Note that the protagonists from Exoptable Money, Presentable Liberty and Menagerie: Archive are three different people, but all existed during the same time period due to the close timelines in both games.
Exoptable Money[]
Short summary: In Exoptable Money, you play as an unseen and unnamed protagonist, placed in front of a red box called "The Money Machine". Your only objective is to continually make money, and buy upgrades to make even more money.
Once, on a quiet Sunday evening, you find "The Money Machine" and decide to take it home. You also have access to a store and a mailbox through which you meet two other characters - Madame Sinclair and Doctor Money.
You can never reply to the messages that you are sent, which grows increasingly more and more worrying, and you never eat, drink or sleep. You also never see Madame Sinclair or Doctor Money, and you remain trapped in the room that you're in. The only thing the protagonist is capable of doing is make money. And every time you buy items or upgrades from the store, you progress the story.
The Story[]
At the beginning of the game, you are first contacted by Madame Sinclair, presumably a wealthy upper-class woman, who notices the amount of money you are making with the machine. She happens to know a way you can get more money, but you must first buy a kitten.
This adorable creature will be your only sole companion for a short time, and it has the unusual talent of bringing in large amounts of money for you. Each time you send the kitten out, it will bring in larger amounts of money, but on its fourth trip, it disappears.
Beware. Madame Sinclair's messages will grow more sinister, until you receive one that states she's found a cat coincidentally. Prepare yourself for the next message:
"Fur is expensive." And with it, the head of your kitten with its eyes gouged out.
From Sinclair's letters, you find that the mysterious Money Machine doesn't just copy money, coins and topaz, but other things as well. She tells you to put your cat inside, and then sell the continuous stream of fur. You do it, of course, and begin to make more money.
Later on, Doctor Money and his corporation will send you a message stating that they need money to help with the East-West conflict. It is unclear whether or not this is a trick, considering you cannot leave the room and Madame Sinclair does not mention it in her letters. However, after refusing to send money (you actually can't, there's no option to), Doctor Money informs you that the East-West conflict ended due to heavy casualties on both sides, resulting in a near genocide. Vengefully, Doctor Money sends you his next letter with a present: a deadly virus.
An antidote appears in the store around this time, and Doctor Money urges you to buy it, but the price is just the same that you have at present + 1 point.
The story will not progress until you buy the antidote, but once you do, Doctor Money will thank you for your business. At this point in time, Madame Sinclair will confirm that the virus is real, as there are people dying from it, and she herself has been infected.
However, the antidote is not a complete cure, and people must continually buy it at high cost to keep from dying. Which is unfortunate, considering the antidote also causes peoples' organs to fail. Doctor Money lowers the price regretfully by 1000 money - which means the price still matches whatever you make, but it's 1000 money less now.
Afterwards, Doctor Money will contact you again, but this time for your mysterious Money Machine. As demonstrated by your kitten's sacrifice, the Money Machine has the ability to duplicate just about anything - and the current market calls for organs. After Doctor Money sends you vital organs you begin to churn out organs at maximum production to fuel the market, along with regular money, coins, topaz, and your dead kitten's fur.
You seem to have become either Doctor Money's supplier or employee now. But you do get loads more money than before. And you can buy a tin can from the store now - which Doctor Money compliments you on.
Unfortunately, as your Money Machine continues to pump out more and more revenue, Doctor Money and Madame Sinclair write to inform you that your copied organs are not perfect - they don't last very long and there are less and less healthy people from which to harvest regular organs from.
As the virus rampages, and the end of your road to monetary success nears, Doctor Money decides to reward you for your efforts (subtly blaming you for the entire virus-antidote-organs debacle) and suggests you finish maxing out the production of money, coins, topaz, fur, and organs.
Which breaks your machine.
You should have over 1 billion money, which you can use to buy the last item in the store - a simple can opener.
Doctor Money and Madame Sinclair both write you their last message - to say goodbye. It is assumed Madame Sinclair perishes from the virus, as she ran out of money to buy the dwindling supply of increasingly-expensive original organs and had to resort to your cheap proxies. And due to your compliance and assistance, Doctor Money becomes the richest man in the world until his death at the hands of his own virus.
