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And I hope Return will have more of these little bits of mystery, and not explain or answer them. 😊

My one hope for RtMI is that the game continues to explore the thinning skin of reality that MI2 brought to the fore. MI2 makes it abundantly clear that the anachronisms present throughout both are very much an intentional plot device, thus continuation of said plot thread is essential in my opinion for this game to be a true "3a" rather than just "Ron makes a new MI game". (That isn't to say the latter is bad thing mind you) Of particular interest is combining the Voodoo Lady's comments on Big Whoop with the cut dialogue between Largo and LeChuck. The tunnels being some sort of interdimensional nexus between multiple worlds/realities is also a great in-universe way to explore the above while avoiding stepping on the toes of the other games.

If it’s any consolation we were happy we got to make Guybrush himself be sad his hook was gone.

It was, the girders and music in the Crossroads were both referencing underground tunnels to some degree, that area had a map that was a little bit of a park map. The boat dock is meant to be styled after boarding gates for a ride. It’s hard to hear but there’s also some audio that bleeds through when lechuck is defeated. When designing Guybrush digging out of his grave, my initial desire was for the “dirt and grass” to be cardboard and astroturf, almost like he was buried within a stage set, but we decided to keep it more real. That said, there was a desire with the Crossroads to make it feel like artificial vignettes, and stay ambiguous as to what they are or where you are. I honestly couldn’t tell you what any of it means in a literal symbolic or plot sense but could talk about what it was trying to evoke for me for probably way too long haha Both Monkey Island 1 and 2 have this feeling that if you get too close to the edge of the world, if you dig too deep, it will all start unraveling. It’s a wonderful feeling to have in a world you get to explore so fully, and get to be an active participant in because it’s a video game.

Yep, costal cartilage, same as we do:

The GOG version recently patched in Earl Boen, but it came with a nasty bug that causes the music to not change correctly in different areas on Flotsam. I just use the DVD version and copy it over to my GOG copy. Works a treat.

I'm pretty sure the Secret of Monkey Island is the title of the game, which was chosen because it sounds like a classic pirate adventure. When characters ask about it, it's a bit of fourth wall breaking with the trademark symbol and all, like the characters themselves saw the title screen. The developers were a bunch of irreverent dweeby programmers improvising jokes for eachother. Despite that, they stumbled upon a wonderfully evocative atmosphere, and managed to thread the needle into a sort of sarcastic mystique.

In support of that would be this excerpt from "The Memoirs of Guybrush Threepwood: The Monkey Island Years" Now the Canon status of a POV walkthrough written by 2 third parties, while official, could certainly be dubious but hey, it had to be signed off by someone before it hit the box I imagine 😀

To me, the most interesting thing about "a secret" is this small conversation with the Voodoo Lady in Monkey 1: Ominous, isn't it? This small bit is why I never believed the Secret to be just the lava caves, but instead something that simply won't be fully revealed in this game. But to be fair, she doesn't state that she is talking about the "Secret". It could be something completely different. But it's likely.

And will only continue as we get older and more forgetful. LucasArts: The gift that keeps on giving!

I found the video in question.

You should! With Marius! On stream!... (if you want to)

Okay, I'll admit it. I only pretended to misremember that interview as an intricate way of prompting Jake to share more behind-the-scenes stories.

This is just my recollection and may be off in some way, but: Dave worked on Tales but it was in a studio director role. So he was in story and design meetings but to my memory wasn’t a main writer on any chapter of the game, which is different from his role on Monkey 1, 2, or Return. As a design and writing lead at Telltale, Dave’s superpower was how good he was at quietly allowing people to do their own ideas and give them space, while also helping them push things into being the best version of those ideas. Dave was rarely a leader who would say “no, you should use my idea instead,” which is definitely one way you can run a team. So if anything, I’d say a perception of Dave being less involved is more, him being interested in making sure the people who were in the lead writer and designer seats on the episodes themselves were getting opportunities to talk about their work. With Return, it’s back to a tiny writers-designers room and he’s one of the only people in the seat, so it makes sense he’d be the one doing the talking. I’m very excited for that on Return - Dave was always great as a lead at Telltale, but it meant he wasn’t able to be in the nuts and bolts of the game as much as he is now.

Yeah, I took notice of that during my recent replay. Too: "Pirate Lingo! It's how everybody talked back then. Come on Guybrush, play along." It struck me as weirdly eerie as opposed to being a throwaway joke. It certainly foreshadows the theme park, and how does he know Guybrush's name? None of which has to have anything to do with the secret, of course, but it's not outside the realm of possibility either.

