KestrelPi

Was I not making myself clear how much of a joke this was or something? 😅

Oh like I definitely don't think he will or even seriously should. Or if he does, he should just make it really pixellated and call it "crybaby mode" to REALLY bait them 😏

Heh. Maybe ron should just add a pixellate filter in graphics options. It's amazing how just by pixellating it, my gut reaction shifts from 'this is new and scary' to 'this is old and familiar'. (I love the art style if it wasn't already clear, but it's also very new and so it always feels a little odd at first, just like CMI did I suppose.)

I don't know if I see Guybrush as a vessel (or at least not close to Gordon Freeman, for me), so much as... in the earlier games I always saw him as kind of understated. They didn't go really BIG with the character but there was enough there for me to percieve him as this kind of eager but not entirely competent guy who has dreams of fitting in with the in crowd which in this case is pirates, and has enough determination to actually get that done. It didn't feel weird to me that he was understated as a character but maybe that's also because he was the first character I ever controlled in a video game that actually had dialog and stuff to say, so at the time if anything I would have been overwhelmed by the idea of a video game character having a personality at all. But yes, starting with CMI there were I guess attempts to dial in some of those personality traits and be a bit more specific and perhaps bigger with those choices, and that for me is something that I've had a kind of mixed time with. For the most part I like the CMI version of Guybrush - like you, the voice was the biggest adjustment for me, and like you I'm very happy with it at this point. And I think the writing *around* Guybrush is very on point in that game - something that's fun to play with, with Guybrush is how often he's puzzling stuff out and getting things done and nobody could care less. I love it when he comes back from the graveyard and nobody at all is bothered that he's alive again, that feels like a very MI1 and especially MI2 style approach to Guybrush's place in the world. Since then IMO there's definitely been a tendency to overwrite the character, which I've talked about a bit in the past, but he skews a bit goofball. And I never really saw Guybrush as a goofball. In the first game I saw him as a naive wannabe, and in the second a bit more of a self-important poseur, and I think you need a bit of bite in his writing to really get that part of his character over. They've also made him less intelligent, in (to some extent) CMI, EMI and Tales (I noticed this in particular in my recent replay of Tales). I never considered his ineptitude to be a result of a lack of intelligence - I think he actually has plenty of wits about him, I always thought of it as a result of his hubris, callousness about the effect of his actions on others and vanity and even just blind optimism - y'know, he'll accidentally give away LeChuck's beard because he wanted to show it off and prove himself, or he gives Elaine the ring because he's in a hurry to impress her after the reunion, or he interferes with Elaine's plan at the end of MI1 because he's overconfident in his own, or he can't command the respect of his crew in MI1 because he severely overestimated his readiness to be a captain. I wonder what sort of Guybrush we'll get this time.

Sure, and like I actually agree with what you say about CMI's guybrush and see my follow up post above, I would go as far to say there IS an argument that CMI's guybrush design changed too many things at once, so much so that I think that it had a disproportionate influence on all subsequent designs. The difference to me is that while CMI changed a lot of the character design, he still comes across in character as a somewhat weak, inept, but occasionally sly and witty character we recognise from the first. I don't think the Melee of EMI still comes across as the dark, rough-around-the-edges, quietly mysterious night-time island. It's just 'kinda generic caribbean island at night.' MI1 Melee was eerie at its best. Look at that cliff path leading to the governor's mansion and how the cliffs themselves loom over the house. There's a sense of scale there, and it matters. I don't think EMI Melee is eerie at all. That's why I say I got used to one change and not the other. But yes, moving on topic... My main hope for the new locations in ReMI is that they make me feel a way? I always remember how Melee made me feel, and how the feeling was different for all the other major locations. I think CMI was really good at this too. Plunder was a bit of a mishmash of previous Monkey Island locations, perhaps (maybe they felt they needed to create a familiar feeling by making it a kind of amalgam of all previous MI islands), but Blood island really manages to evoke that sentiment of an old place with a history that it past its prime and left with a lingering sadness. It pervades the whole island, not just the hotel, I think it's a really wonderful, evocative location. That's what I hope. I hope Brrr Muda's vibe is more than just a joke about a cold tropical island, and I hope that whatever Terror Island is, it has a feel of its own, that will be memorable. To me the places in an adventure game are almost as important as the characters. If I'm gonna be wandering around solving a puzzle in a place for any length of time, I want that place to stir something in me, and that if anything is why I feel so strongly about the paticulars of a location

