Jake

I don’t know that Gilbert is interested in parity with the Special Editions, which he had nothing to do with other than being on the commentary track, and at this point it doesn’t seem like he or Grossman see this as the third game in a trilogy, but rather the nebulous “next” entry in a series that has had many beloved entries. Did people ask for a retro pixels mode for Curse when it came out in 1997? (Actually they probably did and I’ve forgotten. Actually I probably asked for that sort of thing on this very forum and have forgotten, may I never be reminded of my old posts.)

I love being reminded that “fan” is short for “fanatic.”

I think the people coming to Ron’s (online) home to yell in his face is a problem. I also think people who don’t like the art style trying to claim they speak for others (or accuse others of lying or having an ulterior motive for saying they like the art) is also a problem. That is the actual objectionable behavior. And it has been happening. It’s fine to not like the art. It’s fine to be disappointed. It’s even fine to be mad about it. But do it on your own time, and don’t take it out on other people. From every poll about the art that has shown up on Twitter, Reddit, and even Facebook where the most arms-folded adventure curmudgeons seem to hang out these days, the answer skews overwhelmingly positive, so any sense of a groundswell or anger or disappointment really is a small group of people trying to take up all the air in the room, get in peoples faces, rally others to their cause. Again, if people were just saying “I don’t like it because X, it makes me feel Y, which really sucks,” that would be fully fine! And many of people who are feeling that way are saying those things, but an unfortunate number of the comments can’t resist going a step further, into conspiratorial speculation — “it’s a sell out choice” “it’s a cheap out” “Disney made them,” etc — because they’re seemingly unwilling to accept that other people see the world differently from them or have different tastes, that there must be some nefarious reason for their disappointment. That stuff is what really gets me down. A person not liking a creative choice? We’ve all been there! Being unwilling to accept that’s all it is? Ooof.

It’s not a real spoiler. It’s about how Grumpy Gamer comments are turned on again. Agreed that if any real spoilers show up folks should use spoiler tags aggressively. Eventually we may need to make a dedicated spoiler thread, but so far it’s been all speculation no spoilers, so it’s fine.

He seemed like a smooth talker in Curse to me as well. I love the sound of his voice but it never sounded like Stan to me. That low-toned drawn out “Weehhllcome to muuutual of Stahhhnn” just never seemed right. Again an excellent voice and great performance, but not Stan as I heard him. Stan always seemed like he should be Kurt Russell from “Used Cars” (or as I recently learned, the person that archetype is based on: Cal Worthington), a more nasal, sweaty fast talking guy who never lets you get a word in.

Moved these posts out of the MI forum to their own thread!

Yeah the Quest has a link cable (though any fast and to-spec USB C cable will do) and can run SteamVR games or any other ad hoc VR apps (like if you’re doing game dev in Unity or Unreal). I don’t know if it has official wifi support but there is a cheap program called Virtual Desktop you can buy from the Quest App Store that lets you run your PC inside your headset, but that also emulates the Quest as a virtual device in SteamVR and will let it stream from your PC. You need good wifi but it works very well.

On my first playthrough of MI2 I did die in LeChuck’s fortress and that cutaway was one of the biggest laughs in the game for 11 year old me. I’d completely forgotten it was a frame story by then. I think as a kid it was the first time I’d ever seen that particular format of joke play out. (Honestly playing MI2 was the first time I’d seen a BUNCH of types of joke play out. It was pretty seminal in my education about what comedy was and how it worked. It was also seminal in my understanding that creative works I liked were made by actual people - I think it was the first thing that really spoke to me that I could also super clearly feel the writers inside the game talking to me. Anyway these games are good and I like talking about them!)

I apologize for pushing on it because it’s taken up almost a page 😛

I just don’t think Monkey Island 2’s reputation needs defending, especially not on this board.

I think Elaine’s “spell” remark could just as easily be a kid still playing the game when everyone else went home. I don’t think it’s that, but I’m not a fan of requests to cut off a line of interpretation because you don’t like it.

Both DOTT and Return seem to be drawing from mid-century animation, which definitely includes Chuck Jones cartoons (or more specifically Maurice Noble’s style including background designs), but also UPA cartoons like Mr Magoo on the way more stylized end and Disney cartoons like Sleeping Beauty which is also stylized but more ornate, and 101 Dalmatians on the more naturalistic end. Here’s a mess of stuff from that era of animation:

I also think, as has been said before, what was fooling around in Monkey Island 1 (fooling around with jokes, but also with being creepy and evocative for no real purpose other than it felt right) got codified into the text of 2 in a way that retroactively tints how those moments play in 1. That too was surely a deliberate choice by the team who made 2. Walking out of the elevator from the underground tunnels into Melee Island is a deliberate act of recontextualization that isn’t just one guy cracking another guy up. And it’s not something that would be written about in a review of Monkey Island 1. I don’t think anyone is arguing that there is any grand and perfect plan - it’s clear these games are built on top of each other, with each choice being an intuitive response to the choice that came before, done at the time in real time (the first two games came together in under two years!). Like much of Monkey Island discussion, I think everyone is right here. There probably is no true right or wrong, at least within the band of conversation that’s been happening in this specific thread, which is by and large a really good one.