Yeah exactly as I remembered, thanks @Remi for diving even deeper. The "secret" is meant to be existing within the game world. Whether or not Ron & co. ever decided what it is, that's another matter obviously.

The secret is that Monkey Kombat was planned from the first game! 😱

Sorry, I can see how that might’ve come off a bit rude. What I tried to say is that I loved the change and after playing I wished it was permanent.

I think Tales ep 5 had a great take on the concept of Secrets in the theives den. If we had opened it, it's power as a secret would be null and void. I know a lot of people are hoping for tied up loose ends and I absolutely would love some pressing questions answered finally but I do hope that they don't tie a bow on it completely so to speak. I hope to be left with new questions to chat about for the next 30 years too with the occasional new installment along the way bringing this light back into our existence from time to time. What I'm saying is if they actually ended it, and there was never going to be another monkey island... I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself. I don't mean that I have nothing else, I have an amazing wife, 5 awesome kids and other things I'm a fan of as well... There just aren't a whole lot of things that engage me to this level where I want to constantly talk about, create content of and dissect evey little bit of knowledge available. Monkey Island does though and has repeatedly over and over again with every new release and the time in between. I don't believe it ever has to "end" but that it should absolutely always be handled by those with love and respect for the material. This is part of why I've always been proud to be part of a community who spawned so many people that went on to work on these games and others in series we love etc. To me at least it felt like the series was in good hands because you knew what these characters/stories mean to these people. I do however trust in Ron, should he choose to close the box on MI with this tale then so be it, im sure however he would do it will leave us talking about it for years to come either way. He is sorta really good at that 😉

Yeah, I guess that's a tough balance to strike, isn't it? You don't want to do anything that spoils that lovely uncanny area that a lot of MI lives in, but you also don't want to pretend like it's not there. I think CMI's main flaw was that it didn't get close enough, it kept all that stuff way at arm's length and just wanted to tell a pirate adventure while tossing in a few anachronisms. That just about worked for me, and I love the game on its own terms but it felt 'safe'. I think EMI's main flaw is that it mistook that atmosphere for jokes and references, and opportunities for lore expansion, so instead of it being a pirate adventure with this kind of weird undercurrent of Something Else, it turned into a parody - which for me didn't work. Monkey Island isn't parody, it's more... comic pastiche. Tales largely succeeded in walking a line, I think.

I just played through the EGA version -- the secret is definitely mentioned numerous times by different characters.

I'm not one that wants to absolutely believe there IS a secret, but it seems quite the stretch for a "What IS..." question. Especially as "IS" is all caps in-game. There might be no secret, but it seems to me like that question refers to a specific unknown fact. Doesn't mean they thought of a real secret, just something that exists in-game and even the authors might not care less about since they (possibly) never established what it is.

I can't speak for the other games, but on Tales what was fun was knowing that because of the end of Monkey 2, there was always this feeling of some crackling unknowability that existed at the edge of the game's universe, and that it was there to play with when working on the game, and sort of dare yourself to get up close to. Sometimes I think Tales got too close and sometimes I think it didn't get close enough. That could just as easily be talking about "how do you get to Monkey Island and what will I find once you get there?"

Yeah, it feels to me like the 'secret' of Monkey island was just a generic adventure title meant to refer to how it's difficult to get to, the monkey head portal etc. And then in the second one whenever anyone asks what is the secret of monkey island, that's just a running joke about how the title is no longer really relevant. But that got picked up on by fans (and subsequent games, but to what extent they're in on the joke I'm not sure) as a legit mystery.

Not sure whose balls you're talking about here but we weren't allowed to. In regards to the post-credits scene in Tales, I feel like the team was okay with it even if we never got to do a followup because while it can imply some huge story if people wanted to use it, it could also be just another turn of the crank, the same as the end of Curse and Escape, eg LeChuck buried under a mountain of ice (and then somehow he returns because he always does). If a future game doesn't pick up that thread, I don't think it's too harmful to leave behind "Morgan is now the voodoo lady's lackey, off on business that may never cross paths with our heroes again." That's not to say folks shouldn't feel burned or annoyed by that scene, but I think we had hoped it was open enough to not be damaging if it was never picked up again* *I do hope someone picks it up again of course, that would rule.