Oh and the thing I forgot to say is that as well as having this implied chromatic, semitonal descent, because you have that tritone drop in the bass that also means the bass can get there via whole tones (tritone just means 3 whole tones) so that's why you have the bass doing things like C Bb Ab Gb to get from one to the other. And the whole tone melodic material is another good way to convey a sense of mystery, like you get in Sam and Max's Mystery Vortex: so, implied semitonal descent + tritone leaps + a smattering of whole tone melodic material for the underground tunnels = a whole heap of mystery, while still somehow remaining easy on the ears ❤️

One thing to add seperately to that design discussion: I think it's fair to say the biggest change Guybrush has gone through design-wise was the transition between MI2 and CMI. The changes made to the design for MI2 have influenced every version of the design since, from the special editions to the 3D games to ReMI too. And not coincidentally it's also my least favourite of the redesigns. ... Not because I dislike it, I actually got used to it quite well and I like a lot of the design. I just felt like it was such a statement about the character that it perhaps said too many things a bit too strongly about who guybrush is as a character, not all of which quite vibed with my notion of Guybrush coming fresh out of MI2. So yeah, I got used to CMI guybrush but I have always disliked how many of those choices have become baked in as the standard for subsequent Guybrushes (the lankiness, the long face, the very blond hair - I feel like other choices can be made with Guybrush) All of which is to say that I'm definitely not saying that I don't think that changes in a character design can have a big impact. They absolutely can, and I think we've seen that happen to some extent with Guybrush over the years. It's just that I also think a certain amount of change in character design is to be expected over the course of a series, and makes sense in context. I can look at all the changes to Guybrush's design, even the ones I don't like so much, and think to myself 'yes, I see why they did that'

I suppose my point is that no matter how much you redesign guybrush they: Are still redesigning the same character Are doing so with particular goals in mind, either to say something about the story or about the side of the character you want to convey. So, when they changed guybrush's design from MI1 to MI2 what are they trying to say about him? He's grown up a bit, he's also a bit more well off, considers himself more of a real pirate, has maybe become a little bit vain. Those are the parts of his personality they want to evoke for that game. But he's still the same character. He has the same history. The same stuff happened to him, and the design choices make sense within the story they're telling. When they moved from MI2 to CMI, what did they want to say with that design? Well, I don't know for sure but I'd say that by making him tall and gangly they wanted to emphasise the sort of weak, feeble side of his character and by stripping him of his fancy clothes they wanted to be showing a more humbled version of guybrush whose brush with the carnival of the damned has left him having to start from scratch, a riches to rags sort of thing. With EMI he's just married, has some of his swagger back, etc etc They're all different design choices, but they make sense with where a character is at a particular moment. Even if the changes are significant and drastic, it is expected that a character will undergo these kinds of changes over the course of an arc (and also expected that their design will change in line with art style changes). I don't think it's expected that artists will change the whole architectural style, layout, landscape, colour palette, and tree makeup of what is after all mainly a forest island so that it is hardly even recognisable as the original. Also: An island can have an arc too, and it can undergo changes - like in ReMI we know Melee island has seen better days, and you can see that in the broken windows and holes in the roof and general run-down ness and ricketyness of stuff. But it's still visibly the same place. (just like even though guybrush has had lots of designs, he's still visibly guybrush)

