Leaderboard

Hi there, Long time Lurker checking in. Firstly major respect to Laserschwert, thank you for your perseverance and especially thank you for the work on the new Monkey Island posters, it's literally made a dream come true! How can I buy you a beer? The talk about the background maps on S&M made me want to try and use my google-fu and I think I may have found something, at least the publisher, if not the year of the map used. I think it's from a Gousha Interstate Road Atlas. Now I can only see the first couple of pages on an Archive.org version (it's some silly PDF rental thing!?); but looking at the fonts, colours of lettering, the highway number logos etc I'm pretty convinced it's probably the source. WDYT? Crumb

I'm not the two-to-three here who made the joke originally, but I certainly wanted to see it.

Wow! Found one with that cover on eBay for just a few bucks and bought it. Will report back!

Inventory icons are a bit of a special case in SCUMM. They're object images, but they have special status in SCUMM - where everything else is mostly unloaded when you leave a room, inventory icons have their own behaviour, but - at a quick glance - they're actually present on at least disk 1, 2 and 11 (haven't checked others). The special room - called, fittingly, "all-disks" (the index file has original room file names for the game) - has global scripts, costumes, sounds etc. No object images, though (and obviously no background for the room) - because normal objects cannot actually move between rooms. The hamster in Weird Ed's cage is not the same one you see when you put it in the microwave - they're two entirely different objects. Yeah, there's some "The Prestige" level existential dread there.

I've added four posters for Back to the Future: The Game to the thread. (Uploading the posters to Mojo is bugged at the moment, so right now these are linking to my GoogleDrive) Ah, the heck with it. German versions as well: This is the logo I grew up with. One of the most amazing localizations of a movie's logo, imho. Thanks to @TheHutt for rebuilding and sharing it!

OH MY GOSH!!! You guys are my heroes!! How did you find something so similar so fast!!! @Crumb Thank you so much for the detective work!! Well, the reason I need it is because I'm too young to have been around back in the lucasarts days and boxed copies of these games are just too expensive for me to purchase, so I wanted to make reproduction boxes for myself (like those people who make prototype boxes for their board games) just so I could have them on my shelf, I recreated a lot of the Hit the Road Box text and assets myself (outdated gifs from the very begining) : But the background (although it WOULD be possible to remake it myself) would take too much time to recreate and would probably not be as good as if I just used the actual one... VERY selfish reason to want this map, I know.....

The one I got is from 1993, we’ll see if the maps line up.

I think they did put more effort into avoiding disk swaps for MI2 than for its immediate successor, Fate of Atlantis - I can remember that being a lot more painful. However, it's possible they just had the luxury of having more free space to play with in MI2, so they had more freedom to duplicate things or shuffle them around. The all-time worst disk swap still sticks in my mind - when you arrive on Phatt Island from the boat, you had to insert disk 5, then disk 6, then disk 5 again. (Possibly the other way around...)

This 1977 edition is closer in terms of typography: Plus, we'd need a version from at least 1987 (that's when Interstate 88 was built). EDIT: 1988 edition, still no match (and no 88 yet):

Neither here nor there as far as ReMI goes, I suppose, but Benjamin Horne's monologue in The Return about his childhood bicycle is breathtakingly beautiful. Bravo to Beymer, Lynch, and Frost.

Judging from the recent turn in this thread, Ron needs to give us something new to obsess over soon or we're going to go insane

Whoa! I just listened to some clips, and that's a great suggestion! He definitely has the same vocal range and qualities as Earl Boen has! They'd at least have to have him audition! You can check out some clips here! The "Devil King" clip comes closest to LeChuck I think, with the added bonus of almost 20 years since that performance that might've given some more natural deepness to his voice.

I don't really have any concerns, because they have the person who is IMO the best casting and voice direction person in the business, Khris Brown.

I think you’re both right that it would be a needle in a haystack, though I think more specifically than a highway map, It looks like it might be pulled out of a road atlas. It’s a pretty tight region so I figured someone flipped through a big driving atlas and found some appealing pages. A big road atlas with maps of different scales would be the right prop for a cross country road trip too. I’ve looked through online scans of road atlases, hoping that they weren’t significantly updated between the late 80s and mid 90s so there’d be something online that was a close fit, but haven’t found it. There are unfortunately one zillion of them, it was a common item to buy and chuck in the back pocket of a passenger seat pre-internet. There are big brands like Rand McNally and AAA and also just an infinite collection of smaller ones like this. It would be a borderline impossibly wide search I think.

