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Hoping that this can count as a detail, a very hidden one: COMI has a hidden old-style main menu in the code (I had to patch the executable to make it work). I guess that the kinda out of place palette for the "Are you sure you want to overwrite this game?" banner makes sense now

One of my pandemic efforts. I had a really good surge of creative energy back in 2020. But, alas, didn't finish much. Back when I showed it around, one of the most common comments was "That's not Guybrush Threepwood!". I mean, I can't taylor the outcome that much to what's in my brain, but this one is coming pretty close to how I imagined high res Guybrush in the original The Secret of Monkey Island. Hope you guys like it ... ... because I have tons of that stuff back from 2020, especially Swordmaster sketches ... I have so, so many Swordmaster sketches ...

Saw this at the store today and couldn’t help but think of this thread 😅

The ever growing rap sheet is one of my favorite Monkey Island 2 jokes. The following crimes are always listed: the murder of G.P. LeChuck the use of witchcraft on the person of Largo LaGrande the thievery of clothing and medically prescribed hair supplements for such witchcraft graverobbing trespassing larceny without a permit and releasing a dangerous reptile in a populated area The rest of the crimes are conditional, but I'm not sure exactly what all of them correspond to. Some are mutually exclusive. disturbing the peace illegal gambling on a sporting event use of falsified identification for the purchase of alcohol exceeding allowable FDA limit for rodent parts in vichyssoise premature entombment of a non-dead individual reckless tampering with city-maintained plumbing without prior acquisition of an environmental impact report transportation of animals not in a mental state to give consent vandalizing a historical miniature reckless use of gardening tools impersonating a woman in order to evade prosecution unauthorized exiting from a penal institution two counts of unauthorized exiting from a penal institution unauthorized exiting from a penal institution impersonating a federal mail boat reanimating dead persons within city limits possession of library books not specifically checked out to oneself mixing drinks without a liquor license Also wanted for questioning regarding the disappearance of prescription eyewear I hope I didn't miss any.

In the unpopular opinions thread there was recently talk about the original vs the SE logos, and it had me start digging up logos from the Pirates of the Carribbean rides, and that took me down a number of rabbit holes until I ended up looking at posters for an old adventure movie (maybe a serial?) called “The Secret of Treasure Island.” I didn’t really know where to post it so I am making a new thread for cultural ephemera that is Monkey Island-ish. Note I’m not claiming these are things that are a confirmed direct influence on the game. Unless cited by a creator, that is impossible to assume, but I think it’s fun to find things that have been in the air, in the cultural consciousness, as predecessors operating in the same space, or things that in retrospect just “feel Monkey Island-ish.” First up are just a few of the logos used for the Pirates of the Carribbean rides (which are fun for how varied they are, and how they all seem “piratey” in different ways) and a couple posters and title cards for “The Secret of Treasure Island,” which while more crude than Monkey Island, are definitely evocative of the cover paintings for the first two games.

I think the logo getting more explicitly piratey is a net negative. It makes the possibility space imagined when you look at the logo much smaller. The original is just so crisply designed. It implies a grand scale adventure, and a certain level of attention to detail, and even creative restraint, that you don’t often see in a logo design. When it’s paired with the cover art on the box, it makes the whole thing seem potentially larger than what is depicted. The SE logo knows exactly what it is - a slightly cartooney pirate story - and is worse off for it. I don’t think the On Stranger Tides comparison is apt. Even though it, like the SE logo, has some tattered edges, the Tides logo is still crisp and carries menace. The SE logo is using those visual wear “pirate” signifiers to be playful and disarming, to evoke expressive brushstrokes, etc. Not really the same to my eye.