Yeah, it's a very distinctive sequence, one of my favourites (also incidentally really easy to play on a guitar with barre chords: just start anywhere and do a bar chord with an Am shape, then go one fret down, bar chord with E major shape, one fret down again, Am shape, and so on, just moving down one fret at a time and switching between the Am and E shapes.) It's a very unsettled sort of sound, and perhaps that's because you're alternating between a minor chord, and then a major chord with a root a tritone below the previous chord, and so harmonically you're really quite off piste from the start. It might just be that I'm not as steeped in music theory as I need to be to do a quick analysis of this but I'm not even sure how you would functionally describe that second chord... it's clearly setting up the following chord, but in relation to the I chord it's the... secondary dominant of the 7th chord of the harmonic minor scale? Maybe someone more fluent in music theory can help me figure out what's happening functionally here, I'm likely overcomplicating. Anyway theory is for working things out later, the point is that it's very distinctive sound because you've got this chromatic (semitone) through line with makes it really easy to follow, but then these big unsettling tritone jumps in the root, it's an ideal device for creating this kind of mysterious, uncomfortable feeling. I think it's a gorgeous sound and I love to use it.

My guess, which I'm keeping suitably vague, is that by the time we get to the end of Return to Monkey Island, we will understand how this game can coexist with a game in which the giant monkey head is part of a giant robot monkey and isn't even there anymore.

I was going to say, young kids don't really care about graphics. They just enjoy what they enjoy. I have 9 and 6 year old nephews who are obsessed with Minecraft, so i's not like they're not used to blocky graphics. As much as I dislike the artistic choices made in MI1SE, its worst crime was making the interface so difficult to use, especially in some of the more tricky puzzles. I've seen youtubers go into it as their first adventure game and take like 30 minutes to apprehend how the verbs and interface work, because it's all so obfuscated, it's infuriating. If it were easier to set up the ultimate talkie edition, I'd suggest that. It's a decent compromise. In the end it depends on the kid though. I think probably a lot of us were advanced readers for our age, liked books, were perhaps on the geekier side of the spectrum. Original flavour Monkey Island might still hit with someone like that, even without speech. Especially if they've never seen a game like that. I remember when I first saw it the thing that really made me want it is that it hadn't occured to me that games could be like that. As in, funny, and dialogue heavy and not based on dexterity. It felt like I'd found a whole world of possibilities for what might be fun in games. I think that can still happen for the right type of kid.

I think the difference is... A lot? Guybrush is still Guybrush if you change the design. Same character with the same history and basically the same personality (even if I might quibble with some of the writing) the designs might suggest different things about the character at different points in his life, but he's still the same person. A pine forest isnt a tropical jungle, though. They are different, and feel different, and it's not trivial. And I'm not saying they CAN'T make that choice but I am saying they can't do it without fundamentally affecting the feel of the location. Same if they'd replaced it with a bamboo forest, sure you can do it but don't be surprised if people ask questions about why this isn't the same place. Not quite the same as giving Guybrush a new coat or something.

I do agree with some of this, and I think what they've said means that's what they're going for. I'm glad for it, really because the bit that I was always least excited about when Ronzo used to bring it up was the whole idea of him making 'his' MI3. It was interesting, academically, to think what that might be but not really... it, for me. I don't think Monkey Island has been handed a terrible lot. Since he Ieft it had 3rd game that is better than it had any right to be considering none of the original writers were involved, a 4th game which... has its fans, even if the consensus isn't too kind to it, and an episodic series which he was at least consulted on, involved one of the original writers and was moderately well recieved. When I think of all the violence that COULD have been commited upon the name of Monkey Island in the space of 30 years, that's not bad at all. If he left the table with a flush, and when he came back he was handed a full house, I'd rather see what he does with the full house than have him flip the table and demand a do over and his flush back.

Of course, I think so too, but it's still interesting that the first location in the game is also probably the most obviously un-caribbean looking one.

I always figured that since the ending came together so fast they just adapted the background that could most easily be made to look like a theme park, but now i see them side by side they are a bit different, aren't they?

