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I don't think the end of the second game was the official reveal of the Secret, nor was it intended to be by Ron, Dave, and Tim. I think that ending was to set up more intrigue and get people asking as many questions as possible, while layering in big implications about the Secret. Ron obviously wanted to continue to explore the fantasy/amusement park for at least one more game, but they also wanted an ending that hooked people. The commentary for the Special Edition of MI2 reveals that they wanted the ending to be polarizing, but also get people talking and theorizing regardless if they loved or hated it. Guybrush and LeChuck being brothers, the parents, Elaine talking about a spell, among many other aspects, all did this very well. What's great is all of these plot points have been explored in the games in some way, shape or form. Were Guybrush and LeChuck ever intended to be brothers? Based on it being a clear ripoff of Star Wars, along with how it is resolved in Return, I'm going to say no and it wasn't meant to be taken all that seriously. Had they made their third game shortly after the release of the second, I would imagine they would've explained it as Guybrush's imagination being an unreliable narrator, rather than his son's reimagining, which was an idea they came up with specifically when writing for Return. It's important to note that though the Secret was the same as they conceived it years ago, the method of how it would be conveyed, along with other aspects, is what Ron still had to detail before he made Return. I think MI2 and its ending especially were really all about Guybrush realizing that something just isn't quite right with his reality. Throughout that entire game, there is something very unsettling beneath the surface. You feel it in the environment, characters, and, in my opinion, especially the music. Yes, Guybrush is being hunted by LeChuck, but his reality/imagination is also gradually beginning to fall apart. A good example of this is when you observe the water pump on Phatt Island. Guybrush will say "What's this doing in a pirate game?" Beyond the fourth wall breaking, I think it's an indication that Guybrush is realizing more things about the world around him and, around that same area, he gets his first interaction with the odd tunnel system. By the time he gets to Dinky, the unsettledness is at a peak as Guybrush navigates the jungles. By the time he reaches the maintenance tunnels filled with carnival items and no attractions, the absolute proof that he is at an amusement park, his world comes crashing down. Perhaps all the plot points, from the spell to LeChuck creating the carnival, were Guybrush and his imagination's attempt to prolong the fantasy as much as possible. Overall, I think the ending of the second game wasn't so much the official reveal of the Secret, as it was gradually peeling back the layers to the truth, while setting up more intrigue for other questions to lay the groundwork for the next game. The next game would've still been in the fantasy, but with answering the question of Guybrush and LeChuck being brothers and overviewing one more adventure in the fantasy to close off the Secret head-on. That is essentially exactly what we got with Return.

This is what the "Docs" end sting looks like: If you want to see it for yourself, plop this file next to the other "Weird.ggpack" files in your game directory, and then run Guybrush back up the stairs before getting the key: http://www.thunderpeel2001.com/Weird.ggpack6 It is literally just this image, however. I don't know if there's more to be found in order to trigger it to do anything else.

So, I've been making music for 10+ years and unsurprisingly, some of my biggest influences are the amazing LucasArts composing trio of the 90s, Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian. I've spent a lot of time reading interviews (Thanks MixnMojo!), studying midis (Thanks Highland Productions!), and researching what equipment they used in the day (Thanks Mr. McConnell!) In my spare time, I've remastered a few of my favorite tracks from the old mt-32/sc-55 days using the synths and samples that they used (Proteus modules, K2000, E-MU sample cds, etc.) in the vein of the SoMI CD soundtrack or the remastered tracks on the CD release of Hit The Road! So I figured, maybe I can take this idea to a whole new level. What if I made custom, specially optimized SoundFont banks for each game that use the sounds and samples from the modules they would use for their CD remasters? That way, you can have the quality of those CD soundtracks, without sacrificing the amazing features of the iMuse system! So my question to all of you is, which ones would you wanna see first? Lemme know your thoughts in the comments!

Hi! Just like you, in the past I have gathered a very big amount of sound samples used in the CoMI\GRIM\EFMI era. Maybe we could exchange samples and try to build the ultimate SoundFont for each game, if you're okay with that! (Also, I'd love to hear some of those remastered tracks! 😄)

I'm a bit torn on this, because the 'old' islands don't really offer much new content and the new islands are a bit underdeveloped. I guess Brrr-Muda feels the most 'lived in' of the new islands, even though it only has three major locations. (Do all the people there live in town hall?) If I had to go for my favourite location, it would be LeShip. And even there I don't know where the crew sleeps (except Guybrush, he sleeps in Murray's crate if he doesn't want his eyes pecked out.)

