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TEH HUEG NEWS There's a galley, and a ship, and a lamp, and a soup, perhaps even a vichyssoise, and and and ... a Guybrush! Seriously folks, interactive lighting effects in a Monkey Island game, I feel good about this. Might help Mr. Brush to reveal all those pirate symbols on that dozen islands that we're going to visit. Also! Dave tweeted that roughly half are Dominic's lines, and of course hilarity ensued. So, 8,357 dialog lines in CMI, and about 5,000 of those were LeChuck explaining his evil plan. Sounds better and better for Return to Monkey Island.

Loom speedrun 144fps uncapped let’s go

And clean-up of @Jake's scan is coming along nicely as well. Original colors: Approximating the box/manual colors: It's weird how the box "feels" almost monochromatic, when there's actually still a lot of color in there. I guess the colorful artwork and design elements of the box just cause the map to become less prominent. Edit: All done! 600 dpi PNG versions can be downloaded HERE.

Guybrush goes through a fairly significant personality change with each outing. He's a likable combination of nebbish and plucky in MI1, and becomes more of a blowhard and a jerk by the events of MI2. He's more humbled and easygoing in CMI, almost like the trauma of Big Whoop restored some perspective or something. In EMI he reemerges as "first gentleman" Guybrush, a role he seems to take to pretty enthusiastically, even while he spends the whole game being emasculated as a punch line. There's something Spongebob-like about this version of Guybrush, where everybody seems to find him stupid/insufferable and he just barrels forward unfazed. Then the game ends with he and Elaine recognizing that the two of them aren't meant to be the landed gentry, and they return to a more rough-edged piratey life, which is where we find them in TMI. Elaine's trajectory is also interesting because as some have noted, Guybrush's feelings for her in MI1 weren't necessary requited in a totally unambiguous way, and in MI2 she seems over him -- and yet, she has feelings enough for him to sail all the way to Dinky Island to try to bail him out of his latest mess. How we find her in CMI is a bit jarring though it could be read that her thinking Guybrush was dead clarified her feelings for him. There seems to be a bit of lost time between MI2 and CMI in which much can be read.

True, but to me this was Elaine simply looking for a one-night stand, and nothing serious (at that moment at least). I can see their relationship crumble not long after the credits of SoMI, when Guybrush won't shut up about how great he is. It is not a huge stretch to me either, that she would eventually fall in love with that dork. But it bums me out because the last time she saw him he was such a huuuge asshole. Since this is all I know about the two, it makes me yell at the screen "Nooo! You deserve better, Elaine! Find someone else, girl!". To me her love for Guybrush in Curse doesn't feel like lazy writing though, it just sounds like the game skipped a whole chapter where the two (and we) learn why they like like each other. Man, I wish we could learn what really happened after the end of Monkey 2...

Nothing to see here... Just delivering the new logo.

I've never agreed with that view. In Curse, she escapes LeChuck and reroutes the Carnival of the Damned, rescues herself in Escape, and masterminds everything in Tales.

Voice recording is officially complete. https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/1536502578967547906?s=20&t=YALbs_jbJkdWdnBJt5H0Yw

MI2 is safer in that respect. Both the animation where you nail Stan in the coffin and the one where you replace the flags at the spitting contest are run at 30 fps. The only place where the game sets the framerate to unlimited is when the wheel at the alley casino starts spinning. The script then lowers the framerate to make the wheel spin slower until it stops.

This sums my feelings up perfectly. I'm replaying Curse at the moment, and coming from MI2 it just happens way too soon. The relationship hasn't had time to breathe, evolve... I do however stand by Ron's opinion that they never should've gotten married, but the way they did is not lazily written... (although it is considerably hampered by budgetary reasons, that's gotta be the cheapest wedding ever...)

It’s worth noting that MI1 is where we first saw Elaine doting on Guybrush with very little reason to do so. She almost immediately flips from being quite standoffish to wanting his clothes off and inviting him back to her place. The hot/cold nature of the relationship was established in those two games, so it doesn’t seem a crazy stretch to me that she’d be feeling loved up again months/years after losing him to Big Whoop (I forget if the game said how long).

