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Steve Purcell pretty much gave us a high-res sprite of MI1's Guybrush already.

Of course not, things have changed drastically from game to game. It's all part of the fun. Monkey 1 (1990) Monkey 2 (1991) Curse (1996) Escape (2001) Tales (2009) Return (2022)

I'm memeing don't take this too seriously lol

This is funny, but to be clear it's less that my opinion on marriage has soured, and more that I don't like its status as the default or ultimate expression of love. I feel like love takes many forms, and none of them require marriage to be valid and many of them are incompatible with marriage as it exists in most jurisdictions.

I think when EGA is called definitive it's simply an acknowledgement of the fact that it's the game that originally shipped. The 16-color version is what Monkey Island 1's art team created. Everything after is revisionism by definition, which doesn't mean it can't be preferred. A factor here is that the original version was actively made scarce by the studio. The 256 color version (though I'd distinguish VGA floppy from VGA CD) is realistically the version the majority of us were initially exposed to, because it's the one LEC pretty much exclusively sold thereafter. The choice was kind of made for us, similar to how it was made for people who became exposed to the first two games through the special editions. According to that game, VGA CD is "classic mode," further shoving EGA out of awareness. I don't remember Ron's exact quote about the VGA closeups, but I think his misgivings were more about the fact that the original closeups were more consonant with the style of the surrounding game.

I agree with this, but why does everyone keep forgetting the other areas that Ron and company could take risks/do something different? Namely, the story and the story telling. I personally think Ron is about to blow shit up! He’s had decades to think about it. His mistake. Someone should probably correct him. Ron wasn’t involved in the VGA versions. He’s said several times that he didn’t like the VGA close ups. He also told me (yeah, I totally met the legend once at a fan meet n greet) that he started MI2 immediately after he completed 1… without waiting for permission from the higher ups. So it’s possible the VGA sprites just got back ported from MI2 the same way the interface did for the CD VGA version. Either way, the VGA version isn’t Ron canon.

Oh no! Comparing the hands, it looks like Return-Guybrush's hands are BOTH cursed, like Tales-Guybrush's left one! 😱

And Monkey Island 7 is a Cap’n Crunch crossover.

Hope he drops the big retcon and names the file Guy.exe

That never fully sticks when it's thrown at me, since Elaine is the exact same sprite as her VGA Secret version, Stan and Voodoo Lady are recolors, and Guybrush can stand next to his MI1 version in the dream without it feeling like a fourth wall break. Yeah, I know the backgrounds are completely different things. I know certain characters like Governor Phatt have exaggerated features. But none of that makes the main character sprites disappear from my mind's eye. EDIT: Also Herman, right?

That is clearly just an egregious (and somewhat embarrassing) typo.

I don't think Ron or anyone from the team decided to make any "safe" choice with this game. I think that they made the choices that they thought were best for the game they wanted to make and for a new Monkey Island game. The music is a very important aspect of Monkey Island (one could argue the most important), all the games had at least one of those composers working on it, seems like a pretty obvious choice to me. The voices were already perfectly cast and I doubt they had someone else in mind to do them, so why would they need to change them? Doesn't seem to me like this is nostalgia pandering, but simply that they had (most) of the casting job already done. The returning characters were a thing since Monkey Island 2 (there aren't many important characters in the first game, but most of them return in the sequel) even though they are few. The UI we don't know anything about really, other than it works with a mouse OR with a controller, and that they worked really hard to make the controller option worthwhile. I think this really shows how really willing they are to modernise the way adventure games are played in a modern era. This leaves the art style, which changes in every Monkey Island games (even between the first two). If there was a safe choice with the art, they couldn't take it while trying to make a modern game. Pixel art is out of the question because they don't want to get the "nostalgia game" label that Thimbleweed Park got, so it was a choice of choosing an art style that suited the game. They decided to go with 2D probably because it gives a cleaner look and ages the game less (look at how Curse aged better than Escape and even Tales visually) and getting the guy who made Ron's favourite fan art and worked as an art director in very good looking games was the best they could do. Also, Steve Purcell, Peter Chan, Bill Tiller and many others who worked on the art of the first 3 games were probably busy with their other jobs so... P.S. Also I'm new here, been lurking around since page 1 of this thread 🙃

Boy, it sure is good that there's a new Monkey Island game by Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman coming out. Golly gee

Yeah I doubt it has anything to do with likeness rights, and everything to do with them wanting their own character designs and style for the SE.

