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Ugh I'm so excited for tonight to finally play Return! Couldn't resist drawing a whole bunch of character yesterday

This may not be a unpopular opinion per se, but this is where this thought fits in the best, I think: Monkey Island fans are some of the luckiest in the world! Why? We have two great games as a base, three really good sequels that are fun and never really boring (you can argue about the story here and there). If you compare that to other game series where there are really bad sequels in between, we've been pretty lucky, I think. And now (TODAY!) we get a sequel from the actual creator, which will reveal the two biggest mysteries of the series. But wait, there's more! In all games we have solid to fantastic artwork, the same main composer with great working partners by his side, great voice acting without replacing the main character etc. And all this over a period of more than 30 years, with no oversaturation (so far), so that every new game was/is an event. Not to mention this great community here! All of this brings me to the conclusion: Yes, we Monkey Island fans are pretty lucky!

It’s crazy. In a few hours I’m going to be playing a Ron Gilbert Monkey Island sequel. It’s actually a little bit overwhelming. I can’t quite believe it. How did we get here? Ron has talked for so long about wanting to make his MI3. Some people thought he was deliberately emotionally manipulating fans. That he never had any intention of following through, and yet the Mojo review revealed that he’d been trying to get MI3 off the ground for years. In fact, if TellTale hadn’t scooped him to it with Tales, we may have gotten it back then. Eventually, after so many failed attempts, he wrote the Infamous Blogpost on a particularly grumpy day. Sort of hinting it would never happen, while also clearly wanting it to. Then so many years later the opportunity to do it finally landed in his lap. The thing he’d wanted for years… suddenly real. Uh oh. The pressure. Should he just walk away to avoid disappointing everyone? Nobody would ever know if he did. It’s one thing to want something, it’s entirely another when it becomes real. He called up Dave Grossman and asked for advice. Grossman and Gilbert worked through it and decided it was worth doing. (So it seems that if it wasn’t for Grossman, we may not have ever gotten this. Thank you, Dave!) The two of them set off and started making this thing. This thing we’ve all dreamed of. And now the entire ReMI team are sitting somewhere anxiously wondering how the next 24 hours are going to play out 😅 Good luck, anyone on the ReMI team who reads this! Whatever happens I’m so glad you were brave enough to try! I can’t wait to see what you’ve created. Thanks Ron, Dave, David, Rex, Jenn, Michael, Peter, Clint, Dom, Kris, Devolver and everyone else I’ve missed. This old fan will be always be grateful!

Forum News! FYI there will be a spoiler-only subforum going up tomorrow morning at the same time as the game coming out! I'm sure there will be some people who don't want to talk about Return spoilers yet, either because they can't play for a while, or don't want to see any of them until they've completed the game, which is why we'll be quarantining them in a dedicated forum for a while. The forum also has a nice "ignore" function that can filter the spoiler subforum and all of its posts out of your browsing experience, if you'd like. Eg spoiler forum threads won't show up in a "new post" search or activity feed list. Within the spoiler subforum itself we're requesting that people not use spoilers in thread titles, and tag their threads with "Part X" tags (or a few others like "early game" / "late game") so if you do decide to wade into the spoiler forum mid-playthrough, you can choose what you want to engage with. In the meantime despite the temptation, I don't think it's worth "pre-creating" a bunch of spoiler threads, because they'll just get filled with mush in the next few hours while people go stir crazy. I kindly ask that you wait until you've actually played the game a bit and have something spoiler-filled to say before starting a spoiler thread! I think that also means this thread will close when the game goes live or shortly after. End of an era! So live it up in here for the next 10 hours or so.

A small positive news about RtMI: it's currently at position #11 in Steam top selling games. 🙂 (Source) I really really hope that the developers will feel satisfied with the results. They deserve it!

Thank you for this great thread, friends.

So uh… Monkey Island Monday is tomorrow! Any predictions for what will drop?

Gentlemen (and any ladies in this forum), the last few months have been a pleasure. Thank you for being excellent company! See you on the other side (of Part One at least) 👋

Same here. I was initally disappointed with all the sequels apart from Tales, I think because I expected them to be exactly the same as the game that preceded them, for some reason(?!) Anyway, this time round I have learned my lesson and have no expectations whatsoever, except that it's going to be the greatest thing that has ever happened in the whole wide world.

It's very weird watching a national funeral before playing ReMI 😬 It seems literally timed to end as the game drops... The Queen is dead... long live the (pirate) King?

