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Hi all, if you've seen my posts in the Return to Monkey Island topic, you'll know that I've managed to figure out a possible way to replace the MT32 recordings of MI2SE with the remastered tracks in order to play them in classic mode. @Scummbuddy recommended that I create a new topic for some discussion on this. UPDATE: I've fixed all the issues that were listed below with a lot of editing and adding loop markers into the encoding of each file manually. While I'm at it I figured I'd build an SFXOriginal.xwb with the remastered sound effects too, so when that's done I'll upload everything to my Google Drive and post a link. Here is my own modified version of @Bennyboy's XACT template for repacking the music. It already has the newly built MusicOriginal.xwb file that you need to replace the one in the game's datafiles. I would love it if people could test it out because I have run into some issues and was hoping that others on this forum who are a bit more technically minded might be able to figure out how to fix them: So far, the tracks and transitions seem to play in the right locations, but there are a number of locations where the track doesn't loop to the right spot: Island hopping screen on Dread's ship Stan's Rapp Scallion To make it easier for everyone I've also attached a save file where you can test those spots I mentioned above. savegame.001

Here's something that many of you may not have realised: Monkey Island has always been explicitly set in a multiverse. 'Prime' Guybrush often meets and interacts with alternate universe versions of himself. Here are a just a few instances:

After a quick search about custom floaty pens, I'm putting the idea of designing our own to rest, as they usually require a minimum order of a couple 100 pieces. Otherwise the MI2 idea would have been great!

Sell it on ebay for 3 times the price, presumably.

That was always the case with Monkey Island instalments (except, notably, LeChuck's Revenge). When Telltale's Tales chopped off Guybrush's [spoiler/not his dick], that could have been a lasting change that future designers would have to cope with, but Threepwood magically got his thingie back by the very end of the last episode. I kind of wonder whether Ron and Dave would even want to keep their lasting footsteps on the canon to be this light. It's possibly exactly the opposite logic: We respected everyone else's work as canon, now respect ours. We don't know yet what central themes the story will revolve around (we just know that one of its symbols/falcons is keys 🔑 ). But LeChuck's Revenge seems to heavily tease that Ron would want to get into Guybrush's family matters. And that would indeed create a lot of canon for future writers that's not easily ignored. "Alternate universe" as a playground to do anything with the series. I must say, I'd rather have Ron be the one to write the non-alternate canon. 😄 There are a whole lot of other options here though. Ron has said that ReMI is "neither MI3 nor MI6", which could of course mean anything. The following is not a theory that I find likely, but one I think could work: Return to Monkey Island has a framing story set after Tales (possibly even at the end of Threepwood's life / when he's an old man). From that starting point, we would see a series of flashbacks as Guybrush remembers scenes from his life, the first would bring us right back to the carnival. The red thread of the story would be one of Guybrush's lifelong struggles (e. g. his lust for piracy, his fleeting love for Elaine, the search for his lost parents, the eternal battle versus LeChuck, his struggle with cleptomania ... who knows) . The flashbacks/mementos themselves could be set between any of the MI parts and would serve as individual chapters tied together by cutscenes from the framing story. In that way, without any kind of time travel or alternate universe stuff involved, we could reintroduce any character from the series without violating the canon. Also, it would give Rex the opportunity to represent Guybrush in a whole lot of different ways throughout, including physique, beard growth, hairdo, and clothing.

Fun fact: A design for a Monkey Island 2 floaty pen had also been pitched, as Tim bitterly recalled on the product page for the Double Fine floaty pen that was offered way back in 2005 when the company store originally launched. There was an accompanying Double Fine Action News post that elaborated on the design: it was going to be Guybrush in the coffin paddling to the International House of Mojo.

I absolutely love this idea! Every chapter focusing on a different installment sounds like such a lovely way to celebrate the series as a whole. That would really make it the Monkey Island game to end all Monkey Island games. Heck, there's opportunity to fill in some gaps between EMI and Tales if you really wanted to. We never did find out how LeChuck got his ego back after it was destroyed by the Ultimate Insult. Then again, it's probably best left alone, like any acknowledgement of Herman being Elaine's Grandfather. Oh, dear, sweet, flawed Escape from Monkey Island, I do love you...but story-wise, you drank too much GrogXD.

Memoirs of Monkey Island 😍

It's an interesting thought. If it were to be something like that, then I think what it would possibly be like is that each part would be a moment in his life, at various ages, but it being unclear how they relate to each other until something towards the end links together all the moments in his life, and guides them towards a big denouement that makes sense of them, probably by returning to Monkey Island. But if I were Ron and Dave and going to make a story like that then I would have called it: The Memoirs of Guybrush Threepwood: The Monkey Island Years.

