Leaderboard

Can i just say some of the jokes in Return have wonderful clues to the ending. For example, this joke reads differently with hindsight!!! 🤯

Dave Grossman's very silly answer to this question:

I'm not sure if this has been patched out yet, but on the Switch version you can access a debug menu by holding down three fingers on the screen for a couple of seconds. Lets you toggle a bunch of stuff, change chapters, rooms etc. Not sure if it's easy / possible to access on PC either. Had a quick look through it, but might be of interest to some!

I keep thinking about the rug pull at the end and how difficult it must have been to write effectively. Because the game sets you up for it, all the way through, and that becomes more obvious the more you think about it. The constant allusions to being disappointed when something ends, or when a secret is revealed, everyone warning you that the secret might not be worth all the effort, when you really look at it the game is really, really saying all the way through. So it would be really easy to have the end not feel surprising, or not feel like the rug pull that it is. It must have been really quite hard to balance the desire to make the themes of the game clear with still wanting the ending to feel like a surprise. I know at least that the last thing that I expected when going through that door was to see that back alley again (great choice, by the way. Arriving there was always a big moment of wonder in MI2, and actually not to have to confront LeChuck, and to have it end the way it did. When Guybrush says 'not yet' I feel very in-sync with Guybrush in that moment. Despite everything I still wanted the big denouement even though I knew, and had been reminded so many times that it won't live up to what's in my head. And then even in the options the game presents you with. You can decide to reject what you see and go back, you can decide to take the key but not open the box, you can decide to not open the key or box, but ... much like Guybrush, I'm weak. As soon as I saw the key there I was never not going to open the box. And so it's very fitting that when I do, it's just a stupid t-shirt. I think the next time I finish it I'm going to take the key and leave. To me that's the ending that is where I ended up closest to emotionally after I had processed everything about the ending.

I might be one of the few who loved the ending of Return to Monkey Island, but I was elated that Ron Gilbert retconned the notion that Guybrush fantasizing as a mighty pirate back into the game series; I enjoyed the meta ending in MI2 where Guybrush and Chuckie were paying pirates at an amusement park. In my headcanon, Elaine was originally a cast member a la "Disney princess" in the sense that she worked at the amusement park. She probably gave Guybrush a chance when he asked her out due to his love of the park and playful personality

Not sure if anyone else noticed/posted this, but when you find Herman, you can use the pieces of paper on him and he'll reveal that they're from him. They are pages from his copy "At the End of the Plank" and he was using them to help mark his way throughout the cave.

I must say Part II of this game is probably my favorite "Island-less" act in all of the Monkey Island games. Everything was perfect

Here’s a thought. Is the intro shot actually just… Moving on… The covered-up ‘spit’ sign itself isn’t particularly subtle, but I enjoyed how the actual location of that area is roughly where it should be relative to the Big Whoop-ified version of Booty Town.

Will grab some Room select Room name turned on, actors turned off I did try some of the toggles (show textures, show walkboxes etc.) with no immediate result, but maybe need to restart with those enabled or something.