An important reminder: Ron Gilbert: "The problem with the 'Secret' of Monkey Island... is that it's built up such a mystique, that when I finally reveal it, you're going to go, 'That was dumb' " Chances of having a disappointing next few weeks... moderate to high Your choice, of course, if that's what you wish! 👍 (Actually I was disappointed when I first played Monkey Island 2 -- I just loved the first game SO much. It took me a long while to fully accept it for what it was and enjoy it. Funny how I only just remembered that.)

I don't want to do it. When "The Secret of Monkey Island" was created, along with its sequel, the games functioned as a spark that triggered the birth of a cult-like social phenomenon, decades-long discussions and wild theories about their underlying meanings. The authors did not even imagine the repercussions the games would have over time, because for them it was simply a good pirate adventure. In assessing what the first two games meant to me, I would attribute more value to all the discussions I had for years than the games themselves. The questions never answered are for me more important that playing a game. Finding out what the infamous "secret" is is more exciting to me than simply playing the game. And I also enjoyed reading the scholarly papers that were written about the games; I hope to see more of them fueled by what Noah envisioned. Don't get me wrong, I will enjoy the game for what it is in its most practical form: a game to play. But I don't want to limit my expectations and hopes to avoid possible disappointments. I did not wait 30 years to suppress my hopes and emotions and I prefer to embrace my expectations fully, without limiting them. And if I will not find in the new game what I hoped for, then and only then, I will activate the "it's a straight pirate adventure" mode. 😉

It’s gonna feel weird seeing this thread being closed and not pop up again every few hours (or minutes… or seconds). 😟 Thanks everyone for the nice discussions, those were some awesome months with you! I’m looking forward to all those interesting conversations about ReMI in the other threads. Although I’m still a bit unsure how to handle the spoiler subforum to not get spoiled accidentally. 🧐 See ya there. 🥳

The danger in following a walkthrough is that you miss all of the other little details. I've probably written about my experience with Monkey 1 before, but here it is again: I fell in love with the game from the Amiga Power review of it... I just didn't have the RAM upgrade that allowed my Amiga to play it. I got myself a copy of the game from a friend (hey Ron absolved me from my childhood piracy when I backed Thimbleweed Park!) and waited with the disks until I eventually got the RAM required to play the game for my birthday, many months later (felt like a whole lifetime!). When I finally got the RAM upgrade, it was time to put these mysterious disks in and see what the game was about. I loved it from the opening appearance of the LucasFilm logo. The music was incredible. I say through the entire thing and the game just kept on giving. It was one of the few times in my life where my expectations didn't destroy the reality. The game was as good as, or even better than, I imagined. I felt someone had reached out directly to me, and my sensibilities. I adored it. For some reason I thought the entire game was just on Melee Island. I thought when I got the ship from Stan that the final disk (#4) was going to be used for a big animation or something. I couldn't believe it when I actually got to go aboard and enjoy that fun little self-contained puzzle. It was a nice breather after the long time I spent on Melee... but LO! if I didn't then get to spend disk 4 walking around Monkey Island itself! I honestly don't know why I was so surprised. I guess I was 12. But I loved it either way.

My jaw dropped to the floor when Guybrush appeared in the prologue. Makes sense though... or does it? I'm loving the vibes that all isn't what it seems, so far. The doppelganger 'parents'. The lady in the window above the shop. Something is not quite right here...

Be excited that this is Ron Gilbert with a new Monkey Island game. Don't be excited for a game that you've been waiting 30 years for that finishes a trilogy... Ron has said repeatedly that game never existed. Even though this is the Secret he had in mind for 1990, he did not have anything about this game or its story yet. He was going to do something with Guybrush in hell. This isn't Monkey Island 3a; don't hype for it to be that game. Hype yourself by thinking of all the games Ron Gilbert has made that you like, the ones from decades ago as well as the modern ones. This is another one of those. Maybe that will temper the anxiety about fulfillment.

I can relate to that. That dash of healthy detachment that I applied in the previous months is beginning to crumble in these hours. The things said by Noah Falstein and Dominic Armato have really raised my expectations, and although I have taken every statement made over the past few months with a pinch of salt, the only thing I feel now is a very strong trepidation to find out what they were talking about. It is not just a game that I have been waiting for 31 years; it has become in my mind an event that I am sure will be an extraordinary experience, regardless of the merits of individual aspects such as story, art style or puzzles. I see myself shiver with antici...