Tried to get my 4-year-old interested in BTTF when it was on telly the other day but unfortunately she was having none of it. She has shown some interest in Monkey Island though. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! I can not accept this slander! I love all three Back To The Futures with Part 2 probably being my favourite these days. The alternate timelines, the dystopia, the mixing in of the first film, the hoverboard. Temple Of Doom is also my favourite Indy film and always has been. The Goonies may well be rose-tinted glasses for me though.

Yeah, they shot them back to back after expanding one big script into two films My headcanon is that once the time-ripple-effect catches up to our Marty, he gradually becomes the Marty that was raised by confident parents, and thus his insecurity has taken a different form

I loved the direction of Elaine in RtMI. One of my favorite lines in the entire game is when you run into her on the street of Mêlée - if you select the line "I was hoping you'd be in this story" she responds "aw, I was hoping you'd be in mine." This absolutely sold it for me. In the story Guybrush is telling - Elaine is a cameo, but from her perspective he's the cameo. They're both glad to see each other - but then they're off to having their own great adventures. She's having her own type of fun. Sure she's curing scurvy, but she's also travelling to the other islands, learning to re-build a ship, having coffee with old friends. Somehow her adventures all felt...lighthearted particularly compared to many of the other games. While she's been shown to be capable, many of the other games have her "doing her own thing" - only to be interrupted by LeChuck / Guybrush. [SMI - kidnapped; LCR - party interrupted?; CMI - invaded, turned to gold, kidnapped; EMI - deal with an election (that she doesn't really even want to win?); ToMI - poxed]. It was nice this time that she wasn't actually interrupted by them. Sure she did go help Guybrush, but it didn't stop her from doing her own activities - and Guybrush even helped with her scurvy prevention crusade. I also think the fact that they're older and more established in RtMI helped them feel more solid as a couple who have found their footings together.

I mean I obviously completely disagree with almost all of this, but all of it I'd file under 'each to their own' apart from the following which I take complete exception to: That's just false. I love it, and I've seen it recently, and I'm very secure in my loving of it. I know when I'm viewing something through rose tinted glasses or not, and I'm not. Don't try to tell me that it's only possible for me to do if I'm looking at it wrong, that's the sort of thing that makes me grumpy. I think about this film a LOT. I'm even planning on recording a podcast about it soon (we decided to look at 2 rather than 1 because we felt that the first one has been talked about plenty, and 2 has just so much to talk about). So, no. I love it. Unreservedly, and glasses off. OK, grump moment over.

I voted Brrr Muda because, as someone on reddit got us thinking, Guybrush is now officially a Disney Queen-Princess like Anna and Elsa. Also, we now have a source for the longboats in MI1 and MI4.

Holy hopping Huey P. Long in a Houston whorehouse! What were we thinking publishing this insane thing? Were there no grown-ups in the room to put a stop to it? Well, it happened and must be dealt with, so here's a discussion thread for that feature we put together to give some awesome Will Eaken artwork a context. Sam & Max 2: we just won't let it rest in peace.

Just watched this interesting video about the history of SOMI speedrunning, and thought I may as well make a topic in case anyone else has any fun stuff to share. The only other one I could think of off the top of my head is this one of Double Fine staff inviting a speedrunner to their studio to show them some strats:

I think it's funny that the idea for crew voting in Return Part II came from the Black Sails show. Ron said so in this interview, and Dave has also referenced inspiration from Black Sails. I find that very funny because we know the designers were familiar with Tales Chapter III (Guybrush can basically recount the plot when telling his Chums story), where gaining everyone's vote was a major puzzle chain. It's interesting which inspirations stick with us in specific areas.

Are all the people jailed in the QUARRY? There might be more prisoners than free people here, but I'm not sure if that was on purpose. My kids and I joked that they were put in jail for speaking instead of grunting.

Where does all this Goonies hate come from???

