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Unceremoniously and not as a goodbye present, though it might still serve as that. It's Time, Guybrush acrylic on paper

Called it

My god! Look at this cute booth at Gamescom! I didn't plan to go, but now I'm looking at train tickets. I am THAT desperate.

I'm going insane.

@Staple Remover! It's you!!

Nailed it.

I predict a surprise game drop today and a release date trailer on Talk Like A Pirate day.

Random thought, but this game seems like a consolidation of the best aspects of all the games; the characters, music and iMuse, locations, voice actors, the classic humor, and returning to the original story thread while also incorporating the canon of the other games. The fact that Dom was in the studio recording with Ron overseeing it, presumably voicing the Secret no less, is something I never thought would ever happen. Whenever I really sit and think about this game, I still can't believe it's actually happening. I'm so ready for tomorrow; c'mon release date please.

Damn, can’t I buy three copies on Steam?! That’s how much I usually pay for crap like ‘Assassin’s Creed’ and ‘clothes for my child’ anyway.

Steam preorders are available now. The British version costs £19.49!

Something a little interesting. The video referred to stan as Stan s. Stanman. He wasn’t called this until tales so that’s technically another little tales reference to go alongside the picture or morgan in the original trailer. I think i’m going to enjoy hunting for all the little almost imperceptible references to the wider franchise in the final game.

I'm so estranged from this whole present game culture, it's not even funny anymore. 😔

Ahem!

It's a bit frustrating to see the mixed reaction to this on social media. In a way I kinda get it, because we've only seen a little bit of what it's like, and we haven't seen it in the context of the rest of the interface, and how it's getting used in actual puzzles. I just wish folks gave a bit of trust where it's due. Ron Gilbert almost literally wrote the bible on post-1980s adventure game design, even me who has been (very mildly) critical of some of the stuff he's done/said in recent years can probably acknowledge if there's one person who understands what makes adventure games tick it's him. I think this is not only cool but exciting. The ways in which it can be used to tell new kinds of jokes are obvious and tantalising, the ways in which it can be used to write new kinds of puzzles are less obvious but just as tantalising, and I really don't think that the plan here is to completely throw out everything he not only learned but invented about puzzle design over the years in order to deliver an oversimplified, hand-holdy experience where the interface basically tells you what to do. Come on. Someone called it a 'hint-like' system. How? What's the hint? That the pirate leaders are in the scumm bar? Do they not think that would have already been established in in-game dialogue? Maybe this is a hint if you are extraordinarily forgetful.

Just going to point out as I have elsewhere: the verb coin of MI3 was not a crapshoot. It told you what the verb would become. Grim Fandango was the crapshoot!

Don't be so careful with the predictions. If you're wrong, you're wrong. After some technical difficulties, the gamescom stream starts 23 min. later than scheduled (8:23 PM for us Germans) Return to Monkey Island is coming up in the late fourth of the presentation, let's say 9:52 PM The new trailer contains mostly old scenes intercut with the Monkey Island Monday stuff New reveals concern Herman Toothrot, a bit of Monkey Island, more of the new UI is shown Ron Gilbert, but not Dave Grossman will be on the stage for a few seconds to shake hands with Geoff K. The trailer is a release date trailer Physical release for Switch will be confirmed No new platforms will be announced (but GOG is getting the catalog entry tomorrow or I'll kill someone over at Disney) No additional voiceover languages will be announced The release date is September 22nd And, yes, my predictions are ALWAYS RIGHT.

Either that or all castaways in the caribbean eventually develop the belief that they are in fact h.t. Marley and curiously all have evidence to support it as well as elaines endorsement. This is clearly one half of a family photo.

Said the farmer to the cologne salesman

Will nobody talk about how cool the Monkey Island theme in the background is??? That's probably what I'll do, pre-order it on Steam just to be able to have that stupid horse-armor-thingie for the Steam version, and then buy it whenever it comes on GOG just to have all my Monkey Island games in one platform where I can look at them all together and be happy

Wot?! Buy it on Steam then buy it on GoG. Switch too — even if you don’t have one!

Let the smugness commence...

Oh I see, we're doing the seafaring variation of the insult swordfighting technique here.

Good thing I can count on your appetite!

It would optionally reveal a second verb. (Open/close/pick up, that sort of thing, depending on relevance) I bumped on it at first because it was different, but ultimately found it very intuitive. I found Delores really refreshing just because it was clearly the result of someone thinking hard about how to further iterate on adventure design and game feel, without just cutting all complexity out or making the interface animation prettier (the two usual routes taken)

Just another reason why the CMI verb coin was the pinnacle of Scumm interfaces (although who wants to tell Ron?)

Ron explains the thinking:

Bear in mind that if they do drop the game today, it'll be the smallest time between two game releases they've done all year. Not impossible, but not in keeping with their average month-long wait between releases. We know there's going to be a trailer (I can't remember how but someone confirmed that right?) and their tweet promises 'news', and to me that either means more platforms, release date or both. I'm guessing at least a release date, no point in another trailer otherwise. And I'm still predicting September. I'm still fairly confident it's their next release since I've been checking they're still not talking about any of the other games they're releasing this year on twitter. And leaving it until October would make it an unusually long gap between releases (and put it against some of the year's bigger releases). If it is october, then it'll be early I reckon. Looking forward to being wrong about all this, but not long to wait and see now.