LucasArts Extended Universe confirmed!

They're really dancing around the chronology and how the other games fit. I wanna know which games I need to count in my marathon 😆

Best way to fuzzy up the timeline would be to make Guybrush into a folk legend like Baron Munchausen.

Oh, I think the stuff they introduce in ReMI could have HUGE 'lore' implications. I am expecting my understanding of what the world of MI is to at least be tested, if not completely upturned, based on the stuff they've hinted at. But I think they're going to do it in such a way that the next people who make a MI game are going to feel less beholden to a particular chronology. I think the most interesting quote in the whole thing is "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 Not to pick it apart too much, but let's pick it apart too much: How would you describe it, Dave? = Help me out, here, Dave. We're stepping into territory we can't easily talk about without spoiling It’s kind of amorphous. It’s undefinable in a lot of ways. So they're saying the game very definitely starts out at the end of MI2, but nevertheless its timeline is 'amorphous' and 'undefinable'. Not just undefined, mind, but undefinable. Not just vague, but amorphous. And yet they keep on saying that the other games are canon and they were very careful about respecting that, as much as possible. And possibly not important, ultimately. This could be Dave saying 'I wouldn't worry about it too much' but it could also be saying that the concept of the games having a specific, infallible chronology becomes unimportant, because of where they take the plot. Trying to assign specific numbers to the stories will become hard at some point. This is kind of a weird addendum to this. They're trying to say that ReMI doesn't fit neatly between MI2 and 3 without saying it outright, but to me this is also implyng that what they are doing also throws the whole chronology of MI as a whole into question. He doesn't say 'trying to assign a specific number to this story' but 'specific numbers to the stories' - he could be talking just about any future games, but he could be talking about the existing ones too. I think some people would be really uncomfortable with the idea of Monkey Island's whole timeline becoming fuzzy and confused, but depending on what their angle is, and how they approach it, I think it could be really cool and add to the mystery.

Heh! I don't get the sense from any of this that they want to directly address any of the plot points from CMI/EMI/Tales ... maybe some characters/references but I feel more like they want people to stop worrying about what interpretation of events is correct or incorrect. I joked about Spider Man, but that's kind of what that series did, right? I don't think what MI is going to do is going to be QUITE like that, because I think there's other stuff that is mysterious about the MIverse (and also I just think like others that they're not going to fully explain anything). I don't think it's going to be as 'simple' as 'there are lots of alternate MI universes' - but I think the implications might be similar. And from the other stuff they talk about, I believe that the intro part of the game is going to touch on these themes, a bit, and then for the majority of the game we're going to get a normal, piratey adventure in the vein of the first 3 games and Tales (I don't think EMI really gives us that), and then at the end it's going to get weird, and the MI2 ending is going to be somewhat (but not fully) addressed. Ultimately I think they're going to end it in a place which gives whoever works on MI next a lot of freedom.

If they want, they have a plot point right in front of them that's primed for exploring: we already know there are 2 Guybrush Threepwoods thanks to Tales and Kathryn Krebbs wanting revenge on the wrong one, with Q as their middle name. I saw a theory somewhere that suggested maybe a voodoo spell inside a Hall or Mirrors at the carnival causes one of the reflections to become real and that one goes off to be in Curse/Escape/Tales while the OG Guybrush stayed behind and had a very different life, perhaps one that involved framing Krebbs for mopery on Wirthling Shores and embarassing her husband in a creepy karaoke contest

Nice reference there. Weren’t there three Zelda timelines? Too bad the Ocarina of Time split was an afterthought of Nintendo trying to glue together a hurdle of games with mostly their own stories. I don’t think any sane story teller would tell a story that way. Anyway, if this is the case, I’d rather have them keep the timeline a secret… of Monkey Island… (sorry, had to make that pun.) Let the players speculate about it for years to come.

What if Monkey Island 2 is like the 'Ocarina of Time' of the series. The carnival is all about time travelling. Maybe a certain event of you as a 'kid' causes a time split. The good ending and a bad ending? Maybe Curse of Monkey Island is the good ending where you get married. I dunno just random thoughts. Ocarina has a time split. One leads to Majora's Mask, the other to a Windwaker timeline i believe. That way everything is canon but doesn't effect anything.

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

It impressed me somewhat, because in the past Ron Gilbert said that the ending of MI2 wasn’t meant to be a cliffhanger. He wrote it in the live chat of a MI2 SE stream, on May 4th, 2013: (Source: https://pastebin.com/XrL69Psy).

Correct, as seen here: https://web.archive.org/web/20130827001455/https://www.gog.com/game/tales_of_monkey_island

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.

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.

There is one person and one person alone who’s got the right mind for this, and he’s the one writing them.