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ughhh I literally can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about the ending, and trying to think of an interpretation that works with everything we’ve seen. I just really hope that, since all interpretations are valid, that Ron Gilbert won’t shy away from telling us his interpretation. Stuff like, why he keeps returning to the idea of theme parks. How the carnival opening evolved in his mind over the years, what he was originally planning on doing that after MI2. I feel pretty confident that the amusement park was his original idea for the secret, because of the plaque, but I’d like to hear him expand on like, what that meant exactly at the time, how that might have played out. Like I’m totally cool with the idea that there’s no definitive answers to any of the questions, but I hope in interviews Ron will tell us all his thoughts and opinions honestly, without holding back just to be mysterious like he would have before this game came out. Anyways, here’s where I’m at with the story right now. Sorry if it’s super incoherent, it’s like 2am right now haha. I like the idea that Guybrush wanted to tell a story about how all his adventures were really just him at a carnival. (Why, I’m not sure, but I’m sure you could speculate about that. Maybe something from his childhood?) But because of what we know from all the other games, the story guybrush wanted to tell just didn’t really make sense anymore. Boybrush literally lives in a piratey world where Elaine is his mom, so of course to him that story wouldn’t make any sense! In other words, Ron Gilbert had a story he wanted to tell, but all the other games contradicted it, and so this game is the story that emerges from those contradictions. This is represented in the game at the end, when we see a literal contradiction with how guybrush acts when looking at all the cardboard cutouts (like he knew the whole time that it was all fake) vs how he acts when talking to Elaine (confused about what’s going on.) I think Elaine is telling him, “this weird obsession with the original secret of monkey island, this weird carnival thing, just doesn’t work anymore. Let’s put it to rest.” And so you turning off all the lights is like Ron Gilbert symbolically putting the whole carnival plotline to rest, and embracing whatever direction the story wants to go next. To be clear, I think that guybrush’s adventures were mostly all real, with some embellishments here and there. I think that because I see no reason for the park bench stuff to not be considered “real.” To me, it’s the carnival stuff that’s the fantasy, hence why we see the “Big Whoop Amusement Park” turn into a quaint little town at the beginning of the game. As for what really happened when Guybrush went through the door? I think whatever you tell boybrush happened is what really happened, as we see with all the epilogues. On the topic of contradictions: At the beginning of the game, guyrbush tells boybrush that you can’t just mess around with the ending, and that that’s not how storytelling works. At the end of the game, boybrush reminds guybrush that he said that, To which he replies, “I did?” I think This is Ron Gilbert sort of poking fun at himself, and how he used to be so particular with what his third MI would be, and how he’s loosened up. And it (lovingly) pokes fun at the fanbase, for obsessing so much about every word he’s said. The beginning of the game is “If I made another monkey island,” and the end of the game is “when I made another monkey island.” I’m reminded of the initial reveal trailer. Murray: Ron Gilbert told me he’d never make another monkey island unless~ Ron Gilbert: I did? Ok that’s enough for now. I probably missed a whole bunch of stuff. Not gonna proofread this, just had to get it out there. TLDR: Game good, I need sleep. Aaaaaaaaaaaaa

Hi! I've grown up with adventure games; Curse Of Monkey Island is largely responsible for me learning English as a kid, along with the other Monkey Island games and some Humongous games, which made middle school English class a breeze a few years later, and now about 20 years later I'm still benefiting from that. Plus, one of the reasons I started learning piano a few years ago was because I wanted to be able to play the music from the Monkey Island games. That's just to say the Monkey Island games have had a big impact on my life. I only found the Monkey Island games well after they released, except for Tales, but I've been lurking here since ReMI was announced. Thanks for all the thoughtful, interesting and fun discussions and analyses before and after the game came out, it really made me even more excited about this Return!

Counterpoint: I’d argue that they didn’t ignore it, but that all the sequels are consciously attempting to deal with the aftermath of 2 in their own ways, with the knowledge that if they ever had attempted to say anything definitive, fans would have rioted and punished them for trying. Those teams were all in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. I don’t think they all liked the ending of 2, but every sequel was made in response to it in some way. For example, the original design document to Curse: Mediocre but real example: I dreamed of a moment in Tales where Guybrush hits his head or takes a huge punch from LeChuck and wakes up in a first aid tent, is bandaged up by a nurse, walks outside and is back in the story, and to never mention it again. Not the most genius idea of all time, but I know I’m not the only one who worked on these games and was drawn to the idea of crashing head-on into the dual-layer blurry reality we get a glimpse of at the end of 2, but knowing a head-on crash like that would be rejected by everyone everywhere for different reasons. Instead some games tried to fold it into the reality of the game, some games did their own version of surreal piracy, some tried to acknowledge it but only around the edges. (Anyway I know this isn’t really what you meant. You know they didn’t literally ignore it, you meant they didn’t try to imagine exactly what he wanted and try to do that. I think that would have been far worse than them instead reacting however they most naturally wanted to and making that game. Someone imagining what Ron would have done and just sort of futzing around would have probably created something far less memorable than the games we got!)