I saw the end of Twin Peaks the Return in part as Frost and Lynch doubling down on an indictment of coopers self-motivated and maybe self-satisfied and definitely hubristic belief that he has the power to save people who are beyond saving, or maybe don’t want to be saved, or maybe don’t need to be saved. It happened a bit at the end of the series 2 finale, happened again in fwwm (his advice about whether or not Laura should take the ring), and was aggressively doubled down on at the end of The Return, where after already combusting multiple times attempting this, Coop fights his way out of the black lodge (or whatever it is) only to drag a seemingly random woman to Laura Palmers house, arguably doing far more harm to the universe than good in the process. That image at the original series finale of him smashing his head into the mirror again and again was stuck in my brain as the scene cut to black at the end of season 3. Unsurprisingly some fans were absolutely livid at this: Where’s coopers heroic end? Why didn’t he save Laura for good? Lynch is trolling us, spitting in our faces! It’s more of the same! I feel like with Twin Peaks The Return, Frost and Lynch were at least in part saying, definitively, “you heard us the first two times,” knowing some people won’t like that at all but doing it anyway. Like you said, I don’t think Gilbert and Grossman were being as arms-length about it, and I feel like across the prologue, entirety of Part 5, and the epilogue, they satisfyingly answer far more than Peaks ever did (and more than I expected them to with Monkey, to be honest. But like Frost and Lynch, I think they were definitely declaring “we don’t ever want you to be 100% comfortable with this, and we never did. If you missed that the first time, now it is laid out even more clearly.” I’ve never minded that about 2, and found Return’s… return to those ideas super thrilling. As a kid it was actually probably my first exposure to an ambiguous and deliberately unsettling ending like that, and I remember not feeling ripped off or betrayed, but more “oh I guess stories can end like that? that’s cool”* and then had almost thirty years of food for thought on lots of subjects. * I first played 2 on easy and wasn’t sure I’d found the real ending, but because I didn’t like it but because it was irregular, so I replayed on hard and got the same one and said “okay that’s how it is.”

I finished the game yesterday late in the night and I still haven't fully digested what I have experienced, but I still haven't been able to spot thinking about it. Probably the first time it has ever happened with a computer game. Took me a while to read all the posts in this thread and it has been an absolutely fascinating discussion, with some truly wonderful and thoughtful insights throughout. Just some very scattered thoughts, I hope to write something more coherent in the future: - Having Guybrush and Boybrush as our POV works wonderfully well. Not only it allows to reconcile the various and often conflicting viewpoints and tonal shifts in the previous games, but it is also a clear reflection of the various stages at which we, the players, experienced these adventures: whereas as a gullible innocent child or a nostalgia-hungry, seasoned adult. - I really don't interpret the ending as a sort of "anything goes" or "make up your mind about it" kind of situation. It's actually quite definitive in some of the answers it provides. Again, we come to the fundamental differences between plot and story. The ambiguity is not so much about what happens (plot), but rather what it means. - Some people like to call the ending "meta", but I feel that's really reductive. Great works of art require some degree of input from its audience. Art is always a dialogue. It's not a monologue. It will generate outputs that vary with the input given by its audience. - In that vein, I feel this sort of storytelling has probably never found a better vehicle for exploration that the point-and-click adventure game genre. We dictate the pace, the timing, how we linger in certain places. We are, as much as possibly we can be, the main character. Not a spectator. But an active participant in what's unfolding. So what reflects upon the main character, reflects upon us as well. It would not work as well if this were a movie, or a book, or what have you. So that urge for escapism to a fantasy pirate universe is out own urge, that's why we play these games to start with. So the consequences associated with unraveling what's behind the curtain, sustaining this fictional construct, hits a much a deeper chord. -Although this might be a very egocentric point of view, this game seems tailor made to where I'm at in my life right now. I became a father 5 months ago. My whole professional career has been tailored and greatly influenced by my exposure to Monkey Island (I will elaborate a bit on this in future posts). It was deeply touching to realize that all this obsession with Monkey Island is good and all, has given me countless moments of bliss, but it's very important to place in its proper rank in life's priorities and goals. Don't let it consume you or drive you. And that some things you really cannot experience again. But if you are at peace with that notion, you can go back into the rabbit hole and experience new things with a lot less baggage on your shoulders and maybe, just maybe, regain some of that child like wonder in experiencing new things , freed from expectations and nostalgia that have metastasized into our senses. In that sense, that Elaine line about a new quest felt like a renewal of what Monkey Island can be, in its purest form.

I've uploaded a few more pieces from the soundtrack: Mêlee Island Suite, In the Forrest, The Scumm Bar Suite, International House of Mojo Suite, LeShip at the Docks and the Fish Shop. Since there's a music ripper in the works, I think I'll maybe just do the Scurvy Island Suite and then wait for that. Here you can also listen to all tracks of Laserschwert and me in this playlist: Have fun!