I think the close-ups in the SCUMM Bar in MI1 serve to make the world feel more immersive early on in the game, and I never really thought about the fact that they mostly disappear afterwards. They are such a crucial part of my memories of Monkey Island, probably because I spent a lot of time as a kid wandering around through the early sections of the game not really knowing what to do. I didn't feel disappointed that they dropped away after that, though. They're kind of luxurious, but they also feel intrusive in a way that the regular dialogue usually doesn't. I did like that they returned at the end for the final scene with Elaine, and it gave the game a sense of coming full circle. I played the VGA as a kid, and even then I think I picked up on the fact that those portraits were pastiches of old, romantic oil paintings. There was something funny about the level of detail on them, even though the style was naturalistic. Which I guess is to say that they are dissonant with the rest of the game, but I enjoyed that aspect of them even as a kid. I some ways, I think they tried to improve on the full-screen portaits with full-screen animation in MI 2 -- There's the single instance of full-screen animation early in MI2 when Largo chucks a loogie, and that seems like it could have had the same effect of making the game feel like it's going to be more immersive and technically impressive, except 1). It's a shot of just a ball of spit/snot, and kind of gross 2). I think it took like a full minute to load on my computer back in the '90s, and then just as long to transition back to the regular game. So I'm looking forward to what other kinds of surprises the early stages of MI6 has for us

I think he gives my language a new kind of rythm, and I love that. Igh/buingemigh/middemazbjaum 🎶

Carla, Smirk, Elaine all get them, and Meathook’s scene has a closeup dedicated to it but it’s Guybrush. So many of the main Part 1 puzzle chains have a closeup, but you’re right that they disappear after that until the end of the game. Maybe they decided it wasn’t worth the disk space (That’s one reason why the LeChuck closeups were cut from Monkey 2.) but liked what they’d done so far and kept them?

Did Ron or anyone involved with the first game ever talk about how they decided which character would get the full portrait treatment? It's odd that it's so front-loaded starting with 3 very unimportant pirates in the Scumm Bar, then so sparse afterwards.

Indeed. Just like how most new players are exposed to the Special Edition first.

In this article he says: "I was always bothered by these close-ups. While they were great art, I never felt they matched the style of the rest of the game. Not sure how I feel about them 20 years later." I always took it that he didn't like the fact that there were close-ups to begin with, and that's the reason there aren't very many close-ups in Monkey 2. Though again, I could be wrong.

There are German subtitles I you want it to be revealed

👕 I beat #Mojole #130 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 3/6 🖤🖤🖤🖤💛 💛🖤🖤💚🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Same, that's why I wrote this: https://mixnmojo.com/features/sitefeatures/Revealed-Iain-McCaig-the-man-behind-the-Monkey-Island-VGA-portraits However, it ain't "Ron canon", as much as I prefer it. So when people talk about being "true to the original", well... I just like to point out that EGA is actually the "original". (Not that you were saying otherwise.) The VGA/Amiga version was done by another team without Ron's input.

Some of you have expressed displeasure with the institution of marriage and its role in Monkey Island games, particularly MI3 and MI5. You have said that as you've grown older, your opinion on marriage has soured, and therefore you're not as keen to see it elevated in these games. My suggestion: when playing these MI games, try to visualize marriage as an elaborate voodoo spell. It has wild magical power in the same way that a voodoo doll or recipe to Monkey Island. Related to this: try to read Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides if you get the chance. It was one of Ron's inspirations, right? And if you go from On Stranger Tides straight to The Secret of Monkey Island, you can almost imagine that LeChuck's goal of marrying Elaine could have more to do with the governorship of Mêlée than with anything related to the incel life. In which case, score a point to MI4's gubernatorial seal.

