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Converting a day scene to night reminds me that I did the first pitch for converting the opening of Tales from day to night. It was originally a bright sunny day at the start of the game, and I suggested we change it to a dark night with thunderstorm, rain etc, and then have it fade to day as Guybrush washes ashore on Flotsam. The effect animation I made to test this time of day transition looked extremely goofy at 10x speed (which is a common speed to run at in Telltales tools because it has a 10x/1x toggle hotkey for quickly getting through things without skipping over any keyframes or code) because of how LeChuck and the ships bobbled around, and became a video I dumped onto my personal YouTube the day before the game came out

Oooh, cool LeChuck cover on the new PC Gamer UK.

Uuuuupdate: grab a ScummVM 2.7.0git daily build here and play COMI with the original GUI! Now! 😛 We're working on older games too: https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/pull/4206

There are people who do this a lot better than I do, and hopefully there'll be an official version, but either way... Here's the cover without text, etc.

Thanks, I really appreciate that! 🙏 Yes! DREAMM, other than being a blessing in itself, is definitely the one spark which started this new "accuracy wave". 😛 So big thanks to Aaron for that! But I'd like to point out that it's never just me: in these recent times a lot of people (old and new) have an active part within the SCUMM team (and some of them are here! @dwa@Torbjörn Andersson). We've had (and still have) a lot of things going on, the implementation of old video modes, countless accuracy fixes for even the most small and almost unnoticeable things, the enhancements!!!, and so on. I'd say it's very exciting to be a SCUMM maintainer these days 😄

Fortunately, the Ultimate Talkie release put it back! By the way, looking at what's currently cooking in the ScummVM kitchen… these old menus you like are going to come back in style…

The budget on art must’ve been really constrained, they couldn’t afford to draw this guy any pants! Here’s some additional art found in the article. And here’s a chicken, let the speculating begin.

Not just one, but it was an entire fad! There's a ton of these on YTMND. I like this first-person/FPS styled one a lot. https://stansellseverything-thegame.ytmnd.com/

How curious! Time to restart the EGA and assassinate Bob again. - - - "Why, Guybrush?!" "Because I want to see what you look like when you die in this reality. Hold still."

@Marius' wonderful thread on the MI1 alley has brought me back to a topic I wanted to post about some time ago... We only see most of the islands during day or night. Actually, only "Tales" is the exception with Flotsam Island in chapters 1, 4 and 5 (and maybe the EGA sunrise in MI1). Now, I'm sure we've all wondered what one or another place looks like at a different time of day - and luckily there's a source or two to give us a little idea here: MI1 - Parts of Mêlée Island during the day (Fanart videos, apparently even playable) MI2 - Booty Island at night (Official Concept Art) CMI - Plunder Island at night (Fanart) CMI - Blood Island during the day (Fanart) Maybe there are even more of such wonderful "what ifs" out there? If so, why not post them here, too? 🙂 I find it totally exciting to see these places in a different light and mood, as it directly changes the whole scenery. Plus, it leads to certain mind games, such as: Where do the pirates go when they're not in the SCUMM Bar? What does the Voodoo Lady do when her store is closed? Does Carla also spin back and forth in front of her cabin during the day? What does Stan do in his spare time? (Same questions for all the other games of course!) Sure, there are no concrete answers to any of this (so far), but it's fun to think about. Let's see what happens!

And poor old Mort, the gravedigger

I mean I alluded to something similar earlier in the thread, but I'm trying not to dwell on it because of what I also said recently, that I think it's risky to play 'I hope the game doesn't do this or that' games. But yeah, if there's one thing I allow myself to hope this game doesn't try to pull it's a bunch of old-man-yells-at-cloud 'pirating was better in the old days when I was young and let's get back to that' kind of meta-commentary of guybrush v.s. the youths. Young people are, and forever have been targets of blame for society's ill. Millenials were such huge targets that everyone sort of just forgot that they grew up and have jobs and kids and stuff now and assumed they were perpetually in their early 20s for about 15 years. I saw a great twitter thread of the history of older people calling young people lazy and workshy, and of course it goes back to ancient times. Anyway, my point is we have enough 'things were better in the old days' material to last us for years, and I could do without ReMI adding to that pile. I'm hoping it tells a bit more of a nuanced story.

