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Text Adventure Playthrough #8: Counterfeit Monkey

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Pegbiter - 17 March 2021 06:27 AM

Alright, I’ll just play a little bit further for now.

It seems the tutorial is not giving us any more hints here, so let’s move on:

>n

Problem is, we haven’t followed the tutorial to the letter. I guess we should have gone NORTH when the game told us to. I’m going to follow the instructions for a while, so you don’t have to post commands.

>n

Sigil Street
The buildings here are two and three stories, with shops at ground level and elderly apartments above. The shops are closed for the holiday: a typographer’s office, tourist boutiques of colorful skirts and ethnic bodices (rarely if ever worn by natives) and t-shirts covered with font designs.

Passing by the reflective window we catch the sight of our single blended body, and it creeps me out.

A narrow alley runs between buildings to the south, while the street continues east.

Now we’re in a new area, there are new things to see. Try LOOK AT THE SHOPS or L SHOPS.
>look at shops
We peruse the offerings: colorful skirts, font t-shirts, ethnic bodices, and a mourning dress.

I gather from your thoughts that you actually like some of the skirts, but I’d prefer that we skip the cross-dressing for now. Our synthesized body may be female but I’m still getting used to that.

Sometimes the things we examine have parts that we might also want to look at. That mourning dress, for instance.

>look at mourning dress
A black vintage gown trimmed with much lace and dripping with jet beads.

There’s more we can do than just looking around. To check what you’re holding at the moment, try typing INVENTORY, or I for short.
>i
We are equipped with your R-remover — an essential we mustn’t part with.

It can be set to any letter we choose, hm? That sounds like a hint. Try SET THE R-REMOVER TO U.
>set r-remover to u
You flick our thumb over the small knob: we now have a U-remover.

That letter-remover is going to be very important as we try to escape here. To test it out, try WAVE U-REMOVER AT MOURNING DRESS.
>wave u-remover at mourning dress
In fact, to make life easier, we don’t even have to SET the letter-remover every time we use it. We can just type (say) WAVE P-REMOVER AT PRAM, and the remover will automatically set itself to P.

Now, let’s see what happened as a result…

There is a mauve cloud, and the mourning dress turns into a morning dress. An outfit of striped trousers and fancy coat, such as men sometimes wear to fancy weddings in the morning.

[Your score has gone up by one point.]

Something we did has just raised our score! We must be on the right track. To find out what exactly we did right, type SCORE.
>score
You have earned 1 point:
  1 point for using the letter-remover

You have not yet removed a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, or z from anything.

You can spend some more time looking around or checking out your inventory to see what you’ve changed in this location. When you’re ready to move on, you can head EAST.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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I have to go, back later. Lots of stuff to read for the others.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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Joined 2007-08-13

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Should we interpret this as that the remover can be used on any specific letter only once? I guess the game won’t let us waste letters that we need later, in any case.

Thanks for a great start!

     
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I’m kind of annoyed at all these hints, but I guess that’s the tutorial mode.

Because I’m in a silly mood, how about:

>wave r-remover at t-shirts

and then:

>e

     
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Luhr28 - 17 March 2021 07:18 AM

I’m kind of annoyed at all these hints, but I guess that’s the tutorial mode.

I was going to bring this up very soon, but I’m glad you did because we have to decide whether we’re going to play in easy or in hard mode.

There’s a reason why the leader should be familiar with the CP game and Emily Short is rubbing it in that I am not. Frown I am only a few steps ahead, completed the tutorial, solved 3 easy puzzles, got stuck for 2 (two!) turns on another easy puzzle and the game already gave me a hint I hadn’t asked for. Annoying.  Here’s what the Help function has to say about it:

If you’d like to play in hard mode, with some alternate puzzle solutions removed and other puzzles changed entirely, type HARD during the first few rooms of the game. After that point, it is too late to qualify for hard mode, and you’ll need to restart if you wish to activate it. Turns out that point is actually the Fair on the map. I guess I understand why, but I don’t like not being able to switch.

My case for continuing in the default EASY mode:
- We agreed to play a short and easy game. I read that Counterfeit Monkey is not very short, so the hard mode would make it even longer.
- If HARD turns out to be very hard, we can’t go back to easy and people might get frustrated.
- If the game throws unwanted hints at us in easy mode, I can leave them out and only post them if we get really stuck.

Comments?

 

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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>>wave r-remover at t-shirts
We smoothly, and almost without thinking about it, reset your device to be an R-remover. No doubt this would be a cogent statement about the commercialization of the body, if it weren’t for the fact that T-SHIT doesn’t describe anything anyone with a functional colon has ever heard of.

>e
Unless you’re playing this game in text-only mode, you should see a little blue and white compass on the side of the screen. That compass will always show you which directions you can go next. Directions in blue lead to areas you haven’t visited before. Directions in white lead to places you’ve already been.

Ampersand Bend
A bend in the street, which runs west and north. This district combines the old and the new: a small museum in an ancient stone building to the east, a shiny real estate office south. The window of the museum is currently displaying one of its exhibits, a codex.

A temporary barrier blocks this empty street from the busy fair to the north, though there is a door that could be opened with the correct code. From here the gaiety and excitement of the holiday are fairly loud.

