Leaderboard

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.

I registered an account just to finally respond to you on this, because I'm tired of reading this disingenuous "Why can't everybody just be reasonable and admit I'm right while giving me everything I want" argument over and over again. You know why they made the changes. I know why they made the changes. It wasn't as a proof of concept for a "future iteration." It wasn't "extra content." It wasn't that it used to be okay to cast a white guy as a black character and have him do a broad stereotypical accent, and now it isn't; it's that it was never okay, but it used to be acceptable not to care. In recent years a whole lot more people have decided they're not willing to just sit back and accept a bad decision because it was handed to them, and Skunkape made a conscious choice to update the games in line with that. They're not going to render it back down into an optional patch or a toggle switch or downloadable content, because it's not a cosmetic choice--it's an informed decision that they made for clearly stated reasons. They knew there'd be people who wouldn't like it, and they did it anyway. You can choose to live with that and move on, or you can wring your hands and pretend you're just concerned about the non-existent damage being done to the poor, poor Sam & Max IP. You argue that change is fine, but only if it happens *later*, in a hypothetical product that doesn't and may never exist rather than in one that's in front of you forcing you to think and feel things; it's a wishy-washy attempt to insist that everything you're used to should stay just the way it is--i.e., the world where you didn't have to care--while still trying to cast yourself as being on "the right side." You go to great lengths to insist that you understand the original performance was stereotypical and wrongheaded, but if you keep going "It was *my* stereotypical wrongheaded performance, and I want it to stay the same!" then guess what? You're not on the right side! You keep appealing to what "basically every old fan feels like" to argue with people *who have stuck with a LucasArts fansite since the mid-'90s* about decisions in remasters *that were made in part by one of the founding voices of that fansite.* If you don't like it, I can't make you like it. But stop pretending like you represent some silent, long-suffering majority.

elTee makes better points than me, but quite frankly the logic of the complaints towards the Remasters seems reflective of so many other hyper-emotional fanboi rants that seem to bleed out from Reddit. To me they are the product of groupthink -- ideas supported and bolstered by a group existing in a vacuum. And when they're challenged outside of that vacuum there's an inability to defend them without resulting to circular logic or side-stepping. Or just a plain old hyper-emotional response. In the case of people complaining about missing lines and recasting in the Remasters. Hmm. Lines were changed between versions of MI. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by mistake. (Some of them have only just been restored in ScummVM.) And the special editions made even more changes, cutting lines. I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset any them. Same goes for recasting. TellTale games would sometimes recast roles between episodes! Sometimes people missed the originals, sometimes they preferred the new takes. Sam & Max themselves have been recast countless times throughout their many iterations! Again, I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset about that. I know elTee suggests this is purely a generation thing, but honestly I can't say I'm convinced, because when someone is recast for reasons which could be described as "woke" (reasons for which I wholeheartedly applaud and support), strangely then it's a huge issue. Changing a line like "take our complimentary goggles designed for special needs children!" is treated as a crime against culture! Sorry, I just don't buy it. I do prefer the performance of the original Bosco actor, but I also understand and agree with why it was changed. Same goes with the line alterations. And believe me, I'm someone who has gotten bent out of shape when other remasters have gotten things wrong. It drives me crazy when something I really care about is changed for bad reasons (like the "Golo Flake" label oversight in Grim Fandango which makes the puzzle harder to solve -- after DoubleFine promised a "Criterion Edition" level remaster). But the changes made to the S&M Remasters weren't done for bad reasons... So if that still bugs you then I think it's less about the changes themselves, and more about the reasons for the changes. Recent example to illustrate my point: Earl Boen isn't going to reprise LeChuck in Return to Monkey Island and so the role is going to be recast. Fans accept this unfortunate turn because of the reason (Boen has decided to retire). So I think it's actually all about the reason for the changes. Either you think the reasons were justified, and so you are disappointed but understand. Or you think they were unjustified, and so you refuse to buy the product and blame the developer for making them. I know this makes me sound old, too, but this sort of reaction (and the blind belief that everyone, everywhere agrees with it) makes me worry about the future. *shakes old man cane*

Pretty much all of my thoughts have been covered over the two threads, but I'd also like to add that "because they might make decisions that anger Nazis" is a shoddy reason to NOT want a dev company to do a remaster.

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.

