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Random thoughts about swords and shovels. Guybrush wields a sword in every game except MI2. * MI1 has an insult swordfighting section. * MI3 has a sea insult swordfighting section. * MI4 has an unwinnable optional insult swordfighting sequence. * MI5 Ch2 has a swordfighting sequence unrelated to insults and then Ch5 has a brief insult/uplift sequence. * MI6 Prelude has a scurvydogfight game with Boybrush and Chucky, then Parts 1 and 4 have you swordfight Carla during friendly conversation, and Part 2 has the first on-screen swordfight between Guybrush and LeChuck (in which LeChuck "cheats"). Guybrush wields a shovel in every game except MI4 and MI6. * MI1 has him dig for the Lost Treasure of Mêlée Island. * MI2 Part 1 has him graverob, then Part 4 has him dig for Big Whoop. * MI3 has him dig for Gold-Elaine on a theater stage. (You can think about that one for a while.) * MI5 Part 1 has him plant a false treasure, Part 2 has him dig up an artifact, and Part 5 has him dig in the afterlife. * MI6 has him ALMOST set hands on that shovel, but it was a trap. In terms of inventory: * MI1 is the only game where Guybrush has to acquire his sword, and the only where it shows as an inventory item. (MI3, MI4, and MI5 do have sword inventory items, but these are unrelated to any swordfighting Guybrush does.) * MI1 and MI2 are the only games where Guybrush has to acquire a shovel, and the only where it shows as an inventory item.

An idea that I don't recall being mentioned, following on from the idea that the secret of Monkey Island is a gateway to Hell. When Guybrush steps through the code-wheel door at the end of Return he enters hs own personal Hell. One where all of his impressive adventures were nothing but imagination. Where the fantastic secret he finally managed to discover was nothing but a joke T-shirt. Where the archenemy he triumphantly defeated multiple times was nothing but an animatronic. It also fits in with the old "Guybrush goes to Hell and Stan is there" plot.

Because I wanted to be able to take a better look at the ReMI game files, I made a viewer to do exactly that! Presenting: ThimbleMonkey (screenshot in spoiler) It's build in Python 3.8 with PySide (based on Qt), so it should work on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. There is an explanation on how to run it in the included readme on the linked GitHub page. To run it on Windows and MacOS, simply download the compiled executable from here, unzip it, and run ThimbleMonkey. The readme also has an explanation on how to run the Python scripts directly on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. This is version 0.0.1 because it isn't entirely finished or feature-complete, but I wanted to release it now to encourage file mining. Plus I'm going on vacation now and I didn't want to let this project uselessly linger on my harddrive during that time. [crossed out because no longer relevant]. This code, like my MonkeyPack project is heavily based on Dinky Explorer (previously Thimbleweed Park Explorer), so thanks! I hope you all enjoy!

I was poking around the games images with Thimblemonkey (Thanks @Didero ❤️ ) and stumbled onto this image. It's titled PickupEvidenceCU-hd.ktxbz, and shows a closeup of Guybrush's hands and a shovel on a shelf. I'm not sure where this appears in-game. And with the shovel breakdown post in the Details of RTMI thread, i'm even more confused. Where does this happen? I'll just post the image.

This is a thing. See below an unmodified screenshot of the original game taken 10+ years ago vs Remastered: The lighting of the 3D models is generally softer too but I think this is preferable, causing characters and objects to blend in better with the environments. There are even fancy reflected lighting effects, such as Manny's green lockers illuminating his face slightly with green. Overall the game looks and sounds better for sure. I suspect there may be a platform aspect to this. The original game shot was taken on a Windows PC, whereas the Remastered shot was taken on a Mac, which to my knowledge uses a higher gamma than Windows across the board. Indeed, the effect is that of increased gamma, as it's primarily the shadows that are affected. Gamma is pretty easy to adjust on any platform so it is possible you could just tweak that and still enjoy the Remastered edition. Similarly, the Xbox is known to use a lower gamma to the PS4, leading to many a 'graphics comparison' where the Xbox version is said to have richer tone. When I played Remastered it was on PS4, and on my TV I use the film reference darker gamma, so that probably masked this issue for me if it was present on the PS4. It is more noticeable on a computer for sure. As for playing the original, I think it still runs on a modern computer but it increasingly became plagued by rendering issues where the graphics technology moved on. For example, anti-aliasing started causing all sorts of bugs, and so really you could only play it by turning the nicer graphical effects off, leaving it looking more like 'Classic' mode in Remastered, even though many people would have played the original game's better-looking hardware-accelerated mode. Unfortunately I think DREAMM is targeting the inferior mode too as I imagine it'd be much more complex to emulate the graphics card, but I may be wrong.