I've watched the Dom speaks German part six times and still couldn't figure out what he says. Well, I probably couldn't understand him because I was laughing so hard. 🤣

Possibly! But it's pretty likely the sprites came a bit later in the development (actually I feel like there were versions of MI2 shown at trade shows pretty late on where the Guybrush MI1 VGA sprite was still being used, am I imagining that?) so hard to say whether they just took the ones that had already been made for MI1 VGA and adapted them for MI2 or the other way round. I suspect it was MI1 VGA first though, just because by the time MI1 EGA came out they were probably already well into working on MI1 VGA too, because it only came out 2 months later. Even if Ron didn't like the VGA close ups, I guess there's no reason that he wouldn't have re-used VGA sprites if they had them - especially considering the number of characters in 2, probably they were looking to save on art where they could. (Incidentally, I really love the VGA close ups, but I guess that's not surprising as the Amiga version was based on those so it's what I grew up with. I think the EGA version is really clever, they do so much with 16 colours, I especially like the backgrounds on Monkey Island itself, and I understand why people rate it... but for whatever reason the close-ups never did a thing for me.)

Man looking at them side by side makes me appreciate the new Guybrush all the more though. It's very distinctive while still unmistakably Guybrush, and his face is so expressive, he really looks like a man who is going through some stuff. I never got that from Guybrush before, and I think/hope it speaks to a Guybrush more like the one in the first two games, who even when in silly situations, has a sense of seriousness about his goals.

I think Rex has copy-pasted Guybrush's mouth here.

The 256 colour version of Monkey Island came out in Dec 1990, only 2 months after the 16 colour release and long before MI2. It's possible they were developed with both games in mind, though. ---- Boo, merged topics I think the most specific thing I've ever seen Ron say about the secret was in the #monkey-island DALNet chat: <Dalixam> Hi Ron, glad to meet you :) The secret of Monkey Island is probably the most well kept secret ever. Can it actually be seen/found in MI1 or MI2? I'm not asking you to reveal it :) <Ron-G> Yes, if you really look at what's going on, you might be able to come close. <Ron-G> There are a lot of jokes, that aren't really jokes. <Ron-G> The problem with the Secret of Monkey Island... <Ron-G> is that it's built up sich a mystic, that when I finally do reviel it, you're all going to go "That was dumb". :-) I can't remember who recently said in an interview that he felt like there's stuff going on in ReMI which is very relevant to how Ron has talked about the secret before, so even if the secret isn't exactly the same as it was in 1991, I think it might be related/close.

My favourite LucasArts game is The Last Jedi.

So then we're all agreed. This isn't an echo chamber.

To add to the point of this form not being an echo chamber - when the trailer came out, I mentioned that I felt like the animation was a bit stiff and that I would have done it differently (a stance that I mostly disagree with now, but that’s beside the point). Rather than bullying me into submission, some people here agreed with me, and others brought up valid counter arguments, which showed me a different perspective. That was awesome and totally non-toxic.

The easiest fix would just be empathy. No matter how bad you find this or that, just imagine that instead of shouting your feelings on it towards a video or into a social media post, you are sitting in front of Ron or Rex and sharing your feelings about it all with them. The tone would automatically shift to *at least* "This isn't for me, but...".

You don’t want to fight? You literally signed up to our forum to post this: …and since then have done nothing but try to argue with people about how bad you think the art looks, seemingly with nothing else to say. And then of course, you don’t really care. You’re just relaxing in the sun. You totally aren't trying to stir the pot. You’re not here to fight. So chill. I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not a troll who delights in winding people up, but sadly you have given nothing back but toxic negativity and provocation. We’re now getting private messages about the sad turn this thread is taking, so I’ve decided that it’s time for you to drop the art discussion and contribute something else to the discussion. That is a direct command, sailor.

Hey i just saw someone on the adventure gamer forums say that Ron has confirmed that Return to Monkey Island is releasing next month. I cant find a tweet from Ron, has anybody seen anything?

Unpopular opinion: I like LeChuck's monologue in Part V and listen through it every time.

I have strong feelings about the EGA version, it's true. But I don't begrudge anyone for preferring the VGA version. Amiga, on the other hand...