Do we know if Ron or anyone representing Terrible Toybox will be at PAX East tomorrow? I know Devolver are there but they don't seem to be indicating that Monkey Island is one of the things they're showing. I REALLY hope we get something though, that would be the perfect time to get a lot of eyes on the game. Otherwise the next big convention is Summer Game Fest which I believe is all online and we don't even know if the game will be out before or after that. I'm just starved for info now, even though it's only been 2 weeks since the announcement 😂

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

By all means guys, feel free to discuss the Skunkape projects however you like. I didn't want to shut the discussion down, but I had started seeing references to things like the holocaust and slavery, and those subjects are not up for debate, that's all. I think we're all mainly on the same page here, anyway!

Yes, the intention was probably to simply bypass the security door. (Which, as far as I can tell, LucasArts would instead do by ensuring that the door was open.) Unfortunately, the script for the security door keypad gets reused for other keypads in the game as well. Given how bad the crack is (if you just guess, you still have a one-in-ten chance of failure since you need to get the last digit wrong), I very much doubt LucasArts themselves made it. The earliest reference I could find to the crack was in a file titled "PC Games Cheats & info List", that was "Updated 5 February 1996 ver 2.1". That's long after the game was released, so I have no doubt the crack is much older than that. It was described simply as: Maniac Mansion iii) crack Removing doc check: File: 43.lfl 00000B79: FE FF If I compare the version I got from my old floppies, they're identical to the version embedded in the remastered Day of the Tentacle. The version I bought from GOG has this exact crack applied to 43.LFL. The 00.LFL file is also a bit different, but I don't know what that's all about. I haven't heard of it causing any harm. So what does this crack do? Sorry for getting a bit technical, but if I run the script through the ScummVM "descumm" tool, this is what part of the uncracked script looks like: [0066] (1A) Var[68] = 255; [006A] (80) breakHere(); [006B] (08) unless (Var[68] != 255) goto 006A; [0071] (88) if (Var[68] != Var[63]) { [0076] (1A) Var[67] = 1; [007A] (**) } [007A] (1A) Var[68] = 255; [007E] (80) breakHere(); [007F] (08) unless (Var[68] != 255) goto 007E; [0085] (88) if (Var[68] != Var[64]) { [008A] (1A) Var[67] = 1; [008E] (**) } [008E] (1A) Var[68] = 255; [0092] (80) breakHere(); [0093] (08) unless (Var[68] != 255) goto 0092; [0099] (88) if (Var[68] != Var[65]) { [009E] (1A) Var[67] = 1; [00A2] (**) } [00A2] (1A) Var[68] = 255; [00A6] (80) breakHere(); [00A7] (08) unless (Var[68] != 255) goto 00A6; [00AD] (88) if (Var[68] != Var[66]) { [00B2] (1A) Var[67] = 1; [00B6] (**) } I take this to mean that Var[68] is what you input. This is compared against Var[63], Var[64], Var[65] and Var[66], presumably the four correct digits. If you get any of them wrong, Var[67] is set to 1. In the cracked version, the last bit has been changed to: [00A2] (1A) Var[68] = 255; [00A6] (80) breakHere(); [00A7] (08) unless (Var[68] != 255) goto 00A6; [00AD] (88) if (Var[68] != Var[66]) { [00B2] (1A) Var[67] = 0; [00B6] (**) } I.e. Var[67] still gets set to 1 if you get any of the first three digits wrong, but if you get the last digit wrong it gets set to 0 instead of 1. But if you get any of the first three wrong, and then get the last one right, Var[67] remains 1.

Isn't it weird to think we now have a Ron Gilbert trilogy and a Curse style trilogy. Wait... so Curse of monkey island is now the 4th game in the story by canon 😂 that is so strange but interesting after years of it being the 3rd game. So weird after years of debate about what is canon, Ron is now settling the debate and marrying it all together. 😁 Also anyone notice we have 'Return' and 'Revenge' in the titles just like Stars Wars. 😃

I'll keep that in mind, thanks manual!

I think this also goes to show how much creative projects can change once you start to sit down and actually make the thing. That's why I always knew Ron was never going to 100% adhere to his 2013 blog post. You have all these thoughts and ideas that feel so rigid when you first come up with them but if you're not open enough to let those things change, sometimes beyond recognition, you end up with something unchallenging and kinda soulless. I know it sounds really cliche and pretentious, but so much of the creative journey is born out of letting the ride take you away into places unknown. Not only that, but when you're working on something as collaborative as a videogame, you have to listen to the input of others. This is I think where conversations with Dave Grossman probably had a lot to do with how Return in its current form took shape. It doesn't mean that he "compromised his vision" or "broke his promises to the fans", it just means that he surrendered to the process. We all love Monkey Island 2 for what it became at its final stage, not for the original design document, and who knows, maybe that one would''ve been good too, but just like a film script, it's just a blueprint, it's not a religious text.