OK. You wanted it. I hate "Maniac Mansion" and "Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders" with a passion and I think that they are badly designed games, especially the first one. I assume that they were the inevitable result of an experimental phase when, at LucasFilm Games, basic/good guidelines for adventure game design were not fully formed or shared among authors. My love for The Secret of Monkey Island can exist only because, a bit later, Ron Gilbert developed a few design rules, which he also shared publicly in his somewhat famous article "Why Adventure Games Suck". I wholeheartedly agree with Ron when he wrote: (I will deny any evidence that I wrote this post. Any attempt to impose reality on me will be met with violent counterattacks of confusing fantasies.)

Eep ook ack! I failed at #Mojole #149. 💚💚💚🖤💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Yep, that was what I edited. I’m more talking about a proper high res original. Would make for a good poster.

Well, to me it is: a confirmation that Carla is the new Governor of Melee Island. a confirmation that Herman hasn't lost his charming look. a confirmation that LeChuck still keeps ghost chickens on his ship. I look forward to meet the pigs again.

Another one I suppose from GF would be trying to persuade Celso and his wife to buy a number 9 ticket. Pretty minor puzzle, though

I'm just glad these finds are giving us more shots of right-way-round-facing bob, with a right pegleg

Useless, unimpressive and inactive. They basically sat around in the Scumm Bar and pretended to drink grog. Made every passing flooring inspector a pirate so they wouldn't have to do squat. They did nothing against the LeChuck threat in TSoMI and when the governor was kidnapped... they were not seen again. So, basically, now we have active pirate leaders with a plan and some voodoo stuff. Ye Olde Pirate Leaders took over the shop and are blowing up blowfish. 🐡 And there's actually a blowfish emoji in here! That will come in handy for walkthroughs.

That DREAMM has apparently kicked off some sort of accuracy arms race in @AndywinXp's head is really the best possible outcome.

It's only really after seeing this in the trailer that I noticed that in the original Monkey Island the Monkey Head is also a dusky scene in contrast with the rest of the island. Why was this done at the time? Just for atmospherics? It looked cooler? Probably. Why did they seem to decide to replicate this for ReMI? Same reason? Maybe. But it's an interesting detail isn't it? I can't help but look at that, and think about the Melee Island and wonder if some of this day/night stuff might now have a bit of a deeper significance.

I don't think this is exactly an unpopular opinion because most people probably just don't care, but.... I always thought the naming of MI2 is stupid! Not the "LeChuck's Revenge" part, but the order of the two elements: The logo on the boxart and in the game clearly says "LeChuck's Revenge: Monkey Island (2)", but everywhere else it always says "Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck's Revenge". And I have no idea why! A small detail one may say... But 1. it's inconsistent and 2. it seems more like a cheap sequel to me, when the "Monkey Island 2" is put first. I mean, we're talking about the best sequel of all times here (go home, "Last Crusade" and "Empire"!).

ARGH Eep ook ack! I failed at #Mojole #149. 💛💛🖤🖤🖤 💛💚💛💛🖤 🖤💚💛💛💛 💛💚💚🖤💚 🖤💚💚💛💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

This is embarrassing. Eep ook ack! I failed at #Mojole #149. 💛🖤🖤💛🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤💛 💛💛💛💛🖤 🖤💚💚💛💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 💚💚💚🖤💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Absolutely! And I don’t think that it would be a good idea to show an official version of either Scabb or Mêlée as it’d probably ruin the place for me in that moment. It’d take too much of the mystery. Visiting places like Booty, Monkey or one of the new islands in “Return” by night however - or have some actual change while playing - could be really cool. Just imagine, finding out something at the cannibals by day and then sneaking in the village by night to do or steal that later by night... 😌 I really liked what “Tales” did with Flotsam in Chapter 4 and 5. Of course it was kind of a good way to save money/resources, but it also made me change my opinion on the island a lot (as I didn’t really care for it in Chapter 1…).