I've just started a GF replay and decided to try out the remaster rather than playing from disc via SCUMMVM/Residual. The backgrounds didn't look as nice as I remembered. I realised that a lot of that was because they were now being placed next to hi-res character models - as soon as I flipped it back to classic rendering mode, the background looked better again! However, I checked out some comparison videos anyway (I was mostly hoping to find comparisons of the old vs new music, but couldn't immediately find any), and it seem like the backgrounds have been brightened. The two videos I'm looking at are these: The first one claims to be a comparison of the RM vs the original. The second is a playthrough of the original. Now, you can definitely see a difference in backgrounds in the first video: Backed up by the second video (though perhaps a little less so?): The thing that's throwing me off a little here is that it seems the first video is actually just using the Remaster's different rendering modes, judging by the new UI in Don Copley's computer on both: As compared to that in the second video: What's weird is that when I flip between the rendering modes in RM, it doesn't affect the backgrounds at all. This YTer says in the comments that they were playing and capturing on two different laptops simultaneously, so I guess one of them might be outputting different brightness/contrast levels? I hadn't realised that was a thing. Or have they added this extra contrast themselves in post? So, I guess my question is: has anyone noticed the backgrounds in RM being brighter? Or read anything about it? Also, is DREAMM near to supporting GF yet?! I think I'm going to go to the effort of playing from disc, tbh, even though it means missing out on the new music (and maybe that Domino dialogue if SCUMMVM haven't fixed that bug).

I think this is my canonical ending! It incorporates the theme park and the hell idea. It doesn't devalue the stories of all the games, because the secret is a real thing (gate to hell) and the fantastic pirate world is real too. The flooring inspector reality is literally hell and it's the result of finding the secret. It makes a lot of sense, would be cool if it was actually intended.

If you use one of the keys while the magic spell is still around the safe, before you collect all five keys, a unique cutscene will play where LeChuck and Madison and crew realize someone is messing with the safe. Madison and Flair both go to check it out. As far as I can tell, this doesn't have any affect on any successive cutscenes.

