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Man, reading this just made me feel impossibly old and sad. I cannot relate to this at all, and it just shows how much the world of gaming has changed in the last twenty years or so. When I grew up it was normal for games to receive changes. All of the early LucasArts games were changed multiple times. Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken were both replaced, during their original lifespan, by different versions. Loom has more versions than I can even count without a reference. The Secret of Monkey Island was released in EGA, then a few months later a VGA version came out with completely new art assets throughout. They released the same game on CD a few years later and made changes to it. They made a further edition of it in 2009 which had further changes. None of this was considered sinister or oppressive. It was a company taking an existing product and trying to give new buyers a reason to purchase it. I guess we all have one specific version of a game that is the one we played first. That's the "correct" one in our own little subjective world. For me and Monkey Island, it's the EGA PC version with the internal speaker soundtrack. That's not the "best" version or the "canonical" version or any of that guff, it's just the one I experienced first, it's the one I'm nostalgic for. The existence of all those other versions doesn't invalidate it. If I want to revisit it, I can revisit it. But that EGA version I played also had an adlib soundtrack that I didn't get to hear the first time I played it. I heard that music later, and it's objectively "better" than the PC speaker equivalent. I enjoy that version of the theme music too. If we're going to talk about re-releasing old games then it's important to ask the question of whether the company should cater to me. There's an EGA version of this game with a PC speaker soundtrack, so surely it's no real work or effort on their part to add a toggle for those modes, is there? Well, setting aside the obvious fallacy that anything in game development is "easy" or involves "no real work", why should those modes necessarily be supported? Is the objective of a re-release to simply emulate the original? Which version of Monkey Island 1 is the original in this scenario, anyway? I mean, EGA was released first, but LucasArts themselves replaced it with a VGA version. So which one is the "original"? If you first played the VGA version, you might make the argument that the VGA version is "obviously better" because it has more colours. But that's a subjective opinion! The simple reality is that the game I'm nostalgic for still exists. I can still play it. I don't need them to re-release it, I already own it. And where does the nostalgia end? Is it still true to the original experience if I don't have to type DOS prompts in to start the game? Is it really the same without the copy protection? My opinion is that the objective of a re-release should be to bring something new or to update the art and the music in a way that might appeal to gamers who weren't lucky enough to be there the first time around. It's never to "replace the original". Fans of the original version(s) might love a re-release or they might hate it, but so what? You said yourself that Skunkape has done a "fantastic" job "on a technical level". Skunkape has also made the original versions of the games available. If this isn't enough for you, I wonder what is? It almost sounds like what you want is a version of the game that keeps the graphical improvements, because you've deemed those to be acceptable, but that also lets you choose which other aspects of the game are "original" or "updated". That's fine if that's what you want, but let's not pretend that's an objective desire for "the original". That's what YOU want. And again, it's okay to want that. But why do you expect to find it in anything except your original version that you fell in love with? I guess the above is the part that makes me feel so old. The part that makes me feel sad is the words you use here. "Backlash, less sales, an army of trolls review bombing and warning people". This is INSANITY. It's a video game. The people who made it are real human beings with feelings just like the rest of us, and I'm fairly sure they are doing this as a labour of love, a genuine good faith effort to re-release an old game to a new community, and they want everyone to be free to enjoy it in the most inclusive way possible. How are these things seen as negative? Some of the other things you have said allude to the problems in this discourse. "The Voodoo Lady's voice actor is a white lady in that game so she obviously has to go." "people calling each other racists or nazis in the community just because some people happen to prefer the old voice actor". These are not rational video game points of discussion. It's just a sad reflection on how successful the white supremacist propagandists have been in the last ten years. I'm not saying this about you, here, I just mean broadly across society. I think a lot of kids get introduced to concepts like this by extremely malicious individuals with a nihilistic bent who enjoy watching good people start to spout divisive rhetoric, because they've found a way to sell these concepts that is prima facie reasonable. Of course, it doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny. But this isn't the place for that debate, and if anyone tries to take it there they can expect to find this discussion diverted back on track quite sharply. We're all tired of these arguments. You said it yourself - "I saw that once, it was really stupid, I'd rather not watch the rerun thank you very much." I honestly think that this kind of comment is something people only really say when they're immune from the real-world negative consequences. When they are so hard-up for actual oppression, so far away from being a victim, that the only place they can find it is in a video game. I'm not trying to say anything bad about you, this isn't personal. Like I said, I'm just old, and I'm really, really sad.

It should be noted that at least one founder of Skunkape is also a core member of the Mojo community, so shitting on them like that on these forums isn't the best idea. Not because you don't have the right to express your opinion, but because many of us here know them personally, know how they busted their asses to make these remasters happen, and know them as amazing people.