Thanks for sharing the second video ("Daylight Melee island from a fan game I almost started making about 12 years ago"), I didn't know it! I like these daytime depictions of Melee from an artistic perspective and I've always been curious about how those places would have looked like during the day. Still, I think that the atmosphere in Melee was particularly mesmerizing for me because everything happened under the calm and mysterious cover of the night. When I played the game for the first time, in some scenes that mysteriousness turned into a slightly unsettling sensation, linked to possible dangers hiding around corners. I'm sure that the nightly theme contributed significantly to those emotions and I'm also glad that MI2 starts in the same way as well. 🙂

I totally agree: Those Mêlée daytime works feel kind of strange. I think to me it’s too much brown… If I’d get at it, I think I would try to paint the houses more in gray tones. Plunder is great at night, yeah. Totally forgot about the opening shots in the intro, thanks, @Thrik! I imagine most places look nice(r) at night than the other way around. Although I really like the Blood Island graveyard at daytime. It just feels much friendlier, but still interesting. I have the urge to wander around there and explore more of the island at that time (much more than with Mêlée).

Yeah not keen on the Melee treatments there, but I absolutely love Blood Island and Puerto Pollo! We get the briefest of glimpses of a nighttime Puerto Pollo during the CMI intro: I saw this a while ago, which is a take on Melee during the day that I find more appealing:

Return characters in the style of curse. Think it's probably important to point out that this is in no way a criticism of the return style (which I love) but just a goofy experiment.

The way Guybrush just stands there, with that expression... 😚👌

I guess it’s worth pointing out that the Mojo forums actually have a 100% complete lucasforums archive in them (available at the bottom of the main page) as opposed to the one from lucasforumsarchive.com, which is a partial scrape of archive.org. You should even be able to search it and stuff!

I still think Weird Al's version fits best.

I really don't want to read the article. Let's see if I can hold back until release.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pc-gamer-uk/id451452510 https://www.zinio.com/gb/pc-gamer-m8389#/ Well poo to you!

Ooh. 😍 Is it... paper?

I swear my Amiga version of Shinetop turning into LeChuck had a particular animation that I've never seen again. Probably just misremembering as usual!

“What did I ever do to you?” ”Will you promise not to hurt me?” Poor Bob, man…

I wouldn’t call it great but I think trying to escape the garage via Salvador would qualify as one. Also setting the correct answer machine message is indirectly a dialogue puzzle.

Yeah, I've thought about this. Of course, I'm a hater, so my natural inclination is to link the New Pirate Leaders with Rex Crowle. I'm sorry not sorry. It's always going to be in my brain because they were all sort of revealed together, and the New Pirate Leaders aren't returning characters so they only exist in the current art. But I'm like, 96% sure that wasn't creator intent. (shrug) EDIT: But more importantly, weren't the Pirate Leaders always useless and unimpressive? I thought it was fitting that they disappeared as soon as LeChuck hit Mêlée and were never heard from again. I'm a little surprised to see them return in this game. I'm curious where the story will go. Would Guybrush even want them in charge again?

Probably something already talked about but it's only just occurred to me... Are the pirate leaders in this game a metaphor for the franchise? It seems that the original leaders have been replaced by new characters and melee island has gone to hell because of it. It also seems likely that Guybrush is to be tasked with ousting the new guys, reinstating the old guys and thus restoring melee island to its former glory. Is this an intentional meta commentary on Ron leaving, 3 games of a perceived lesser quality being released and now Rons triumphant return? I sort of hope not because that feels a little shitty but at the same time, now that I've noticed it, It feels very intentional.

Not really an island, but I tried to convert one of the pirate ship scenes from The Curse of Monkey Island from day to night so I could use it as the dark mode header/cover on my website. (The original is an upscale by Laserschwert)

Okay, forget what I said, it works fine… Thanks, this is so great! ❤️❤️❤️ Now it really feels like playing it back in 1997!

👕 I beat #Mojole #149 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 6/6 💛💚🖤🖤💚 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤💚💚🖤💚 🖤💚💚🖤💚 💛💚💚💛💚 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Well that is just fantastic! Great work!

I was going to say the same about the monkey head, although in the EGA version it looks much less “dusky” (if at all) and more just mysterious with the purple swirls in the sky: Good point with the time aspect for ReMI. 🤔

Melee during the day makes me think of Kings Quest for some reason... and not in a good way.

