The Basics

• Developer: Luke Schaefer
• Release: April 1st, 2025
• Platform: Browser
• Price: $10 per monkey
• Lessons learned: none

About

Based on the Infinite Monkey Theorem, Monkeys.zip is a project to explore what happens when you search for meaning in randomness. It’s presented in a whimsical and gamified way, but the hope is to inspire thoughts about the vastness of Infinity - and if failing at that, will at least support some real-life monkeys.

Charity

In order to have this frivolous project have an unambiguously positive impact on the world - I’ve partnered with several primate conservation and advocacy groups and am donating a significant amount of the proceeds to these groups. Still ironing out the details, but during launch, 100% of proceeds will go to supporting these organizations. After launch, will probably pull it back to around 50% to support

Who is Luke?

You can learn more about me on my site lukeschaefer.dev. Former Google Engineer - I quit last year to pursue various dumb projects. This is the first one I put effort into actually launching. Contact me here.

Is Monkeys.zip a game?

I consider it more of an art project. There’s points and awards and leaderboards, but that’s largely there to make the concept more engaging as a whole. At the end of the day, this is about getting a grasp of how Infinity and Infinitesimal play together.

Is it an April Fools joke?

Not particularly - it’s real, and it will keep running for years to come. I released it on April 1st because that’s a day associated with whimsy and creative projects. In some ways this is a spiritual successor to /r/Place

Project History

This project started nearly a year ago in April 2024, soon after I quit my job. At first named Monkey Simulator, it has gone through endless, endless revisions, and occasionally was dropped for months at a time. The goal was always to present the Infinite Monkey Theorem in an engaging, thought provoking, but whimsical fashion. I like monkeys, I like math - seemed like a perfect combo.

The original idea and versions were much more of a game - where players start with a single monkey that types in a basement - acquiring money for every word written. Once you get $100, you can buy another monkey, or a better typewriter. The game proceeded in the fashion of an idle clicker or resource-management style - moving up to an Office where you have 100 monkeys, a Warehouse with 1000s, an Island with hundreds of thousands, and up and up until your monkeys become something like a Grey Goo taking over the Galaxy. Each order of magnitude would be a level with its own challeneges in resource management to overcome.