Navigating with compass directions works, but we can also type GO TO… to travel to a named place. GO TO BACK ALLEY will take us back where we started, for instance.
>

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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I agree, we should continue in EASY mode. The removal of alternate puzzle solutions wouldn’t make this experience any better.

I’m beginning to realize that this is going to be a lot more work for the leader than in the usual community playthroughs. Thank you for taking care of it, Karlok.

Now, the next step is obvious. First however, before changing it:

>x codex

And then:

>wave x-remover at codex

>x code

>get code

     
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Pegbiter - 17 March 2021 11:33 AM

I agree, we should continue in EASY mode. The removal of alternate puzzle solutions wouldn’t make this experience any better.

I’m beginning to realize that this is going to be a lot more work for the leader than in the usual community playthroughs. Thank you for taking care of it, Karlok.

That’s okay, I quite like the game so far. The few puzzles I did were easy but fun.

>x codex
A manuscript of Atlantean origin from the 16th century. It records a series of slightly mad visions of what the world would be like if the “composition of letters” could be systematically exchanged.

At that time, the name-driven nature of the universe was not yet understood, but some consciousness of it wiggled towards the surface like a breaking tooth. The lunatics were first to notice.

I’ve visited this museum before and seen the inside, by the way. Many of the pages are filled with what we would now consider rather elementary rebus puzzles.

Navigating with compass directions works, but we can also type GO TO… to travel to a named place. GO TO BACK ALLEY will take us back where we started, for instance.
>wave x-remover at codex
We run our thumb over the dial, setting the device to an X-remover. There is a smell of anise, and the codex turns into a code. A bit of paper on which is written “305.”

Navigating with compass directions works, but we can also type GO TO… to travel to a named place. GO TO BACK ALLEY will take us back where we started, for instance.
>x code
A bit of paper on which is written “305.”

Navigating with compass directions works, but we can also type GO TO… to travel to a named place. GO TO BACK ALLEY will take us back where we started, for instance.
>get code
The display window is, unsurprisingly, not open to reach into.

Navigating with compass directions works, but we can also type GO TO… to travel to a named place. GO TO BACK ALLEY will take us back where we started, for instance.
>

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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>unlock door with code

And then, since the tutorial is insisting:

>go to back alley

     
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>unlock door with code
We set the wheels of the code-lock to 305.

Click! The barrier door unlocks.

Navigating with compass directions works, but we can also type GO TO… to travel to a named place. GO TO BACK ALLEY will take us back where we started, for instance.
>go to back alley
We hike.

Back Alley
There is nothing here but the back sides of a couple of buildings, some peeling yellow paint; not even much by way of windows to look in through.

This alley runs north to the open street, towards the town square.

We’ve learned a lot of the basics now. Let’s go back to Ampersand Bend. You can navigate there by compass direction or just type GO TO AMPERSAND BEND.
>go to ampersand bend
We make the quick walk.

Ampersand Bend
A bend in the street, which runs west and north. This district combines the old and the new: a small museum in an ancient stone building to the east, a shiny real estate office south. The window of the museum is currently displaying one of its exhibits, a code. Well, not to worry: they’ll be able to restore the codex easily enough when the museum reopens.

A temporary barrier blocks this empty street from the busy fair to the north, though it is currently unlocked and anyone could go through. From here the gaiety and excitement of the holiday are fairly loud.

Take a moment to look at things in the environment and get your bearings.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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I guess before we head to the busy fair, we should make sure to look around everything

> x real estate office

     
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I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going in, but that intro caught me completely off-guard. Tongue

And I’m probably out of my league because removing the x from codex wouldn’t have come to mind immediately. Now I’ll have to look at all the words with letters removed… Gasp

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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TimovieMan - 17 March 2021 03:00 PM

And I’m probably out of my league because removing the x from codex wouldn’t have come to mind immediately. Now I’ll have to look at all the words with letters removed… Gasp

I think this one was supposed to be simple, since the sentence after the mention of the codex asked for a code. It’ll probably get much less obvious further on, but we’ll also be better used to the mode of thinking involved.

I’m already loving the game.

     
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Pegbiter - 17 March 2021 03:14 PM

I’m already loving the game.

Oh yeah. It’s shaping up to be something unique. Smile

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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Total Posts: 7432

Joined 2013-08-26

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>x office
Advertisements in the window describe the offerings around town, from a studio apartment (looks like a fixer-upper) in Deep Street for $823,000 to a house near the university for $2.5M. Prices for villas in the northwestern part of town are all listed just as “Available on Inquiry.”

I can tell you find all that shockingly overpriced, but trust me: land is scarce on this island and there are a lot of people who want to own it, not just locals but international corporations.

OPEN THE BARRIER will open it for us — or we could just GO THROUGH BARRIER and rely on opening it automatically.
>

Last chance to set the game to HARD mode.  Shifty Eyed

Kudos to Luhr for trying to find words for our remover. And the game was prepared for his shirt/shit. Home assignment for TimovieMan: Find 3 words in the descriptions that we could use our remover on if the game lets us. Tongue

PS: It dawned on me just now that we are three non-native speakers: Swedish, Belgian, and Dutch. How about giom, Luhr, Cicerone? At least two of you are native English speakers, right? Might be important in a game that has language at its core.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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