I like being able to sense an enormous world outside of the protagonist. I like excitement, anxiety, discovery, mystery. Even though I didn’t fully realize it until this year: I crave drama (tragedy) blended with comedy, and realism blended with fantasy (cartoon). Secret Secret has risen to be my favorite. My brain has cemented it as the great blend, the proto story, the embryonic beginning that could have gone in any direction. In Secret you can spot references to the world being an amusement park… or a small community… or a novel… or a video game… or a straight, non-comedic adventure. It has money in numbered amounts like Zak McKraken or Indy 3, even though it doesn’t really matter if you have 478 or 480 or 482 pieces. And it doesn’t matter if you buy Stan’s ship for 2000 or 5000, or how many extras you get. And it doesn’t matter whether you have the romantic scene between Guybrush and Elaine at the docks, or whether you kill Bob or not, or whether you leave Herman or your crew behind, but the fact that you can do it is embedded in the game. I authentically felt the twist when swordfighting was revealed as a dialogue series instead of an arcade sequence, because I had come from Indy 3 and Sierra’s Conquests of Camelot (and I think part of the reason that twist hit me was because swordfighting was originally going to be an arcade sequence like Indy 3). You can feel the fingerprints from Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean, from Treasure Island, from Sid Meier’s Pirates!, from On Stranger Tides, from The Princess Bride. Drama blended with comedy is listening to Estevan talk about LeChuck in fear, or pondering the story of Herman and his Captain. Realism blended with fantasy is seeing the closeups of Guybrush and Elaine juxtaposed against bouncing from a rubber tree, or gradually realizing that the incredibly rare voodoo antiroot potion is somehow ordinary root beer. There is an unreal quality to knowing for 30 years that it’s always night on Mêlée Island, and then learning that no, sometimes there’s a sunset. You just never saw it. (The fansites in the early '00s didn’t seem to mention it as much as the stump joke, I guess.) And all of you know that for me, I didn’t learn Ron Gilbert’s original Secret from the plaque in MI6; I learned it from Mutiny on Monkey Island. And so, for me, that’s also in the bones of MI1. Revenge Monkey Island 2 was my favorite game for many years. Part of that is because I first played it in high school, and the melancholy hit nicely. Part of it was the soundtrack, which I still think is the strongest. Part of it was the bits of realistic art… a combination of the intro sequence (I want to visit with that group of playtesters having a picnic with mugs of drink) and the character sprites for our main cast which resembled those of MI1 (which I forever associate with realistic art akin to Indy 3 and Loom) to the extent that it took years before I realized how much of MI2’s other characters were cartoonishly drawn. I love that this is a heroic tragedy for Guybrush – I find similarities in other modern stories I enjoy like The Cave and Shovel Knight: King of Cards. And it still has a few unformed holdovers similar to MI1, such as the numbered money system (still irrelevant) and the fingerprints of things like Sid Meier’s Pirates! (e.g. expecting every pirate community to have a governor’s mansion – an expectation that disappears from new islands in MI sequels). Tales Tales has risen to third on my list because, even though it’s firmly on the cartoonish side of the MI spectrum, it tries to evoke those feelings of drama, tragedy, and fear that I had in the original games. When Chapters 3 and 4 started casually referencing the deaths of characters, I had an anxious sense of “something is wrong”. And I love that sense because it made me remember the hanged Captain from MI1. Learning that I killed Captain McGillicutty in Chapter 2, that his humorous sinking scene with the pyrite parrot had led to actual drowning? It made me reflect on whether I had killed Rum Rogers Jr. in MI2, or Efitte Lafoot in MI3. As I type this out, I'm realizing it made me reflect on Guybrush's path of destruction in the same way that MI6's mop tree and Elaine investigations was aiming for. Tales didn’t have the blend of realism and fantasy (likely no MI game will again), but it did have a blend of tragedy and comedy. Curse > Return > Escape After that, I consider the other three games to be fun Monkey Island titles. They’re enjoyable adventures, but I don’t feel the blending as strongly. The blend of realism with cartoon remains off the radar. And the blend of drama/tragedy with comedy is mixed. Yes, MI3 gives LeChuck a high body count and depicts one of his most frightening moments when he’s reborn as a demon to slaughter a crew… but I didn’t felt the threat carried toward Guybrush. Yes, MI4 explores supernatural feels in its deconstruction of insult fighting, its power and primal connection… but you have to stretch a lot to escape the realm of comedy. (WE’RE IN THE NONSPOILER FORUMS) Yes, Return to Monkey Island

Nice! I'd recommend trying the ending where you go straight back the alleyway without even getting the key, and get the post-credit with Guybrush and Elaine sailing together. You can treat it as a Monkey Island 3a that starts immediately after MI2 and before MI3. MI6 references to later MI games would be voodoo fortunetelling timey wimey. Guybrush and Elaine sailing together would be the only part that technically happens after MI5.

The Lost Shovel of Monkey Island! 🤯

Love that sort of breakdown. It did puzzle me once or twice that RtMI had Guybrush pull a non-inventory sword from nowhere in a couple of scripted sequences (surely there are places where he could have used that instead of the knife?) but it is interesting to remember that it's been handled that way several times now.

I think it looks like the carnival/playground Boybrush is in at the beginning of the game. Maybe it could have been the scurvy dogs store, though Boybrush's imagination? But there could be a Cogg Island connection, given the calender in the background (near the cash register). It looks like an observation telescope on top a hill to me. We know Cogg Island itself wasn't going to have NPCs (stated in Ron's interview with Cressup) so it could be for some daytime Melee/Cogg thing? Or it could have been a nice-looking but abandoned store on Cogg itself. If there is anything to that line of Melee/Cogg speculation to begin with of course.