The reason I put Return first was because not only do I find it a great game on its own, but it made me appreciate the other games even more. So, even as much as I love the other games and have nostalgia for them, Return actually makes me appreciate them even more now knowing what's been established in Return. It reframed how I view the entire series in a great way.

6) Escape from Monkey Island - EfMI is not a terrible point and click, but at times it really feels painful, mischaracterizing the characters even further than what Curse did and the puzzling lore about insults and way more... even gameplay wise, the tank control are painful (at least for PC), the maps hold up until the Monkey Island finale with lots of boring puzzles. All in all, my least favorite and the only one I refuse to replay given how difficult it was to run on my PC 5) Tales Tales is a difficult beast to describe, as it's a 5 episode series, and the tones and mood of the stories are inconsistent at best. It suffers of very low production values, with lots of repeated models. While I find Winston hilarious, I consider Morgan LeFlay and Marquis LeSinge not fully realized despite their huge impact to the story. I love what they do to the main trio, and I wouldn't have minded to follow the hints of the Voodoo Lady being evil. Episode 3 and 5 are the best, but all in all... it felt very forgettable, but not bad. I will never forgive them for trying to make "You fight like a cow" sound badass. It was stupid. 4) Curse Curse is a good game, maybe even great... but it has a flaw: it is a sequel to the original Monkey Island duo-logy. On its own, it is a very good game, almost outstanding, with plenty of good moments. Blood Island and Plunder Island were great places, and the Barber Pirate Trio and KIng Andre, very funny and good characters. LeChuck, while he is at his funniest here, balances it out with heinous acts (killing the Big Whoop crew, ruining the Goodsoup Family). However, Guybrush's character was brought back to his 1 incarnation, Elaine was turned into a Damsel in Distress until the final act (admittedly, it was Guybrush's fault...) and the two final chapters... they were bad, took me out of the experience and the finale was underwhelming, all while trying to DESPERATELY fix the ending of 2 (just say it's a reboot) Oh, also, Murray is here. Hilarious at the beginning but... I must admit though, he was getting annoying by the end. Also, I am sad the italian version didn't have the 'A Pirate I was meant to be' song. I guess too hard to fix into the iMUSE 3) Secret of Monkey Island The original, and what a banger it was. What can I say of this iconic masterpiece that people haven't praised? The Special Edition voicework is top notch, the art direction... uh.... yeah.... I am not sure what they were thinking when it comes to that. I am not a fan of Guybrush and Elaine, but here it was so obviously a joke. LeChuck... was okay, he needed more presence. The dialogue and the humor on spot and I have laughed a lot of times. Monkey Island is a little tedious to travel through, but that is the worst I can think 2) Return to Monkey Island ... I won't lie, I love this game. I wish it had better puzzles and the jokes were a little sharper, but the story and the world was top notch. As someone who didn't enjoy the art direction, it fits perfectly given the context, and I am glad to have seen the continuation of the series by Ron GIlbert. I might have enjoyed watching maybe Monkey Island 3, but alas, that has been lost ever since Gilbert left to create Humongous Entertainment. LeChuck was a bit weird, and I think it goes beyond the unfortunate recast due to Boen's old age and retirement. Maybe, eventually, this game will become the best, but it just misses the one grain of brilliance to beat my favorite 1) Le Chuck's Revenge Basically everything I loved of Secret of Monkey Island, but better: a more open, vivid world, bigger puzzles, a more driven and scarier villain, and ... what I like, the plot behind the plot, with Guybrush's struggling nature. I just love how there is more than just a silly adventure, treated earnestly, although still with plenty of irony. Right now LCR is my favorite with Return coming close. If I had the hard puzzles of LCR (except the Monkey Wrench, screw that) with the plot of Return, I'd have the perfect game