If it’s any consolation we were happy we got to make Guybrush himself be sad his hook was gone.

It was, the girders and music in the Crossroads were both referencing underground tunnels to some degree, that area had a map that was a little bit of a park map. The boat dock is meant to be styled after boarding gates for a ride. It’s hard to hear but there’s also some audio that bleeds through when lechuck is defeated. When designing Guybrush digging out of his grave, my initial desire was for the “dirt and grass” to be cardboard and astroturf, almost like he was buried within a stage set, but we decided to keep it more real. That said, there was a desire with the Crossroads to make it feel like artificial vignettes, and stay ambiguous as to what they are or where you are. I honestly couldn’t tell you what any of it means in a literal symbolic or plot sense but could talk about what it was trying to evoke for me for probably way too long haha Both Monkey Island 1 and 2 have this feeling that if you get too close to the edge of the world, if you dig too deep, it will all start unraveling. It’s a wonderful feeling to have in a world you get to explore so fully, and get to be an active participant in because it’s a video game.

I can't speak for the other games, but on Tales what was fun was knowing that because of the end of Monkey 2, there was always this feeling of some crackling unknowability that existed at the edge of the game's universe, and that it was there to play with when working on the game, and sort of dare yourself to get up close to. Sometimes I think Tales got too close and sometimes I think it didn't get close enough. That could just as easily be talking about "how do you get to Monkey Island and what will I find once you get there?"

Not sure whose balls you're talking about here but we weren't allowed to. In regards to the post-credits scene in Tales, I feel like the team was okay with it even if we never got to do a followup because while it can imply some huge story if people wanted to use it, it could also be just another turn of the crank, the same as the end of Curse and Escape, eg LeChuck buried under a mountain of ice (and then somehow he returns because he always does). If a future game doesn't pick up that thread, I don't think it's too harmful to leave behind "Morgan is now the voodoo lady's lackey, off on business that may never cross paths with our heroes again." That's not to say folks shouldn't feel burned or annoyed by that scene, but I think we had hoped it was open enough to not be damaging if it was never picked up again* *I do hope someone picks it up again of course, that would rule.

Oof! I should play the DVD version, it's been a long time.

Telltale management was extremely against patching unless absolutely necessary because it cost QA and producer time. It was a bummer.

My memory of when Tales showed up at Telltale is, there was reluctance from a lot of people on the team to make the game, because the expectations were huge and it would be hard for Telltale to meet them given the smaller scope Telltale usually worked in, especially when we learned we would be targeting the Wii, which would shrink that scope even more. But once it became clear that the company would be making the game for sure, there were a bunch of people who threw in to give it their all and try to “do right” by the series as much as we could, and make the best game possible with the comparatively tiny space we had to work in. I think the games strengths and weaknesses all come from that desire.

This is just my recollection and may be off in some way, but: Dave worked on Tales but it was in a studio director role. So he was in story and design meetings but to my memory wasn’t a main writer on any chapter of the game, which is different from his role on Monkey 1, 2, or Return. As a design and writing lead at Telltale, Dave’s superpower was how good he was at quietly allowing people to do their own ideas and give them space, while also helping them push things into being the best version of those ideas. Dave was rarely a leader who would say “no, you should use my idea instead,” which is definitely one way you can run a team. So if anything, I’d say a perception of Dave being less involved is more, him being interested in making sure the people who were in the lead writer and designer seats on the episodes themselves were getting opportunities to talk about their work. With Return, it’s back to a tiny writers-designers room and he’s one of the only people in the seat, so it makes sense he’d be the one doing the talking. I’m very excited for that on Return - Dave was always great as a lead at Telltale, but it meant he wasn’t able to be in the nuts and bolts of the game as much as he is now.

What the fuck 👕 I beat #Mojole and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 5/6 🖤🖤🖤💚🖤 💛💛💛💚🖤 🖤💛💛💛🖤 🖤🖤💚💚🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

“Beneath Monkey Island.” It’ll actually be a huge sellout, washed up pandering mess.

Yep, agreed. I think it’s fine to straight up hate something and wish it was something else, and to have strong opinions about what it should be. Its an opinion, a reaction one has, so it goes. But it’s just so rude to do that to Ron’s face while he’s still making the game. And its insufferably, delusionally entitled to take it farther and start rationalizing why Ron’s decisions don’t align with one’s own through basically conspiratorial thinking (“Disney made him do it” etc). I’m glad Ron turned off comments and came out with a response like this, but am sad he had to. I’m actually glad for almost the whole post - I think him clearing the air to this degree would have probably been necessary or healthy regardless of any fan reaction. And, him finally saying what his original starting point for MI3 was going to be, shows that he was truly in control of this new game to the point that he was able to move past that idea like one naturally does when making something; he’s not still clinging to it like it’s the uncompromised version he didn’t get to make or something. But I wish it hadn’t had to have the part about the fan comments at the very end, that bit is sad.

That Purcell quote is great and really interesting. To me, especially coupled with todays Grumpy Gamer blog post, it’s one more reminder that these things aren’t made from some grand master plan, but are really the result of the people making them at the time they are made.