Leaderboard

Quickie acrylic fan art attack

I just noticed that LeChuck still wears that hat with the dead crow on it. Considering the game takes place a good amount of years after LR, the bird is in a relatively good shape. Or maybe it‘s a fake bird. A rubber crow with a hat in the middle?! Anyway, I‘m glad the crow (which maybe was a throw-away-gag by Steve Purcell in the box art?) is back, and I hope we can ask LeChuck about it in ReMI. If the game still „ignores“ it I‘m happy too though. It‘s a unique, weird and fun design choice.

Plot twist: The crow is the only thing alive on Uncle Chuck's entire ship and she was just napping all the time. I can see it all now. The entire game is about stuffing animals into our inventory for Elaine's conservatory efforts. Guybrush is happily travelling all the islands to collect diverse birds, bunnies, owls, chicks, squirrels, fish, dogs (especially poodles), vichyssoise flavored rats, and so on. Evidently, the only reason for Guybrush to sneak on LeChuck's ship is to nick the crow from his hat. We will have to convince the zombie chef to feed the crew all sorts of things rich in iron, and then, using our giant sized magnet ... ... oh god what am I doing with my Sunday ...

Jonathan Ackley has been sharing developer memories on Twitter throughout the year, including many about The Curse of Monkey Island. We had thought to embed these tweets throughout our new CMI interview, but the idea proved to be impractical. Since we’d gone to the trouble of collecting all those URLs, though, I thought I’d put them all here. Taken in aggregate they’re practically an article unto themselves, and they’d be otherwise inaccessible to those of us without Twitter: https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1487145415711420419 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1487199807693221890 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1487247707857043456 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1487487658544668673 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1487891726890983426 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1488673416525746177 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1488674191230390275 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1488674554897571846 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1490342581657427975 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1488672930561097732 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1490343063645872128 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1490343316004610050 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1490343930117824522 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1490344353792880642 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1490344758337683460 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1491978257368973313 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1492159504917549057 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1492663745876684800 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1493240973672939520 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1493264687718285313 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1493747722586779654 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1494025906641260545 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1494528958926184448 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1495268944369704962 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1496909302262423553 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1503755841488531460 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1507425120586924038 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1510035777350037506 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1511500601229656066 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1511956648226480138 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1515130237083799552 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1516933414913396736 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1518239188960768002 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1519436155560812544 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1520478121908379648 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1520991257073360899 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1521489481119019009 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1524838588235784192 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1524922568750211072 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1528746361646030848 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1528892976499286016 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1533133083502817281 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1533153572744929280 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1544731668056928257 https://twitter.com/ackley_jonathan/status/1545222501327781888

I dumped them all into a Twitter Moment (basically twitter's version of a playlist) for easy viewing: https://twitter.com/i/events/1546172305243398144

That's fan art though. Here's a similar pic from the storyboards for the movie: Check out The Scumm Bar for more movie art.

Random question to everyone. How would you like the game to tackle the whole "brothers" twist from LeChuck's Revenge. Do you prefer them to actually be brothers or not? For me, I would prefer if that twist was indeed legitimate and not just a Star Wars' ripoff. I posted last month that, despite it being an obvious play on Star Wars, it still felt earned because of the personal nature of that game. I just don't want it to be brushed aside but something that truly changes the dynamic between Guybrush and LeChuck and runs through the entire course of the game. I also think it opens the door to finally explore some backstory for both characters. I would love to find out how Guybrush ended up on Melee what happened to make LeChuck become so evil. Though I would stress I don't what something that romanticizes LeChuck's actions or makes him sympathetic. I still want to always see him as a villain, but there's obviously a lot more going on based off LeChuck's Revenge. I also love how this twist has never ever been alluded to in any of the successive sequels. I always found that to be extremely respectful of all the game developers working on those games to not directly address this twist.

IMPORTANT NOTICE This crow is not dead, it is only SLEEPING. No animals were harmed during the production of this game.

