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Not to resurrect a contentious issue that appears to have died down, but imma just say that I wouldn't get too hung up on trying to precisely nail down numbering/timeline/etc. I think it is elegantly handled.

What more could you want, man?

Oh I forgot to point out, obviously I was right all those pages ago.

“Monkey Island One” - Xbox style. ❤️ I made those zoom-outs! It was something I’d had in my head for years as something I wanted Monkey Island to try, especially if it ever went full 3D. I loved the maps in Monkey Island 2 especially, how you could see tiny Guybrush on them, and he’d walk under and over parts of the canopy cover. It felt somehow like I was there, very easy to imagine actually walking through the island as the one or two pixels that said “Guybrush” slowly traversed the screen. I thought literally flying up through the clouds from the game scene to the map could potentially accentuate that feeling. (Unfortunately Tales had basically no budget for the maps so they look pretty cheap, especially Flotsam, but I’m glad I got to try the effect.) Given ReMI’s scrapbook vibes I don’t expect the exact same feeling from the maps (no game but 2 has given me that feeling to be honest, even Curse which also had the helicopter view for its map screens) but I’m sure they’ll be beautifully made.

I only watched the trailer a couple times and try to forget most of it’s content until release. I wish I could play the game blind (not literally!). Hey, how is the IRL timeskip technology these days? Is cryostasis still cool? Sigh. Anyway. *watches the trailer again*

Longtime lurker (as in 20 years), but I just joined Mojo because I am so excited for this game. I thought you all might be interested in hearing about how the marketing has been received by someone who is a Monkey Island fan, but not a ... fanatic. My wife played the first MI back in her childhood, but I don't think she ever played any of the sequels. It made an impression on her though, because she started jumping up and down when I told her that there was a trailer for the new one, and she wanted to see it immediately. I was curious what someone who wasn't immersed in the discourse thought about the trailer and website. She really liked the interactive dialogue tree on the website, and immediately identified Stan as well as Otis ("that guy from your crew who was in jail!"). She read the little marketing blurb that refers to the original games and said "see, they just made two! why did you tell me this was number three?" ... so she really doesn't know about Curse or any except the first game. She really the trailer and immediately watched it twice, and then showed it to our two young kids. No qualms about the art style. She did say it was too bad they couldn't do it like the original game, but acknowledged that time goes by and you can't go back. Has been humming the theme song in the kitchen and now I know she will be bugging me about when the release date is ... Also: she asked me "would you have married me if I didn't like Monkey Island?" I said of course, since it's not really been a big part of our lives as a couple. She responded, "No, I don't think so, because if I hadn't played Monkey Island, I wouldn't be me."

Man, Wind Waker is such a good comparison. People seriously thought that series was ruined at that point, and even Shigeru Miyamoto himself wasn’t a fan. But once it all came together and people… just… fucking… played it… it turned out to be what remains one of the best and most timeless-looking Zelda games made. Then they went and essentially did what the detractors wanted with the following game, and frankly that ended up being one of the most forgettable, lost in a sea of other ‘how Zelda used to look’ games.

Just dropped the last beta of DREAMM 1.0 for final testing: https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/ At this point, all the key functionality is in. If there are any remaining issues you'd like to see fixed before 1.0 is final, this is your last chance! Version:1.0b6 • Add increase/decrease video size menu items and key shortcuts (Alt-+/-). • Display selection dialog if multiple games are detected. • Always hide mouse in full screen mode, even outside of game area. • Added support for Curse of Monkey Island demos. • Allow selection of Standard/Practice/Expert modes in Loom FM Towns. • Fix audio looping in FM Towns playback (specifically Indy Crusade water pouring). • FM Towns games now exit cleanly via Ctrl+C. • Reduced target MIPS and RAM size for earlier games; fixed FM Towns at 2MB. • Fix window sizing behavior when target size is larger than the monitor size.

New theory for why there's still no release date: Terrible Toybox is self-censoring Guybrush's nose for the domestic market. 🇺🇸

I really like your attitude. I've been having difficulties myself not engaging with some of the comments, but I have to keep telling myself that it really won't change anything. Like you said, we can't help them if they choose to let their opinion of the graphics sour everything else. Times like this I'm really glad for this thread of positivity, as I can't help but be sad when I read all the negative comments everywhere else on the internet (and its a lot unfortunately). I really hope Ron has a thick skin and is happy with his choices (I am!). It's just unfortunate that he has to endure this level of hate. Honestly, I don't understand why people would't just be excited to have another game. I've never been so embarrassed of the monkey island fandom. But like you said, "pushing positivity into the world is the best way to help with that", so I'm going to try follow your lead and just get more and more excited. Okay, enough of a rant... off to watch the trailer... again!