I do think it sort of makes different people's accounts of things a little confusing, and you have to wonder how much of it is people's memory versus their memory of their memory of their memory of it, etc. I'm sure at some point Ron or Tim or someone said they don't remember anything about it being the original ending to MI1, but this seems to make it clear that it was actually. And Ron's talked about how the amusement park ending came to him very close to the end of MI2 and they had no idea how to end it before that... which I took to mean that they weren't really thinking about it before, but judging from the new interview it was at least something that was in his head since the start and they were just choosing to surface it.

There is also one related sketch of the ending:

Shortly after completing MI2, we must remember that Ron left Lucasarts. So, if Larry said the ending was decided just a few months earlier, there's a high possibility that Ron already knew at the time that he would leave the company and miss the opportunity to make a third game. That means that throwing that ending was a way to finish the story he wanted to tell.

I've extracted, processed and uploaded the tracks to my channel: Enjoy!

Once again, this all points to what Bill Tiller told the world in 2003, being true: Although Ron and Dave would say that the ending of MI2 is a different ending (because, OK, technically it is -- the game doesn't just reveal it's all a dream, it adds a bunch of other things to murky the water) but for most of us a huge part of that ending was the amusement park reveal. And that is clearly what Tiller was referring to, if you ask me.

I wish Brr Muda had a little bit more to it – Like, I wish the little seaside town you can see to the far right of the trials building, with Guybrush’s ship, was explorable. Melee island felt like the only fully realized town in the game, which is fine, it’s all about what’s necessary for telling the story. But I like towns and I wish there were more 😛

Haha my bad ! What an idiot ! I already had it since the beginning ! 🙄 Just picked up the wrong one I guess ! Just fixed it, way better ! I owe you a beer on that (and a belgian monk beer for sure) 😛 Anyway, again, amazing work from you @Laserschwert, thank you

I have: These are all seamless as well, so if you need to scale them down, they can be repeated in each direction. They are not perfect, but I haven't had time to refine them further.

Another update from parallels rebuild: Zak mcKracken. Rebuild everything in vectors using illustrator: nose logo, logo with gradient, barcode, texts, etc using front image and background from @Laserschwert Front of the box => OK 3" 1/2 floppy => OK Next, Back of the box Stay tuned !

"What's the matter, Threepwood? You don't like porcelain?"

Very cool interview from her once again! My thoughts: - The long visit from Stan is starting to have an impact on Ron's style to dress. - I like that Ron cleared up about the ending and the amusement park thing (even though I was pretty sure that's exactly what happened). - I like even better that Ron told a bit about how the beginning of ReMI came about. Since its release, I had always wondered if he had such a resolution in mind all along (the ending being subtly altered and re-enacted by child-Guybrush or other children) , since it was so important for him to start with it. I'm quite surprised that the resolution only came about in the process of ReMI and I think it's beautiful! It shows how open Ron is to "dead ends" and how optimistic he is that a good resolution will eventually come (good lesson for me). AND it shows that the two of them are just very good storytellers. - What I like best is how Ron (once again) raves about his team and especially about Dave. You can really tell that this game (and probably the others as well) is very much about teamwork for him. Till ReMI, I often had the impression that he was very stubborn with his ideas and their execution. But that doesn't seem to be the case at all. - The original original Monkey Island (realization of being in an amusement park and a showdown with the proprietor would have been veeeery different - and interesting! But I'm glad they went with another direction.

After the recent spectacular MixNMojo retrospective with Larry Ahern and Jonathan Ackley where among other things they mentioned that they had sealed CMI boxes from around the world, I reached out to them. I mentioned that it was likely the South Korean release of CMI has an actual cloth map within the box. There was one post about it over on the LucasArts Museum website of which the linked image is a dead link and I couldn't yet find my saved copy of the image on my old computer. Never intimidated by a treasure hunt, Jonathan Ackley discovered this:

