Monkey Mart

What you do in the game

You play a monkey who runs a store. You steer the monkey with the mouse or by touch, and you never press an action button: standing next to a crop starts the harvest, standing at a shelf restocks it, and standing at the till collects the money. Most of the game is deciding where to walk next. That makes the pace easy to read: if the monkey is standing still, nothing is happening, and every second spent walking to the wrong corner is a second the store is not earning.

The store starts small. You plant vegetables, then carry them to the shelves so customers have something to buy. As the queue builds, the register becomes the busiest spot, and a store with empty shelves or a long line stops earning, so the loop is always grow, stock, serve. Think of the store as three zones, the fields, the shelves and the till, and keep the monkey moving between them in a loop rather than parking at one.

Money goes into growth. You can raise animals, hire monkey workers (cashiers, helpers, farmers and cooks) and open new rows as the shop expands. Poki lists some production chains too: bananas become yoghurt, corn becomes popcorn and wheat becomes flour. Each new hire, whether a cashier, a farmer, a cook or a helper, takes one of those zones off your hands, and Poki also lists animals and processed goods such as yoghurt as part of the growth.

There is no pause in this game, so plan a short stop before you step away. Each extra worker covers a job you were doing by hand, which frees you to look at the part of the store that is falling behind. When the store feels crowded, the cause is usually one zone falling behind the others, and you can find it by looking at which of the three is empty.

What each input does

Mouse or touch

Lead the monkey around the store

Stand at a crop

Harvest starts on its own

Stand at a shelf

Restock starts on its own

Stand at the till

Collect payment from the queue

Before your first run

• Watch the shelves and the till together; an empty shelf and a long queue are both lost sales. A quick look at both at once costs nothing and shows which one to visit next.

• Spend early money on workers who take over the job you repeat most, such as cashier duty. Hiring takes work off you, which matters more than buying more of the same thing.

• Open a new row only when you can keep the old ones stocked. Growing too fast spreads you thin, and thin coverage means empty shelves.

• Learn which crop feeds which product (bananas, corn, wheat) before you plan a new row. Write down the pairs once, since Poki lists bananas to yoghurt, corn to popcorn and wheat to flour.

• There is no pause, so finish the run you are in before you look away. A break means the store keeps running without you.

A good fit if you like

Players who enjoy slow-growing management games and steady, low-pressure planning.

What may put you off

• Poki says nothing about age suitability for this game. That is a general note about the listing, so check the Poki page if age matters to you.

• Poki is supported by advertising, so ads may appear around the game on poki.com. Ads are Poki's choice, not this site's, and they can interrupt a calm session.

• With no pause, a busy store keeps going while you are distracted. The pace never stops, so it is a poor choice for a moment when you need to step away.

Questions about Monkey Mart