Shadow Ape is a point-and-click adventure game. You play as a five year old boy who enters a mysterious house to find the mythical shadow ape that no one thinks really exists. You have three commands at your disposal - do, take and use - which you can use in combination with items you find in the house. The screen is divided into different sections. There's a visual part where the environment is shown, buttons for directions and items, the command buttons, and a large part where the description of the environment or feedback on actions is written in text.