Yeah I agree with that. If Monkey Island is a mystery box then I'm okay with that, but a good mystery box will provide just enough answers to give some closure/satisfaction, while introducing enough new stuff to keep things mysterious. If we just keep piling mysteries on top of the existing mysteries, they comes a point where people will just lose interest because they stop believing there's an answer to be found. That said, I'm fine with ambiguity and it never being truly explained if what's going on is this or that. I think a lot of Monkey Island plays with ambiguity. I just don't want that to be in the form of 'more weird stuff that does nothing to address the old weird stuff'

And so the cycle of making the same discoveries and getting excited about them continues. Now, wait until I tell you guys about the deleted boot image I found on the floppy disks.

I'd be okay with some things not being resolved as I know that's just Ron's way, but since we're getting a whole new game that's a direct sequel to MI2, I'd hope for clarifications on at least some of the plot threads raised near the end of that game (i.e. Guybrush/LeChuck being brothers, what's real and what isn't, etc. And hell, the secret itself has been a secret for long enough!)

Yeah, having the beginning section explaining how Guybrush got out of the amusement park (weather it be the first half, third, or even prologue) followed by a screen stating "31 years later" or whatever, I think would be the neatest way to sidestep the other games while still allowing them to be part of the overall canon. Something that links the amusement park section with the rest of the post-Tales section of the game would be a nice way of making it feel like a complete story too (thinking along the lines of the opening scenes of Iron Man 3 or Toy Story 4, which have events that set up the rest of the movie with those scenes taking place before some of the movies that preceded them.)

Er this demo functionality isn't new is it? I recorded a video of it many years ago and it wasn't new then either. Unless I'm missing something?

The reason I like this one so much, is that it neatly explains a lot of things that have been said and shown already: It explains how the other games can be 'canon' without being particularly beholden to them. It gives them more freedom than anything It makes a lot of sense next to this bit from Ars Technica: The idea just makes the title 'Return to Monkey Island' feel even better Sure it might be that we haven't seen any characters yet because they want to reveal that later... but it COULD be that they don't want to show us that yet because they've visibly aged and they're not ready to reveal that yet.

I think this line of thought is going to be easier to follow once we understand exactly what ReMI is. So far we know: It begins where MI2 left off But the sequels are still 'canon' and Murray is in it It's been hinted that while it's at its core a pirate adventure, they'll be going some weird places with it just like they did in MI2. This could mean a whole lot of things: It could mean that everything in ReMI takes place before CMI and they just kinda backfill an explanation for why Murray is there. (I doubt this idea, but mainly because it doesn't 'feel' right to me) It could mean that it starts at the end of MI2 but then there's a lengthy time skip to after all the other games, and we largely ignore them and tell a new story with a slightly older guybrush (this is my favourite pet theory at the moment) It could mean that the game itself is going to, by the end, play with the idea of what's real and not real in the world of Monkey Island, and our current ideas of what happens in what order become fuzzier as a result It could mean that the game just has time travel in it now It could mean there's some sort of multiverse theory of Monkey Island It could mean something completely different that nobody has thought of But until we know what it means, I think it's very hard to speculate how the story of Tales fits into the overall puzzle.

The game's ending tried to parody the first movie's ending ... but not with the same "open ending" vibe. With a gazillion of alternate Martys (Marties?) flying around time and space, there's no coherent story any more – least of all one so tightly written as the Back to the Future movies. Maybe Telltale killed off any chance of a sequel with that ending. The original BTTF movie, on the other hand, survived the rocky segue from throwaway "gag" ending to meticulously planned sequel. And to make that happen, they only had to deposit a sleeping Jennifer in a dark alley. Twice. I loved Morgan LeFlay, and I loved Winslow, I was totally on board with the Merpeople and the darker turn these last two episodes. I'm really not sure if a sequel can still happen, but I'd be up for it, definitely.

Back to the Future begs to differ.

I really like Tales of Monkey Island. My big issue with it though was the cliffhanger ending with the voodoo lady. It just cheapens Tales and makes it feel unfinished. Don't do a cliffhanger unless you have a confirmed sequel on the way. Maybe they were trying to create a cliffhanger like mi2 or maybe it was attempt to force lucasarts to let them do a sequel.

So the IGN interview just announced that all MI games would be considered canon for ReMI, and I just wanted to be the first to ask: Does that put the literal coffin nail in Stan's return? I recently checked on how many anticipation threads we had on the Telltale forums before Tales (pre-release). And it was like 400 threads! Granted, there was that persistent Italian guy who told us that this game couldn't be Monkey Island 5 because his fan game was Monkey Island 5 already. But a whole lot was good fun, and I'm missing it dearly now that my anticipation is ramping up for ReMI in much the same way. All the pictures are gone from Majus' pirate faces contest though. Including mine. 🥺 My recent run through the game was killed in episode 4. The game crashes - always - upon entering the jungle with the new, "foldable" map variant. I installed the GOG version too. I do own the Telltale DVD version as well ... might be worth a try. Quite right. Back when Ron left Double Fine, I thought of that as a natural move for him. At DF, Tim was literally the boss of Ron and that just didn't feel right. Afterwards, Double Fine owned the rights to The Cave, which obviously was all right with Ron until a Mega-Corporation bought Double Fine. Tim Schafer's lack of involvement in ReMI can be seen as a necessary act of emancipation from Ron's side without any form of animosity involved.