It’s rough The later telltale games do away with pretending to be point and click at all, and the earlier telltale games ARE point and click, but this middle ground of fake-direct-control-but-in-a-point-and-click-world is so rough to go back to. Unfortunately it includes Tales of MI and Sam & Max Season 3, two of my favorite Telltale games. I think it’s inaccurate to call this a “telltale thing,” as it only truly happens in Tales of Monkey Island and was 100% due to size limitations of WiiWare games. In the Telltale Sam & Max games for example, the characters say what you pick with very few shortcuts taken (unless it’s a joke that your choice is subverted). Even the later Tales of MI chapters drop this, because it turned out to not save much space but created a notably bad experience. Telltale had plenty of cut corners but this wasn’t actually regularly one of them, it just really sticks out when it occurs, especially in Tales of MI chapter 1. I have no memory of it ending in a weird place, but agree it’s a sad arrangement. I think the music in Tales is under-appreciated because the actual final production of it is done so cheaply, but much of the composition and style of it is really good. The main theme, not as much. I replayed all of Tales last month and had the same reaction. Even when working on it I felt like the puzzles were a little lightweight but replaying it, they’re way more legit than I remember. The presence of jungle mazes is never ever my favorite, but maybe with those aside, I think time has been kind to Tales’ difficulty level. The reuse will always drive me crazy. It’s a thing that Telltale was known for (and was done because new character rigs and acting animation suites are actually very expensive to produce) but in Tales it went into absolute overdrive. The combination of the cast size needed for just the main characters, plus the Wii’s 40 megabyte limit for downloadable games, made it nasty. As you said Winslow is one of the more egregious ones. I don’t think it was known that he’d be a recurring character until the season was underway (but even if it was know, I don’t think he would have got a new model because we were out of both budget and disk space). Same, I was surprised on replay to be reminded of how much there was. Probably the most music interactivity in any Telltale game? I know the team worked hard to do it. There’s no formal interactive music tools in Telltale’s pipeline, or weren’t until post 2013 when I left, so instead gameplay programmers had to write their own music managers in LUA. That code got pretty advanced in Tales and Sam & Max S3, but was mostly gone by The Walking Dead, when music had devolved back down to largely being single loops or fire-and-forget stingers. I like that flotsam town’s music changes as you walk around, and then changes again when the pox blows in.

It was such a sadness, being told we had to use the new logo for Tales. I was glad to see Return… return to the original.

Heh...

Damn, I was going to find a picture of terrible 90s curtains hair but stumbled upon Guybrush Threepwood:

I mean my unpopular opinion is that I don't feel strongly about it and I find it a bit odd that people have such a strong reaction to it. Which I realise is subjective but does at least feel borne out by the two replies. People let most of the OTHER unpopular opinions stand😉

Also, I don't know where to put this so it'll go here. Wasn't expecting to encounter this reference in FFXIV today:

Most of the changes are, IMO, pretty minor. The details of many scenes have changed over what is now decades of revision, but the mood of the ride is fundamentally unchanged. Some recent updates have actually removed some of the movie content and reinstated some of the original audio, and even added some tiny setpiece details in line with the original 60s character designs and style: The dark hallway with the voice saying “dead men tell no tales” and audio of a scared pirate telling you you’ve seen too much and are cursed, was for a while replaced with a video projection of Davy Jones or Blackbeard, but those projector scenes have been removed, the original audio reinstated, and a small vignette added of a skeleton pirate turning into a real pirate as you pass in the boat, and it’s a wonderfully simple trick done with a mirror split down the middle: It directly precedes the reveal of the huge ship vs fort setpiece, a tiny transition moment as you leave the skeleton vignettes for the “real world.” With Pirates I think it’s easy to obsess over the details, and I understand when people have a favorite moment removed or swapped out for something else, but I think the overall tone of the ride is currently in really good shape.

The decisions that they make about their IP can be maddening. A few stories I could tell that I can't share online. But it makes zero sense sometimes.

This is my favourite 😅

I'm so glad I got to go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride many times before it was movie-ified.

A few more pieces of Disneyland art: the map to Tom Sawyer’s Island, which has always been very evocative of the early Monkey Island maps (especially Monkey 2’s maps) and was @Trapezzoid recently re-shared in the Return thread. And some promotional imagery for the Swiss Family Treehouse attraction at Disneyland, which is very directly alluded to as a location on Booty Island in 2. Also, more generally, if you like the cartooney-with-a-very-slight-edge-of-menace vibe of Monkey Island’s pirates, it’s always worth looking through the galleries of original concept art for the Pirates of the Carribbean ride, all of which is excellent. Here are a couple: I know there is plenty outside Disney parks, but it’s something I’m familiar with!

The updated logo looks like the title font on the books I read to my one-year-old.

That’s awesome! Looks great.

Yea, I'm currently living in Osaka

I hope for July, because I'm DYING for it, but really, it depends on when the game is out. If say, the game doesn't release until the end of the year, does it make much sense to release another trailer then, only for the hype to have died down 5 months later? July would make sense if the game was out in late July/August/September. I can see it being out by then, but then I also thought it would be out before Summer Game Fest, so what do I know? We know that there's a rumoured Nintendo Direct at the end of this month, but I don't dare to hope for a trailer there, we all remember the Devolver showcase rumours. Other places it could turn up are Gamescom in August (with a huge German audience) or PAX West in September. Personally, I'm starting to think that it won't be shown at an event, but instead just hit the internet with nothing to compete with it. Disney likes to make sure that nothing else takes the attention away from their product, so it would make sense from a marketing standpoint to make sure it's the only game in town, so to speak. Whenever the trailer comes, I hope there is a release date attached that is not far off from it. A month tops.