I have to remember “if this was 1996, instead of exploding all over the comments section, these people would have seen these images in PC gamer, said ‘oh well,’ and gone about their lives,” and try to make myself do the same when I see the comments.

So you managed to pull off a 181 year task in less than 24 hours. I guess you won't have a problem sitting through three to four months in a little under a quarter hour ... 😅

Resolution, and the same amount of colors. Which is a key point -- we often look at VGA MI1 as the defacto version, but however esteemable and tastefully done the upgrade was, however many of us knew it first, it is in fact revisionist. The EGA version is what was done by the original art team, and what shipped on release day. MI1 and MI2 will always have the closest visual continuity because they were back-to-back productions, but I think you are right that the sequel is a noteworthy departure in style. Even comparing VGA to VGA makes the difference clear, but we are actually putting our finger on the scale a bit when we do so. Comparing original release to original release is most appropriate, and furthers your point.

Unfortunately its been a busy day at work, but I just have to say I absolutely loved the trailer! Man, it was so so so good!

Without the logo it makes for a good Lock Screen background, too.

They’ve got the replacement ready to go!

You know what we need? We need to misunderstand the quote about Tales of Monkey Island being set after a hypothetical Monkey Island 5 again. That will add the spice back to the debate!

Right, it's the advice I give myself, for sure, but I'm not always good at following it. I want to just counterbalance negative with something a bit more positive but sometimes it's REALLY really hard not to say 'Nope, I think you're wrong and this is why you're wrong and even if you're not wrong you're being an asshole about it,'. Sometimes you want to confront. And confrontation does -sometimes- work. Usually not straightaway. But... like if you've ever thought back to a time in your life when you've had an argument and felt a bit attacked but now realise 'oh, actually I WAS the asshole in that situation' then you'll recognise that sometimes being confronted has a way of working on your conscience. So my thinking has shifted towards ... 'is this confrontation worth my time?' and the answer is very often no. But, as someone who makes stuff myself, I know that no matter how many times I hear it, and no matter how experienced I get it's always a joy to be told by someone that they like my work. So that's always a good thing to do.

I was going to say "the thing that ruins the "everyone is older" theory for me is Elaine". But I doubled checked, just to be sure. And sure enough, she has crow's feet in the promo art!

It's a bit sad, but at some point yesterday I think I made peace with it. If some people want to build a personal hell for themselves by not being able to enjoy a long anticipated game that until a few months back we weren't even sure would ever exist, because they don't like the look then... I can't help them. It's their loss. Unfortunate, and also hurts a little to think that any of the creators involved might be disheartened, but also when RG retweeted me yesterday I was reassured of the thing that I have always believed about this, which is that pushing positivity into the world is the best way to help with that.

Tales was a good example of stories that could be told outside of the actual island of Monkey Island.

What do we think of this? Just marketing messing up?

Unfortunately I'm just not a fan of the art style. To me, art as abstract as this is a barrier to immersion, and one of the things I always loved about the first two games was that you could get lost in those worlds. That was what Ron used to want too, with his story of wanting to get off the boat at Disneyland. This is no criticism of Rex. He does what he does very well. But for a game that is celebrating so many of the original team coming back, it feels like a shame that this wasn't extended to the art team as well. I wasn't necessarily after pixel art, and I hear Ron when he says that the games always used the most cutting edge technology that was available, but by returning to this property after so many years and making a direct sequel to MI2, this is by definition a legacy / nostalgia IP and that does come with years of weight to it. But it is what it is, and I will really try to meet the game on its own terms when I get to play it.

Forgive my profanity but this trailer is just so gosh darn good. I get more hyped by each viewing.

Once they say Marius’ animation they had to release the trailer to stay relevant.

Keyart in UHD: EDIT And in portrait orientation:

Ron said they'd evolved the design, which I think is an accurate description.

All the negative muttering put me in mind of this classic Adventure Gamers article by Evan Dickens, called "We Already Hate Your Game," which I'll point out is now *20 years old*: https://adventuregamers.com/articles/amp/17539

Totally agree, I would have just loved a little scribble of Ozzie Mandrill, or a kangaroo. Just to communicate "hey, you can hate it as much as you want but we acknowledge it has a right to exist."

Yet not in the trailer. But the smile she sports in the promo art means that the respective muscles are contracted, hence the wrinkles known as "crow's feet" form for the duration of the smile. I'm usually loud and proud about these things, but yeah ... it can get you down. And 'offensive' positivity will only get you so far. You can't really confront the naysayers with positivity. It's more helpful if you take your positivity where the naysayers can't reach it. I'm employing a hit and run strategy these days. Blurp a positive and hopefully knowledgeable post into a negative community, then run and hide. It's what Guybrush would do.

