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New poster. My phone news app helpfully recommended the site article "The Many Epilogues" to me and reading through this thread has been really interesting and entertaining. I find myself thinking more and more about the endings and I really appreciate what the creators did with the game. My opinion keeps improving. I like how the game gives substance to help with various interpretations of both the game and the series. And I especially like how it even lets the player choose the ending scene based on what is important to them. But the best part for me is the philosophical parts about stories, journeys, the changing perspectives of maturity, and other concepts like that that the game explores. Some of that was experiential through the game, some was directly stated by characters. But now I can see that it all really worked for me. It was a satisfying continuation/possible conclusion to the franchise. The ending of 2 was very thought-provoking and one of my favorite moments in the series. This ending finally surpassed that one for me. I was playing games when the originals came out, but never gave them a chance. I found Maniac Mansion DIFFICULT and didn't play other LucasArts adventure games until well over a decade later. But when I finally did play all of them, I really enjoyed the Monkey Island games. I hadn't even heard this game was being made, but when I saw it was for sale, I bought it immediately. In my first playthrough, I was a bit shocked after emerging into the back alley the final time. I didn't immediately know what to make of the ending. One thing I typically do after completing a game is to look at the list of achievements to see generally how close to experiencing all of the content I had gotten. I had less than 40% of the achievements. I hadn't even realized in my first playthrough that the reason I wasn't getting more trivia cards was because I wasn't answering them. Reading through the achievements, I realized there was a second ending of going back up the stairs. I thought I might have missed a lot, so I started on a second playthrough right away. It was during that second playthrough that everything started to hit. My opinion improved greatly as I got to see the themes and concepts much more clearly. I appreciated the characters more, especially my favorite portrayal of Elaine in the series. I appreciated the puzzles more, especially the Chum story one. After a third speedrun playthrough to get to 100% achievement completion was when I saw the article that got me here. And that blew me away because I had still missed eight of those epilogues. In my first playthrough, the option I picked was that the secret was the friends we made along the way. Looking at the fun playing the games, the great characters with great acting, and the way some of the games have caused me to really think about them, that is probably closest to the truth for me.

I would love to see a sequel to ToMI after this. The whole concept of "More (Tall) Tales from the Monkey Island Universe" fits RtMI's ending just perfectly. And Tales had some great story threads, onviously the Voodoo Lady's and Morgan's, to pick up again.

Obviously, I have a VERY vested interest in what happens with Monkey Island going forward, so take this for what it's worth 😄 But one of the things I kind of love about how the fellas wrapped this one up is that I don't think more would diminish anything. I love how they've kind of closed the loop while setting up almost a kind of framework that all of these stories inhabit. In some ways, I feel like this frees any future projects, should we get them, to simply be fun Monkey Island stories, new adventures, a standalone chapters, without the burden of dealing with the larger questions and setup. I feel like it would now be possible for a new game — with maybe just a couple of subtle nods to the metastory — to simply tell a fun story. I mean, it would be tough to top the emotional pull of RtMI. And maybe the best thing would be not to try. But so long as any future adventures are deferential to what we just played, I don't think there's any reason they'd have to detract from anything.