Well I finally feel ready to discuss ReMI... and there's 18 pages of hot takes to work through 🤪 I'm sure they're filled with interesting and thought-provoking discussion, though! My main takeaways were: My, what a PLEASANT game. Everyone is so damned nice about everything all the time. ("Remember that time I blew up your ship, left your stranded on an island, and you were nearly eaten by cannibals?" "Oh yes, but don't worry about it!") Guybrush is unbelievably nice and non-destructive, too (apart from maybe two moments where I felt they added them afterwards because he'd been so nice) LeChuck has been defanged from his absolutely terrifying MI2 version. OH! And the art style is amazing! That was my first impression. I was like, "Oh shit! I love how this game looks". And I was definitely someone who was unimpressed with the screenshots and trailer. The whole game looks so much better when you're actually PLAYING it. The ending still bends my brain a little. I suppose I want to believe everything really happened... but the game sort of tries to have its cake and eat it, too: The games are retellings of fantasies that have been had... inside a fantasy pirate world. The opening sequence and the park bench are all "reality", but it's a reality where pieces-of-eight are real currency and pirates are real. It also means that the ending he told his son was just randomly weird: "And then I remembered I was in a fairground where I worked as flooring inspector..." Okay, dad! Thanks for the crappy ending to the story. Are you feeling OK? I'm getting a bit worried. It's a bit odd when you think about it... but Ron wouldn't have it any other way.

I've just finished the game. It's GREAT. And I love the ending, it made me cry.

Somehow Zoltar replied: "You look more like a flooring Inspector" And somehow that became reality

About the horse armor, you can also: show it to the museum curator; throw it into the fireplace of the Scumm Bar.

I have always considered the Voodoo Lady (who is sometimes called "the fortune teller", at least in the MI1 demo) to be a representation of an element common to Disneyland and amusement parks: fortune telling machines: By the way, one of the fortune telling machines in Disney parks is the pirate Fortune Red. null

Maybe from the front page of the subreddit one can get the impression that the ending is massively disliked, because “I didn’t like it” posts are choking out the rest of the discussion, but when there is an actual poll, even in that community, extremely positive to at least neutral-to-positive reactions win out. So, plenty of people enjoyed it even if they didn’t all think it was perfect. They just aren’t posting about it as much there. Anyway, good take and theory on the ending! I’ve always read Elaine as maybe a little older than the other characters, at least in the hypothetical “kid fantasy” reality, and what you said tracks as a fun possibility.

The chat on the speedrun discord is being quite secretive about routing, tips, etc. I've done a hard-mode speedrun and grabbed the achievement as part of it. My advice would be: Use Easy Mode - it's a lot quicker (20-25 minutes). Double click to run places quickly. In chapter 4, press M or use the map in inventory to jump straight to it. In chapter 3, you don't need to steal LeChuck's theme, just play it - it doesn't change. The 'alternate' ending by heading back into the caves is probably quicker.

I don't know if this has been pointed out yet, but I noticed how well Guybrush's arc as an improving storyteller during ReMI ties into how he acts in MI2, what with how he keeps annoying everybody with his "killing LeChuck" story. He was a crap storyteller!

We've been updating TP Explorer to add support for ReMI but its still a work in progress. Proper music dumping will come in the next release, I have it working manually but I done the code to do it automatically yet.

Obviously, I have a VERY vested interest in what happens with Monkey Island going forward, so take this for what it's worth 😄 But one of the things I kind of love about how the fellas wrapped this one up is that I don't think more would diminish anything. I love how they've kind of closed the loop while setting up almost a kind of framework that all of these stories inhabit. In some ways, I feel like this frees any future projects, should we get them, to simply be fun Monkey Island stories, new adventures, a standalone chapters, without the burden of dealing with the larger questions and setup. I feel like it would now be possible for a new game — with maybe just a couple of subtle nods to the metastory — to simply tell a fun story. I mean, it would be tough to top the emotional pull of RtMI. And maybe the best thing would be not to try. But so long as any future adventures are deferential to what we just played, I don't think there's any reason they'd have to detract from anything.

