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I guess one of the bigger things I did (literally) was using some machine learning models (via ESRGAN) to upscale all the CoMI backgrounds to 4x their size. All backgrounds can be found HERE, while I've posted several comparisons to the originals HERE. This is more of a proof of concept, because currently there's no way to use these inside the game (via ScummVM), plus all the sprites would need to be upscaled as well, which would be an enormous task on its own. Maybe I'll combine these with an offspring of the poster thread, in case someone wants to hang CoMI's backgrounds on their wall. And in the same vein I've also used ESRGAN (and further manual work) to clean-up and upscale the CoMI intro to HD resolution (while rebuilding the logo and credits): A side-by-side with the original cutscene can be found here:

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure this book is particularly interesting for you or for the veterans of MixNMojo. You already know everything about everything there is to know about the series, adn the interviews that I have had may not have taught me much either. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to chat with all the LucasFilm / LucasArts alumni, and to write to try to find this atmosphere and ask myself this question : Why do we remember Monkey Island ? Regarding the translation of the book, I do not despair of convincing my editor to translate it into English. There is another language planned in the coming months, but unfortunately I cannot say more. Finally, it's true that Steve Purcell's drawing s fantastic. You cannot imagine the feeling I had when he accepter my proposal and especially when I saw the very first sketches... It was... amazing.

I'm not fond of the idea that one of my first post on the forum is an advertisting message, but I'm still very proud to have had the opportunity to write a humble essay on the Monkey Island series published last year in France. So if there are French-speaking fans of Guybrush's adventures ... https://www.amazon.fr/Monkey-Island-Nicolas-Deneschau/dp/2377840906/

I'm guessing I'm not alone as someone who has made Mojo-adjacent content in the last few years and would like to share it. Maybe this thread can be a home for it? Anything you've made that you think Mojo Forums readers here might be interested in, but is small enough or old enough that it may not need its own thread, feel free to place it here! I'll start! Monkey Island 1 and 2 Livestream with Marius Winter and Dominic Armato A couple months ago, I did a complete playthrough of Monkey Island 1 and 2 on Twitch with Marius Winter (@Marius) and the voice of Guybrush Threepwood himself Dominic Armato (@Dmnkly). It was something Marius and I had been talking about doing for ages - we worked together at Telltale and both loved just talking about Monkey Island forever, and years later wanted an excuse to do that again - and having Dominic show up as a surprise guest made it even more special. If you want to watch the stream, you can watch the first video or view the whole collection of Monkey Island 1 and 2 (and a brief break to talk about Disneyland) here.

(As usual, Moderators, don't hesitate to correct / translate what I try to write in English !!) The idea of this topic would be to centralize the latest unpublished discoveries on LucasFilm Games / LucasArts projects. To start, do you all remember the amazing gems that Aric Wilmunder posted on his website in 2016 ? It seems that a still significant number of documents of this kind exist. I recently had the opportunity to see a little more, and I am in talks to succeed in scanning and putting online as much information on design documents or projects abandonned by the studio. As Aric says : " Our ratio was probably about 5-8 designs for every game that got approval " So, here are already two documents which, I believe (but I could be wrong, don't judge me), are still unknown and concerns "THE PIRATE CURSE OF MONKEY ISLAND" (We had already the opportunity to see the document that pitches the game).

You probably underestimate the nerdiness of Mojo readers. I think a book about Monkey Island with an amazing Purcell cover would be a must buy for many of us even if we knew everything that was in it. I really hope it does get translated into English.

Before Wilmunder opened the vault, devotees of the The SCUMM Bar (and who isn't?) enjoyed knowledge of this scrapped storyline for CMI when Jonathan Ackley touched on it in an interview way back in 2003: How did you come up with the storyline for CMI? Did the ending to Monkey 2 prove a challenge to get around? First we wrote an incredibly convoluted story about Elaine being turned into a ship's mast-head. You had to change her back before the fiery demon LeChuck burned her down. A lot of great special-effects a la the "Gone With The Wind" burning of Atlanta scene. We also had a number of puzzles involving Guybrush attempting to return the wedding gifts given to LeChuck for the monster's undead wedding to Elaine. It would've been spectacular, but when we looked at it again, we decided the story was somewhat hollow. We reworked the story until all the puzzles revolved around Guybrush overcoming his own ineptitude and saving the one person who loves him despite his idiocy. The emotional stakes for Guybrush became even higher and the story fell into place. As to the end of Monkey 2 - that's the real curse of Monkey Island.

It was ! That's right. Aric posted the initial document (2nd version) on his website back in the days. The doc seems to be available for download there : Pirate Curse of Monkey Island.pdf

It's really a strange feeling to have the forums back... good strange. Like a sneeze. Anyway, since I still did a lot of LucasArts related stuff over the years, it feels kind of like a relief to show those things to people that actually value it (very few people I know in real life bat an eye when I tell them about posters or anything).

Ever since you've revealed that book I was hoping that one day we'll see an English translation. My French is way too rusty to be of any use here. On the upside, it gave us another Steve Purcell artwork (which I bought immediately!).

Thanks for sharing Jake! I have to admit that besides the confinement due to COVID, your livestream also had some impact on me for wanting to bring The Legend of Monkey Island back from the dead. Speaking of which, while designing the website at some point I got too ambitious and wanted to create a Dark theme that would turn on automatically while Dark Mode was on. I even got to the point of creating the night version of the banner I used on the top, but then I realised it wasn’t worth the effort. I still think the banner turned quite alright though.