Took two days to read through 14 pages of this thread. General thoughts replying to the thread: - I too had a moment of "huh" when I finished the game, but by half an hour later I was quite pleased. - I also found the last puzzle very confusing even after discovering all the clues. Guybrush moves the top of the wheel left and right using right and left motions... and I kept setting the date to 1730 because it's 4 years after 1726, rather than tapping the year 4 times. Ah well. Once I wrote down the 4 combinations it could be, I resolved it quickly. - Did Wally have a theme song in MI2 outside of the Woodtick theme? I figured it makes sense for the map because Wally made the map. - Makes sense that Elaine comes across as maternal in the story, since Guybrush has known her as being a mother for several years by the time he's telling it, and since he's telling it to Boybrush, he may well be referring to Elaine as "mom" in his unheard narration. - If you told me that Ron's idea for what the MI2 ending "meant" involved the kid at the end really being Guybrush's son, I'd believe you. In any case, the segue was impossibly perfect. Maybe the first game I've played where the beginning was a bigger revelation than the ending, and I'm so very glad I got to play it unspoiled. New thoughts from my brain as filtered through other media: - Satoshi Kon's Millenium Actress All of Kon's films are known for playing with the blurred lines between reality and imagination. But Millenium Actress in particular feels relevant, as an aging actress describes her career... - The Lego Movie Spoilers for that film's ending: - The dueling Myst continuities: After the first Myst game came out, surrounding the release of the novels and the sequel Riven, a running gag emerged that the stories were adaptations based on centuries-old journals that had been uncovered, and the events of the game "really happened" in the 1800s. A couple of games were made by another company set in the same continuity as Myst and Riven, but when Cyan made Uru it was set in the present day and the "Myst is based on stuff that really happened" concept became canon. This had the benefit of making it easy to gloss over any continuity issues in the games by chalking them up to "artistic license," but it could also feel unsatisfying, so fans continue to form headcanons for what happened between games in the "game universe" separate from what happened in the "real world." So... yeah. My brain I guess is primed to read the ending of RtMI in an extremely generous way, where the pirate adventure story is real on one level and the theme park imagination story is equally real on another level. The setting in which Guybrush tells the story still seems to be a piratey world, so I certainly still belive Guybrush's adventures were real, in his timeline, but I easily accept that this one was colored by his storytelling flourishes, and it's equally plausible that the previous games were told that way as well. It's also easy enough to explain it all as a series of "real" things that happened, if desired, since Curse depicts a theme park built on Monkey Island, Escape expands on that, and during one of the long stretches when LeChuck was presumed dead it would make perfect sense that Stan of all people would buy it. From there it's possible to imagine that Stan really does contrive wild goose chases that end at his theme park, or just that Boybrush was familiar with the park and Guybrush incorporated it into the story to mess with him. Final final thought: - It's interesting that the game ends with Guybrush silent on the bench, and it's fascinating that different people read different emotions into it. I definitely read it as a sort of "well, that's it, not sure what happens now" vibe, potentially nodding to The Graduate. Which seems appropriate, given that the nod to The Graduate as SoMI turned out to be so pivotal.

Loom was SO ahead of its time that I think it'd be perfect for the current era. It was a post-adventure game too soon. The game probably isn't notorious enough to sell a sequel with the assumption that players would recall the first, so a remaster would make a bit more sense, but... Honestly, my dream would be a full game that has the story of the original Loom as its first act, then adapts the plans for the sequel(s) into acts 2 and 3. The Dinky engine from RtMI, implemented with a more painterly and less angular art style, would probably work really well. I am curious what kind of art style you'd land on for a Maniac Mansion remake. Ron's speculation about doing it with live action FMV is extremely appealing to me, especially if the cutscenes were FMV but the gameplay was point + click using live action sprites in a CG environment. I don't think that's really been attempted much in the HD era, and a kludgy b-movie grain filter could help paper over the seams.

Hey all. I've been been browsing this site for many many years now, first time i've made an account and commented. Just finished the game yesterday. I loved it. I've been thinking about the ending since then. My interpretation is this: Every MI game we've played up to this point has essentially been boybrush's interpretations (and sometimes reenactments with his friends) of Guybrush's tall tales. This means that everything we have seen has already passed through two layers of unreliable narrators. Both Guybrush's comment to boybrush about changing the ending of Big Whoop, and Elaine's comment to Guybrush at the end about retelling the ending of this story point to that imo. As to whether the original stories are true, I'm 50/50. Most likely (and given Guybrush's comments and reactions at the Original Secret Park at the end) these are fantasies constructed by Guybrush as he was playing in Stan's evolving pirate-themed park (either as a kid who later grew up, or as an adult flooring inspector from the start). Elaine seems to be the only other real person in this fantasy, shown by her appearance at the end but also by her general warmth and understanding towards Guybrush throughout the whole story. She might as well have initially been another person running through the same park. I feel like the point at the end is that Guybrush finally accepts that these fantasies of piratey achievements are secondary to actual achievements like focusing on Elaine, having shared adventures with her and starting a family. The point where he lets go and shuts off the lights. On the other hand, the original stories could be true, and the whole theme park aspect could be more symbolic of guybrush's shallow cyclical way of chasing his goals and treating everyone as "not real". Him exiting the theme park with elaine could be symbolic of his (once again) letting go of the way he has been living his life up to that point. It's possibly not by chance that the overt theme park aspect comes into focus in the two monkey island games where guybrush leaves the most negative impact on the world around him through his actions. On a personal note: I started playing this series back when I was 8, through Curse. Ever since then this series has followed me as I grew up, became an adult and recently started a family of my own. This final installment (along with its themes) came for me at a perfect point in my life where I am reexamining my priorities and my relationship to video game (and generally media) consumption. Given how attention and time are finite, "letting go" and focusing on what really matters before it's too late seems to be a core theme and has really resonated with me. Thank you to @Dmnkly, @Jakeand the rest of the teams that have worked on this series. It feels like it's time for this generation to let the theme park go. Or, at least, hand it over to the next one.