Oh wow are you living in Japan, super jelous 😂 Visited there lots, amazing place.

Oh man the WANTED list is so good. Lots of material for fun mental images. I guess they reported it but didn't bother to free Stan 😄 Man, that gardener really can't stand Guybrush. I love the mental imagine of Wally calling the police, and then giving a report to an officer in his home. Also that Wally cleary sees Guybrush as a suspect. The responses in this thread are amazing btw. 🥰

As an aside, I guess the developers at Adventure Soft liked the rap sheet joke as well, because The Feeble Files had it too. With an even longer list of possible crimes: Piloting a Company spacecraft through an asteroid field. Damaging a Company spacecraft by colliding with unknown object. Piloting a damaged Company spacecraft. Failing to report damage to a Company spacecraft. Destruction of Company facility: Ministry of Galactic Uncertainty, Crop Circle Division. Unnecessary flamboyance when starting a Space Bike. Unauthorised messing about with a flashy space car. Unauthorised charging of carbonated drinks products. Lacing a drink with out-of-date Charm pills. Witholding information about treasonous activities from the OmniBrain. Using docking permits under false pretences. Making a treasonous statement about the OmniBrain. Making advances to a member of the opposite gender without a Hot Love Permit. Delivering a package to a centre of rebellious activities. Possession of out-of-date Charm Pills. Attempting to barter for Charm Pills. Attempting to incite other prisoners to escape. Dismantling decorations in Company Correctional Facility. Unauthorised nocturnal activity. Being found several times outside a correctional facility cell. Defacing security equipment with edible material. Tampering with Company property leading to malfunction of a security droid. Watching a traitorous TV channel. Setting in motion a Company production line out of hours. Possession of the traitorous Freedom Fighters Database. Forcing exit of a correctional facility thus damaging Company property. Taking and driving away a Prison Transport Vessel. Achieving release from Cygnus Alpha under own recognisance. Colluding with a known traitor Delores. Developing a sarcastic and critical sense of humour. Unapproved interference with natives from a Class C Planet. Removing a Company number from XDirectory. Phoning Citizens In Need without good reason. Releasing mind altering chemicals into the water supply of a Class C Planet without a permit. Using a Company teleporter without necessary status. Causing destruction of a Company research facility. Posing as a member of the opposite gender. Attempting to remove a captured ship from a junk droid. Endangering Citizens safety by deactivating a junk droid. Taking possession of a space car from a junk droid. Stealing a magnetic tow rope from a Company employee. Deliberately and repeatedly activating a spacebike alarm. Failing to be aware of a miraculous new Company product 'Miracle Mud'. Being spectacularly bad at a Company Entertainment Device. Causing unauthorised repair to an illegal spacecraft by being sneaky. Naughty rebellious goings-on at Asteroid 447. Illegal parking of a space Bike. Attempting to use female charms to gain favours from a Docking Controller. Attempting to use female charms without being female. Consorting with another known rebellious type, Gardum. Entering a Docking Controller's office. Stealing photographic equipment from a tourist. Indulging in a pointless activity: Ship Spotting. Causing a Docking Controller to be buried under a pile of rapidly-reproducing life forms. Removing a set of keys from the prone form of a docking controller. Unauthorised landing in a space car at Metro Prime. Attempting to steal Company Information Publication. Being present at a centre of rebellious activity. Tampering with a Company Robot. Tampering with a Company Robot again. General 'attacking the Company stronghold' type behaviour. Taking a security pass from a recently-vaporised Company Engineer. Having sympathy for a dying treacherous robot. Altering the operation of a Company ventilation system. Experimenting with grenades of unknown destructive capability. Introducing foreign bodily liquid into the OmniBrain's fluid. Taking a Company safety device: Fire Extinguisher. Taking a Company device: Antigravity weight. Taking fluid and matter from the OmniBrain vat. Reducing the temperature of a liquid life form to freezing point. Outwitting an Octoped and making off with a Company publication. Searching for protected information. Failing to lead a happy and fulfilled life. Looking up 'Directive Charter' in Oracle. Not watching Omni TV for long enough. Interrupting a Citizen in the process of validating a Hot Love Permit. Unauthorised knowledge of the location of the C.C.C.C. Using the food machine in Cygnus Alpha during Sleeptime. Failing to use an Apprehender droid for its intended purpose. Posing as a supernatural being. Exceeding Light Wave Soda quota. Collaborating in an extended pun. Wasting an Enforcer's time. Concealing deep-seated misery from a Happybot. Repeatedly defying a Docking Controller's orders. Using Earthspeak. Attempting to use a token to pay for a newspaper. Breaking into a Company Entertainment Facility. Owning in excess of 500 Company Gaming Tokens. Attempting to vandalise Company property. Attempting to use a Class A security pass machine. Poisoning a Company Employee: Ministry Controller. Theft of private property from a doddering Company employee: Ministry Professor. Misuse of a key pass. Creating a laughably unrealistic decoy in an attempt to deceive a loyal Company agent.