Just finished Rise of the Pirate God. Now to try and sleep knowing the game is out at 2am my time

Love the Rex interview. It never even occurred to me that that character might be female but it's true, it's obvious when you really look. This interview has convinced me to take the game as slowly as I possibly can. No rushing. I want to take everything in.

Here’s a question. Which monkey travelled to the most islands? Did jojo 1 really end up in that wedding dress on melee? You could carry jojo 2 around three islands in revenge but is that canon? Jojo jr travels to melee but there’s a quick pit stop at the ultimate insult amplification tower. Is this a seperate island? It looks like it but its not really clear. This started out as me trying to think of the dumbest question possible but now i sort of have to know.

I know it’s bold but i think they’ll reveal the secret of monkey island

I think one thing about Curse that's under-appreciated (and was missing in Escape) is the attention to detail. There's a seemingly endless number of little bits of joy to discover. The developers seemed to "get" the adventure gamer mentality: Pick up everything, talk to everyone, explore every dialogue branch, try everything with everything. And they rewarded that behaviour. There's just so many nice little touches all the way through the game.

The explanation they give....I absolutely love it. In a few minutes it neatly ties up the ending and connects it with the rest of the series. So, my take is essentially Guybrush's son is reimagining the stories Guybrush told him with his friends. Each game at this point has basically been them reimagining the tales. Largely, the tales they reimagine are accurate, but they incorporated their own twist into the ending of the second game and take liberties here and there with other aspects (the pirates insult sword fighting saying, "come on, play along"). This game starts with them finishing one of their retellings of the second game, and the explanation given in Curse remains canon. So Guybrush and LeChuck aren't brothers (at least where I'm at in the game now). It fits so nicely because Guybrush and LeChuck never bring it up again, because LeChcuk never said it. Now, it does make me question the whole "dad's skeleton head" now. Beyond that, this game is incredible. And l'm loving the great scores it's getting. Well, done, Ron, Dave and everyone else. I still have plenty to play, but I don't have one complaint right now.

Ugh I just wrote a whole post on this and got an error. I'm not doing all that again so: I called bits of this, like the framing of the theme park and how I thought we'd see Guybrush taking his kids there I did not call the end of MI2 getting reframed in the way it does, and I sort of love it as an idea Also I So far, I love what they did with the ending. I never considered that precise possibility, but I got close.

The game is out! Spoiler forum is up! Here is a little (spoiler-free) info about how it works. If you're ready to wade in, go for it but remember, it IS a spoiler forum! ☠️ YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ☠️ If you want to keep talking about Return and Monkey island in general in a spoiler-free way, there are plenty of threads here in General Discussion. Enjoy downloading

You know, in hindsight I don't see "Meathook" is that much of a better name than "Canonball Head" 🤔

I would strongly suggest you do your best to lower your expectations! Not because I think the game will be bad, but because nothing can withstand incredibly high expectations. Forget what Falstein said. It could be interpreted so many different ways. (I’m certainly not taking what he said seriously. I have zero doubt that I will not agree with his assessment — or rather I can see what he was getting at, but that I wouldn’t have used those words.) Ron set out to make a straight pirate adventure. Just set your expectations on that. I know if that’s what is delivered, I’ll be happy.

last

In my leadup to release, I’ve finally finished the Monkey Island Chronicles book that came with the LimitedRun Anthology collection. (I’ve been putting it off for a while and wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t finish today!) Man, the end of the book is so ironic and weird to see so much of the team saying that there’ll never be another Monkey Island, that it had a good run, that they hope Ron’s third game gets a chance to happen, and Ron himself stating that he’d love to make another game. Particularly knowing that when the book was being made, he was in active development on ReMI. (Just envisioning him now signing all of those certificates and cackling to himself.) Overall it was a great book. Lots of anecdotes and backstory behind the games, lots of input from the original team, lots of archival art and a good amount of deleted content, etc. I’d say all that holds it back is it needed another lookover before publishing. The number of typos and errors (ie. Earl BONE, Tales FROM Monkey Island, etc.) and randomly misplaced sections (I.e. an anecdote about El Pollo Diablo in the middle of MI2’s retrospective) and other moments like that do add up. Plus, the set is basically obsolete now anyway given ReMI. Maybe we’ll see a 35th Anniversary set which will include ReMI and the Curse - Tales remasters that will definitely happen probably maybe.