I think this is the first time in the series where I would be perfectly fine if this was the final one. I might actually prefer if it was. Ron tweeted earlier that he would be surprised if this was the final one. I actually love the fact that I'm now afraid of them making another one, as opposed to them never being able to make another one. That's simply a testament to how well I feel this one ended.

I like your post about the "turning off lights" trope. I didn't quite understand the significance of shutting down the park as I was first playing. Now as I keep thinking about it, and remembering his "Oh no...not yet" realization that it's all over, it makes it all the more devastating. But damn, I had no idea he sung The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song in MI2 (I had to verify it myself). Very interesting way of bringing it all together. (Probably unintentional, but I like making all the pieces fit.) Shit, something clicked for me as I was reading this. Maybe the reason Guybrush and Elaine's relationship seems so "passionless" compared to earlier adventures is because we're seeing this entire game through Boybrush's eyes, as Guybrush tells him the story. (Also explains why Boybrush is our initial playable character and even fleshes out the "pop-up storybook"-like art style, as seen through a child's eyes.) That might also be why he imagines Chuckie and Dee as versions of LeChuck and Lila in the story (and perhaps accounts for some other personality differences from previous games). I know we all have our personal headcanon for what happens, but I'm starting to piece together a more concrete view of what Ron may have originally intended back in the '90s. Basically, The Secret of Monkey Island is that it's actually a theme park (something we always suspected from that locked employee door in the back alley). Guybrush is indeed a flooring inspector getting lost in these worlds and his own imagination. Elaine is possibly the (slightly) older woman he meets there in a higher position of authority ("governor") who initially rebuffs him. LeChuck is apparently not based on any real life character, but is actually a realistic animatronic display (this is the hardest pill for me to swallow). Stan is just the capitalist, money-hungry jerk in charge of the place (always slinging his wares). And all the characters he meets in this town are either real life denizens of the park (employees and visitors) and/or literal cardboard cutout characters. MI2's ending basically reveals this for us—and some version of this was originally meant as the ending to MI1 before it got nixed. The whole element of Chuckie's "lightning eyes" and Elaine waiting by the pit were essentially added later as a way to continue the franchise, if someone so wished. I have to look at Return as a literal return to this world, and not directly continuing the events of MI2. The kids are re-enacting Guybrush's telling of events 30 years later at the beginning of this game, and in no way is meant to be the framing device that Ron intended back in the '90s (it's something that probably came later with age, wisdom and begrudgingly accepting the other games as canon). Many things in Return are rehashing what made the originals so great, but it takes on a slightly new form (as seen through Boybrush's eyes). But what's clear is that it takes place many years later, with a father essentially telling his kid grand, tall tales of his many "adventures" at these theme parks (with some details changed either due to unreliable memory or embellishment on his end). At the end, he reflects on his life as a flooring inspector—which initially seems mundane and boring—but his "riches" in life come in the form of his wife and his kid. Kind of a cheesy ending, but I get it. Reflectively looking back on all of it, over the past 30 years, it's very touching. The things I'm still trying to reconcile are where we meet Guybrush at the beginning of MI1. If we are to assume it takes place in modern times (1990) and given his youthful appearance, I'd say he's 18 or so? I don't know what kind of certification it takes to be a flooring inspector (what the hell is a flooring inspector anyway?). And at the end of MI2, he's a literal kid (8-9?) which doesn't quite make much sense if that was intended as the defacto ending. Unless it's just meant as a memory of him playing as a kid with his adopted family, which led to his lifetime of dreaming about being a pirate and eventually working in the amusement park business. And there's also the matter of LeChuck, who could just be based on his older brother Chuckie, who was a bit of a jerk and a bully. Which also begs the question: Who is Chuckie in Return? Perhaps his nephew? (Chuckie Jr.?) Sheesh, it took a few days (and restless nights of Monkey Island dreams) for me to reach a place of quiet acceptance about this ending, but I think I'm just about there. One thing is for certain: this wouldn't bother me so much if I hadn't been thinking about this for 25 or so years. It's weird to finally put this longstanding mystery to rest after all this time. I guess I'm finally in the same place as Guybrush at the end of the game; sitting on a bench, quietly reflecting on my thoughts and a lifetime of memories playing these games.