Oh yeah, better look:

For those who missed it:

@s-island is correct - and indeed, in the Loom intro, min-jiffies is set to 0. Which is "as fast as possible".

Interesting. I'd have to dissect the scripts to see if there is any upper limit to the speed in that section or if it's just "as fast as possible." DREAMM does only minimal throttling to ~60 MIPS, which is way more juice than the game actually requires, so if the game runs that scene "as fast as possible" then it will go quite fast.

This! I mean, he literally said that Ron and Dave did something with interactive storytelling that "he couldn't believe possible". It's a very big thing to say from someone who's among the greatest, and for sure RMI doesn't need advertisement at all. He seemed genuinely impressed, and now I'm much more hyped than ever!

Oh, right. It's that scene that I completely missed, like, my first five runs through TSoMI because I always solved the idol task last. 🥇❌ 🥈⚔️ 🥉👩‍🦰

True about Meathook, but the tables were more than turned later. ("Excuse me, Guybrush. Does the word 'keelhaul' mean anything to you?") Re: Elaine's line, I took it more to mean, "That fool's monkeying around with a nuclear weapon!"

Then again, we're supposed to identify the parts that Ron wrote himself when the characters suddenly get all grumpy.

The line read that makes me want to carve my face off is the very beginning of MI2SE:

Well, thank goodness he was Herman all along! Er… I think? (If we just ignore the captain’s log on MI1’s Sea Monkey.)

There's never been an Elaine voice I've truly been happy with. I think Alexandra Boyd does a good job, and I think she suited the version of Elaine in Curse quite well. But the line reans in the first two games just aren't quite how I imagined them in my head. They feel a bit overwrought to me, I always imagined elaine as sorta ... cool? Like, too cool and capable for Guybrush, and I don't think that's come through in any version of Elaine so far. It's not Boyd's fault, she played the version of the character that was in CMI, and she did the best she could with what was in 1 and 2, but ultimately I think it's not the voice of the worldly, capable character (with a slightly soft side) that I want Elaine to be.

If Ron observes canon, that's indeed the central roadblock to bringing his version of Elaine back. He previously commented on how marriage is the central thing he would have never done. That is completely understandable. Elaine likes Guybrush. But Guybrush isn't ready for a relationship, and that was the central takeaway of LeChuck's Revenge. Most of us have probably tried to worm their way back into Elaine's heart back in that infamous party scene. Which was a game of trial and error, one that always ended in failure. Eventually, Guybrush would choose Big Whoop over Elaine for us and in spite of us. It was a line in the sand that we could not cross. Sure, he'd take Elaine AND Big Whoop, but if he only got ONE, well ... sorry Elaine, pirate here. 🏴‍☠️ I'm pretty convinced now that Ron and Dave have cooked up something really special with the story and the segue from MI2:LCR. But I'm not convinced they can fix Elaine as a character.

My prevailing memory of EMI Elaine is that they seemed keen on bringing back a more capable Elaine with a more active role in the story, but mainly that comes over in the dialogue as being really bossy, rather than actually clever and capable. Her main role seems to be telling Guybrush what to do, rather than doing any of it. Mind you I haven't played it lately so this might be me misremembering - but I have watched parts of it recently, and it seems to bear out.