@Marius, yes! Well worked out 😆

So long and thanks for all the fish! I can’t wait to come back after finishing the game.

Day 2 of my Monkey Marathon, just finished Chapter 1 of Tales. Finishing all of it should get me through most of the day, then when I get up tomorrow morning Return will be out! I'm so excited, we're so close!

Almost there. Time for one last replay of my favorite parts of the previous games, listen to some old interviews, and re-watch the Monkey Island Mondays and trailers one last time before the big event tomorrow. I'm still in a little disbelief that this game is actually happening. To think that only 6 months ago, it was as if this game was nothing but a huge "what if" in fans' imaginations and I didn't even think it would be possible until years and years later, if at all. Been great speculating with everyone for the past 5 months and to be active on a Monkey Island forum once again. Mere hours now.

What, another one? That's right: @Marius had a chat with Rex Crowle one day before the game's release, just for you.

I used my thumbs as reference for where Guybrush holds the map on the screenshot and went from there. The Tri-isalnd map measures, 35.5cm x 26cm (roughly 14inch by 10.25inch on 190gsm watercolour paper. Tea stained and "roasted" dry then most of it was free hand drawn. Luckily there's scaling markers on the maps, I started with them first and went from there.

Also, from the scrapbook: The Tales art copying Ryan David Jones's style is such a nice touch. Those skulls, eh?

Casting the game to the TV would technically fulfill both wishes.

it does better than that. It reframes the ending in a way that: allows the adventures to continue allows everyone to decide for themselves how much of the subsequent games really happened the way they were told leaves enough room for some individual interpretation of events I think it's possibly the perfect solution

Did anyone ever say it would explain the ending, or just that it would start there? 🤔

Oh my god kid Guybrush is so cute! Awwww I love him I love him I love ahem anyway, wait a minute this doesn't explain MI2's ending. It makes things more confusing. Are we going to see a new perspective on the whole ordeal? Will we get an explaination even in this game? Or will it just be a weird ending forever? Is what Curse made of it the official explaination forever now? (all questions are rhetorical only, people who actually know, don't answer) Anyway, back on topic, guybrush jr is so cute, don't you think? he's so cute. I wish you could make him drink the brown water in the outhouse, he's so cute.

Noooo sorry, I was doing some last minute forum shuffling and it might have caught you in it! I'm done meddling now, I promise.

The winner will be the final monkeys that LeChuck and Elaine dropped off in Tales. They went to all those other islands to drop off other monkeys first.

Haha oh no, the curse of this thread continues!

Never would have guessed that. And much too excited for tonight anyway. Eep ook ack! I failed at #Mojole #181. 🖤💛🖤🖤💚 🖤🖤🖤🖤💚 🖤💛🖤🖤💚 🖤💛🖤🖤💚 🖤💛🖤🖤💚 🖤💛🖤🖤💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

I’m both excited and puzzled that we’re already there. Most of the time the games that I’m really, really hyped about get announced more than 2 years before release. I’ve been waiting for Zelda Tears of the Kingdom for more than 3 years now, and when it’s released it’ll be almost 4(!!), while this game has been announced, teased, revealed, trailered, teased some more and released in less than half a year! Somehow I feel that I’ve skipped (or missed out on) some of the waiting process! Anyway, real excited! The only thing I’m a bit anxious about is the recasting of LeChuck. I hope Jess Harnell can fill Earl Boen’s bootstraps, but it’s gonna be a tough act to follow.

Marius re your spoiler: Im sure it was! 👕 I beat #Mojole #181 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 6/6 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤💚🖤🖤🖤 🖤💚💚🖤🖤 💚💚💚💚🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

I reckon this one's a pretty nice prediction. I'm going to say: Captain Smirk: Nah. Dead. Meathook: Nah. Unknown. Cannibals: Maybe. Navigator: Nah Fet Bro: Naaaaah Largo: Nope. Voodoo Priest: More like Voodoo LEAST Men of Low Moral Fibre: I truly hope so but something makes me think nah. Kate: No. Phatt: Nah. Barbary Coast: They're Barbary Toast Kenny: Nuh uh Goodsoup: Nuu Van Winslow: Van Wins-no Morgan LeFlay: Giving this one an outside chance but I'm still calling Morgan Away.