Nice catch ! There's a modern building outside the window, a LCD cash register, a modern calendar and packaged food in the display case etc. I'm not sure it fits on Mêlée. Or maybe is this old Guybrush Mêlée? Is there a secret ending where they go get some ham & cheese after leaving the bench? 🤨

The way I see the ending (having finished it a couple of days ago) isn't "it was really all a dream". To me this ending changes nothing on the discourse about "is the Monkey Island world a fantasy or reality?". We now kinda know what Ron thinks, thanks to the interview with Cressup, but in that same interview he does states that what he thinks doesn't matter. He does imply what his vision is, but never states it, because the ending of the game (so the "canonical" secret) is made open to interpretation. Even better, the game let's you decide what the secret of Monkey Island is, and that is the real answer. To me the meaning of the ending is that it really doesn't matter if it's real or not. Monkey Island is a videogame world, it's not real to begin with, but it feels real to us, to Boybrush, so in our mind it becomes real (not in a delusional way, like someone suggested, but in a fantastical way). But we do have to acknowledge that it's not real, that it's fiction, and that there's a moment where it's time to get out of the fiction, even if it's too early for us. We can decide to stay in the fiction, be greedy and selfish and isolate ourselves in our own fantastical world, or get out and share it with those you love. Maybe it's a bit cheesy, but that's how I perceived the ending. Probably not what they meant, but I don't really care about that, because I know I'm not getting it "wrong", and neither is anybody else. Ron himself said that he didn't want people getting stuck on the idea that whatever he says is canon and that that's the way it is and can be no other way. This ending, for me changed nothing about my enjoyment or perception of the other games (I mean, not in the grand scheme of things, it's not like I'm going to play Curse and think "oh, what does it matter, it's only a fantasy world in a theme park...").

Something something Part 5 is called Beneath the Monkey Head. Something something Guybrush kept going down and down and down and down but never turned to go back up, is still deep beneath the monkey head unless he chose to deny what he THOUGHT he saw. (Something something Guybrush didn't climb the ladder up and is still trapped in The Cave.) Something something in the Prelude, that door you came out of remains the "scary door". It doesn't even need to be seen as disrespectful of Return. Ron told us in that Cressup interview that it's likely he and Dave Grossman have different opinions on which ending is most accurate, and Ron doesn't want to say which one he prefers because he doesn't want it to "become canon". If that's true, then I'm pretty comfortable in my belief that Return kept things vague and mystery-boxy on purpose, that every interpretation is plausible because all of them have evidence of being the one(s). When you're replaying the end of MI2 and coming to the amusement park and LeChuck's glowing eyes and see the toy giraffe, it's equally plausible that the thing is a toy giraffe or a sleeping pirate.

I thought about another layer of unreliable narration in Return. We have the real events, Guybrush's retelling, Boybrush's interpretaion, but then we have his friends who play with him. I kinda like the idea of the more bizarre plot threads that get ignored here (like Grandpa Herman or the robot monkey) are ideas they had. Do you remember being a kid and sometimes having this one friend who was a bit of an outcast, and sometimes had ideas for your game that you thought were silly, but your parents would remind you to be nice and make them feel included so you begrudgingly indulged them? That could be an interesting read on things.

