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Four details I really appreciated:

I forgot if this was mentioned before, but on the Melee Island map, if you walk to where some important locations were in Monkey Island 1, like the circus and Meathook's island, Guybrush will give a short remark about it. That felt like a nice touch and little easter eggs, because if you don't know there used to be something there, you wouldn't even think about clicking there. Lovely little detail.

It's been a long time since I visited the old Mojo forums. I must say. The new Monkey Island is ffing fantastic.

Gotta say, I was rather taken aback by Ron's post as well. Though having been on the other side of more than a few inadvertent teases recently, I should REALLY know better than to read too much into throwaway lines. (Love you all, and I don't blame you one bit, but man... the number of times I said to myself "They're going to be soooooo disappointed when they realize that rando comment meant absolutely nothing." 😄 ) Don't get me wrong, I sure hope he's learned something specific that hasn't trickled down to me yet. But as @ja2ke suggests, I suspect it's more likely that it's just speculation that Disney will want to do more with the IP. Which I'm........ not mad about? I realize I have some motivations that the rest of you don't, but man... an animated film or a regular role on an animated show was always the big dream — even before MI — that I never quite caught. Would sure be kind of poetic for that to come full circle after so many decades. (Pardon the navel gazing.)

Has the dust settled? The game hasn't even been out for a month. ah well,so I don't know where I'd place this game compared to the other MI games. I voted "religious experience" although I don't think it was that world-changing for me, it was a very very good game. That was the "positive option without invoking comparisons" so that's why I voted for that one. Honestly though? RTMI is my fave game in the series right now. That's 100% newness bias and I know it, but its how I really feel at this moment. Anyway any of my initial misgivings about the art style were cringe of me. I mean I never hated it and was willing to give it a try, but that was an understatement because it was cute and beautiful from start to finish. I came in with tempered expectations, and they were all exceeded and crushed and smashed and destroyed. The art was SO GOOD. ending discussion (implied spoilers, I don't state anything concrete but implied spoilers are still spoilers):

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

Consult the archives! https://mixnmojo.com/features/sitefeatures/The-Many-Epilogues-of-Return-to-Monkey-Island

Looking forward to Chris Pratt's take on your iconic role 😅

Nothing will ever top MI2 in the series for me, not because I think it's especially better than the others (though I do think there's truly special parts of it that none of the other games have matched) but because it caught me at just the right time, felt weirdly grown up when I was at an age where I was probably juuust starting to want stories with more edge to them, inspired me musically in so many ways, and really opened my mind about different kinds of storytelling. I don't think that 11 or so year old me would have properly understood all this, but it planted seeds, for sure. I loved MI1 before it too, and I've been thinking a lot about how much I enjoy that game's puzzles, but MI2 just feels unassailable. Nothing could ever be so formative. So I think it's a pretty big compliment from me to say that I think that Return could hang out with MI1 and CMI a little way below MI2 in terms of how I'm starting to feel about it. I've said elsewhere that I like it more for what it brings to the series as a whole than what it offers as a game individually (though that's cool too), and I like that, because I feel like MI1, CMI and RMI all give me different reasons to love them. MI1 is just so nostalgic, my very first adventure game experience and how could I not feel warm towards it? CMI came at a time when I was at the peak of my LucasArts fandom, and it was so nice to be so excited about the new game and have so much of that excitement validated by what we got. And RMI is the game that makes all the others better (this is very mild allusions to the start of the game)

I think it was just a town meeting. It was just an excuse for certain locations to not be accessible until you’ve progressed to a certaIn point. If you leave the scumm bar and head straight to wally’s for example there’s a sign at the door saying “at town meeting. Be back soon. “ They don’t open up until after you’ve visited the docks.

I was under the impression that MacOS came with Python pre-installed. So you should be able to check out the repository (or just download the files directly by clicking on the green 'Code' button and then on 'Download ZIP'; or by clicking here), then you can use MonkeyPack as described in the readme by dragging files on top of main.py or by calling it from a terminal with 'python3 main.py [command]'. MonkeyPack needs at least Python 3.8 though, which you can check by running 'python3 --version'. I realise having a single executable app file for MacOS, like I made for Windows users, would be far easier, but those can only be made in MacOS itself, and I have no access to that, sorry

You'right! Maybe she bought it back for half of half of half the price she sold it for. In the cauldron there's also the hammer that Guybrush used to try to open the chest.