I just played a little bit of Monkey1, just strolling through Mêlée town. I must say, it’s pretty chilling walking through High Street now. 😨

Finally... It comes next week. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thirdeditions/monkey-island-book-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-saga

The game gets a 0/10 for me for not being able to pick up the staple remover. …but besides that, this may be the best or 2nd best game. I’m doing a replay on casual mode to see if there’s anything I missed.

I think it would have been funnier if Boybrush and Chuckie were actually brothers. Those would have been some wild genetics, and a funny naming method for your two children. Oh well. In an MI continuity where Guybrush and Elaine didn't get married, I think its very likely Dee would have instead been baby Elaine in the park. This is just personal speculation of course. But still. It's a good thing Guybrush and Elaine did get married, or we wouldn't have been treated to those amazing anchor facts. I don't think Elaine would have known that much about anchors. Nobody knows more than Dee.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but i just walked past the scumm bar for the millionth time and a bottle was thrown through the window from inside. Guybrush had to dodge and then said “hey watch it!” Now the window stays smashed whenever i go back. Love it.

Apparently they tried to translate it into italian and part of the translation is into the code, but then came the notice from Lucasarts that every other version except english would have that scene cut because translating it well into every language was a pain. On youtube there's a video that explains how to see the italian version on ScummVM, but honestly I wish there was some way to hack the game to unlock it while playing normally (sure, the song won't be all translated, or at all, but it's one of the most iconic moments of the series)

I think the Prelude's amusement park is "more real" than what it looks like after you take control. I think it's a stuffed giraffe instead of a pirate... modern currency instead of pieces of eight... a restroom instead of an outhouse... trash cans instead of barrels with sunglass rats.

This is great news! I've been oogling that book for a while and I'd love an English copy! Of course I don't have any reason to complain at all the Monkey Island goodness that's being released recently, but I do have a question for the author: I don't know how the book is structured, but what I'm wondering is if you'll update the book to include Return to Monkey Island. After all, if I'm not mistaken, the French version was released before ReMI was even announced. I am a completionist at heart, and I'd love for every chapter to be mentioned!

👕 I beat #Mojole #189 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 2/6 💚🖤🖤🖤💚 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

May Monkey Island games never become so commonplace that a fan would think "ehhhh I'll give this one a miss"

👕 I beat #Mojole #188 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 2/6 🖤💚🖤💛💛 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Yeah, I should also point out that I very much enjoy Escape, both in gameplay and story. It's just a testament to how much I enjoy the others and not a testament to how bad it is. There are several things I would change, such as how Murray was used, but I still very much enjoy it.

When you mention creating a quantity of 50 or 100 boxes, I cant help but feel they'll eventually end up on ebay as hard to identify bootlegs. My advice, continue your product for yourself and people who may approach you for a copy of their own. But dont start selling this from a webshop or anything like that. It will ruin more than it will bring good.

0. Tales, unspoken but I know it’s there at the top. Thank you Remi.

Yeah, Harness did a great job and also sounded very organic. My biggest fear was that his take would sound very forced, but it didn't at all. Others have said it, but I think a change in voice actually complimented the take on the character for this entry. LeChuck seems lost in this one: his diary shows that he was still terrorizing the seas but unable to let go of his lust for Elaine and his obsession for revenge on Guybrush. His sudden decision to search for the secret again is almost like a mid-life crisis. He's attacking the seas, but still doesn't have control over them or Elaine and resorted to the last potential source of power he knew about. He's in denial on how much his hatred of Guybrush drives him and projects his own obsession about the secret onto Guybrush. By the end, he lost the faith of his crew and killed some of them while the rest abandoned him. He was left alone to fight for what was eventually revealed as nothing more than a T-shirt and was enveloped by his lust for the secret. Guybrush also remarks that LeChuck's ship seems like one giant mid-life crisis, so I think this was indeed the theme Ron and Dave intended to come across for the character.