I remember that feeling too, and I definitely agree he used to be scarier, but also I suppose part of that comes from... I was 10. I'm never going to feel the same way about LeChuck as i did back then, unless they make him genuinely terrifying, and I doubt they'll do that, so I think this might also be one of those 'you can never go home' type deals. I think enough time has passed though that I'm ready for a less cartoonishly evil LeChuck and more of a legitimate threat. Something I liked about the first couple of games is those cutscenes you got where you'd find out about LeChuck's progress dealing with you. It was creepy as he felt always just a couple of steps behind you and could jump out any moment, especially in 2. And he was menacing, even to his minions. They did a bit of that in CMI too I recall (I don't remember whether it was in EMI and they couldn't do it in Tales for plot reasons) but it wasn't quite so effective because it was played for laughs a lot of the time. It's difficult to take his Guybrush-tracking efforts seriously when they're being led by a man dressed as a cartoon dog who talks like goofy. I hope in return we get some serious 'Meanwhile...' action.

I agree with both of you. It would be jarring if they went with a totally different voice for one game but at the same time, a sound alike would be super jarring. I found the tales of monkey island episode 1 voice distracting especially their laugh. I couldn't stop thinking about how Boen would have delivered the line. Whatever the new voice sounds like, i just hope we can get a more scary LeChuck. I felt that LeChuck became less scary in the later games. More goofy. I hope they go back to the terror of the mi2 LeChuck. I remember being terrified of zombie LeChuck. Whenever he appeared in the tunnels i would jump and be full of dread.

I've worked it out:

TOP NOTCH reply to my tweet about this.

NES? Amiga. >:

@CalisDraws Of the pop-up on answer, related to the Maniac Mansion franchise, then an ex-employee at LucasArts, and then just an offhand reference to an old NES game for fun.

Ron's decided to close the comments again Some people need to do whatever the Monkey Island fandom equivalent of touch grass is. We're getting a new Monkey Island game! That we never thought we'd get!! By Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman!!! This year!!!! And every little thing we hear about it sounds really cool!!!! But sure. Focus your energy on saying rude things about 4 screenshots. To me the great pity of it is that it might put him off wanting to do something like this again.

I'm tempted to boot up an Amiga emulator and walk around Scabb in real time just to remind myself what I patiently sat through without complaint. I bet my modern, instant gratification self, would be absolutely horrified.

Oh my gosh! I actually wanted to make one for the Grim Fandango remaster too! The Hit the Road one is my first attempt (because Sam and Max is the first thing I gravitated towards initially) and I started it a good while ago, like 8 months ago I think? I had to take a break from it when I hit the roadblock of the background map, plus I had to go abroad for an end of studies internship in January so this kind of took priority hahaha. I wanted to see how the process of making the box would go before starting any other box. I am still abroad right now and don't have my tablet with me, I'll have to pick that project back up in August when I return so I don't think opening a thread right now would do anything haha! However, when I get back to doing this, I'd love to document the process of actually putting the box together so maybe I'll ask if I can make a thread about it when I get to that! If the process goes well and the boxes look good enough, I was thinking of making them for other lucasarts or non lucasarts games (I want to make one for the Neverhood because I feel like it) and making them available for anyone to download and print out at home as papercraft projects (I, for one want to make a tiny version for my Sam and Max figures to hold in their hands) or to make their own reproductions (for people like me who can't afford to buy a legitimate one off of ebay or even those whose boxes are damaged and can't be displayed). Sorry for the ramble... TL; DR; I'd love to make reproduction boxes for more games and I'd love to make them available for everyone to print out at home.

Cute rabbit.

Now that's some excellent reproduction work. You should open a dedicated thread for that! I've thought about doing more custom boxes myself, but mostly for stuff that didn't get a big box (or a very limited one, like ToMI), like BTTF or the Double Fine remasters.

I for one am willing to excuse a few missing roads or whatever. 😉

Beymer is a special soul. I have a special place in my heart for him. At the Twin Peaks festival in 2002 he screened a crazy documentary about himself called "Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer?". I think it shocked a few (understandably), but I was one of the people who thought it was brilliant. It was about how shy he is, and why he hides behind a camera all the time when he's not acting (hence his wonderful photos from behind the scenes on Twin Peaks). It went to some REALLY revealing places. He's a talented artist and filmmaker... and the documentary... It was very brave. The film used to be on IMDb, but in the intervening years it disappeared from his filmography. I can confirm it DOES exist! (If anyone is Googling this in the future looking for scraps of evidence.) But I doubt it could never be commercially released... The next year I got to get to know him a little more. Kooky guy with an amazing spirit. (Come on, Ron...)

Hey no worries! I like challenges like this one Is it something that's been looked for previously? or just since yesterday?