Yeah, maybe. So there’s only one thing to do now, Devolver: You must release the game today! Sorry. There just is no other way. 🤷‍♂️

I'm really hoping for a Curse remaster soon, or a nice remastered set of all 5 games for Switch (and PC of course). The latter might be too much to ask...but I can hope.

I’m feeling foolish today, I’m predicting a surprise game drop tomorrow. Or at the very least, a release date. Or at the very, very least, more gameplay video.

with love

Sounds like the music for this trailer is probably the version they use in game (aside from the weird jump it does, I assume because the theme isn't quite long enough to fit the trailer. Tentative Verdict: It's a lovely version of the MI1 version of the theme with a few embellishments, but I can't help but wish they'd done a fresh take on it, like MI2 did.

Wow. Back in April. You win the thread.

Okay, I'm ready to pre-order for the horse armour but neither Steam or Nintendo pre-orders are active yet! Glad Return appeared relatively early in the proceedings...was getting pretty sick of watching things get shot in grimy dystopian settings.

Congratulations to all the "talk like a pirate day" believers. You win!

If they don't release the most gorgeous bound edition for the 50th anniversary next year, I'll have to put Iocaine powder in a few wine glasses.

Man that's beautiful Vainamoinen!

Delores people: did the interface on Delores have a "right click" that revealed a list of other verbs? I'm trying to guess if the MI6 interface might have that right click and verb list, or not. I never played Delores but have heard things.

You might have missed the conversation earlier, but to me this doesn't really appear to replace the look at lines, at least not completely - the scumm bar sign can still be interacted with when you hover over it with 'Ah, the Scumm Bar' and presumably it's fairly likely that Guybrush will just make a comment about the bar if you interact with the sign. Similar with the fireplace. I think of it more as a 'think about' box, where hitting the interact button acts on whatever that thought is (probably the most likely action, similar to how the RMB used to work). (edit: ah, based on Ron's tweet above, this is in fact exactly what they had in mind for it) Plus, you never know, additional actions including 'look at' might be hidden behind RMB now or whatever.

I think September 22nd is a believable release date. It's on a standard switch release day and the timing is about right... I still think they might have swung talk like a pirate day but if I had to guess another day that'd be it. Based on the Devolver tweet from yesterday, my guess is that the trailer today is going to be in the style of a cheesy local TV commercial with Stan trying to sell you on the game.

👕 I beat #Mojole #154 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 6/6 🖤🖤💛🖤💚 💛🖤🖤🖤💚 🖤💚🖤🖤💚 🖤💚🖤💚💚 🖤💚🖤💚💚 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/ Yeah, this is nice, guys. But now I really need socks now...

The Delores engines name is Dinky afaik Glad we saw a new feature and everyone has something else to freak out over.

For Switch controls I'm hoping for walking with the left stick while browsing through hotspots with the right stick relative to Guybrush's position. Didn't MI2:SE do that?

I give them credit for showing restraint on changing the name of the SCUMM Bar to (New Engine Name) Bar.

Ah, my favourite video yet. Main thoughts: That SCUMM Bar music, then the transition. Yesss. The INTERFACE. It's such a neat idea for the hover-over text not just to name the object but give us a few of Guybrush's thoughts about it too. You can sneak in all sorts of jokes that way, too.

I'll take the convenience over a feeling of ownership 99% of the time (almost every game I play nowadays I play once. I rarely go back, even if I'm really enjoying them because there are always new things i want to play. There's maybe one game every few years which I love so much that I want to keep a memento of it.) ...but that said the one thing I do miss are big old chunky game boxes. I still have all my LucasArts ones in my parents' attic, and since I'm going to have a bit more space soon when I move, I was thinking about going up there next time I visit and getting those boxes to put on display.

I loooove that Rusty Anchor! 😍

Hmm, let's see what I can come up with off the top of my head (please correct any faulty rememberings!) Maniac Mansion/Zak McKracken Both games have one item each that would only be of any use if you could somehow cross gameworlds and combine them - a chainsaw and some chainsaw fuel. Day Of The Tentacle I can't think of much here that's likely to go unnoticed, except maybe... Peter Chan's trademark of hiding his kid's name Zach in the artwork, here as the licence plate of the Wash Me car. If you have the flag in your inventory when you change the design for it in the past, you get a snazzy morphing animation. Sam And Max Hit The Road This is jam-packed with stuff but again it's all pretty much in front of you. Uh... You can go back and check the answering machine in their office to get new messages. Once you learn how Trixie and Bruno escaped, you can go back to Flambe and ask him about it. Full Throttle The hood ornament on the limo is a caricature of Tim Schafer If you hassle Emmet for long enough he'll let you have a go at his knifey-handy-stabby game If you hold onto any fluffy bunnies you can put them through the fan on the front of the truck in the end sequence At least one of the bikers is a Maniac Mansion character - Razor (I think there's one more?) The Dig I think if you show a photo to another character, Robert Patrick does his T2 "Have you seen this boy?" line. I dunno, it's The Dig, whatever. Grim Fandango If you ask Glottis about the Rusty Anchor, he'll sing you a song. Despite it serving no purpose, it's been fully written, performed and manually lip-synced!