I just did another quick playthrough trying to pick up some more trivia cards and achievements, but it's really the ending that's still on my mind... I've now played through about 5 of the different ending options, and read the Mojo article to look at the rest, but I have to say I've been thinking about the ending to Return non-stop since I originally finished it. My goodness... I think it's going to take me a really long time to process all this! Besides some of the items Jake mentioned above, for me the most emotional part was turning off the lights and leaving... First time I played it I don't think it really hit me as hard as my mind was so overrun with everything, but now the more I think about it I just start feeling really... emotional. I guess for me it's really about realizing that it's all over (for now) and it's back to reality. When Guybrush appears surprised to be back in the alley he makes the comment, "Oh no... not yet!" and the sadness in his voice.... just gets to me. And it's exactly how I feel. Personally, life's been super busy and stressful these past few years, and hearing about Return's announcement was an unexpected oasis of excitement that I didn't ever expect... and something I didn't realize I desperately needed. I've been looking forward to this game more than any game I've ever looked forward to in my life, and even though I've been swamped with both personal and work stuff these past few months, I carved out some time this week to focus on just this - escaping from reality for a few days to go on an adventure as a loveable pirate. Unfortunately, after this weekend (that's all I could allocate) it's really back to reality for me, and all those things I've been pushing off. Sure, both Guybrush and I can always return to those old adventures (and potentially even new ones?) but that has to wait until another day... as it's closing time. <Sigh> I really really loved the ending, and I think it tied together so many themes for me throughout the series, not just MI1 and MI2. If there was one reservation I had as I played Return, it was that I struggled for a while trying to piece together 'when' the story took place. And more specifically, it bothered me that there wasn't clearer references to some of the events from Escape. That being said, I loved the scrapbook and the reference to the 'cushy government jobs', and I felt they did a respectful job with Herman, and by the time I neared the end of the game I was okay with how they chose to handle past cannon. And then ending came. For me it felt like it made everything okay and wrapped all 6 chapters of the series together into one nice big bundle, allowing me to understand that these are all just separate adventures stories that are just meant to be... fun. And that's it. They allow Guybrush (and all of us) to escape from our lives as flooring inspectors, and temporarily enjoying being a pirate. And I'm okay with that. And if this is our last adventure together... I will be okay with that too. Damn... I feel like I've been stabbed in the heartstrings!

To clarify, it's all high-level complaining, as the whole musical experience in RtMI is just wonderful. And hearing another version of Woodtick is generally a good thing. Hell, I specifically praised the pause menu using a minor version of the Lookout theme in the details thread, without arguing that they could have composed a new theme for that. I don't know why I treat these two differently.

In the ending, you can take a photo as a pirate, which was also possible in real life at PAX and Gamescom. 🙂 More generally, the recreation of Melee shown at events was a giant real-life reference to the ending. 😁

Sounds like something a flooring inspector would say... ... just kidding, I completely agree with you. RtMI is a mature reflection on life, not a rollicking pirate adventure. It's the culmination of years of thought about what Monkey Island and adventure gaming has meant to the original authors, and how their lives have been changed by it. My opinion is that this game (and Monkey 1 and Monkey 2) are entirely allegorical. It is not a literal pirate adventure, and taking it as such will inevitably lead to disappointment. I suspect where a lot of disappointment comes from is that Monkey 3, 4, and Tales were in fact rollicking pirate adventures with comedic fourth wall breaks. I think the reason this happened is because after Monkey 2 it wasn't perfectly clear whether the author's intent for fourth wall breaks was for comedy (think Spaceballs) or for allegory (think Twin Peaks). CoMI, Escape, and Tales all played it pretty safe, and while containing similar "out of place" things (Star Buccaneers for example), they missed the central point, because they had never received the full story. They just did their best, and so you ended up with a more Spaceballsy type fourth wall break. I would bet that Ron was extremely frustrated by that at the time. I would also bet that this is why he didn't want to accept them as "canon" until very recently, when he was able to find a framework to make them fit within his original intent. RtMI (and especially the ending) cements for me that the series is intended to be allegorical.