I have now finished my playthrough of the series! After only 8-9 months since my last playthrough, mind (after receiving the LimitedRun boxset at Christmas), so I think I've got a pretty good idea now as far as my overall thoughts on each entry. Will give a very brief rundown below: - Secret is a great starting point for the games, though I'd consider it as something of a middle-ground/transitional period between the games that came before it (Maniac Mansion, Zac, Last Crusade, Loom) and the games that came after (MI2, Fate of Atlantis, Tentacle, etc.) It still feels fairly limited as far as the technicals go, (i.e. limited music, not a huge amount of dialogue, still fairly primitive in its' interface, etc.) but it really laid the groundwork for the games that followed, both in the MI series and the other Lucas games in general. Hell, adventure games in general. It's because of SoMI that I'm interested in game design to begin with. - MI2 and Curse have aged the best of all the games. MI2's puzzle design and general expansion of the world, plus the fantastic soundtrack and introduction of iMuse, makes it one of the LucasArts classics. I couldn't help getting excited at the end upon selecting Guybrush's final dialogue tree option of "This is weird... what's going on here?" knowing that we're finally going to have some degree of closure on MI2's ending after all this time. Curse's atmosphere, artwork, soundtrack, and animated cutscenes really elevates it, even after all these years. The attention to detail in the backgrounds really struck me this time, in that you can see the games' other locations in the distance, which can alternate depending on your in-game actions at times. It really makes the world feel connected and alive. And yes, for a game that had no input from the original creators in terms of the story, they did a fabulous job in continuing the series and clearly doing so with passion. - Escape probably has more dated elements in so far as the visuals, and some of the dialogue. I still maintain it's a better game than people give it credit for, but time isn't as kind to it as Curse, for sure. I also do legitimately like the designs of the world and the characters, but of course, the technology of the day limits them. I don't think incorporating a point and click interface, at least as an optional feature, would've been a bad idea either. - I don't hate Monkey Kombat like others do, but MAN I despised it this time. There was ONE "insult" that the monkeys just weren't giving me and I wasn't able to win against Jojo Jr. until one of the monkeys randomly gave it to me about 30 minutes in! At friggin' last! - Tales has probably aged the most in my opinion, and honestly, this was my least favourite playthrough of the game yet. I think I notice the dated elements more in Tales than Escape because Tales is generally aiming to be bigger and better. Escape still uses traditional adventure gaming camera angles and animations, even in 3D (with backdrops rendered in 2D of course) so because of that, I subconsciously know not to expect anything too dynamic in terms of the visuals, and I instead pay more attention to the stronger elements such as the music, the voice acting and, by and large, the dialogue. With Tales, we do have more dynamic camerawork and animations, and where Escape knows its limitations, Tales tries to go beyond them, and yeah, when we're forced to look at closeups of late 2000's low-budget, low-polygon 3D assets, with awkward expressions and dated, unfinished-looking animations dotted throughout, it does take me out of the experience moreso than Escape did. - In terms of writing, of all the games, the humour in Tales does *not* do it for me. Guybrush has amusing comebacks to make about *everything* he comes across, and practically every line is written as if a marketing executive wrote it. Seriously, count how many times Guybrush says something along the lines of "Ah... nothing like a good __________ to get you through the day!" or the like, throughout the game. Taking nothing away from the fabulous voiceover work from Dom of course, particularly in the final chapter, nor the generally good story as far as the main characters' developments and relationships go, which is probably the strongest and most meaningful developments of the series since the original games, but dialogue-wise, Tales is the weakest for me. And just weird other things like the Voodoo Lady having a different actress, and a few other spotty actor deliveries bring it down too, where EMI's voice acting is practically flawless across the board. - All three Stan voices are practically tied for me. I can't choose a favourite. I welcome Gavin Hammon back in ReMI with open arms. - Man, I'm going to miss Earl Boen in ReMI. Please don't let me down, Harnell!! I think my ranking of the series probably now goes: 1. Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge 2. The Curse of Monkey Island 3. The Secret of Monkey Island 4. Escape From Monkey Island 5. Tales of Monkey Island I still don't think lite remasters of Curse - Tales is that unlikely anymore, with ReMI reigniting "The Fires of Monkey Island" (next game title?!), and I look forward to the day when we see the announcements of their remasters coming! (Possibly in a bundle?) All I'd be looking for would be increased resolutions with upscaled art/textures, some recastings for the sake of continuity, and additional platform support. I think that's all they'd need, to be honest! Anyway, sorry for the rant, I had a spare hour! Two days to go!!

New arrival (not yet sure how to tackle this one):