Had another look, and yeah, the script is just moved out of the bar (where it lives in other versions) and into a special "room" that's on all the disks - so that you don't have to swap disks to mix the drinks. 😂

Yeah, it's more complex than most other movie logos, with the arrow element being integrated into the title, plus, being airbrushed for most uses, instead of being a plain two-tone shape, like Star Wars, so putting in the work to match that look isn't something that's usually done. Also, the German logo has the advantage of having the first line end in a K as well, which already allows for a cleaner use of the arrow (only the Croatian version had that luxury). The effort put into the localized logos varies wildly too: https://www.zidz.com/logos.php

I looked him up, and there's a great clip of him as Eggman in this video I think he could do it, there's definitely some Boen depth in his voice and if he turned the piratey-ness up to 11 I think he'd be great. They already got him for Thimbleweed Park, why not this?

I would like to re suggest Garry Chalk, I think he could possibly do an excellent Boen-esque LeChuck I believe but still have it come out sounding his own way. His Willy T Wino in Thimbleweed Park was very similar in tone to say Boen as Dr: Silverman in the terminator films so I believe he could do his own version of that role in VO and have it sound good. I admit I'm not familiar with his more energetic deliveries which could make or break a good Yarrr and whatnot but I couldn't help but notice the similarities when replaying TP recently. I really want to hear his best pirate voice

I’d like to add to this that we can attribute a lot of LeChuck’s scaryness in SMI and MI2 to our own brains. In those games he’s just a little sprite of a couple of pixels tall without a voice, that means our brain fills in the gaps. Every scary undead wrinkle or gaping puss filled hole comes from our imagination, and the sound and delivery of his voice comes from our own fantasy. The sprites are wonderful in their quality that they can suggest all those things, but in the end we do a lot ourselves. (It might be one of the reasons why 16 year old Jake was so put off by the voices of CMI.) Another point is the direction. I’ve watched all of Twin Peaks again last year, and I noticed that some characters change completely when David Lynch is not directing. Benjamin Horne? Clichéd evil businessman when directed by someone else. With the touch of Lynch however, he changes into this naughty nostalgic man child, it makes the character so much more interesting. Same can be said about *shudder* Wyndom Earle. He’s just a cartoon villain in most episodes, with his pan flute and his dancing and crazyness, but in the last episode of season 2, for the short scenes when he’s directed by Lynch, he becomes truly scary and menacing. Check out the scene where he gets Annie out of the car… Gives me the creeps! What I’m trying to say, is that if LeChuck was meant to be scarier in SMI and MI2, it might also be because of Ron’s direction, and we might get a bit of that back in this game!

Assuming they fix one bug a day, they'll have this out as soon as 2049

August is a solid guess. I think July could also be possible too dependent on how much more there is to do. I'm gonna predict we'll have a release date, the full cast, and a main trailer this time next month. While there's been so much speculation, appreciation and apprehension about the visuals from all corners of the MI community, I'm just sat here hoping LeChuck's new voice doesn't suck.

I wonder if a LucasArts designer didn’t just buy a random 1992 highway map and put that under a scanner. Might be a long search.

Clearly, they're bringing a Telltale character back.

Exactly this. I can’t unsee that now, and I think it’s the only way left to interpret the image. Thanks, @DM81!

The only problem is the front view is less supportive. ?? 😂

Haha. Yeah I spotted that and wondered. It looks like it could be intentionally reduced in detail to make it ambiguous, however it could also just be someone wearing a hat. This is how my eye saw it at first:

(Putting the CMI art in there made me further realise how good this new art actually is. The details are just so exquisite.)

After my earlier remark I decided to do the worst thing possible and look up the Scumm Bar's "Curse of Monkey Island Fan Reviews" page, containing a bunch of reviews that went up basically right after people got to play Curse for the first time. Unfortuantely my review is in there, a review with which I find no faults absolutely disagree with on almost every point made, when I read it back today. There are a few people complaining that it should have been 256 color pixel art, and blame the excesses of the new high res production and far-too-fancy art style on why the game is ruined (Of course Curse was also 256 colors but they probably just meant the 320x200 part). And a lot of people really upset that Herman Toothrot isn't in the game (the monkeys paw curls and EMI is born), to the point that it almost seems like it was a meme in the community that people picked up on from each other and said "you know, yeah youre right that does suck!" but it's really hard to wind the clock back and tell. I think the truly old Scumm Bar forums are gone. It's really hard to tell the context of this at all without the rest of the discourse that surrounds it - a lot of the reviews look like they're written in response to hate that didn't get recorded as vehemently in reviews. Anyway sorry for what 16 year old me wrote at the time. He's an idiot.

By the way, some time ago I made some comparisons between the graphics of the different versions, that some may find amusing. First the three different graphics styles. I don't remember if I used the VGA or FM Towns version for the rightmost column but for these scenes it shouldn't make much of a difference. (The FM Towns version runs at 320x240 pixels rather than 320x200 pixels, though it's mostly just more wasted black space at the bottom of the screen.) The middle column is the TurboGrafx-16 version, showing both EGA and VGA style graphics, as well as the missing tree in the foreground of one scene. Another comparision, this time of one particular scene. The VGA talkie version really... stands out? And finally one where I added the CGA and Macintosh black-and-white modes. I think the CGA mode is auto-generated from the 16-color graphics. I know the black-and-white mode (only available for the 16-color Mac version) is.

