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During my lunch break i thought i do some quick sketches on how I think Guybrush might look in Return. Sorry they are pretty rough looking.

So I mentioned before that I really wished we could play MI2 with original gfx and remastered music, basically lamenting that it wasn't feasible with the Ultimate Talkie and that I couldn't mess around with the SE's wavebanks in a way that it would work in Classic mode....welll, scratch that, cause I've cracked it! Basically, for those not in the know, the SEs pull music from wavebanks, which are essentially a data structure that stores .wav files and uses a respective cue file to make the music play in game. Both classic mode and SE mode have one (MusicNew.xwb/CuesNew.xsb and MusicOriginal.xwb/CuesOriginal.xsb). I thought that initially you just needed to swap the names around of each file, but that resulted in a totally silent game...boohoo me. I discovered, thanks to Benny's brilliant template for the program responsible for creating wavebanks (XACT), that you could rip the SE music from the game (using Benny's MI Explorer), create a new wavebank, then put the SE music in the ordering that the MusicOriginal.xwb file uses, and with the correct compression and other settings, save a new MusicOriginal.xwb that would overrite the one in the SE and trick it into playing SE music in both modes. Voila! Remastered music over classic graphics. Now in case this has all given you as much of a headache as it has me, I don't mind sharing this new file I've created for those who are curious and don't want to do all this messing. I won't post anything yet in case there are some legal issues with doing so (though I don't believe there is, considering this is pretty much exactly how the CURSED soundtrack of MI1 was put into the SE of that game and you still need to own a copy of the entire MI2:SE for this to work, I'm merely supplying one file) .

Re. a Purcell poster, iirc he was actually offered the job of doing the poster art for COMI and turned it down because he felt it would be awkward/unfair when his art wasn't in the game. So I suspect even if they went to him for ReMI that he would turn it down. Maybe he could do an alternate version for a physical edition, or something...

Darragh O'Farrell was the voice director on Curse and Escape (also The Dig), but not on the Special Editions. David W. Collins is the credited voice director on those (O'Farrell was the head of the sound department by then, from what I've read). In 2009, I listened to a very interesting audio interview discussing the first Special Edition. I don't remember where, and I can't seem to find it now, but I do remember one of the interviewees was O'Farrell. I remember that very specifically, because he mentioned how the recording script they got for The Dig was very disorganized and uncinematic, but that he had listened to the voice acting again years later and thought the result was good and that the actors responded well to each other. Interestingly, they also discussed the Earl Boen situation. Contrary to what Wikipedia might suggest (it says he retired in 2017), it seems Boen was already retired in 2009, and living in Hawaii, so special arrangements had to be made to have him in the games. As I said, this I remember very specifically. I also have a vague recollection (so I wouldn't swear on it; take it with a grain of salt) of them mentioning that, because of this special situation, and even though David W. Collins was the voice director for the rest of the game, it was actually Darragh O'Farrell who directed Boen when he recorded his lines. I wish I could find that interview again, but it seems to have vanished from the internet (it was an audio interview, so that makes it trickier).

Hey everyone, just thought I'd just let you all know that David Fox who worked on many Lucasarts games has just been interviewed on the Conversations of Curtis youtube channel. This channel is hosted by Paul Morgan Stetler the actor who played the lead role in the Sierra game Phantasmagoria 2 and he has interviewed several people that worked at Sierra, so if you guys are also Sierra fans check it out.

Grossman on the subject:

It's time to shake the speculation tree with the list of Ron And Dave Interviews Statements Hyping Up Return's Greatly Enigmatic Story, or RADISHURGES RadishUrges about the relation between ReMI and other games: "One of the things that was very important to me about this was that I did want the game to start right at the end of Monkey Island 2, when you walk into that amusement park. I wanted the game to start there. I don’t want to go into all the details of it, but we do start there, and then it takes lots of weird twists and turns that you would expect from us." (on the chronology) "How would you describe it, Dave? It’s kind of amorphous. It’s undefinable in a lot of ways." - Ron "And possibly not important, ultimately. Trying to assign specific numbers to the stories will become hard at some point." - Dave "We very purposefully don’t do anything to invalidate any of the canon that’s happened in those games. We’re not saying any of those things didn’t happen, we don’t talk down to them at all. We embrace a lot of the things we liked in those games. So we were very, very careful about that." - Ron " but with two caveats. One of which is, it’s actually kind of hard to keep track of everything that’s canon, and some of these other games don’t even agree with each other. So a little bit of paradox is necessary and probably healthy for us as creators and as human beings. And the other caveat is that too much canon can get in the way of the story you’re trying to tell, so we decided that we would adhere to canon unless it was going to get in the way, and we would ignore some minor details if we needed to." - Dave "That’s a tricky thing to discuss. As we announced when we announced the game, this game really does pick up where Monkey Island 2 ended. But how it all weaves into the whole world… that’s something that’s been a lot of fun to figure out, and I don’t think we’re ready to really talk about the details yet. Other than that, it’s kind of what you would expect from us." - Ron "While Return to Monkey Island does start right after Monkey 2 ends, it's not a 'sequel' to Monkey 2 either. It's going to be a fun journey. It will be an e-ticket ride." - Ron RadishUrges about the general story tone/themes of ReMI: "It is a game about pirates." - Dave "But we also were very aware that there are probably way more people out there in the world who’ve never played Monkey Island but have heard about it. We also wanted to do something that was accessible to them so that they could be eased into the world of Monkey Island and not feel like outsiders the moment they started the game. Those are really important story and design aspects of what we tackle." - Ron "I think with games in general—and the Monkey Island series in particular—it has always been a bit autobiographical. We always are injecting a little of ourselves—not necessarily our past, but our present—into these games. And the first one we did as fresh designers starting out on a new career is about Guybrush starting out on a new career. It's been interesting to come back to this now, not with things that have been lingering over the last 30 years but as creators returning to something that we haven't touched in a long time. I think we have brought some of that to the material itself." - Dave -- OK I can't be bothered to pull more quotes