You end your adventure with a can opener and a can... of beans.
You never ate, slept or drank anything from the beginning of the game to the end. Perhaps you started this endeavor to generate enough money to buy food, and you were starving. And now, you have a can opener and a can of beans.
You used that antidote after all. You were probably never infected. (The virus somehow made it to the outside world, even though you never left the room. And the virus only started to wreak havoc after you paid Doctor Money for that antidote, enough money to make the virus a reality).
But whether or not you were or weren't, you drank that antidote.
And as you open that can, your organs begin to fail. And you die. The End
Unanswered Questions[]
There are several of these in the game that have yet to be explained, and are not questioned.
- Where is the protagonist exactly? Why are they there, and who are they?
- Why is the protagonist's objective to make money?
- Are they trapped in that room?
- How did they come by the Money Machine?
- How did Madame Sinclair and Doctor Money know where to send the letters to reach the Protagonist?
- Was the Protagonist really infected with the virus before they took the antidote?
- Why was the Protagonist so happy about having a can of beans at the end of the game?
In Presentable Liberty[]
The protagonist of Presentable Liberty is never seen, but is referred to as a male in one of Doctor Money's letters. He is forced to be locked inside of a "prison cell" which is revealed to be an elevator near the end. He receives things from the 4 people who send letters to him: a poster, 5 confetti poppers and 5 video games from Mr. Smiley, a poster and a cake from Charlotte, a poster, a table and a "little bug friend" from Salvadore, and a poster from Doctor Money.
The protagonist dies if the player gets the Alternative Ending, which you'll get if you decide to stay inside your cell for 30 seconds without opening the door after Doctor Money tells you not to. He then explains that you were innocent for being in jail, but you were the only one with working organs.
Unanswered Questions[]
There are several of these in the game that have yet to be explained, and are not questioned.
- How did Charlotte find your address?
- How did the letters get to you before the people?(Considering the fact that Salvador's letters said the building is locked.)
- Was any of it real? (It depends on perspective. It could represent multiple ideas, such as the crippling depression of loneliness, or how "video games" separate a large number of kids from reality, or how you have problems (not literally) you want to talk about but the people you can talk to are "strangers" to you).
Menagerie: Archive[]
The protagonist of Presentable Liberty is never seen, but directly addressed in Doctor Money's letters. He works inside an enclosed room of the archive, which his job includes delivering archive files to citizens of higher rank and distributing money to citizens of lower rank. He is assigned rank 81. The resistance has addressed the citizens with rank lower than 80 (with a higher number than 80), and it claims they are the bottom-class of the society.
Over the seven days of working in the archive, he may meet several characters/parties via mailed messages, including Dr. Money, his secretary Morayne, three citizens with lower rank than the protagonist: Harvey, Rebecca, Claire, and the resistance. Same as in previous games, he is unable to contact most of the characters, and can only communicate via limited means, including accepting and denying orders and buying from shop.
If the protagonist continuously denies to deliver archives (for three days not necessarily consecutive), Dr. Money will fire him, sending him to a designated room which he can only send letters to beg for money, and starves to death soon after. From the information of ending 7 and Claire's position, it is possible the protagonist is demoted, marking the citizens below rank 81 equivalent to beggars. He may also starve to death if he does not buy food for several days.
He may buy decorations apart from the food supply. If he manages to buy out the store and gives all remaining archives to Dr. Money in day 7, he will be promoted to rank 80, allowed to leave the archive and choose his occupation and a place to live. If he does not buy out the store, he will remain to work at the archive room.
If he refuses to give all the archives to Dr. Money in day 7, he will either be killed by Claire armed with a gun, or be poisoned from the gas released from the drains of his room, the gas was ordered by Dr. Money in order to execute him. He would die from poisoning, being called a coward by an unknown individual; or from explosion if he winds the walking toy gifted by Morayne, which spews spark and ignites the gas, which the explosion also destroys all remaining archives in the room, and he dies a hero protecting the resistance.