That's the big question, isn't it? I haven't even played all versions. 😀 TL;DR - The EGA version is the one I find myself returning to. In some scenes, the VGA graphics look quite nice, but there are other scenes where I think something was lost in translation. I like that we have the VGA version, because it's almost as if two teams were given the same screenplay, sets and costumes, and were asked to make a game. I just dislike that it's the only available versions these days, because to me it's not the best one. And now the long, rambly version... Most of the Looms I've managed to track down, I've gotten from eBay. The only version available for purchase nowadays is the VGA talkie one. I got EGA Loom from the LucasArts Classic Adventures collection, and Mac Loom from the LucasArts Mac CD Game Pack and it remains my favorite. It's apparently a lot easier to find the German version, but I don't want that. The English TurboGrafx-16 version used to be reasonably priced, but seems to have gone way up since I got mine. (The Japanese version was cheaper last time I checked. I don't speak Japanese.) Extracting the game from the CD so that ScummVM can play it is also a bit of work. The FM Towns version has always been horrifyingly expensive, so don't ask me how an affordable one suddenly popped up in an auction one day. It didn't include the box (which probably made the more insane collectors turn up their noses), but it did have both the game and audio drama discs, and the instructions/hint books. The only version that's easy to find is the VGA talkie one. The one sold on GOG and Steam is packaged differently than the original CD, but should otherwise be identical. The EGA version is, as far as I know, the only version that has the Overture that plays when using the Roland MT-32 music. But since this is just a black screen with the word "OVERTURE" and the Swan Lake theme playing, you're not missing that much if you don't see it. The original 16 color Mac version is close to the EGA version, but uses a high-resolution font for the text and notes. The music sounds different too. The instruments are digitized, but not very fancy ones. I don't know how well ScummVM handles it, since the Mac emulator I'm using is having trouble with it. It sounds ok to me, though a bit shrill at times. The later 256 color version is a straight port of the VGA talkie version, as far as I know. The FM Towns version is graphically very similar to the VGA talkie version, to the extent that they show the same scenes. I did notice some minor touch-up in one scene, but I don't know which is the original and which is the revised graphics. Scrolling is done pixel-by-pixel instead of eight pixels at a time. But as mentioned, it plays music pretty much non-stop without adding any new songs, which can get a bit annoying. It adds a few sound effects as well, e.g. a splash when Bobbin falling into the water. The notes you hear are often overlaid with sound effects too, making them even harder to make out. The TurboGrafx-16 version is a bit of an odd bird. Some of the graphics look like the EGA version with a bit less dithering, while others look like the VGA version with less colors. In one scene, a tree has been removed from the foreground. Perhaps having an object you could walk behind like that slowed down the graphics too much? Unlike the EGA version sound effect don't always interrupt the music. The music sounds pretty much the same as the first arrangement of each tune from the FM Towns version. However, some noticeable changes is that when the dragon carries you off it plays the same music as during the final confrontation, and in the caves afterwards it plays the Swan Lake theme. Also, the blacksmith music starts playing while you're still on the plateau outside the Forge. It's weird. When playing in an emulator (not ScummVM), the picture is a bit wider than 320 pixels. This causes glitches at the very end of the game, since some graphics are then visibly cropped. The VGA talkie version is... well, it was the first version I played, so I still have a soft spot for it. Most of the text has been modified in some way (usually made shorter, but sometimes longer). Maybe some of it sounded better when read aloud that way, but I don't know. All of the sound, speech and music was mixed together into one long audio track, which put an upper limit on how much they could fit. (I've seen one game that tried to get around this by putting half of the sound in the right channel and half in the left, but Loom did not use that trick.) Almost all of the ambient music is gone. Most of the distinctive close-up portraits are also gone, though a few new close-ups have been added. There is a bit more character animation as well. Some of it is good, while others is straight from the "Milking the Giant Cow" school of acting. Particularly the Elders and bishop Mandible. I don't have the remaining versions, but I understand that they're graphically like the EGA version. So the main difference is the audio. Since ScummVM can now replace the music, it should be fairly easy to make e.g. the EGA version sound like the Amiga version, if that's what you prefer. Though the sound effects will still be different. The palette may be slightly different, too?

Yep, as Ron said "It's not 3, it's not 6, it's Return to Monkey Island. It defies numbering" (which I'm still very boggles as to what that means but nontheless excited to find out).

Strange - it's completely missing from my Amiga version (although I guess it might just have been moved to a different room, don't remember if it's a local script - but also don't remember seeing it anywhere else)

Ron should just close down the comments again. Nothing good comes from it.