Yep, although Strange that her cauldron is back in that scene.

Holllyyyyyyy cow

Related questions: which character did you like the most? Was it because he was funny? Was it because he was a mysterious figure? Why did the character intrigue you so much? Do you think there was something about the character that could have been explored more by the writers? Do you think the character really exists or was it just a representation of a cardboard cutout? Who invented liquid soap, and why? My favorite new character is Lila. She is a somewhat flat character, but she is also knowledgeable, intelligent and resourceful. She is a force of nature capable of turning useless Lorem Ipsum into powerful spells. She is not afraid to fight against LeChuck. Lila is strong and can kill you with one hand while she tags your door with magical graffiti with the other. She is also the one who tells my favorite joke in the whole game. Commenting on the irrelevance of the old pirate leaders, she mocks their very raison d'etre saying that they were probably "making up trials for each other". Genius. The fact that she is the most knowledgeable character among the new pirate leaders made me think of a possible connection with Dee.

After so long without a new Monkey Island game, I'd hate to see it fade away again for another decade. Return is doing really well, it's getting great reviews, hopefully selling well, nominated for Joystick awards, etc. The chances of another one sooner rather than later are pretty high, imo. I think it just depends on if Ron wants to do it or if Disney want to shop the IP around to others, like Skunkape, or New Telltale. Personally I think it'd be great to see Wadjet Eye do one, that'd be cool. Return I think has really freed the next entry to be unburnded by the idea of the creator's "one true vision" or wondering what the Secret is. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that one big theme of Return is Ron essentially surrendering Monkey Island to us. I know people have interpreted Guybrush as fans who grew up with it and Boybrush as when we first played, but I think that also, Guybrush is Ron and Boybrush is all the people who played his games and went on to make Monkey Island games with their own takes. He's saying "Monkey Island is more than me, we all make it special", and I think that's where I eventually found the beauty in the ending. I know that a lot of people have said that they're fine with this being the last one, and I get that. But also, I think this is a rich world that, regardless if you believe it's real or not, is ripe for further development and as long as there is a fun adventure worth going on, there should be another one. The series has never been more ideally placed to have a Curse-style simple adventure OR another serialised story like Tales, probably moreso than when those games were released and some people were too focused on their wish for Ron to take over to appreciate what was given to us. I do think that the next one should absolutely go to completely new places, no more revisiting past islands with as few returning characters as possible, just the core gang who always show up. If a new story is not to be, I think now is the perfect time to make remasters of the remaining games and put all of them together into a nice package.

I HAD THIS EXACT THOUGHT WHEN I FINISHED IT!!! I'm a huge David Lynch fan and it was pretty obvious that Ron is pretty big TP fan after playing Thimbleweed Park (hrm, TP...coincidence?) A lot of the themes and story beats are almost exactly the same. The whole idea of chasing the glory days, both of the original towns are falling into a state of ruin as the old guard is phased out, and that ending had some real "What year is it?" vibes. Heck, both of them have insanely meta endings that acknowledge each of their mediums. I could rant for a while about all the similarities...and maybe some day I'll do that lol

It wasn't exactly a religious experience...but it's definitely the closest a video game will get to one, at least for me. I can't remember the last time a game left me thinking about it for weeks. I wasn't sure if the ending would be able to live up to what I imagined but it actually managed to hit all the notes I wanted it too and it made me really emotional. None of the other games had an ending that left me thinking "Y'know, this really would be a good end to the series." but I'd be genuinely okay with this being the end. I really think Ron and Dave knocked it out of the park on this one and gave the series the perfect send off it deserved.

I'm bad at ranking things, so the first question is already hard I think most of the game is fine but the ending elevates it, so I think if I were to try and rank these games, Return would end up in the top 3. Don't ask me about the other two games in there though... The artstyle is thematic and well executed, so I voted for 'Pretty good!', since I did have to get used to it a bit, but now I can't imagine anything more fitting to the game. I agree with Jake, my opinion on the ending is a bit between the two top options. "It was fine" feels a bit like a shrug, and I liked it far more than that, but I do feel it falls slightly short of perfection, since it feels kind of rushed (which may have been intentional, come to think of it). So I ended up voting for 'sheer perfection' anyway, since that came closest to my opinion. Glad to see the voting skews towards the positive answers!