SMI: Governor Marley, unelected despot of Mêlée Island, uses voodoo magic and socio-political acumen to stage her own kidnapping. She set the pieces in place for her citizens to witness the destruction of the Ghost Pirate LeChuck at her hands, in a massive PR gambit! Foiled by Guybrush. MI2LR: Rising unpopularity forces Marley to flee Mêlée Island with a band of loyalists. Landing on Booty Island, they bribe and strongarm Governor DeWaat out of power and secure the governorship. Marley is shocked to learn that both Guybrush and LeChuck are still active. She hunts down Guybrush and, after gathering what information she can about why he and LeChuck seem to be prominent forces still, she casts him into the pit of her latest invention - a voodoo mindscape. Guybrush and LeChuck shall be trapped here forever, out of her way. CMI Marley rallies her forces, sailing on Plunder and Mêlée Islands and proclaiming the Tri-Island Area. The Caribbean is starting to buckle under her influence. But then LeChuck escapes his mindscape and corners Marley on Plunder Island. Guybrush escapes and curses her into a gold statue. Marley's empire crumbles. And as the curse is eventually broken, Marley is still trying to understand how Guybrush and LeChuck can be stupid enough to not see what's going on, while still foiling her with marriage attempts. EMI Desperate, Marley brings naive Guybrush and a crew of mercenaries to reassert power on Mêlée Island. They get attacked off the coast, and land with too few numbers to force authority. She sends Guybrush away while trying to win her election by any means necessary. A lot of insanity happens. When it's all over, she finally gives up on Mêlée Island. She gives up on governorship. She gives up on conventional strength and earthly powers. TMI Marley takes on a demon form and maintains its powers indefinitely. The Voodoo Lady Corina engineers Guybrush and LeChuck to clumsily block her path, but Marley's demonic form cannot be denied her. RMI At last! The Demon Pirate Marley successfully imbues the energies of a Hades Pomegranate into a lime tree. Anyone who partakes of these Limes will be pulled into sync with the underworld, from which Marley can trap them in her new and improved voodoo mindscape! There will be no escape this time, not for anyone. LeChuck is already permanently trapped. Then, so is Guybrush. Soon everyone will join them. Everyone. . . . There's only one choice.

I really loved the "cozy government job" reference to Escape and the whole fishing story being straight out of Tales. I don't know why but it made me so happy to see those two games "represented" in some way in the game other than the scrapbook.

Recently had a little 'Elaine-as-antagonist' pondering I'm like 99% sure this isn't intentional but I was just looking at the last conversation you have with her and thinking... 'What if she's the one putting a spell on Guybrush?' The last conversation you have with her is... weird. First Guybrush says something like 'there you are' and she says 'where else would I be in a bit of a ... strange tone of voice. It's a weird thing to say anyway. Then when he says he's confused where he is she dismisses everything he's saying as time flying when he's having fun, and then when he asks how she got there ahead she just says something vague about keeping one step ahead. Later she shrugs it off by saying 'that ending gets weirder every time you tell it', almost like she's deliberately encouraging him to become more confused about what really happened. And then as soon as he starts to think about it too much... she distracts him with news of a new adventure. It's a bit of a weird interaction, but it makes a lot of sense if you think about it as her putting a spell on him or working things from the background. Also you remember how at the end of MI2 she says 'I hope LeChuck hasn't put a horrible SPELL over him or something.' Again, slightly weird thing to say, makes sense in the context of the ending but also makes sense if you think of it as her saying it sarcastically, because... well, she knows that's what's happened as she's behind it. She has no reason to know LeChuck would even be down there. Same with the 'Oh dear' as he falls in the pit. Might LeChuck be in cahoots with Elaine somehow? Well, maybe there's more to that L+E carving and bridal veil than the game is letting on. Again, I don't really think they're doing this deliberately, but I'm interested in it as an alternate read.

It's great to see that there's still so much dedication for such an old game! Congratulations for finishing this remake! Looks like you put a lot of work into it! I just can't help but notice that Razor might be washing her dresses a little bit too hot...

Not sure I saw this posted, but if you pick up the skulls after the quake…

For me the conundrum was always that... ever since the early 90s, I trusted the end of MI2. I believed that it wasn't just an anti-ending. It wasn't just a non-answer or a curse or whatever else. It was something, and wondering what that something was has been with me all this time. I believed that if ever Ron were to make a game that directly addressed it, it would do it justice. But Then Ron moved on, other games were made, in the series. And it wasn't that they didn't trust the ending like I did... it was more that they were not in a position to address it. Whatever Ron had in mind, he wasn't saying, and they went off in their own direction. and the thing is, I liked a lot of those games, so eventually I just sort of let it go. I never really expected the ending to be revisited in any detail, and I kind of made peace with it. To the point that Ron's hinting at 3a actively irritated me. The ship had sailed, and I was worried most of all that there'd be no way to revisit that moment without damaging everything that came after. That's why I'm so pleased that the solution they finally came up with is such a broad and generous one, one which makes all the games better just by existing. It feels like a game that actually welcomes 3, 4 and 5 into the family, and invites us to the table, too, and shares the love around. And while I think it's understandable that they gloss over some of the more outlandish plot details of the later games, I'm glad that we end up seeing allusions to all the entries to one extent or other.