Counterfeit Monkey

Emily Short's masterpiece is widely considered to be the Greatest Work of IF of All Time. This is reflected in its very secure #1 spot in the IFDB Top 100 list and its continual appearance among the topmost slots of every quadrennial Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time since its release (having placed 3rd in the 2015 edition and 1st in the following 2019 and 2023 editions).

It is undeniably fun to play with the semiotic manipulation technology (one of those advanced technologies that are indistinguishable from magic), and the inventive exercise of the various combinations of changes in the puzzle design makes for a "just right" feel of challenge almost universally throughout the game. The task for the player is constrained enough that finding a solution is almost inevitable, but unique enough to make each solution feel like a surprising breakthrough intuition. I once saw someone describe the essence of good puzzle design as "making the player feel smart," and it's hard to imagine a better recipe for doing so using "reasonably easy but not boring" puzzles.

In addition to sporting very enjoyable puzzles, Counterfeit Monkey's narrative earns consideration as literature by exploring questions that seem even more relevant today than they were when it was released. Its indirect commentary on the nature of language and its interaction with reality, and especially how that interaction is relevant to politics, is the work's thought-provoking philosophical core.

Short's tremendous worldbuilding skills are put to the test by this work's scope, but, as Edward Lacey's early review points out, she does a remarkable job of inventing a plausible-feeling world in which this technology exists but which is somehow not too different from our own. The pacing of the complex exposition is slow enough that significant questions will linger in the player's mind for some time, but by the end of the game those questions will have been answered.

Viewed through the lens of conventional storytelling, the resolution of the narrative comes off as strangely incomplete; the three most significant characters (Spoiler - click to show)(Andra, Alex and Brock) all seem unexpectedly subdued about the radical rearrangement of their relationships with respect to each other -- my impression on completing the game was that they are in shock at the story's conclusion, not yet ready to acknowledge the scale of the inevitable changes to their respective status quos. The outcome of the greater political situation also seems a bit too pat, in that (Spoiler - click to show)the new Atlantida seems too insubstantial to hang any hope upon; surely there were other people involved in the government with a vested interest in the way things were and who will look to "reset" the embodied spirit of the country in their own image posthaste. Still, the dramatic questions of the ostensible plot have been resolved (Spoiler - click to show)(if in a manner that looks like failure to the player), so perhaps the remaining questions are springboards for their own stories. (... and note that, for anyone brave enough to try, the game was published under a CC-BY-SA license, so the way is open.)

Short did consciously make the moral climax of the player character's story into a "no-win situation," citing it as "an illustration of one of the core problems of democratic society," and (per the same source) was clearly aware that she was leaving the items outlined in the previous paragraph unresolved. As such, we can be fairly certain that Counterfeit Monkey is telling exactly the story that she wanted to tell, in exactly the way that she wanted to tell it.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about why this work left me a little disappointed. At first I thought that it was just the familiar result of exploring a work that is surrounded by hype and finding that it didn't live up to my expectations, but I later realized that that's not the case here. It actually exceeded my expectations as a game -- it is such a high level of craft that it pegs the needle of my ability to discern things to appreciate; doubtless there is much genius embedded in this work's coding and storytelling technique that escapes my notice entirely by virtue of being off the scale. What I can see is that this work perfects many of the signature elements of Short's style (e.g. conversations, creating a "living" setting, thematic puzzle design) and is truly a masterwork in terms of game design.

What disappoints me is the story side, and the reason is that I was convinced for structural reasons that a different story was being told.

(Spoiler - click to show)
The story that is actually being told is about the intersecting character arcs of Andra and Alex. The situation is such that each perceives a zero-sum game, but in actuality there is a wider range of possible outcomes including negative-sum (as is actually observed in the ending) and possibly positive-sum (as is hinted but not realizable). Each character acts in accordance with his or her own values and priorities, and certain choices -- including the functional climax choice of whom to release from storage -- are between mutually exclusive options that can satisfy only one of the two.

The structure of the work makes me believe that Short was trying to create a genuine tragedy, i.e. a story in which the "right" choices from the perspectives of the characters in the story results in a "wrong" outcome from the perspective of the audience. The key evidence here is that the player must make the climax choice without being able to anticipate the resulting consequences. I scratched my head for a long time about this design element, because as a player of even the most interactive of fiction I feel more like a member of the audience than a genuine actor in the story -- an almost inescapable side-effect of the fact the available actions are always constrained by the finite nature of the embodying program. The design around the story climax did not seem consistent with Short's normal style, but it makes sense as a deliberate choice if the intent was to simulate being the character in a tragedy, i.e. not knowing what the audience knows.

In fact, the "audience" does know the most important and impactful fact affecting the personal drama between Andra and Alex, which is that there is a time limit of unknown length after which their temporary fusion will become permanent. It is clear that neither Andra nor Alex want this outcome, but the game makes it easy to forget this and to ignore that ticking clock in favor of having fun in the moment. (Who doesn't delight in discovering the untalented naval polecat?) Upon reaching the ending, I, too, was in shock alongside the main characters. Like many, I tried different ways to reach the winning state that I assumed must exist, only to later discover that it simply is not provided.