There are a few others in the Crossroads (I can’t remember all of them). There’s the Grog machine sitting there of course, though that’s almost a Monkey Island meme at this point. The boat that takes you to the different crossroads island is initially boarded via a queue system that is meant to evoke the way guests are loaded onto ride vehicles in a theme park (and it has a tiny puttering gas motor and seems to run on a track when it starts and stops). The music is a deliberate callback to the underground tunnels. When LeChuck is killed and the screen goes to white, there is some ambience from a theme park bleeding in under the voodoo sounds. Does any of that mean anything??? I couldn’t tell you because it never felt to me like there was any sort of direct symbolic correlation between these images and any one meaning in a high school literary analysis sense, but it “felt right” to us so we did a bit of it. We had talked about going more full bore and having the grave Guybrush dug himself out of be made of cardboard and astroturf and that sort of thing - waking up in a more explicitly artificial world - but in the end decided to keep it more grounded and less explicit.

I had no idea that this was even a thing, but that's amazing.

It's not all fun though...

Hi! After finishing Return To Monkey Island, I wanted a new puzzle, so I tried to unpack the game files. Thanks to far smarter people than me working on expanding BgBennyBoy's Thimbleweed Park Explorer, I managed to unpack and re-pack the game files. May I present to you: MonkeyPack. So far this is a pretty bare-bones commandline application, but it can do the most important parts: Unpacking the existing ReMI ggpack files, and re-packing edited files. To unpack: select one or more ggpack files, and drag and drop them onto the application; or open a commandline where you extracted the application, and call it with the arguments 'unpack [path to ggpack(s)]', for instance 'MonkeyPack.exe unpack "C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\Return To Monkey Island\Weird.ggpack1a"'. Game files will be extracted to where MonkeyPack resides, in a subfolder named after the ggpack file. To pack: Select one or more files and/or folders (no ggpack files), and drag and drop them on the application; or open a commandline where you extracted the application, and call it with the arguments 'pack [list of filenames/folders to pack', for instance 'MonkeyPack.exe pack Text_en.tsv Text_de.tsv"'. The new ggpack file will be created where MonkeyPack resides. The project's readme explains things in a bit more detail. I found that if you pack a file with the same name as one of the packed files, and name it so it gets sorted after the existing files (Like 'Weird.ggpack6'), the data in the repacked file takes precedence over the existing data. This for instance makes it easy to use fan-made translations: Unpack 'Weird.ggpack1a', find the 'Text_en.tsv' file, translate some text, repack it, and place the new ggpack back into the game folder, and the English text should be replaced with the fan-translated one. I hope it's ok for me to post this, and that people find uses for it! If there are any questions or if I didn't word something clearly, please let me know! Versionlog: MonkeyPack v0.3 - 2022-10-17: -Fix a bug in the GGDict parser, that could make it miss some strings in the strings list MonkeyPack v0.2 - 2022-10-10: -Don't keep all the files to pack in memory. This massively reduces memory usage during packing -'pack' now ignores ggpack files -Add filename filtering. For example, 'monkeypack.exe unpack path/to/game/Weird.ggpack1a *.tsv' only unpacks the .tsv files from the ggpack file. Works for 'list' and 'pack' too. -Update help inside program -Update and expand readme MonkeyPack v0.1 - 2022-10-03: -Initial release

I was unclear! Although my wife has excellent taste (in other areas), she is the one who does NOT remember Back to the Future 3 fondly. But that's okay. The kids will have to give it a view before we can get to the Telltale game.

guybrush tells the story directly to me (like this)

I scanned archival assets for Laserschwert and all I used was this black tshirt.

Yes, same here, yes this is the most interesting/almost disturbing line in the whole game. I keep thinking about it too.

So far, my absolute favorite part of Return has been when LeChuck landed on Monkey Island and used the Mop Map (which Guybrush had used on Mêlée Island to find its historic mop tree), and he was somehow able to follow that map's directions to accidentally find a different mop tree on Monkey Island.

Approx: 00:00 LeShip Main 02:44 Lower Deck 05:30 Crow's Nest 08:15 Murray 11:08 Underwater 13:54 LeChuck 16:38 Spyglass 19:25 Spy Ship Cutscene Agreed it probably makes sense to do this as gapless

Oh dear! What a shame. BTTF3 is so often maligned, that I assumed you weren't a fan. There's still time

Just to add, that I would hope this, too! He's always been very forthright and honest (IMHO), so I imagine he will, once everyone has had a chance to digest ReMI.

