Yes! Counterfeit Monkey doesn’t just have amazing gameplay; the story is also incredibly layered and thought-provoking. Even the basic premise – playing as two characters whose identities are fused into one – is fascinating to me.
The nature of the wordplay puzzles in Counterfeit Monkey, however, does result in most scenes being written with tight constraints on the vocabulary. Anchorhead has more room to stretch out, prose-wise, which helps with the atmosphere.
I’m not a fan of Lovecraft, but I liked Ecdysis. It’s very short, though.
I don’t know. Possibly not. But as we are talking about the story, it seems fair to compare it to all the excellent static fiction Mythos stories out there, such as The Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys, Fat Face by Michael Shea, or Providence by Alan Moore.
Yes, partly. But I just like dark Gothic stories a whole lot, and so it’s down to a personal taste thing. Which is not to say that the story in CM is a slouch or anything. It’s fantastic.
I like raspberries better than strawberries, too.
I want to make it clear that I did vote for CM, just so the hitmen don’t come for me.
The buzzer has rung! The fanfare has sounded! The tournament is over, and Counterfeit Monkey has won the championship match against Anchorhead in the world’s first Free IF Playoffs!
I find something poignant in the fact that the winner, Counterfeit Monkey, is an unparalleled masterwork of parser IF from an unparalleled master of parser IF who is nonetheless famously skeptical about the continued utility of parser IF:
Someday, I hope @emshort has time for a little more self-indulgence.