Now that you mention island designs: I can’t wait for the map screens 😍

I've also realised with ReMI that there really seems to be an effort to maintain the geographical consistency with the other games. Granted, this was only really an issue in Escape, where Melee and Monkey Islands were basically completely redesigned for seemingly the sake of it (even taking the puzzles in Escape into account, it seems like they could've mostly gotten away with keeping the layout of the previous games' islands consistent), plus the Tri-Island area map screen was completely reworked (Phatt/Booty were nowhere near each other, for example) but it is nice to see that with ReMI, they do want to maintain the layout of the islands from previous games, which helps maintain the illusion that, even between games, it's all the same world.

Y'know, given the trailer and how much Ron likes trolling his own audience in general, I think he should have followed the modern trend of just re-using old names and called the game... The Secret of Monkey Island.

I wonder what will happen in I Wonder What Will Happen In

Haha. Unfortunately this is just a React thing, as well as SECRET_INTERNALS_DO_NOT_USE_OR_YOU_WILL_BE_FIRED. We had a good ‘laugh’ about this at work once.

If you think this and this: look only slightly different from each other in visual style then I don't think we're having a serious discussion here.

So, Lagomorph already addressed the point that this isn't part of a trilogy - and Ron has said as much, but I'd add that even if it was part of a trilogy, then arguably MI2 was already jarring, long ago. What's the similarity between these two jails in the MI1 and MI2 art styles: I would say these are extremely different to each other, and the only reason we associate them as similar is because they have a similar resolution. But one is hand painted, the other is digital. One is noticeably more detailed and has a richer colour palette. One is clearly more interested in straight lines than the other. Which is unsurprising because it's a different background artist and different approach taken to the background. Granted, the sprite design is more similar between them than what's in ReMI, but they're still two different games with very different art styles, and so this is new one. But it's not being pedantic to say this isn't part of an MI trilogy, either. It isn't. Theyve said it isn't, and the faster people accept it isn't the quicker we can get to what the game actually IS.

To add some weight to this, in interviews they have said that they don't see this as a sequel to Monkey Island 2, it's just that it opens where Monkey 2 leaves off (and looking at the trailer there's CLEARLY a time skip. Many of the characters including guybrush are visibly older) And in another interview Dave said something 'at some point it's going to be difficult to put a number on these games.' So it's been a bit of a misconception that this is supposed to be a spiritual MI3, probably because of Ron's blog post from 2014 - it's not that, they view it as just another game in the MI series, which happens to use the end of MI2 as a launching off point. (btw if anyone can find these actual interview quotes that'd be great because I'm damned if I can)

There is no trilogy. There are six games, four of which Ron Gilbert worked on to some capacity, and all six have different art styles. Judging from the screenshots and trailers all these games will be referenced in the new game as well, so counting it as a trilogy really doesn't hold up. If they decide to remake SMI and MI2 in this art style, you'd have six games, of which three will have the same art style, and three will have something completely different.

The briefcase is a great example, and Ron would seem like just the kind of guy to pull off a similar stunt... and I'd love it! 😄

I really really really am looking forward to this game. Hope there will be a big box release of it so I can buy it for my collection 🤩

If you go to the website on mobile, you can see what the key art might look like if cropped to the size of a poster or box art. I can't get over how gorgeous it is, especially the colors. Greenish sky with redish foreground will always be one of my favorite vibes.

Oh that's why my notifications have been going off. Ron has retwort me.

If I had one concern about the visuals, it's that some of the animation feels just a bit stiff to me – leaning a little closer towards linear interpolation than I'd like. For example, in the shot where Guybrush is hanging from a vine, the vine jerks back and forth rather than easing in and out as switches directions, which makes it feel less like it's being affected by gravity. And Guybrush's hair sways almost completely in sync with guybrush's body, lacking a sense of overlap and followthrough. In contrast, I LOVE the shot where Elaine is climbing down the rope. It's so beautifully fluid and smooth, the way she slowly comes to a stop and then her head moves back with her hair slightly delayed. I do think the jerkier motion could work to make the animation feel almost like paper puppets, and if that's the intent then awesome. I think I could definitely get used to it and grow to love it, but just from my first impression, some of it seemed a tiny bit off. In any case, the animations clearly have love and effort put behind them.

Heh, I found this one interesting/funny in one of the JS scripts of the webpage. I'm too lazy right now to breakpoint my way to the point that function is actually called and I can see what the input param contains besides the exports field. Maybe tomorrow.

I feel like the internet is always going to internet about something and complain. I usually tend to avoid online discussions but this pulled me out of the woodwork after lurking on this site/scummbar.com for 23 years. Everyone here is so excited and looking forward to this game, and while I’m probably biased, I think this community is the best and our excitement matters to the team over a smattering of blog comments.

Here’s the spoiler to end them all… … …the clouds are back!

There's a woodchuck joke in here somewhere, but I can't quite find it 😄

Yeeting Guybrush will be the title of my memoirs.