To be totally clear I love that Return did dive all the way into the multi-layered nature of especially the first two games. I also like that they did it with their own unique tone. Monkey Island 2 had this creeping dark underbelly to it, and everyone was kind of a dick, and it was great. Thimbleweed Park actually really had that mood going on, and I appreciated it the. I liked that Return did it’s own thing, though, and scratched and picked away at the surface of those layers, but did it inside a shaggy dog hangout story about a bunch of old people.

As Doc Brown is a student of all sciences, I'm a student of all BTTF parts. And thank you. When the time is right, I'm all set to show her the Humongous titles I've never played and from there we'll try some Lucas titles and explore worlds.

🤔🙄 They clearly put a ton of thought into it. Again, it’s just not the thing you want, which is fine.

Well, God bless you guys. And some day, you'll be able to indoctrinate those little ones with your favorite media as I do with mine now! (But my wife doesn't always help. She's poisoned them on Back to the Future 3, but someday... 😆)

@BaronGrackle Oh, I've got it on PC (with horse armor) but like @Al.DeHyde I have a 6 month old.

Just leave me with my Mutiny on Monkey Island designer document, so I can read it over and over again as I tell myself that somewhere in Ron Gilbert's brain, the secret of Monkey Island was a hellgate beneath a crack in the earth, described in detail.

As somebody does a 3-5 minute track for Brr-muda that I can stick on my Christmas playlist, I'll be happy. (I suppose I can always cut one down myself) I really do hope we get an official album for this one, if for no other reason, then because it'll be interesting to see how the composers choose to arrange these dynamic themes themselves.

I believe it was in a mandatory cutscene! When LeChuck is fighting Lila. He says something like "We're looking for the SECRET, I'll have my REVENGE, something about a CURSE, you can't ESCAPE, or live to tell the TALES"

We’re gonna need a second black tshirt.

I love Grumpy Explorer, but I guess Dinky Explorer makes more sense. (Or you could just go with Terrible Explorer )

It's for .NET, so it should run on Mac too! (Either install .NET or Mono) I've uploaded the latest build here if you need.

Do you remember where exactly? I tried all the torches and candles and I couldn't find it. @WorldMaker I just remembered that you can actually check the logs to see all dialogue spoken. Near the save games there is a file called Playlog.txt. Could you open it and search for Pappapishu? Thanks!

Yeah, I was wondering about that... something about the plants, and where they grow? *shrugs*

I had the exact problem. 😅 I was trying to use the scorched Alaska again and again with the cannon till ill looked it up in the hint book.

Talking about the kids, I really like this friendly Chuckie. He seems likea friend who can get you in trouble, but he's got your back too.

Sorry about that btw, I misunderstood what you were saying. I think we’re both on the same page 😅

I didn't mean to imply they hadn't put a lot of effort into ReMI, it's just clear that their efforts and intentions were in a different place to what was being discussed here. For example, there's no attempt to explain Guybrush's dream (or why a random couple from years into the future should appear in it -- the same age), or to draw a line between what was foreshadowing of an amusement park (eg. Grog machine), and what was just a silly joke, (eg. lines like "What's this doing in a pirate game?", "This isn't Monkey 1", "Never pay more than $20 for a video game"). Or why Herman is Elaine's grandfather. They openly said they had a casual attitude towards canon and tying things together. If you, as a fan, you are being kept awake at night because you're trying to make it all fit together, your best bet is to acknowledge that Ron and Dave didn't put much thought into that particular aspect of ReMI, and let it go (or make your own explanation). It's not an insult to Ron or Dave to say this, it's just not where their focus was. That's literally what I said, yes.

I think that's a great name. Ron has developed more than one engine in the last few years, and he seems to enjoy developing and refining them, so I suggest not mentioning any of his engine names; they change. BUTT: Browse Utility for Terrible Toybox Shamelessly recycled from the name I suggested years ago to Ron for his next engine. And, believe me, "BUTT" would have been a much better choice than "Dinky". That's so true. I still remember the compression algorithm we devised with the Amiga computer nerd group when we were about eighteen years old. The name was "burp": its goal was to ingest bytes and produce as few bytes as possible, with a "burp" to represent the heavy digestion. We never got beyond the name and an audio sample.

The man speaks like a poet.