I love the screens that have that kind of repoussoir in the foreground. It really gives the whole scene that much more depth and credibility. By Monkey Island 2, they had perfected the technique and we even had out-of-focus elements directly in front of our noses that framed and guided our view. The two slanting ship masts that guide our view into Wally's home, for example. The map room under Rum Roger's house. The foreground of the Booty Island shop. Sometimes I feel like it's a lost art form as well and would today be considered a waste of space by modern designers. It really, really isn't. It's an early example of interactive storytelling, and I love it dearly. From the guy who brought you "cut-scenes", here's a story that actually changes depending on how the protagonist acts. There's more of course, with an entire cutscene (Elaine meeting Guybrush on the dock) being optional depending on what order you do your tasks in. I really, really hope Ron brings this back. There may be even more hilarious applications of the paradigm. 😄

(Again) Thank you so much for all of these tools! I'll have to see if it's worth it to use these in terms of how much longer it would take compared to just remaking them myself by drawing and recoloring over existing screenshots but this is something that future me will have to deal with haha!

I've added all the maps (at their current states) to the opening post. I'll probably update the FOA map eventually with cleaner versions, and further color options (based on the box/manual and poster).

I never really noticed before the similarities between the Monkey Island and Full Throttle logos. 😵‍💫

If you're interested in trying to re-create the screenshots from the back of the Sam & Max Hit the Road box, the early version of the Wak-A-Rat score box is used in an early WIP pre-release demo (the one with Sam & Max as the LucasArts logo): The left-hand number is the score and the right-hand number is the time elapsed so far. There's also an alternate version of the Wak-A-Rat game background without the score box in both the early demo and the published game: It's the same design in both versions AFAIK. In the published game the regular Wak-A-Rat room is Room 18 and the unused version is Room 19, while in the early demo they're Rooms 14 and 15 respectively. As for the Mystery Vortex screenshot, you might want to have a look at the various random colors of the two other doors in the Mystery Vortex and try borrowing their palettes for re-coloring the doors visible in the screenshot accordingly. And also looking through the costume files to see if the animation of Sam's hat flying off is used anywhere (IIRC it is but I can't remember where). A good tool for that might be Tomas' SCUMM Costume Viewer. And for Conroy Bumpus' "Aooooooooooo..." (with 11 Os) you might try using a tool like ScummTR to alter the dialogue text in that scene and manually alter the text color based on the dark blue text color that's probably used elsewhere in the game. Note that the ellipsis (three dots) in dialog lines is treated as a special symbol in the SCUMM game fonts, so you'd want to see how ScummTR treats that when it dumps the game dialogue into a text file and match that accordingly. (And if you do use ScummTR, make sure to back up your game files first!)

I also want to express my appreciate @Jake for all that you did with Tales - I really enjoyed it, and thought that you guys did an amazing job. I also don't know what strings had to be pulled and what puzzle pieces had to align to make it happen, but I was (and still am) extremely grateful to have MI return to our screens again. On a side note I was lurking around the Mixnmojo forums in the late 90s and I remember seeing your name a lot. When I saw that you were involved in Tales I thought that was an amazing turn of events to go from a fan to being a part of making a game happen. Super jealous to be honest, but you did great work!

This poster here is full of nice details: First it serves to get Guybrush taken to Gov. Platt and imprisoned, and then we have to use it to do the same to Captain Kate. Then it's already a nice detail that they took Guybrush's look from Monkey 1 and put a cheap mustache on his face. Perfectly logical in a time where there are no photos and you have to rely on hearsay. But even nicer, of course, are all the crimes that can be read on it - and that renew themselves again and again when he's done some new crap. A nice gag, which I also discovered much too late...

😂😂😂 i was way too letdown by the last one but i keep getting hopeful 😅

I don't remember this one verbatim, but if you have interacted with Spiffy in the SCUMM Bar, Guybrush will say "it's the dog from the bar" if you Look At the painting in the Governor's Mansion. Otherwise, he'll say "it's a man and a dog." (Paraphrased.)

I always find it really funny how much LeChimp looks like Homer Simpson.

What do you mean finally?