Jake

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.

I don’t think anyone argued it would look like Day of the Tentacle, but that DOTT was an example of the sort of thing the art team was interested in doing, as opposed to just repeating themselves. Gilbert says almost exactly that in the blog before the part you quoted. “If I had stayed and done Monkey Island 3 it wouldn't have looked like Monkey Island 2. We would have kept pushing forward, and Day of the Tentacle is a good example of that.”

I’ve heard they’re making Loom 2 and 3 back to back! (Source)

This is probably sacrilege but when I played Thimbleweed the first thing I did was turn off the injokes using the in game setting. It felt weird to choose to see less content, but the developers put the checkbox there so I consider it fair game. There were still plenty of injokes even with the toggle flipped, but it felt more like an era appropriate level. That said, Thimbleweed Park is kind of about nostalgia, and fractally diving into itself, and being a LucasArts adventure game. eg the developers of the game appear in it as themselves, and characters can call the games hint line from within the game using working touch tone telephones that you have to dial by hand (amazing imo).

I don’t know the answer to this! Maybe he DID do an audition for zombie LeChuck and it wasn’t as strong? Or maybe the team was hoping Boen could be used just for those parts so it was cordoned off as a separate smaller role (which obviously didn’t happen at launch but wouldn’t surprise me as an attempt that was made by the team)? Honestly I don’t know for sure; I wasn’t involved in the casting really other than in the communal team pressure to get Boen back for episodes 4 and 5.

All time great easy-mode-only gag. A+++

I played Monkey Island 2 on easy mode first because other than quickly losing interest in Kings Quest V (understandable imo), it was my first adventure game. It still took me and my younger brother weeks and weeks and weeks to beat. I still remember the little differences like Largo just having some folded clothes that you can pick up, and some little incidental dialog here and there, but I agree there aren’t many additions. Because I played east first, and was 10-11 years old or something, my brother and friends and I were convinced we hadn’t seen the “real” ending. Or maybe more appropriately, I remember being suspicious of it and feeling like I hadn’t seen the whole thing. So we dove back in and played it on normal. And I remember we found it SUPER HARD. Especially putting the rat in the soup just took forever. My friend called the 900 number hint line with his parents permission, and when he called me to tell us the solution, we got to hurriedly tell him that MY BROTHER HAD JUST FIGURED IT OUT. His hint line time: wasted. I remember getting to the captain Kate stuff and feeling like the game was absolutely huge. Then we got to the end and it was exactly the same, and I remember all of us collectively saying “okay that’s what it is then.” Honestly, formative as hell haha.

I think this view discounts the existence of Game Pass. Double Fine’s medium size games seem like they’d be an awesome fit for that service.

It was always a mini CD, just packaged as a tiny record. Here's the original:

Yeah small self contained bubble communities of early internet had a lot going for them. They were only really interrelated by people consciously making an effort to do so, they had many soft bumps to entry (even something as simple as making a new account, or in the case of places like IRC channels, finding the webpage associated with them to begin with), and because of that I think people ended up getting to know each other more. Social media, for all its positives seems to mostly be predicated on introducing like-minded people to each other with no filters or speed bumps in the way. Those connections provoke unchecked radicalization of opinions, echo chambers, and drive bys. It's really easy for one to have a degenerate thought, type it into a social network search bar or post bar, and be introduced to anyone else who has typed that thought straight from their brain into a computer with nothing in between. Obviously pre-internet that was sorted by usually having to look someone in the face before saying the thought aloud and seeing what their reaction was. If you "try out" that thought on a good friend and they say "dude no, what the hell is that?" it's a hugely valuable data point for you, coming with context and trust built over the entire time you've known the person. In smaller early internet communities that was still somewhat possible to facilitate by the community memberships being relatively static where everyone knows each other, slow to grow, and hand-moderated - the personal connections, trust, context were still there. On social media there is literally no filter. Again, some positives to this exist, but the way social media short circuits all accumulated cultural checks, and thoughts go straight from your interiority to another's interiority unfiltered, is wild and makes bad things happen. You think something, and instead of getting to "test it out," your thought is immediately confirmed, you are told not only is it correct but also we have identified others who agree with you, maybe you want to form a community and even an identity around that thought. I think people who argue this is inherently good are often only arguing that because they like the high of a system that tells them they're right all the time. Again sorry for the long jag. That said, writing this all out further makes me believe Ron was correct to mostly leave social media for his own blog, and was right to close his blog when the world started intruding on it past his boundaries (if this is in fact what happened).

Apparently for quite a while Tales Episode 4 was the longest game name on Steam and was used for testing. Eventually other games with longer names have displaced it.

TSoM12:Le’sR