To this, I would add that last time I checked the enhanced version of Maniac Mansion being sold on GOG (and Steam?) is cracked. (The original version is not.) In any (?) puzzle that involves a keypad (phone numbers, safe combinations, etc.) the game will accept any number as long as you either get it right, or you get the last digit is wrong. The culprit is a 1 byte change to 43.LFL. The oldest mention I ever found was in a list of game cracks and cheats dated February 1996, but surely it's been around a lot longer than that. I've tried alerting both GOG and Disney to this, but the replies have been less than helpful. Which is maddening, because they obviously still have the original files: They can be extracted from the remastered version of Day of the Tentacle. In the end, I changed ScummVM to detect and undo the crack. But damn it, I shouldn't have to!

When I said "I'd also like to add that 'because they might make decisions that anger Nazis' is a shoddy reason to NOT want a dev company to do a remaster", I was referring to you saying "Backlash, less sales, an army of trolls review bombing and warning people who'd want to buy everywhere, people calling each other racists or nazis in the community just because some people happen to prefer the old voice actor etc. I saw that once, it was really stupid, I'd rather not watch the rerun thank you very much." as a reason for not wanting Skunkape to remaster Tales, in the RTMI thread. I won't say anything else, because elTee has already asked us to move on, but I wanted to clarify that.

The Skunkape remasters are fantastic, have exposed new fans to Sam & Max, have instigated collectible physical releases by Limited Run Games, have come with the explicit approval of Steve Purcell, have sold well enough to guarantee that all three seasons will receive the upgrade, and have garnered excellent reviews on balance. Everything about these remasters has served to renew and steward the brand. But you've managed to develop the intriguing impression that the brand was in fact hurt by it, somehow. One can only pray that Tales of Monkey Island gets "hurt" like that some day.

See, this is why people are calling your argument disingenuous. He didn't call you a Nazi--he said recasting the role is a decision that would upset Nazis, which it undeniably is. He said that saying "But people will review bomb the game, which is bad PR, so better to just not do anything!" isn't a good enough argument against doing it, because review bombing a game over something like this is a favorite tactic of the radical right and we shouldn't worry about what they think. As to what could be an "offensive argument," how about saying that, despite your not being in the US, you have a pretty good handle on what the history of American race relations is "pretty much" like and know the best way to handle them? As to bringing back the radical right by calling people Nazis--if somebody says they became a Nazi because somebody insulted them, buddy, they were just waiting for a good excuse. Incidentally, just for context, the timely gentleman you're responding to is one of the developers behind Ben There, Dan That!, Time, Gentlemen! Please, and Lair of the Clockwork God--i.e. games inspired in large part by his own die-hard LucasArts fandom--so again, you *may* want to consider that your finger isn't as on the pulse of "what the fans want" as you think. EDIT: Apologies to elTee, I posted before seeing your reply. This is the last I'll say on the subject.

Sorry, I've jusst finished replaying MI2, and LeChuck apperently doesn't mention Guybrush's sister in the tunnels. It's my mistake. I must have remembered it wrong.... I wholehartedly appologise for misinformation!

I don't understand how these two sentences can co-exist. Perhaps you just went off half-cocked in your first post, but if so, you can see how someone can misinterpret your intentions.

More pages coming out ! I have 2 versions of the manual and I noticed some differences like more paragraphs and different in-game images.

Haha Will need some review !

The original version of Maniac Mansion included with my GOG purchase does not include an .exe, just the .LFL files. Consequently you can only run it with ScummVM, which I think makes assessing whether it is cracked vs. uncracked unreliable. Complicating matters further is that there are "official cracks" of a number of these games. If memory serves, the version of Maniac Mansion (original graphics) included as an Easter egg in the original release of Day of the Tentacle forces the security door on the second floor landing to always be open. In the Classic Adventures Pack (1992), which includes the first five SCUMM games, the latter three (Indy3, Loom, Monkey1) are all cracked to bypass the copy protection. The remaster of Day of the Tentacle includes the enhanced graphics version of Maniac Mansion, running on ScummVM. Perhaps that version is "officially cracked" and is the same set of files that Lucasfilm went on to use when they offered Maniac Mansion individually on digital storefronts? On the other hand, ScummVM will force open the security door in legitimate versions of the game.

I have yet to find an easy Ron adventure, so I have faith in RTMI that will be satisfactorily difficult.

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.