In its defense, I do think there is so much subtle stuff Curse gets right about the tone of the first two games. I never understood the view that it's not funny or it feels tonally too different. The biggest tonal departures were it backing away from some of the mysteriousness of the first two games (which I can sort of understand because MI2 really went whole hog on that, so it felt like a conscious decision to not try to out-weird MI2), the relationship between Guybrush and Elaine, and LeChuck's drift from scary to silly. These aren't insignificant issues, but I really do think that it largely feels like a Monkey Island game in its writing. The most impressive thing about CMI to me was how well it understood the style of humourous dialogue in the first two games. The jokes felt similar to me. Guybrush's attitude in dialogues felt right to me. The use of dialogue choices to tell jokes felt really on point. Something I felt that later games, even Tales got a bit weird about guybrush is that they made him into a bit of a dithering, rambling sort of character in speech. I like the dialogue in Tales but there are some parts, like say in the intro sequence. 'This ship is dry as a bone. And I'm not talking about one of those wet bones either. I'm talking a dry, dry bone.' That's not a Guybrush line to me. He's a bit weedy and inept at times but his jokes are mostly witty and pithy. I think CMI mostly understands this, and I think it's an impressive aspect of the dialogue in CMI that isn't often talked about. '

I don't really remember EMI-Elaine, and I'm pretty okay with ToMI-Elaine (where she enters some kind of berserker mode due to the Pox), but the more I thought about Curse, the ickier it got. So after an unconditional confession of love to the protagonist (that is in no relation to the predecessor's ending), she is turned into a statue. Which is its own damsel trope for a reason. And it's a gold statue, pretty much a trophy, a prize, a treasure that gets stolen and redistributed over the course of the game. Objectification doesn't get more obvious even though the sexualization might be missing for a bit. When the curse is lifted, we get seconds before we see her tied up and gagged. And if you click through all the LeChuck dialog, you can watch her react to LeChuck's confession that he killed her dad. That's literally torture (and not particularly funny). Last scene, wedding dress. I like Curse of Monkey Island, a lot, but to quote somebody who really figured this sh*t out, it’s entirely possible to be critical of some aspects of a piece of media while still finding other parts valuable or enjoyable.

Yeah, and for some reason she's completely enamoured with Guybrush, which doesn't make much sense. She's a capable, no nonsense, tri-island governor and he's a bumbling idiot. I wonder how Ron and Dave are going to reconcile his Elaine from MI2 with the one from CMI? Like someone else said elsewhere, CMI is a fantastic game (which I love), but it's definitely a departure from the first two in several ways.

It's true she's not portrayed as -useless- but I do think they undercook her capabilities especially in Curse. Like you have to be paying attention to notice the rerouting of the rollercoaster, it's a blink-and-you-miss-it throwaway line of dialogue and happens off screen, and so you could be forgiven to think she's fairly damselly in that one. She spends most of the game as an inanimate object and literally -can't- help herself, which arguably isn't the best use of Elaine as a character.

@CalisDraws Yes you better get back to it when you are finished with all that 🙂 Now the backside

There's also this on the manual. Is it EAKEN? Has Bill Eaken colored that map?

At least that's more than in CoMi!

This explains why I remember the scene to be much slower on the original Schneider PC I had played it but then later on faster PCs it played a lot faster than that.

He had said previously that 13,000+ lines had been sent off for mastering, but I don't think he specified that was ALL the dialogue. Must have still been some stuff that needed recording.

This sounds so legit!

Well I’m 0 for 2. Let me try it this way. “I am feeling pretty confident that we will not see a Return to Monkey Island trailer today.”

I hope this topic isn't drowned out by delivery ghost memes. 😅 Of course Noah will exaggerate a bit and who would blame him, but I'm confident that he wouldn't draw this much attention to the beginning part if it was just a bad segue from LeChuck's Revenge to Return to Monkey Island. We actually have a rather clear idea what those first ten minutes are about: We're starting off at the Carnival of the Damned, Ron always wanted to, and we're resolving a situation that's been left unresolved for over 30 years. But they can't just render a solution, they also immediately have to hook us onto a new story arc. The first and the latter are difficult, but both at the same time especially so. I'm so excited to see what they have cooked up!

They're fighting with crates in their hands, one could say they're....boxing

It's intriguing how organically that fellow fits into the EMI background. I'm willing to kick in a few bucks for a remaster with Rex Crowley character designs.

Yeah it’s a pretty superficial joke. 😅 The game takes you through all sorts of sci-fi and supernatural craziness, but fundamentally you are a courier, as opposed to a soldier or plumber.