I saw that post about CMI cloth map which lead me to riffle through my Korean big box collection and figured hey, why not take some photos and post it here (since detailed look at international releases are hard to come by and I find it interesting). If you have other interesting international release(s) you want to share please feel free to post here! Monkey Island 2. One of my most prized possessions. The name of the Korean distributor is Dong Seo Game Channel. I don't know the exact release date... probably 91 or 92? I appreciate the font treatment. Back cover. ₩25,000 (approx $19 USD, not adjusted for inflation). Some interesting differences compared to North American release (which I'll go into later). The cover is actually a thin paper sleeve that goes over the featureless cardboard box. Reference card, printed on a thick, quality, textured cardboard stock. I like. The manual and Mix N' Mojo copy protection wheel. In offensive xerox-proof burgundy. Was it also burgundy in other regions? 6 high-density 5.25" floppy disks. Nothing unusual here. It says "Hintbook" but it's actually the whole walkthrough. Back in those days games almost never got localization treatment in Korea, so it was pretty common for an adventure game to ship with a full walkthrough. (the last paragraph in the walkthrough says that the joy of adventure games is figuring out on your own without looking stuff up. Now they tell me!) The back cover has pretty faithful translation by and large, but with some weird (sometimes inexplicable) differences: The first 2 lines are kind of adjectival? They loosely say "Arrogant" and "Disgusting". The "He's Back" part is the same. No, it does not rhyme. The excerpt has no source! Who's speaking?!? The bulletpoints are pretty dry and humourless. "Interactive Jamaican music" without the accent. "Separate mode for beginners and magazine reviewers" but written completely seriously. No "void where prohibited" (I guess the phrase doesn't translate well) Weird. Obviously the same screenshot, but it's cropped differently. The caption simply says "realistic graphics". Nothing about expectorations. Again, pretty humourless. Again cropped differently. "There's always something scary behind a pirate's chair"? Not quiet the same meaning, but fine... This one an odd one out. It's not uncommon for boxes or promotion materials to use work-in-progress screenshots, so I didn't think much of it, until I saw scans of the North American release, and it's completely different! Korean release uses a screenshot with MI1 interface and Guybrush. The caption says "Dig up graves of pirates to find clues". What clues!? I guess whoever translated it thought that it's too rude to dig up graves without a good reason or something. As far as international game covers go, not bad. The humour is completely gone, but nothing grievously misleading (I've seen worse)

Hah, you're right! I never noticed that one before. Also worth noting that that's the whole solution to the puzzle - they only list half of the insults and comebacks (the next page has the solution for the Swordmaster fight). I don't really understand why. Perhaps whoever wrote the walkthrough was savescumming and managed to get by with those few.

I did like the fact that Ben and the gang decided to start wearing motorised rollerskates, though.

In the case of both games the humor is pretty broad for my tastes, but I don't know what there is to object to with regard to design. Having recently replayed the Monkey Island games in preparation for ReMI, and a bunch of other LEC adventures to put DREAMM through its paces, and Thimbleweed Park, and Broken Age, I'm now revisiting the Autumn Moon titles. I ended up starting with Ghost Pirates. It's pretty much how I remember it: budget constraints really denies it that final level of polish (cutscenes suffer especially) and I wish they'd contracted BA Sound, but it's quite solid. I am enjoying it more than Broken Age, which I compare it to because it shares the "switch between characters at will" mechanic and is even similarly divided into two main acts. It's definitely not nearly as polished as the Double Fine title but neither is it as lofty. I like the world more, even with the cheese. Locations like this supplemented by Camacho's music is just money in the bank:

li·bel (lī′bəl) n. The legally indefensible publication or broadcast of words or images that are degrading to a person or injurious to his or her reputation.

Muphry's Law: You make a typo when you're pointing out someone else's mistake.

It was the best they could do at the time

Really weird how scanning tools in 1991 changed ships around so much.

One of the guys from that video did a speedrun marathon of all 5 games, and I gotta say, it's quite impressive. One part I found particularly interesting was that you don't have to take down any of Jojo Jr's hitpoints until you're down to one and then one hit will eliminate all of his except one where he draws and you beat him. What a crazy strat.

Oh man, it would’ve been funny if they scripted it so that you can, if you lost all your money, return to the circus and do the cannon stunt again.

I’ve never really thought about it before but I guess those doors are the first indication it’s all a theme park, where Guybrush rapidly jumps into the underground tunnels to reach the next door. Only joking. But I do know that in the MI1 demo you can use the doors to get onto the parapet(s)… Did they also have the shortcut behaviour, or did they just add that after deciding to bin the parapet? I never played this version of the demo.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks manual!

The game's not called Monkey Location, tough luck, LeShip!