies away with his fist or a swift kick. Knock out 100 and Punch gets to go to a sanctuary, instead of a zoo. And that&#8217;s the point of the video game.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This game is a love letter to all animals doing a bid at the zoo. Animal sanctuaries are often better for primates than zoos because they put the animals&#8217; well-being first instead of public display,&#8221; reads a line from the game&#8217;s description. &#8220;They offer larger, more natural spaces and rescue animals from neglect or captivity rather than breeding them,&#8221; the description goes on. &#8220;The focus is on lifelong care and less human interferecne, giving primates a safer, less stressful place to live.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/todays-games-can-feel-soulless-but-can-punch-the-monkey-change-that\/1100-6538667\/?ftag=CAD-01-10abi2f\/\">Continue Reading at GameSpot<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/todays-games-can-feel-soulless-but-can-punch-the-monkey-change-that\/1100-6538667\/?ftag=CAD-01-10abi2f\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Punch the monkey, an adorable macaque born last July in Japan, captured the world&#8217;s attention recently. He was abandoned by his mother and rejected by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}