Mute Monkey

The Mute Monkey is the only player who can read the defusal manual, which means every correct answer on every bomb starts in your hands. The problem is getting it out. You can hear your teammates perfectly well, but you can’t say a single word, so the whole run depends on how clearly you can show an answer instead of saying it. This guide covers what the role can and can’t do, the tools you actually have, a starter gesture set, the rhythm that keeps answers readable, and the mistakes that turn a correct lookup into a wrong cut.

How the Role Fits the Team

Information in this game always runs along the same chain. You read the manual and gesture the answer. The Deaf Monkey watches you, translates the gesture into words and says it out loud. The Blind Monkey hears that and makes the input on the bomb. You are the start of every answer, but you are always two steps away from the hands that act on it.

That shapes everything about how you play. Your gesture doesn’t need to be understood by everyone, only by the Deaf Monkey. And it doesn’t need to be clever. It needs to be impossible to misread in the second or two the Deaf Monkey has to look at you before turning back to the bomb.

The Three Roles Side by Side

The detail that matters most for you is the hearing column. You can hear, so the Deaf Monkey can describe the bomb to you and ask you direct questions. The Deaf Monkey can’t hear, so nothing reaches them unless you show it. That one-way channel shapes every exchange: words come in, gestures go out.

Your Communication Toolkit

The game doesn’t hand you a fixed signal system. Instead it gives you a body and an Emote wheel and leaves the rest to your group. These are the tools you can count on:

Starter Gesture Set

Agree on these before the timer starts, not halfway through a module. Guides to this role consistently give the same advice: an improvised sign under pressure is one of the most common reasons a correct answer gets lost.

Keep the set small. Six or seven signals that everyone remembers beat twenty that nobody does. If your group plays regularly, the set will grow on its own. Just make sure every new sign is agreed out of the run, not invented in the middle of one.

The Mute Monkey’s Rhythm

A steady loop works far better than reacting to whatever is being shouted. The order below keeps your answers readable even when the timer is low:

1. Listen to the full report. Let the Deaf Monkey finish describing the module before you start looking anything up. Reading the panel is their job, and a partial report sends you to the wrong rule.
2. Find the rule in the manual. Match the module and its current state to the right page and the right row.
3. Decide on a single answer. Work out exactly what the Blind Monkey needs to do, not just which rule applies.
4. Look up and face the Deaf Monkey. Community guides advise lowering the manual before you gesture and keeping your emotes in the Deaf Monkey’s view, since you’re both seeing the world in first person.
5. Send one item at a time. For a sequence, signal the first item, wait for the Deaf Monkey to repeat it, then send the next.
6. Confirm or correct. Watch the Deaf Monkey’s translation. Nod if it’s right; shake your head straight away if it isn’t.

What Each Module Asks For

The modules ask you for different kinds of answers. Knowing the shape of the answer in advance helps you choose the right signal before you even open the page.

Other modules, such as Morse, Monkey-Says and Switch, follow the same principle: work out the full answer first, then send it one confirmed piece at a time. Exact color and Braille lookups live in the in-game manual and can change with patches, so always read them from the manual rather than from memory. Full walkthroughs for each module are in the How Modules Work section.

Common Mistakes

• Gesturing before the report is finished. You answer the wrong module, or the right module in an old state.
• Gesturing with your face still in the manual. If the Deaf Monkey can’t see your hands, the answer doesn’t exist.
• Sending a whole sequence in one burst. The Deaf Monkey loses track by the third item. One item, one confirmation.
• Inventing a sign mid-run. If a signal wasn’t agreed beforehand, assume it will be misread.
• Answering an open question. “What do we do?” can’t be answered with a nod. Wait for a specific question, or start sending the answer item by item.
• Not correcting a wrong translation. You’re the only one who knows the real answer. If the Deaf Monkey says it wrong, stop the Blind Monkey before the input happens.
• Guessing Braille values. Only the Blind Monkey can read Braille. Wait for their reading instead of assuming it.

Is This Role for You?

Player guides broadly agree that the Mute Monkey is the most demanding seat at the table: you hold every answer and have the fewest ways to share it. That makes it a poor fit for someone’s very first evening with the game. The Blind Monkey, who doesn’t need to hold any rules in their head, is the gentler starting role.

The Mute role suits a player who stays calm, likes reading rules carefully and enjoys being precise. If your Mute Monkey keeps finding the right rule but the gestures keep getting misread, that’s the signal to try a different player in the seat. If the problem is a clash over what “left” or “repeat” means, fix the shared rules first, because a new player in the same seat will hit the same wall.

Pre-Run Checklist

• Yes, no and wait are agreed, and everyone knows them.
• Numbers are finger counts, and the group has picked one sign for zero.
• Everyone counts positions in the same direction and from the same point of view.
• The group has decided how colors will be confirmed.
• The Deaf Monkey knows to ask you yes/no questions.
• You’ll lower the manual and face the Deaf Monkey before every gesture.
• Sequences go out one item at a time, each one confirmed.

FAQ