Vaguely vaguely on the topic of details and versions and voices. In the original MI2, when you "look" at something with no description, like a door or a rock, Guybrush will dynamically say "Nice door" or "Nice rock" or whatever it is. Easy to do with text, but a fun touch. MI2SE didn't have Dominic record a voice line for every object in the game, so now whenever he looks at anything, he just goes "Nice!" At first that bugged me a little, but the more it went on, the more I love it. I think there are at least a half dozen distinct readings of "Nice!" and they're all fun

I found my favorite character in the whole series: Lemonhead!

Welcome, friend, to a very weird conversation we had a few weeks back:

I don’t know if someone talked about this before – sorry, I didn’t read the entire thread – but there is a dialog I love in the beginning of the game, when the old couple looks at the parrot in the amusement park. I’m paraphrasing. Something like: “It’s so lifelike.” “Is it real?” I think it’s symbolic. What’s real? What‘s not real? What’s canon? When does this scene take place? And, more importantly, do we really need to care about what’s real or not?

Regarding the lack of Monkeys on Monkey Island, beyond being an inside joke, perhaps it's also an indirect reference to Escape, where all the monkeys leave.

Murray's theme from Tales does briefly play when he's first introduced in the chest! (Hopefully the below has the timecode embedded)

He says "let's pretend I have powers where I can make lightning come out of my eyes," when he's walking along behind the others. Which is what happens in MI2: Also he's wearing the same DETH shirt as Chuckie in MI2. It's all interpretation of course, but I feel like there's a pretty strong implication that what we're seeing at the start of ReMI is the exact same moment as the end of MI2, but with some of the layers peeled back... a process which finishes when they give up on the 'parents' and walk back to the previous area and the buildings etc. have changed. Also, Ron said it was important for him to pick up the story exactly where MI2 left off, which I guess it wouldn't actually be doing if this was actually just a re-enactment of that moment happening way later.

Yeah, I don't think it'd need a full MI2->Curse artstyle jump, but a subtler MI1->MI2 jump expanding on RtMI's art style into a new distinct look could be pretty amazing. Would also hope they leave a big gap before doing or announcing another one, as that tradition has also become meaningful. Let the current generation of players discover Monkey Island, consume it all, and then wait long enough to miss it so the next one becomes an event as well... then let's see how MI's themes evolve with an even older Guybrush as protagonist.

Dang, Monkey 1 had a lot of monkeys and I forgot to look behind me.

I took this as "years of experience". She knows how Guybrush is and wants him to change, but after her years of experience with him, she has realized some things. First that he isn't going to change unless he wants to change, so she is using a gentler approach to try to guide him toward improving himself. Second that she can still be supportive of him despite his flaws. I have seen real-life couples get to similar places after being married for a while.

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:

I would love a "remaster" of Loom, but mostly to have the audio drama and the book of spells in-game. Of course if there has to be a switch from new graphics to old they have to use the EGA graphics for the old, and of course for the new style a nice Sleeping Beauty inspired painted style would be perfect. I'm personally more interested in a remastered Maniac Mansion than a sequel. To me Thimbleweed Park was already a good spiritual successor of the original, and I'm plenty happy with that. Plus, a remastered would (and should) add the possibility to toggle dead ends on or off and (possibly) to alert you when you reached a dead end. But most of all, I hope this whole ReMI situation can bring more original ideas for adventure games that can have more support and budget from big publishers. As much as I would love to see my favourite games being remastered or get sequels, I'd love more for the adventure game genre and industry to evolve further. I hope I'm not getting my hopes up too much, but eh, a guy can dream...