I apologize in advance for my English as it is not my native language. The ending of RtMI has left me extremely sad. It was perfect and worked for me on so many levels. I was devastated turning off the lights. I believe this is the end of Monkey Island series or how we knew it. It was so symbolic. Yes, you could escape back and keep pretending of having adventures while also receiving “I don’t believe” achievement. The achievement in itself is quite telling. I played MI in my early teens. Back when I really struggled to understand many of the dialogs. My vocabulary improved immensely through the first two games. MI2 will forever remain the greatest game of all times for me. I cried watching the trailer of RtMI. Cried again during the prologue. Cried while turning the lights off, and still feeling incredibly sad. For me it all came to a simple understanding. Your adventures in this world are done. Go back and keep replaying them but now the lights are out. The final story is now told. For many the meta ending doesn’t work, but honestly with such lofty expectations after 30 years, no ending would have worked for everyone. Is RtMI a perfect game? Honestly no. There were a number of issues. Humor was definitely lacking compared to earlier games. The closure with Elaine with respect to the cutscenes where she learns about Guybrush’s selfish behavior was not satisfying. But it did wonders in tying up the series. The prologue and the ending were a masterclass in storytelling. The final shot of Guybrush sitting alone will remain with me for a long time. It is so beautiful and devastating at the same time. Unbelievable!

Talking of details, I really appreciated whole presentation of the game. Not only the voice acting, the animation and the art style, but also the “technical” side. From the main menu (background and music), the inventory, the fonts (I loved those, very fitting), the intro and really everything was almost perfect to me! 👌 Something I kind of missed in EMI or TMI. There were always things that bugged me (especially in EMI). You can really feel how much time, love and work was put in ReMI.

Hey, has anybody floated the idea that Boybrush isn't Guybrush's son, but rather Guybrush's troubled orphan kid self, and in passing his wisdom on to his "son," he's healing himself? I'm off to bed, but... that 🙂

Hello! I finished the game last night, had the classic "Huh.", and then warmed up to it. Then I went to bed. And this morning, my partner asked me about the ending, so I told her what happened. And I talked and talked, tried to explain what was going on, which I couldn't, but I kept talking in excitement, and the longer I talked the more tears where flowing. Really!? Stupid game makes me cry and I don't no why? I wasn't able to explain really what was going on, but I felt this strong warmth from this game. The letter really hit my heart. Can't even make sense of all these feelings while writing you this. And I love it. I already miss the game, and I want to replay it immediately.

I just finished the game and I feel like I really need to process this ending. I’ve been dreaming of this game since the 90s, and I still can believe it now exists. It really felt deep to me. I actually love the Lynch comparison because it made me felt the same way I felt while finishing S3 of Twin Peaks. Is it a work of madness or genius? Or even a bit of both? I love the animations, music, voice acting so much… It really felt like a big adventure. The ending though… The Secret actually was exactly what I wanted it to be. This has been my theory for decades… and at the same time, I love the fact that the game is still meta about it, and decides to not give a clear answer. It felt abrupt. And I almost yelled: “That’s it?!?” But then I realized that was exactly the reaction the game wanted me to have, and this is what I love about Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman. They are artists, and they want us to reflect on ourselves while they are reflecting on themselves. The game triggers a reaction that pushes us to think about our own feelings and expectations. Even though I would also have love to have a true last battle against LeChuck, I feel like it would have gone against the message of the game, about the frustration it wanted us to feel. I, therefore, feel frustrated but compelled at the same time - which is weird - a bit lost, emotional, for sure… I honestly think they couldn’t have make a better game. I really feel grateful, and I’m so happy that it’s getting so many good reviews. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m not saying anything interesting. Just thinking out loud with my broken English. This, definitely, was a ride.

This is close to my arc with it. I got to the end and literally sat back from my computer in my chair and said "huh." And then was quiet for a little while. Then paced around my house for ten minutes thinking . Then went and excitedly told my wife all my thoughts on it because I had no one else to tell because nobody knew the game existed yet (she said "cool" or something, and I can't blame her because it WAS COOL).

Part 4: