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Hi! Sorry, I feel like I'm disrupting a conversation. I'm new here. I'm not a native speaker, so I apologize if my English is a bit clumsy. I've been a fan of Monkey Island since I was a kid, in the 90s, MI2 is my favorite game (and MI2's ending is my favorite ending ever), and I've been really excited about Return since its announcement in April. So I guess I just wanted to meet and discuss with other fans. ❤️ I already preordered the game (on the Switch), and I can't wait it for it to come out. I've been going on Twitter religiously every Monday to see new clips from Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman. I personally love the art style. It has, for me, kind of weird, in a good way, and unique vibe. It made me feel like I'm gonna enter this strange world, which is exactly how I felt when I first played MI1 and 2 in the 90s. I always felt like RG's games had some kind of Lynchian vibe, and I think this fits perfectly. Anyway... Nice to meet you all!

🤔🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 👕 I beat #Mojole #159 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 3/6 🖤💛💛🖤💚 🖤💛🖤💚💚 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Here’s a question: Would Tim Schafer have rejoined the team if Ron had asked him? I don’t think Schafer’s influence on the original two games can be understated… plus he was involved in nearly all of LucasArt’s most beloved titles: Monkey 1+2, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. IMO, the best game he wasn’t involved in was Curse (and maybe Sam & Max - although the puzzles in that game are super uneven). The rest of LucasArt’s catalogue are beloved in their own ways, but they don’t hit the same highs if you ask me (as much as I love them): Last Crusade, Zak McKraken, Loom, Maniac Mansion, Fate (overrated IMO, sorry), The Dig, Escape from MI. Schafer has gone on to prove himself as a brilliant independent game writer/director, too. I just think Schafer had a bigger influence on what we know and love as LucasArts than perhaps he’s given credit for?

/lurking_mode_off Ah! Another refugee from the ag forums. Welcome! 🥰 /lurking_mode_on

The dialogue from both Full Throttle and Grim Fandango persuaded me that he was probably responsible for a lot of the writing that I enjoyed most in the first two games (not that I know for sure, it's just that there's stuff in the way that those two games are written that I feel like shares DNA with the first two MI games and DOTT.) So I've no doubt it'll be a bit different, but how much so I'm not sure. Part of the reason that Ron's earlier rumblings about revisiting MI irked me is that it was always about how he wanted the rights, he wanted to do MI3 his way, etc etc and there wasn't much acknowledgement that actually it was a team effort - not just in the writing, but in the design, in the music and how much that lent to the atmosphere. Graphics too, though obviously they've changed from game to game. I was so glad that with ReMI they have pitched it as a collaboration between Ron and Dave from the start, and brought back the main 3 composers, have the involvement of several other people who have a history with the series. I don't think I would have been half as excited for it if it were just The Ron Show. I would say that it's probable that Ron talked to Tim about it when it got going a couple of years ago, and Tim had to say that he was deep in the writing of Psychonauts 2, and because of his Microsofty obligations, getting involved in another project in that way would have been contractually dicey. I can't imagine a conversation didn't happen. Some people speculate that Ron is sore about the rights to The Cave getting swallowed up by Microsoft. That's possible, but I don't know. They're all grown ups that have been in business a long time, I don't think that would have affected things that much. The timing just wasn't right for Tim. I'll also be interested to see what that does to the mood of the game (and trying to sort that out from the effect that a 30 year gap had on the game, too)

MI1 was definitely Ron, Tim, and Dave’s game all along because they wrote and programmed it! MI2’s writing and programming team broadened out even wider than the three of them, expanding to include Tami Borowick and Bret Barrett, who both left with Gilbert to make kids games at Humongous after MI2 shipped. (Tami made Freddi Fish and Bret made Spy Fox. Grossman would later join them and work on Pajama Sam.) Really every Monkey Island has had a different set of people involved (not just the people involved but the time passed means everyone’s always changing, as are the relationships they have with each other) and this is no different in that regard. Another go with the full original trio of guys would have been really cool but this is still exciting and, imo, unprecedented.

Nice seeing you here. And thanks everyone for the warm welcome! ❤️ I have to agree with that. I’m actually a huge Schafer’s fan – he’s my favorite writer ever. This is only thing I’m a bit worried about. We’ll see for sure if MI is Ron and Dave’s game or was Ron, Tim, and Dave’s game all along. Still, I’m happy that Dave Grossman is working on the game. I would have been much more worried if it was Ron Gilbert alone, even though I love his work – Thimbleweed Park was amazing, IMO. I feel like Tim Schafer does great with emotional scenes, and I’ve been missing that a bit with RG’s games. However, what I read and heard makes me feel like it will be great no matter what. I especially like the fact that Dominic Armato said, in a interview, that the story was poignant. This is exciting.

This is a lot of weird assumptions about both The Dig and Myst! Myst-like games and sequels to Myst sold like gangbusters for a long window after Myst. Many many many people who played it were captivated by it and recommended it to their friends and kept coming back to the game again and again. Myst created an entire and very successful sub-genre of games.* The Dig is a weird game but it’s easy to imagine the combination of “a sci-fi mystery game… by Spielberg!” was a huge draw. (And honestly the game is kind of Myst-like! Lots of puzzles involving weird alien transport devices, subtly rearranging things to make patterns and wake old machinery, etc. All stuff traditional adventure games yawn wildly at, or have scorn for, but captivated the Myst players who like these games as slow meditative experiences to get lost in.) I think you’re probably right to some degree, that The Dig is the game equivalent of a movie everyone is excited about the week before, excited about on the walk in… then at the end, walk out of the theater and don’t even really discuss on the walk back to the car, and kind of forget they saw it. But what’s interesting to me here is, we don’t really know that: No one really tried making more games quite like The Dig, and no one really talked to these hundreds of thousands who bought it and asked what they thought. The traditional gaming press - especially adventure gamers - seem to have a low opinion of the game, and don’t interrogate it other than point out how it’s lacking through the lens of traditional LucasArts games. Honestly the disdain for the dig among adventure gamers is kind of similar to that for Myst, but Myst was an undeniable blockbuster so press have had to (sometimes reluctantly) grapple with its success and interrogate it. Its success-but-not-an-undeniable-blockbuster status is another place where The Dig found itself kind of adrift out in the middle of nowhere, fading out of existence. * Point and click players often hate on Myst for being a totally different thing, but holding that against Myst is, and has always been, a mistake in my opinion. I don’t think Cyan ever set out to make a traditional graphic adventure game, but unfortunately there weren’t many genre boxes to put non-combat games into so it got lumped in. And then adventure game fans got really sore when Myst sold super well and was beloved by millions instead of their favorite (and in their minds, more deserving) games. Again, not Myst’s fault.

From Wikipedia: According to LucasArts, The Dig's global sales reached 300,000 copies by early 1998, the highest sales of a LucasArts adventure title at the time of its release.

🤔🤔🤔 🤔🤔🤔 🤔🤔🤔 👕 I beat #Mojole #159 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 6/6 💚🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤💛🖤🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤💛💚💛🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

🤔 🤔🤔 🤔🤔🤔 👕 I beat #Mojole #159 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 6/6 🖤🖤🖤💛💛 🖤🖤🖤💛🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤💛💛💛🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

🤔🤔🤔 👕 I beat #Mojole #159 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 3/6 🖤💛🖤🖤🖤 💚💚💚🖤🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Yes!!! Welcome