This story doesn't feel like a tragedy to me, it feels only like a bummer ending to an otherwise extremely fun game. (Tellingly, most of Counterfeit Monkey's effusive reviews tend to ignore the endings entirely.) I credit an excellent essay by Drew Cook for elucidating various aspects of tragedies that are essential but which are not provided here. The key quote from the essay sums it up: "Through tragedy, capricious disaster becomes comprehensible and–rather optimistically–a step on a path toward social harmony and cohesion." Among the available endings for Counterfeit Monkey, I felt only the capricious disaster; there seems to be nothing to learn.

Maybe that's not actually true. Maybe the deep message is that we are supposed to keenly observe how the limited perspectives of Andra and Alex make them focus on their short-term conflicts about items of lesser importance to their what-should-be-evitable mutual detriment. The fact that Short ultimately let the structural requirements of a tragic story outweigh the structural requirements of a fun game shows what her priorities were as the author, and this aspect of the work as a whole is good evidence that she was trying to craft something more than "just a game," i.e. entertainment alone.

Until near the end, the story that I felt sure was being told was one about a society whose authority figures have grown unresponsive to its citizenry, and which is on the verge of rediscovering what "democracy" really means. A society in which the power to manipulate symbols is equivalent to the ability to manipulate reality itself. A society whose increasingly authoritarian government knows that its ability to define the symbols is the basis of its control over the populace. Given the background of discontent and the "showdown" scene between a crowd of protesters and a policeman -- a scene so perfectly placed as the climax of an Act II, the resolution of which raises the dramatic tension of the societal conflict that has constantly threatened to break into the foreground -- given that setup, I fully expected the actual climax of the story to be one in which the masses descend on the Bureau's headquarters, interrupting the protagonists' escape plot but allowing the player to use the knowledge gained earlier to tip the balance one way or the other... perhaps at the willfully-paid cost of giving up the chance to reverse the corporal fusion.

As it is, the showdown scene is not foreshadowing, it's just a wonderful study in miniature of the highest potential of IF: a point at which everything that the player has experienced so far begins to resonate with a thrilling emotional and cognitive power so rarely reached in the form. (I personally haven't been so enthralled since "The Puzzle" of Spider and Web.)


Is this Short's best work? As a game, yes, undoubtedly. Counterfeit Monkey is a brilliant resolution of the archetypal conflict between narrative and crossword through skillful synthesis into something more than the sum of its parts -- with a clever meta-wordplay twist, to boot.

As art, though, I'm not so sure, and since it's not just a game, I can't rate it on that basis alone -- I have to take into account the story side at least as much.

My playing group spent a good month talking about this work, debating about the core message(s) it presents. One member was almost 100% on the author's wavelength and laid out an analysis that turned out to be very well supported by Short's own self-commentary when we got to the point of doing research instead of just comparing perceptions. Thus, it seems likely that the narrative part is a complete artistic success for a substantial portion of the audience.

Perhaps the shortfall that I perceive only seems important because the game part is so masterfully done that it comes off (very deceptively) as having been effortless to produce. As other reviewers note, it is an amazing gift to the public for Short to have released this work, her magnum opus, for free, and I don't want to be unappreciative here -- I had a lot of fun playing it, and you will, too. I just can't help but think that there was a missed opportunity to discuss larger aspects of society, aspects that I would have loved to see Short's particular genius explore in more detail -- indeed, aspects that were clearly part of her thought process while creating this work! -- and that doing so would have raised the artistic value of the result considerably. My gut instinct is that this could have been enduring literature of a quality comparable to Ursula K. LeGuin's best if themes about language and its impact on society had been the primary focus instead of just a prominent element. Even though Counterfeit Monkey as a game is an as-yet-incomparable synthesis of narrative and crossword puzzle, it seems to me that there are still greater heights to be reached by interactive fiction -- heights that, if they are ever attained, will be so in part because Emily Short with this work pointed the way.

My natural inclination is to go with 4 stars in acknowledgement of what Counterfeit Monkey might have been, but by the standards of my published rubric there is no doubt that, as a work which is "so incredible it effectively defines the genre or technique that it introduces or perfects," 5 stars are deserved for being the pinnacle of the wordplay puzzler. Kudos to Ms. Short, and thank you.

I love games with and about wordplay, and this has been a joy so far! I am not very far into it yet, but far enough for me to have faced a most unfortunate vehicular demise - which was also one of the absolute funniest ways I have ever died in a game of any kind. I burst out laughing, and was graciously allowed to rethink my decision. Fantastic writing, humor, and puzzles!

Astonishingly clever and laugh-out-loud funny, with vivid world building and a central mechanic that makes perfect use of the medium. I loved every second of this game.

If you have any doubt, stop reading these reviews and play the game.