See? I told you he called it Return to Monkey Island because it's an anagram of Turn On To Dinky's E-Realm

Just read the new Ron Gilbert interview. "The ending of Monkey Island 2 had a huge cliffhanger," Gilbert explained. "I left Lucasfilm right after that and never resolved it. Future games did their best but we wanted to tackle it head on. While Return to Monkey Island does start right after Monkey 2 ends, it's not a 'sequel' to Monkey 2 either. It's going to be a fun journey. It will be an e-ticket ride." Glad to hear they won't gloss over the cliffhanger. Sounds like they will fully explain it.

Here's a nine year old article that I keep re-reading. https://www.theverge.com/2013/9/19/4716444/how-atari-box-art-turned-8-bit-games-into-virtual-wonderlands This is about game covers / posters / key art from the Atari era, and how they worked with the imagination of the player to transform the pixelated monochrome oatmeal on the tube into the greatest graphics you've ever seen. Likewise, my favorite Monkey Island cover didn't take that many pointers from the art found in the game. Now, Rex will probably do great cover art, he's done some great stuff for Knights and Bikes already. But when I listen to Rex describing his art for ReMI as purposeful blanks that we're supposed to fill in, I wonder whether the cover art could not attempt the same thing that those Atari covers of old did. Game cover art is not in the best of states. A cover is something to be put on a box, on a poster or a magazine, things we don't really have any longer. Steve Purcell made some great covers for Telltale back in the day, but if I remember correctly, they mostly came out after the respective Season had finished, in time for the physical/retail editions, so these artworks haven't really had the opportunity to inspire the day one most hardcorest fan. When gog.com first released Tales of Monkey Island, they were so desperate for meaningful key art that they stole one of @Laserschwert's fan artworks for the background (I hope I remember that accurately). I'd feel great about getting so much of the old back. Cover art before release day would be incredible. And to do the cover art, get Rex Crowle ... or Steve Purcell ... or, I don't know, there are so many great choices. Peter Chan, or Olly Moss. James Gurney. Juanjo Guarnido. Heck, Wylie Beckert would be an incredible fit.

Thanks so much 😁 i might and try do some more.

It’d be a fun experiment but I think would be jarring for an actual playthrough. As you observe, there are lots of assets we don’t have, and on top of that a fair bit of digital work seems to have been done on the art to finalise it. I’d probably be more interested in seeing some AI try to smooth out all the existing backgrounds using those paintings as a model. Maybe one for @Laserschwert.

I've heard that term fly around a lot about the first SE, but are we sure there were budget constraints? Because if there were, why hire grade A Los Angeles based union VO talent? They could've just gone the Telltale route and mix and match the established LA based talent with unknowns who didn't have to be payed union scale. That would've been an easier and better way to cut costs than on voice direction. I think a Steve Purcell cover art isn't very likely either, but I don't think it has anything to do with the backlash (which is still a small minority of the fan base). It probably has more to do with the reason Bill Tiller did the COMI backgrounds, to fit the game's style. Steve's style doesn't really match with Rex's, so I'm sure Rex will do the cover art (which I'm really curious about btw!)

Wow. That's an interesting tidbit... Well I guess it was the director being inexperienced after all (which again, I'm sure comes down to budget constraints). Love this! Yes, I started thinking about maybe inserting the Peter Chan/Steve Purcell backgrounds from the hi-res scans we have of their original artwork, but... we hardly have any when you look at how many have actually been released, and you wouldn't be able to hear the MT-32 music. So it would be a weird mix. Still I wonder if we could improve the backgrounds with the few images we have, even in the original game. Better compression algorithms these days!