I really like all of LeChuck's crew. Iron Rose for the Aussie accent (represent!) and general personality, Putra's got a fun design, Gullet's such an asshole in a fun way, Flambe's voice and general apathy are a great combo, obviously it's great to see Bob back even though he's upside down the whole game. I think Flair probably got the shortest end of the stick. Judge Planke is just off his rocker, I'm a sucker for a good pun so Locke Smith..brilliant. I thought the new pirate leaders were a great foil with all the triple-crossing, though I think Trent was underused.

What's funny is that he's VERY attentive if you try to add the pepper after the contest starts. But by that time, the queen already has her piece! The judge just saves Guybrush from spicing himself!

Well, I knew I had to eat an alternative (there's popup text for "sneak hagfish on your plate" or something), but my problem was I peppered the fish beforehand, and I thought I'd be able to stock the basket with this and then get NEW fish at Mêlée... but the game nullifies that possible solution. The sabotaged fish will stay in the contest basket indefinitely, until the moment you get replacement fish on Mêlée. When you get replacement fish on Mêlée, the fish in the contest basket will magically disappear. Because Guybrush's fish supply has been changed, it changes the state of fish he has deposited elsewhere. (It kind of reminds me of the Phatt City Library checkout physics, where the only thing that actually affects the "number of books Guybrush has checked out" is the number of books he is physically holding, regardless of how many different names those books were checked out to or whether you gave a book to a Fisherman instead of returning it.) My problem was: I didn't interpret this to mean I had the right answer but was doing it wrong. I interpreted it to mean that regular hagfish could not exist at the same time as peppered hagfish... and when I looked at the hagfish in my inventory, Guybrush felt it was important to tell me they looked like snakes... therefore, a spent a good hour or so on Terror and Scurvy Islands looking for some sort of snake or worm to sneak on my plate. 😆

It is news to me that you only need to sign the form at the bottom. I spent way too long making sure each check was logical. What a waste 😂

Haha, it's funny to hear that how you filled in the form didn't really matter. I suspected as much when I got it right on the second attempt (after saying I was a pirate the first time!), but I still worked through all the logic needlessly. The fish puzzle is one where recognising how adventure games work makes it easier, so I'm shocked that you guys didn't spot it right away! The game has given me back control between starting the contest and eating the fish, so of course I need to do something with the fish first. I can see that puzzle being a lot more tricky for inexperienced players.

Also agreed on the above! I solved that aspect of the puzzle by mistake because I had the other elements in the right position and I was spinning through all the possible dates. I had to go back and check the riddle to see why it was accepted.

I’ve been obsessing over Guybrush coming back to the alleyway at the end of the game and saying “Not yet!” It’s such a delicious detail to unpack and ponder. Not so much an exclamation of surprise as inevitability. Is a spell wearing off? A ride stopping? The ending coming too soon?

I am not sure if this detail has been discussed before, but I think there is no doubt that getting drunk and hanging on a chandelier can only lead to bad consequences:

I've added a few cutscene pieces from Part II and III, that I had already recorded (all in the playlist). And here's also the Scurvy Island Suite, I was working on yesterday: I really like this one! It just puts you in a good mood!

David Fox seems to back it up, too...

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!

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

With Craig Derrick at the helm I’m really hoping we see the Mansion sequel and some remasters coming our way soon!

Spoiler tags good lord

There is a lot more to come because Monkey Island is actually the prequel to Westworld. PS: I also didn't read that as an announcement for any plans from Ron's side, just a remark that it's too popular for nobody doing another one eventually.

A little addition from me as well (track markers can be found in the video description). EDIT: New version with track names. EDIT 2: Newer version with tracker names.

Sure, we all do! But in the meantime, why not compile the best tracks for outside the game? I know I can't wait...🤷‍♂️ Yes, as said before, most of the themes are reused. But the arrangements are so well done, that I can't complain. I'm pretty happy with the soundtrack! Therefore ... here some more:

Now to be a pessimist but it also can be read as “Disney and Lucasfilm own the IP, and they likely want to keep deriving value from it.”

The music in this game is so good. This is a great rip and arrangement. LeShip has tiny musical homages to as many LeChuck, ghost, and ghost pirate moments that it can possibly squeeze in. I love it.

Many hours later... Here is the first suite I made for LeChuck's ship (Chapters to the different cues are in the description): Happy listening!