Isn't the fact that they've brought back Neil Ross kind of a reference to MI3? Wally really only had a cameo in that game anyway... In terms of time travel and multiple versions of Guybrush, etc, I am very much hoping the game doesn't self-referentially frame the other games as a kind of multiverse, or spend a lot of time revisiting the earlier games. I expect the game won't all take place in the same chronological time frame (if it is indeed starting where MI2 left off, and then jumping years ahead at some point), but I realllly don't want it to be about time travel. It's already going to be a nostalgia trip, for better or for worse. The narrative of Monkey Island 2, in a lot of ways, was about the impossibility of reliving past glories - Guybrush is searching for a treasure that just seems arbitrarily bigger than his last adventure, but no one's particularly impressed by him anymore, his spark with Elaine is gone, etc. This kind of cuts against the actual experience of the game, which actually is bigger and more technologically advanced than Monkey Island 1, which gives it a nice frisson. I think if the Monkey 2 really just rehashed Monkey 1 (ie you start on Melee Island and have to complete a second set of trials), it would have felt like a cynical cash-grab. Instead, we get Guybrush and the other characters call the adventure as a kind of cynical rehash, while the game itself does all kinds of new and interesting things, and it all feels kind of exciting. I think this trick of lampshading the desperation of sequels gets harder the longer the gap is between sequels for a whole bunch of reasons. The theme of longing for an idealised, simpler past is kind of funny in Monkey Island 2 because it's been like two years between the games. There hadn't really been time to get nostalgic about the first game yet, and here they were making a sequel that was chiding itself for being too nostalgic. For Return, that subtext is unavoidable. I played Monkey Island 1 when I was in fourth grade, and Monkey Island 2 when I was in fifth or sixth grade, and I think it affected me because they both felt slightly too 'grown up' to me at the time. Now I feel like Monkey Island 1 is kind of superficially about growing up, in that Guybrush wants to be a pirate, and doing that means meeting other people's weird expectations for what a pirate does, and learning how to navigate the rules of the pirate world. In Monkey Island 2 is more about the struggle to become mature -- Guybrush has already become a pirate, and no one cares. So he decides to become a better pirate -- but how? Compared to Monkey Island 1, a lot of the puzzles are about tricking people and bending the rules. Instead of insult sword-fighting, which you learn through repetition, you have the spitting contest, where you have to cheat in about four different ways at the same time. Monkey Island 2 tries really hard not to repeat itself, and in fact seems to be trying to caution the players from living in the past. The moment at the end where you are able to inexplicably revisit the alleyway on Melee Island felt so evocative and creepy to me, I think because it wasn't just a throw-back Easter Egg, but because it ties into that theme of the impossibility of going backward. I remember feeling desperately like I wanted to go back and explore the town again and find something that would help me defeat LeChuck, and so frustrated that there was no way to do that. You had to go back into the tunnels and face him -- Monkey 2 style. In that sense, I suppose the weird ending of Monkey 2 makes sense on a thematic level - if the game is about the futility of trying to recover the glory of past adventures, what's more appropriate than being shown the horror of what that means when taken to the extreme? Instead of maturing, learning and triumphing over the past, you end up regressed, infantalised, and trapped in the past. (This is a digression, but: in narrative terms, I don't think that ending fires on all cylinders because elements of it feel arbitrary - it's like, are we now supposed to care about Guybrush's childhood, or who his parents are? I don't think those things are important to the character, and I will be surprised if Return dwells on those things in any substantial way. It's also an ending that doesn't feel connected to anything the player does. On a conceptual, dream-like level I think it DOES work, but as the ending to an adventure game, which is narratively driven by the actions of the player-character, it doesn't feel totally earned. You defeat LeChuck and then just kind of watch as weird things start happening.) All of this is to say that I fully expect Return to deal with the past *as a concept*, but I'm hoping the story looks more to the future, and asks questions about how we can live and grow regardless of whatever past failures or triumphs we may have had...

Speaking as a citizen of the gingery persuasion myself, I think there *may* be a simpler explanation for red patches on the arms of a man with Wally's hair color...

Let's bring back this thread with an update on my end: https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/pull/4033 This pull request adds support for the original GUI and menu for COMI. I encourage those of you who are able to compile builds and have some spare time to test this and see if it works fine 🙂 After these changes are merged, my project is to proceed backwards from SCUMM v7 down to whichever version I can reasonably arrive to (so probably not v0 or v1).