I should replay ToMI again. I remember not being impressed by the first episode, but warming up to the rest pretty fast. I liked the story and the character driven plot, I liked hook Guybrush (and in the end wishing they had the balls to make it permanent), I liked the new characters and bad guys too. I’ve only played it once, so I should definitely give it another go. I stranded at CMI with my playthroughs though, so I’ve still got some ground to cover.

Telltale management was extremely against patching unless absolutely necessary because it cost QA and producer time. It was a bummer.

Unfortunately you can't really make it into a 2D game and keep the same mechanics. They've really tried to focus hard on things that work in the 3D space, so I can't see how it could work in 2D. Sorry! (All this is revealed in the seriously late Mojo review.)

I just tested it in the MI2 DOS floppy release. Apparently Shift+F9 lets you record demo files (though you'd have to include the .rec file extension in the names you give them, like the "demo.rec" file used in the MI2 rolling demo), but Shift+10 doesn't allow playback. Still, it's pretty surprising that functionality was left in at all.

Really? From what I remember, Tales was generally really liked by the community at the time. Maybe that's changed over the years but I still look back on it fondly. Personally, I think it started off weaker from a game/puzzles/humour perspective but got much better as it progressed, with Episode 3 really being the turning point. Even though I felt the actual maguffin of "La Esponja Grande" itself was not particularly strong (though are we really going to say that "Big Whoop" or "The Ultimate Insult" were much better in comparison? ) and some of the episodic style pacing/bosses not being the best, I did feel that the plot in terms of the characters' journeys was the strongest in all of the games. LeChuck turning human, Guybrush being killed and becoming a ghost/zombie, Elaine/Guybrush's love being challenged, the Voodoo Lady's true intentions being questioned... I don't think any of the other games tested the characters and their relationships as much as Tales did. Every character felt less black and white than before, and that's something that Telltale in general did really well back in the day.

Yeah I think TMI in aggregate felt of the proper scope. The budget constraints were more evident at the episode level, where there was clearly an exact number of environments that could be afforded. But so it goes. A proper remaster where Land's score gets the live instrument treatment and some tertiary characters actually get designs could be revelatory. As with Sam & Max, the bones are good, and an upgraded audio/visual presentation could show off the quality that was already there in a potentially dramatic way.

That's true. He actually mentioned that in the recent Adventure Gamers interview: Basically, I was referring to the fact that a lot of people kind of seem to think that the two original games were single-handedly developed by Ron Gilbert, and that every puzzle and every single line of dialogue was his creation. To the point that the fact that one of the other original writers/designers was involved in the development of Tales (in whatever capacity) was not perceived as particularly noteworthy. Or at least that was my impression. As for my other point, I was thinking of this Eurogamer interview from 2009: But actually, after skimming through it again, it does look as if I might have filled the blanks a bit too creatively. As in Guybrush-telling-the-story-of-how-he-defeated-LeChuck creatively. Feel free to completely disregard that.

While Dave was involved with TMI, it's not totally clear to what degree. After the first Sam & Max season he assumed the role of Design Director at Telltale, which seems to have been an overseeing role on all of the studio's projects. Judging by the credits, the project-level creative leads on TMI were Mike Stemmle and Mark Darin, while each episode had one or two primary directors and writers. While I am sure Dave had a non-trivial role in shaping TMI, he didn't assume any of those key titles on that project, so it's hard to gauge his direct contribution.

What an embarassing confession that Mixnmojo isn't your home page.

While we're all relying on the perpetually incoming Mojo review to know if the game itself is any good, it's tempting to put this big box on the shelf on the basis of Purcell's cover art alone.

The Seacrest of Monkey Island.

'The Monkey Island'

Good to see you FINALLY join, @Vainamoinen... only took you like 20 years.

The most likely reason for Tim's lack of involvement is: a) There's probably some contractual weirdness about him working outside of Microsoft, now. b) He was elbow deep in Psychonauts 2 at the time the project came about, so there's no way he could have committed to it, even if he'd been able to solve a) I don't think any speculation beyond that is gonna be particularly fruitful.