There is so much to do in Counterfeit Monkey. I've played it three times and I'm still finding new stuff. Everything you do is rewarding and fun. The writing is consistent and the style is really original. The letter-remover is one of the most creative and well-implemented concepts I've ever gotten to use in a game, and the new tools that open up as you play just kept amazing me.

this was my first ever IF, and tbh nothing has matched it since. Incredibly creative, amazing gameplay, I don't know if I would've continued playing IF if this one wasn't so dang amazing!

According to the version notes, this quirk was fixed in version 10, but I played online and discovered that it was very much not fixed. I failed to solve a puzzle at the final boss and the game allowed me to undo only one turn, which wasn't enough turns to win. I finally gave up and watched an ending on YouTube. Be sure you SAVE right when you solve the portcullis puzzle!!!!! I think the correct command to restore your saved version is "restore".

That said, I loved practically everything else about this game, so I'm giving it five stars anyway. The worldbuilding and puzzles and social commentary are fascinating. I could not stop playing.

This is my favorite IF game of all time. I prefer story focused games rather than more traditional puzzle focused games, and I adore wordplay. This game combines the best of both worlds with an intriguing plot, excellent worldbuilding, and characterization that keeps you hooked. As well as this, the mechanics are intuitive and work wonderfully. Mad props to Emily

There's not much I can say about this masterpiece that hasn't already been said, but I'll give it a go anyway!

I think the most impressive feature of this game is the combination of wild, extravagant possibility with tight focus. Once you get the hang of your letter-remover, the range of possibilities seems almost paralysing in its scope: you can turn the objects around you into completely different objects with a flick of the wrist. A single item can yield all kinds of wildly different new items depending on which letter you remove, and these in their turn can do the same thing. More possibilities open up as you gain access to more word-manipulation tools - the anagram gun, in particular, is a dizzyingly powerful piece of kit that, once you get it running, makes you feel well-nigh omnipotent. All of the comments about the sheer scale of the task the author must have faced in coding all of these possibilities are, if anything, understated.

And yet at the same time it all works, because the game's scope never gets too out of control. For example, restricting the main mechanic to removing letters (and not adding them, except for one limited tool) means that any given object can only yield a limited number of new objects. Judicious use of adjectives in object names means that many cannot be manipulated at all, or only in fairly limited ways. Even the mighty anagram gun can only turn most objects into one other object, and most of those are useless if hilarious. I think this is the true achievement of this game - to create a world of apparently infinite possibility, that nevertheless limits that possibility without ever feeling restrictive. Enough range of possibility remains to allow the player freedom to try all kinds of things which don't help advance the game at all but are still possible. Here a shout-out has to go to the Britishizing Goggles, which are much appreciated if completely useless, and must have been another headache to implement. (Though they're not infallible e.g. "rigourous" is not correct British English, sad to say.)

This is one of the few puzzle-based games that I managed to complete entirely on my own, though some sections gave me lengthy pause for thought. It's all logical, and while "guess the verb" is effectively replaced by "guess the noun", you at least have all those possible nouns in front of you, in theory. On some occasions the gameplay slows as you read repeatedly through your entire inventory, trying to work out which word, with a letter removed, might produce something useful - and the game's adherence to the modern convention that it's possible to carry in your arms literally everything that's not nailed down means this can be a time-consuming process. More often than not, though, the relevant object is fairly easy to identify. One point to bear in mind is that everything you need to solve a puzzle is always available in locations you can travel to from that puzzle point, something that in the later stages of the game means you can discount much of your swollen inventory when trying to work out what to do.

The parser is very friendly, allowing you to take back game-losing moves. Conversations are rather mechanical, but as we all know, conversations are impossible to implement well in IF. The parser does suffer from frustrating limits in the underlying engine - e.g. it cannot handle "Put X and Y on the Z", requiring instead "Put X on the Z" followed by "Put Y on the Z", even though there are a number of times when you do have to put two things onto or into something.

Most importantly though, this game is just absurdly fun to play. The fact that something like this is free when it outclasses on every level the classic Infocom-era games - that we had to buy with actual money, from actual shops - is something to be profoundly grateful for.

I must add that it's thanks to this game that I discovered Toki Pona, which I'm going to investigate in more detail. Oh, and finally, playing this game late at night leads to very strange dreams.

[EDIT] tenpo ni la, mi sona e toki pona. jan Emili o, pona!

Really impressive display of talent and creativity. loved the multiple solutions to puzzles and kept you engaged from start to finish!

This is my favorite IF of all time.

Much of the gameplay involves converting objects from one thing to another by altering their spelling. That sounds odd outside of a text-based game, but in this setting it works brilliantly.

Structurally, the game is the type where you wander around an area collecting things and solving puzzles that may require pieces from distant parts of the game world. But with the way this game works, the key to solving puzzles requires a lot of creativity and word-play.

The game provides many hours of gameplay. It took me several days. For the most part, the puzzles were the right level of challenge to make for fun gameplay, but I did use a walkthrough a few times when I got stuck.