Soooo, the last few days I've been working on the MI2 cover and I'm happy enough with the current state to share it with you guys: For the inside of the booklet, I actually decided against artwork from the game and for a parchment look. It's just easier to design with all the text - and looks quite nice too, I think. Depending on whether I should make covers for the others as well, I would adopt the parchment background for all of them and maybe add concept sketches from the respective game (like Rum Rogers cottage in this one). And on one page (and the back of the cover) there's still space for nice concept art (like here the big door in LeChuck's fortress). On the inside, I would like to always put the first screen from the game with the "Deep in the Caribbean" lettering. I thought this would be fitting, since the adventure starts when you open soundtrack case. 🥰 To finish this layout, I'll need the exact tracklist you want to put on CD, @Romão (I worked with a tracklist of the double CD from CMI here). Depending on how long the tracklist is, there's still room for a small sketch. I really liked the concept art of LeChuck for this - unfortunately I haven't been able to convert it into a line drawing yet at it is a very different style. That's why I tried to trace it quickly. But since I'm not the world's gifted illustrator, it doesn't look thaaat nice. Maybe someone else here has more talent for it and feels like making one that fits better to the drawing of Rum Roger's Cottage? 😇 This is the original. As for the font of the tracklist inside, I'm not 100% sure yet. I didn't want to take a completely neutral one but rather something pirate-like. So far this is the only one in that direction that I halfway liked. But maybe someone here has a good idea. 🙂 Overall, I'm glad for any feedback and comments on what could be done differently. Either way: It's a lot of work, but a lot of fun too! (My boyfriend already asked how long i want to keep working on this ... "Monkey Island thing". Oh the blasphemy! 😅) Here are the layouts without mockup:

Just made a wrap for Sam & Max based on the map posted by Jake. I’ll make a box of it another day. It’s not how the original sides look but that’s how I like it 😊

Hey all, thanks for giving DREAMM and try and for the great feedback so far! I've just released a new beta (1.0b3). Give it a play and let me know if it fixes any issues you encountered. Changes: • Added Hercules mode support for Maniac/Zak/SoMI. • Add integral scaling (Alt+I), on by default, which only stretches game screens horizontally by integral amounts. • Improved scaling logic to support 3x and 4x scaling in software to reduce jaggies and improve smoothness. • Improve overall smoothness of video updates. • The most recent configuration settings are now used for new games. • Report missing EXE files even when running from the command line. • Fix problems locating munt DLL when running from the frontend. • Fix long hangs/crashes in Sam & Max CD version. • Fix mouse wrapping at far edges of the screen. • Fix Unicode error when asking if you want to remove an entry. New beta here (it's linked above but links are pretty subtle here): https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/

Hey Benjamin, just wanted to say that this project great! What a wonderful idea and and contribution to preservation. I like that it‘s a reminder that, back then, the „experience“ of Monkey Island wasn‘t just playing the game, it was also holding a box, fiddling with the code wheel, and reading a manual.

Still some telltale signs of OCR to report.

I feel like ranking the MI games (or at least, my bottom 3) has to be done with the other Lucasarts adventures to provide greater context on my feelings over their overall quality. Otherwise, you have Tales and Escape right next to each other, and I don't really think they're comparable; to me, Tales is leagues better, but something has to be second last and it's hard for me to seperate the first 3 games. So here goes, my official ranking of all the Lucasarts adventures, plus Tales, plus the Telltale Sam & Max seasons (cause why not?) EDIT: Updated the list to include Broken Age and Thimbleweed Park (again, cause why not) 1. CMI 2. MI2 3. MI1 4. Grim Fandango 5. DOTT 6. Full Throttle 7. TMI 8. Fate of Atlantis 9. Thimbleweed Park 10. Sam & Max: TDP 11. Sam & Max: BTAS 12. Sam & Max HTR 13. Sam & Max STW 14. Broken Age 15. EMI 16. The Dig 17. Last Crusade 18. Maniac Mansion 19. Zak McKracken 20. Loom