Interestingly, the vegetation of Melee Island doesn't look a lot like that of a caribbean island to me. There aren't many trees of that type in any picture I've seen of the caribbean for real. And yet to change the trees would be to really change the character of the location. I have to imagine the artists drew inspiration from closer to home. The forest does remind me a bit more of the kind of thing you find around California Of course, there's always been the question of how deep in the Caribbean we really are...

The Secret of Monkey Island is that it's an interdimentional nexus leading to and from different versions of itself and possibly everywhere else too. Sure. I'll buy it.

Even looking at that picture, I'm thinkin' where did all these palm trees come from? These are the trees we see in Melee: I don't think it's unfair to say that the vegetation and landscape of an island is a really strong influence on its character... and another major influence would have to be the architecture - and where in the original game and ReMI the roofing looks slightly ramshackle, in that concept art it mostly looks sturdy and nice. But as I say, for me it was a lot more about vibe than layout specifically. I just never really 'bought' it as Melee. The Mansion came close, but even then, it becomes a rather different place when it's not overshadowed by huge, ominous cliffs, right?

Okay, though let's get bold and specific with this prediction: Captain Smirk is not only dead but died immediately after giving you swordfighting lessons, hence there being no answer after he closes the door on you for the last time. When you go there all you find is THE MACHINE, with his skeleton on the end of the sword. If you talk to the skeleton, one of the dialog options is: * How appropriate. You fight like a cow.

Ha! Exactly. Though, in my own defense I think I've only guessed a few things: how I think the intro might transition from carnival to whatever the game story is, how I think Part I might play in, what LeChuck's deal is right now, and whether the Voodoo Lady will be in the game (this one was a long shot gamble and I already lost ) I should make some more wild predictions. *The circus will be there, but abandoned * Meathook and possibly Hook Isle will not feature in the game. * The grog machine will still be in the same place * We'll finally find out the story of that troll * Captain Smirk is dead * the new pirate leaders make Guybrush go through a whole different three trials designed for a new generation of pirates. * Eventually that box carrying ghost helps you beat LeChuck

Oh don't get me wrong, I don't think it's particularly impressive to correctly guess any of this. But that doesn't mean I won't quote myself and say CALLED IT the moment I get anything even slightly correct 😄

Yeah, my guess would be either that the carnival sequence doubles up as a UI tutorial or a cutscene and then Part 1 begins after we're fully back in the more familiar Monkey Island setting (however that happens) I'm thinking about that title a friendly place. It wouldn't surprise me if the end of the prologue has guybrush arriving at Melee for the first time in a long time. "Ah, after so many weeks at sea it feels good to finally be back in a..." LeChuck's ship looms into view... Part I A Friendly Place

I never understood this concept, myself. I don't feel like correctly guessing the ending is the same as knowing the ending. There are a few ways i think this could go, and it wouldn't shock me if one of my guesses is close to the truth, or if it's completely off. Either way, I'll be delighted, because I don't honestly know what's going to happen. If it is something like one of the things I said I'll have bragging rights for days to say how much I called it, if not then I can laugh about how off base I was. And in the mean time, it's fun to try to guess.

Of course, it might be might more nuanced than 'it was all guybrush and chuckie's childhood imagination' (and I think a lot about that notion, but perhaps not EVERYTHING about it makes sense). But it's not a problem for me, if that's the way they go with it. I was never bothered by the idea the Monkey Island world might be in some sense fictional, within the fiction. If the story was already 100% fictional then it doesn't really make it any MORE fictional to make it a fiction within fiction. It's still real to the characters living within the fiction. I think it's only bad when it's used as a get-out, like when they decided to make one whole season of Dallas a dream so that they could write a character back in or something, as a way to just say 'ignore or all that, it didn't happen' But like I don't think people were particularly bothered by the ending of The Wizard of Oz, because it was quite well integrated with the story - oh yes, she wakes up and in context it's clear she was having a strange dream about how she felt about all the people in her life, and it makes sense, and it doesn't invalidate the story that was just told, it just puts it in a bit of a new context.