I get that we're used to just making the soundtracks ourselves as Monkey Island fans because it's been a poor track record on official soundtracks... but given that we don't know what the soundtrack plans are at the moment, I hope we get something official. I was slightly lamenting that most of the best music moments in the game are old themes. And they're all extremely good, but given the strength of MI2 and EMI's to an extent I was hoping for more original themes that were memorable. I still think I wish we'd heard some more, but someone pointed out that the quarantine ship music is quite catchy - is that from anything? I don't immediately recognise it. Any other original standouts?

👕 I beat #Mojole #187 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 2/6 💛💚🖤🖤🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

👕 I beat #Mojole #187 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 4/6 🖤🖤🖤💛🖤 💚🖤🖤💚🖤 💚💛🖤💚🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

The aspect that confused me was that the inscription on the stone tablet says "after four extra years out at sea". I did not immediately interpret the "after four extra years" as "change the year piece four times". The center piece shows... years and I thought that "four" meant that I had to do some calculations with the years. I eventually understood 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!

Not necessarily. If one is inclined to require a decipherable timeline, I like the notion that MI2 has been slightly retconned such that there's actually a massive gap WITHIN MI2 that engulfs CMI, EMI, Tales, and who knows how many other unrevealed adventures? But while I like that, I'm personally much more in the Terry Gilliam/Baron Munchausen camp. Doesn't really matter. Free your mind and let the pieces not quite fit. That slightly disoriented feeling isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Really glad to hear I'm not the only one who got emotional at the end. I flat out started crying and whenever I think back on it, I start getting teary eyed. Like, the ending just felt so profoundly beautiful to me. And that last moment with Guybrush sitting on the bench, it left me with this warm but sad feeling of finality that I've always wanted. I've always been one of the people that weirdly enough, didn't want the world to be real. I've always felt like it gave the series this sort of emotional core to it. That no matter how mundane and soul crushing the real world can be, there's an escape in this fun pirate world we're all so invested in.

I've already recorded the first 30 minutes of music from the game today (rough estimation, I haven't edited anything yet), and from the looks of it, it'll be a massive tracklist (and quite difficult to deal with variations). My only chronology change is that I've moved the chapter card to AFTER the opening credits (instead of at the very start), and my tracklist up to now looks like this: 1. Main Menu 2. Underground Tunnels Prelude 3. Big Whoop Main Square 4. Scurvy Dogs Shack 5. Outhouse 6. Big Whoop Park 7. Story Time 8. Opening Titles 9. Chapter Card 10. Revisiting the Lookout 11. Mêlée Island Docks 12. The SCUMM Bar 13. New Pirate Leaders 14. Mêlée Island Low Street / Old Pirate Leaders / High Street The Big Whoop area sounds like one seamless track, but the side tracks actually have their own loop points, so they can be made into separate tracks. A difficult one is the park area, where the sword training has a variation of the loop, but it only plays for a few seconds, until the sword fight is over. So it'll be quite difficult to capture a full loop of that one. For now, the Lookout track was the only one where I noticed an actual outro once you leave the screen. Mêlée Island for now sounds like one big loop, cross-fading through its variations, but that's where I stopped recording. Maybe for the sakes of a shorter tracklist, more cues can be combined, but then again, if you want to play specific cues, you would have to search though a long track, which isn't ideal either. That being said, I don't know if I manage to go through the whole game like this. Maybe it CAN work as a team effort. BUT: I think it might make more sense to wait until we have working extraction tools for the music tracks. It'll still be work to compile a working album out of those snippets.

Here’s a shot I took the Photo Booth and an extremely Part 5-appropriate look behind it featuring @Dmnkly

Wait! We've done this for 30 years already. I prefer the other method. Just let MI6 = ReMI sunk in a little bit, and then announce that you are doing another one. Just like with MI2.

That is somehow super creepy. What if the monkeys became some sorts of cryptids and are just out of sight/behind everyone. What if their master is the legendary three headed monkey. What if the monkeys are just behind the camera and thats why we can't see them... What if we're the monkeys? The monkeys are listening, remember? They were in the audience in the theater in MI3. And monkeys are now associated with being behind someone, out of their view just like the fourth wall. When they look around to search for the three headed monkey there is nothing tho, because they are looking the wrong way... Would be funny and cool if they took all this as foreshadowing (aftershadowing?) and made a small plot out of it.