I think you might be projecting if you’re implying the Curse team effectively censored themselves for mass appeal, when it’s probably just that they didn’t like that stuff and didn’t want it in their game. I think the team did see themselves as artists and did feel free to create what they wanted, and it’s just very different from what you wanted. I think that team just didn’t like those surreal and mysterious themes that came to a head at the end of 2, so they chose to interpret that moment as “I hope LeChuck didn’t cast a spell on him or something” being the literal plot truth, and based their game on it. Even though I like Curse a lot, it’s never been the Monkey Island 3 that I wanted, because it ignores the things you’ve been talking about (which I also love about the series), but I’m sure it’s the game they wanted to make, with the only real compromises coming from budget and scope restrictions, not creative or thematic. Personally I didn’t ever care if I got “Rons original vision” in future monkey Island games, but always wanted them to live in that exciting space where uncertainty exists, where the world feels like it’s almost projected on paper and you can see that unreality and feel like you could poke a hole through it or fall through at a moments notice, if you dig too deep. I don’t think that stuff remotely appealed to the leads on Curse, though. In that case they were the ones who were irritated at the thought of the potential head on car crash with those themes, and drove the car as far away from it as possible as the motivation for their game. You’re probably right that it was a big contributor to its success - not necessarily because those themes are unpalatable, I think, but because their absence from the plot made Curse a soft reboot in a way, a great entry point in the series for a new era of players. Sorry my thoughts on this are kind of jumbled. It’s not something I’ve thought about enough.

Good for you for prioritizing! The game will wait.

I'm in "I haven't been able to finish it yet" land due to having a 2-year-old.

Good question. Well, it depends: is the goal to create a game enjoyed by as many people as possible or to create something that I would personally enjoy? Personally, I would like the next game to go more down the rabbit hole. I'm not sure if I would use the same "old Guybrush tells a story" device, but I would like to see the darker and more surreal themes explored more, perhaps hinting at themes from MI2 that were never explained and using (again) the "unfinished business" motivation to return to some of the islands shown in MI2. Perhaps an even older Guybrush might be the best character to use as the protagonist and his son might work as a second playable character, framing everything on the father-son rite of passage. On the other hand, if the goal is to create something more easily appreciated by people, I would drop any meta features, abandon any attempt to discuss older topics never explained, and simply take advantage of the framing device established in RtMI. Guybrush would tell another story to his son, this time extremely straightforward: "Guybrush gets into trouble and eventually defeats LeChuck". I would also show Guybrush telling a story to Boybrush only at the beginning and the ending of the game. I believe that after MI2, Ron Gilbert left a hot potato in the hands of other authors who wanted to create a sequel. This hot potato was handled by ignoring whatever Ron had in mind, leading to successful games and stories. RtMI is a little different, because I think it helps to frame any future game in the MI universe without ignoring what Ron did and without creating canon problems: let's pretend it is simply another story told by Guybrush to his son. This is what I would do if the goal is to simplify things and reach as many people as possible.

anyone have an idea about what this is? When you click on it in the scrapbook Guybrush comments on how it fell out. (sorry again if this has already been talked about)

I have a save file just before that point, so I tried some different routes through the dialogue tree with Wally out. And you're right, you can talk to Wally and not get the line one he's freed. Good catch + my bad. I'm think asking Wally about why his office was ransacked, and then thanking him for the mop map, makes Wally connect the dots and you get the dialogue after you free him. Which is the order you do things in if you just go through the dialogue tree top to bottom. So if Wally says these lines, he'll then ask you to get out of his life after he's freed. If he doesn't say them, he'll run off silently. I'm pretty sure, anyway. From like five minutes testing a few different dialogue tree paths While i'm making screenshots, here's the screenshots of what Wally says while shackled up and if you actually paid for the sea map (in a spoiler to save space)

Thank you so much. What I wrote was greatly informed by other reflections and post such as yours Thank And although he was named after both his grandparents, I will always tell him the future it was also an homage to Manny Calavera

I usually use a black T-shirt or towel.

An ultra-dark story about how Guybrush works as a flooring inspector in a theme park (except for real, no allusions to pirating) and uses fantasy with the figures to escape his incredibly mundane life. Also a new game should include him revealing the biggest monkey head he’s ever seen.

The latest version of Thimbleweed Park Explorer works with the game.

Exactly what I was hoping for when seeing DALL-E for the first time (logo removal): Still, far from perfect, obviously, but a good basis for further touch ups.

She had second thoughts about him and Guybrush convinced her that his arch nemesis is not so bad and worth following, so he could find the Secret.

I never thought I’d see Monkey Island mentioned in the A.D. (a big Dutch newspaper), but here it is! The headline reads: The comeback of the century

Hi! The engine is still SCUMM (version 5, the one used by Monkey Island 1 CD and Monkey Island 2), the new graphic elements IIRC are overlayed on top of the original virtual screen via textures. I wouldn't know about the inventory though...

At the moment Scurvy Island is the most important music to me.