Yep, I know. I actually asked Dom this a billion years ago on Twitter because I wondered how his Curse Guybrush could be so flawless and perfect to me (and the other games, too actually), but his SOMI Guybrush could be off to me. (Don't worry, I asked in a very nice, roundabout way -- I wouldn't want to insult him!) He absolutely confirmed what you suggested: He delivered the lines exactly how he heard them when he played SOMI (and had imagined them for years). So yeah, it seems he gave the performance he wanted and was happy with. Just a different interpretation to what I'd imagined, I guess. Of course, that doesn't mean a director couldn't have nudged him in a slightly different direction towards things he may not have considered if they'd had the time. I still have the non-voiced version of SOMI to keep me happy, either way. And I still love Dom's work elsewhere.

Listening to the video I linked to above, Armato seemed off in the MI1:SE to me. His Curse Guybrush was always chipper and upbeat, which worked wonderfully for me. His energy carries the performance. Guybrush is unflappably optimistic, and story wise SOMI Guybrush should be at his most upbeat. But there was something off in that performance... Like the director didn't tell him to brighten the line readings a bit, or they just went with his first take. Maybe it's my imagining. For example: "I dunno, I kind of like 'Guybrush'". In my head it's the unflappable optimistic Guybrush saying that. Which is the source of the humour of the line for me: Making a very silly name seem reasonable. But in the line reading they went with, Guybrush sounds like he's had his feelings hurt. Not how I imagined it:

Seeing all the various versions reminds me of my earliest Loom experience. I don't know how or why, but when I first played Loom on floppy as part of the "Classic Adventures" collection on my Windows 3.11 PC, it showed up in a bizarre 3-color presentation--yellow, black and white. In some parts of the game this rendered the dialogue totally illegible--I remember not knowing that Stoke had any lines, assuming that for some reason it just kept showing me his glowering face to let me know he was upset with me. Same with Cob. By complete accident I eventually realized that this was apparently happening because I was playing without the disk in the drive--putting it in caused the game to boot in full 16-color mode. None of the other games in that collection played any differently without the disk in the drive, and I've never heard anyone else mention this happening, so I've sometimes wondered over the years if I imagined it--but my memories of it are so clear and specific that I can't quite make myself believe it. (I remember being shocked on seeing Master Goodmold in EGA because I'd assumed he was wearing a full-face black mask with lenses over the eye-holes, and on seeing Fleece because I'd thought she was supposed to be quite elderly.) Clearly the game was never MEANT to be played like that, but I've always wondered what the deal was and if it ever happened to anyone else.

Alright, I bought a paperback version of the book for 13 bucks... we'll see.

I had a few mins so thought I'd have another look. I've found a different impression, this one without the red. some subtle blue around the islands. https://www.hipkiss.org/cgi-bin/zoom.pl?id=653 apparently 1200 dpi is available EDIT scratch that: it's slightly different -it doesn't have the concentric lines around the islands Interestingly though this one is Engraved by Hughes himself, and doesn't have the concentrics, the G.E.Sherman one might be a later re-engraving?

That's a matter of taste. If you have 2.5 hours to spare, you can listen to two guys comparing the EGA and VGA versions here: Me, I'm on "Team EGA". I don't care about the minor palette differences, but I think the DOS version sounds better than the Mac version. The only replacement music I've used is the Seiji Ozawa recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It seemed appropriate, since apparently that was used as tempo reference when adapting the music for the game. Though after all the replaying I had to do to get that, and other things, working properly in ScummVM, it'll probably be a while before I want to play through the game from start to finish again. 😛

Yes that's right. I used a Hue Saturation Lightness (HSL) on the Red and Magenta Channels for that. I suppose what we don't know is who coloured the map for the box & manual art. Was it already on an engraving print or did they add it when producing the packaging. It's also probable new copper plates were engraved over many years of editions of the book, as they wore out.

i got the game

Dude, your passion and enthusiasm is infectious, I love it! 100% agree on the community memories, I joined pretty late around the time Tales was announced so I've only gotten a mere taste of it, but I stuck around in the shadows and with everything that's happening recently it really feels like the world of Mojo has made a comeback, and I'm here for it!

Heh your experimentation just made me realise something. I guess because the classic music is also essentially just using mt32 recordings, there’s no way of experiencing the full iMuse implementation in MI2SE, as there’s no MIDI.

That’s actually VERY interesting, and it explains a lot of things (particularly why Boen’s recordings stand out.) I could never have imagined the SE’s being directed by Darragh O’Farrell, he’s way to good a director for that. Based on his other works, he would’ve never made the mistakes they did. I also remember a throwaway line from Rob Paulsen from one of his Talking Toons podcasts, where he said something like, “if you thought that was bad, try being directed by a LucasArts intern”. I always found it oddly specific, and I think he was referencing the MI:SE recordings. I don’t remember the episode number though, nor who the guest was.