Oh, I'm 99% sure it was not done on purpose, but that's part of the beauty. Shows like Mary Tyler Moore and Get Smart were floating around in the heads of Ron/Dave/Tim and so leave a mark on the game... and in exactly the same way, those bits of contemporary pop culture would have been floating around in Adultbrush's brain and so left a mark on both his story and thoughts he was having about his own life. In a sense, Adultbuybrush probably got his kid saying "That's the second biggest ____ I've ever seen" because Adultbrush had watched Get Smart. And it doesn't matter whether Adultbrush remembered that it came from Get Smart oor not. Chucky would've tacked on "I am your brother" and "take off my mask" because he's probably seen or heard of Empire Strikes Back. This kind of stuff does permeate in children's play, as I can attest to seeing my son assigning Minecraft elements to some of his stories! Nah, you recorded helium lines for "Pirate on Scabb" and "Monkey in my Pocket". The older versions were Mary Tyler Moore, Lollipop Guild, and That's the Way I Like It. I choose to believe that the reason your MI1 lines didn't have Guybrush singing "With my SPEAR and magic HELmet!" (a dialogue option against LeChuck in Part 4) was due to licensing with Looney Tunes.

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.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was changed/rewritten for the SE. And as a side note: Your voice work was impeccable Dom - thank you for that!

Welcome! This was a great post thank you for sharing it. Also I have to ask: what phone news app did you use that recommended a Mixnmojo article?! I mean, that app clearly has excellent taste, but I don’t expect news aggregators to know this site.

Honestly, Guybrush wandering around Myst solving really evil mechanical puzzles would be something I would enjoy.

"Never pay less than 50 bucks for a Van Winslow dating sim with FPS elements."

maybe I wasn’t totally clear. In my mind lechuck and guybrush are beneath dinky island, guybrush does get turned into a kid in a theme park but not the one we see in mi2. Then curse, escape and tales happen and then we get the mi2 epilogue /return prologue. It’s not very clean but it’s the only way this makes any sense at all to me. Fair enough. That’s just as good as anything i can come up with but it definitely feels like a bit of a stretch narrativly and a cheat creatively. If they’d written themselves into a corner i feel like, based on how creative the rest of the game is, they could come up with something better than “lets bung in some doppelgängers to awkwardly steer us away from this writing challange.” Granted I can’t come up with anything better but ron’s seemingly cleverer than i am and has been thinking about this for 30 years and actively working on it for 2.

I can't recall if I ever saw the ending of Fresh Prince but 'lights out' has long been associated with death / the end. Think Shakespeare's 'Out brief candle'. Trope it may be, but only because it's such a well understood metaphor. I cried buckets when it was our turn.

I just want to buy my Secret T-Shirt, and maybe some other merchandise too.

Wow, so I just finished the game and absolutely loved it! The writing and jokes were top notch, the puzzles were really well designed and didn't delve into moon logic, and the art style in motion looks fantastic. The thing that really stuck with me though, was that ending! Now, we all knew the end was gonna be divisive, one way or another. The biggest question looming over the world of MI has always been "is any of this real?" and I think they did a good job of leaving it ambiguous enough that it's still open to interpretation. I've noticed though, that a lot of people who want the world to be real have been relatively...unimpressed with the ending. They wanted the answers to all the questions to be laid bare and definitively answered, a big final confrontation with LeChuck, and a Secret that would live up to the years and years of hype. After ruminating on the ending for a while and seeing what other people thought, I decided to start a playthrough of the writers cut. I ended up checking the to do list and saw the item of "Find the Secret and relive the glory days" and it finally hit me. I'd seen this before...roughly 5 years ago... Return to Monkey Island is Ron Gilbert's Twin Peaks - The Return! IT'S EVEN RIGHT THERE IN THE NAME!!!!! Almost everything is exactly like what happened when TP S3 came out. A series that has been in stasis for years, with so many questions left unanswered and the original creator coming back to fulfill their vision how they see fit, fanbase reaction be damned. Their both about chasing that feeling of reliving the glory days and answers that could never truly satisfy everyone and that you should enjoy the journey, rather then trying to get to some all encompassing Secret that could never truly live up to the expectations. You're supposed to treasure and relish in all this new time we get with these characters and this world that we all love! There was never gonna be an ending that could live up to the expectations of so many years of pondering and I really think this is the best and most tasteful way they could've approached it. All in all, it was really cool seeing my favorite game series tale so much inspiration and lessons learned from one of my favorite TV shows ever!