It isn’t really Return to Monkey Island-related so probably warrants its own thread. https://mixnmojo.com/features/interviews/Jonathan-Ackley-and-Larry-Ahern-talk-25-years-of-CMI/ Fantastic work from Jason pulling this together, leading to so many awesome answers.

Oh right! That's more like it!

Federico Maggiore just released the italian version of the film and it‘s so good!! He is super talented, I love his voices.

Oh and by the way, for those crazy amazing fans here who like to listen to the trailer on the go like me, here's an album cover for "Return" using the new artwork:

I think they're reffering to this: At least that's the closest thing I can find that includes Guybrush and LeChuck on the plank of a ship.

Sorry for the double-post, but on the idea of them being step-brothers. LeChuck does say in his fortress (if the option for "where do babies come from?" is available) he says that Guybrush came from an orphanage. Aside from being just an extremely messed up thing to say lol, there may be a lot going on there. It could mean they are step-brothers (Guybrush was adopted and became the favorite while LeChuck turned to voodoo) or they both became orphans at some point (actually blood-brothers, but lost their parents). The parents were somewhat a focal point in that game too and supposedly showed up dead at the end. The end to that game really was just one WTF moment after another.

The brother thing is interesting, because back in the days of IRC chat on the SCUMM bar website, Ron implied that there was more to it than them just being straight up blood relatives. He said " In one sense, yes they are brothers, in another way, they are not." This could mean anything, really. Step-brothers is a popular theory, or they're part of a brotherhood of some kind but not family. It could also just mean they are connected by destiny somehow, LeChuck does say "we are bound to one another". Of course, the ending suggests it's completely literal, but that whole thing could still be an elaborate ruse to distract Guybrush. Man...it really is such a huge deal that this game will start right there in the amusement park and address what on earth was happening. I mean, if Curse is still canon that broader explanation that it's a spell will probably stick, but then it's Ron Gilbert, he's a twisty turny writer. Who knows what's really going on! Ok..we've theorised enough, Ron. You can release the game now

Maybe it’s just because I watched the trailer a good couple thousand times, but by now the animation movement style has completely won me over.

The crow can be seen on the box! Once you see it you can’t unsee. It’s such a good detail.

This dude made Guybrush's little grave digging song RHYME.

I've always assumed that since the bones of Guybrush's parents work with the LeChuck voodoo doll, that proves that they are indeed brothers. (Plus the ending in Big Whoop itself, of course, provided it is all true and not a complete illusion from LeChuckie!) However, the only thing really that makes me cast doubt into that is that CMI - Tales never refers to it at all. And you'd think that would be something one of them would bring up once in a while! (i.e. LeChuck dies for the umpteenth time and Guybrush is like "Til the next time... brother...") As much as I doubt that ReMI is going to tie up every question with a bow, this is an element that I think having more clarity on would be welcomed. On a seperate note, I actually never even realised that LeChuck had a crow in his hat in MI2 until the SE. I could never tell in the pixel art! Now that I know it's there, though. So cool!

Amazing portrait, I love it!

Omg, why does this make so much sense?? Ron Gilbert just got very nervous because we figured everything out before the actual release! I never noticed the crow in monkey2! I thought this came from the movie concept art. I just checked the gameplay and the artworks, it's really easy to miss (just the special edition box at makes it really clear, it looks more like a feather duster in the originals) and I'm so happy to have learned something new! Btw everyone mentioned that the swordfighting scene in the trailer between Guybrush and Lechuck was inspired by the movie concept art, but I've looked at all the pictures and couldn't find any that fit. Can someone help me out here?

Yeah, I actually remember that chat years ago. The fact that Ron has said for years that Curse fits in nicely with his vision makes me think the whole "spell" mythology was somewhat close to what was actually going on (that Elaine mid-credits scene in LeChuck's Revenge had to have been put there for a reason, right?), but there is still tons to be unpacked. The carnival, the brothers, the Secret; I need this game now.

This looks awesome! The font you picked looks good but if you’re looking to mess around, you could try Post Antiqua Roman, which is the font used on the original disks and manual, if you want it to feel like an official piece of merchandise, though it might end up looking too “samey” in this context.