Because they're the obvious and sole precedent of a studio taking a game developed in an old version of the Telltale Tool and bringing it up to modern standards in a way that both looks/sounds fantastic and doesn't stomp on the spirit of what's being remastered? They're quite clearly the best if not only candidates for the hypothetical assignment of remastering Tales of Monkey Island.

I hope that RTMI starts with this music:

Hi all! My name ie Benjamin and I come from Belgium. I have a side project to recreate the original manual of Monkey Island 1 in HD version. Why ? Because I found the manuals on the web not in a real good shape and I have a personal project based on the Big box of Monkey Island. If someone tells me it exists, my ears are opened So I have started to recreated it from scratch using the right fonts and the right dimensions. (It might be a bit larger here because I'm on a A5 template). I'm using Affinity Publisher. I have already created 5 pages of it and I'll share the final HD version of it if someone is interested ! Just let me know. And if someone wants to give a help, just drop me a MP. I'm a computer scientist not a designer so any help in creating it or cleaning the images from the manuals I've (adjust contrasts, lights, etc) might be interesting for the project. Stay tuned ! Have a good night ! EDIT 14/06/2022 Here are the link for the latest files and latest online version to comment Link to shared files https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1y2MQqnaUTx6K2VM611F09XCTwLzVyv5b?usp=sharing Link to comment latest version https://assets.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:799b14d4-5e4b-4bab-b703-5a42ad104a64?view=published

Hi all Chapter 2: In Which I Briefly Explore Town And Discover An Unusual Chicken is now up 😀 These have been a lot of fun to make so seeing the positive response to the first has been really cool 😀 Plus it gives me a chance to sit around working on Monkey Island stuff all day 😀 Maybe one day I'll figure out a way to actually work on a Monkey Island but until then working on MI content will have to suffice 😀

I would be quite happy if RTMI was the last game in the series, Maybe there could be a second season of TOMI, but afterwards it should definitely be over. There is no point in turning the series into a soap opera. EFMI and TOMI showed that the series already jumped the shark to some extent....

I still dream about the Sam and Max: Freelance Police uncancellation! Nobody can take the dream away from me!

Love new Sam Max season and I think we need a sequel to Tales to wrap up the cliffhanger. Why haven't we had a Maniac Mansion remake/remaster yet? It is so needed!

I think that's probably what will happen. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if a Curse remaster was already in the works. Once Skunkape are done with Sam & Max, they'll need something new to work on, and Tales would be perfect if they're not already working on a new Sam & Max season. I could even see them doing a second season of Tales if the new Telltale pass on it (they seem to still be solely focused on post-Walking Dead style games). I would also love to see a remaster of Escape, even if it's just for completion's sake. It'd be great if the Special Editions of 1&2 got a second pass to fix some of the unfinished art (MI1 melee forest especially) and weird removals of things (opening credits in MI2, vertical scrolling, etc), but I think that part might be wishful thinking. Maybe if they got ported to the Switch I could see them tweaking it a bit and why not patch the PC version while you're at it? It'd even be worth it just to update MI1 to have voice in classic mode and be able to mix and match the new music with the old graphics (especially in MI2 which not even the Ultimate Talkie Edition can do); basically just adding the features that were put into Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. As for other Lucasarts stuff? Give Brian Moriarty his Loom trilogy, and remaster the first one with fully voiced, uncut dialog. Craig Derrick has also wanted to get a remaster of Maniac Mansion greenlit for ages now, so I can see that being a big priority.

I think at the moment, the most likely thing we'll get is A: a Tales of Monkey Island remaster by Skunkape, and B: A Curse of Monkey Island remake by Bill Tiller. A, because if I was Skunkape, I'd strike while the iron is hot. B, because Bill Tiller has given hints in the past that this is something he might consider doing, and maybe Disney is listening now. Maybe if these things prove to be succesful, there might be a slight chance of a LucasArts adventure renaissance, though it's still pretty unlikely.

I've always liked the amusement park theme! Is seems jolly, with just a hint of the creepy LeChuck's theme underneath! When I dreamed about MI3a all these years, I've always wanted it to start with the music! This could work great too!

Hah would be awesome! Now that you said it, I really hope it starts with an amusement park variation of the Monkey Island theme, to then transition to the "real" one!

OH REMI YOU SCAMP. Luckily, brute-forcing the dictionary is a totally valid tactic. 👕 I beat #Mojole and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 6/6 🖤💛💛🖤🖤 🖤🖤💛🖤🖤 💛🖤🖤💚💚 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤💚🖤💛💛 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Anyway I only have one "want" from Return to MI and it's not related to the story at all. I really miss the scale of MI2 from the later games, I'd love to see the structure of Act 2 (when you're looking for the map pieces) return where you can just go to all the islands whenever you want. Bigger and more complex is better.