One particularly dark interpretation of MI2's end that I've been quite fond of is that the world of MI is a catatonic delusion created as a result of a severe childhood trauma, namely Guybrush witnessing the murder of his parents at a theme park. Stemming from the presence of the skeletons and the reference to "murderers and ne'er do wells". There is something oddly compelling about the comedic taking a dark twist.

I see a lot of comments about how all the cutaways to Elaine discovering the bad things that Guybrush did didn’t really have a payoff and that Elaine simply hand waves it all away. I’d argue that, if you take the idea that Guybrush uses the Elaine character as a kind of therapist figure, their slow walk to the Monkey Head makes perfect sense. A therapist helps us to confront aspects of ourselves we might not want to face, as Elaine does in this scene, but the crucial point is that they DO NOT judge.

My current thinking is a bit on the darker side. I see Guybrush as a man with very severe issues who has lost himself in this endless fantasy of Monkey Island and the rivalry with his nemesis LeChuck. The ending of Monkey Island 2 was ALMOST the point at which the illusion was broken, but he instead created an even deeper fantasy that we see in the prologue of Rtmi. I think his son and his friends do not exist, they are merely extensions of his own personality that revels in the stories of pirates and adventures and act as a conduit for him to become lost yet again in his fantasy. I mentioned in a different comment that Elaine, in certain sections of the story, acts almost like a therapist, guiding him along to face certain truths about himself. Her very peculiar behaviour when (and if) you choose to leave the amusement park is almost like she is waiting for Guybrush to make the choice to step out of the delusion. I find the scene on the bench at the end striking in that it seems like it’s the final moment of truth. Guybrush is almost free, but there is a final test. Elaine whispers about a hidden treasure and the promise of adventure. Then Guybrush is sat alone (maybe he was always alone). Does he finally break free of the fantasy, or does he cave in and meet Elaine at the dock? I guess that’s for us to decide.

I got the (e?) tickets ending. Note that the people on the blue cards are keyholes, whereas the pink one is the Lucas Arts logo (I think?).

Wally's doormat is a map of the inside of his store, with a little "you are here" dot on the doormat.

What a great interview! I've deliberately not been looking at trailers or screenshots beyond a cursory glance - purely to avoid ruining myself for the in-game experience - but hearing about some of the influences and guiding principles behind the artwork is an excellent alternative way to get myself salivating. Oh, and anyone who loves Monty Python and Holy Grail and has an Amiga that still works is all right by me.

Oof, I forgot what a bad hand the Han/Leia relationship was dealt in the sequels. Hmmm. I can only imagine what an ‘unpopular opinions’ thread about Star Wars would look like. 😵‍💫 I think the way Ron abandoned the MI3a dream in favour of a sequel that honours the previous games is an admirable act of generosity and open-heartedness. It makes this franchise feel far healthier (and more fun) than a ‘splintered timeline/let’s return to 1994’ approach would have been. I’m glad that he’s uniting rather dividing. I don’t really want to see him split Guybrush and Elaine, and I hope he gives us some depth to their relationship. Along those lines, my unpopular opinion is that I think I would like to see Ahern & Ackley take a stab at MI7 if it ever gets made. History has been kind to Curse, and I would like to see what their approach to the genre would be after decades designing stuff for the Disney theme parks 😎

I love the screens that have that kind of repoussoir in the foreground. It really gives the whole scene that much more depth and credibility. By Monkey Island 2, they had perfected the technique and we even had out-of-focus elements directly in front of our noses that framed and guided our view. The two slanting ship masts that guide our view into Wally's home, for example. The map room under Rum Roger's house. The foreground of the Booty Island shop. Sometimes I feel like it's a lost art form as well and would today be considered a waste of space by modern designers. It really, really isn't. It's an early example of interactive storytelling, and I love it dearly. From the guy who brought you "cut-scenes", here's a story that actually changes depending on how the protagonist acts. There's more of course, with an entire cutscene (Elaine meeting Guybrush on the dock) being optional depending on what order you do your tasks in. I really, really hope Ron brings this back. There may be even more hilarious applications of the paradigm. 😄