KestrelPi

I'd say it's the holy grail of prop replicas, but...

I do think a lot about the unintentional side effect of low res art. Obviously the artists would have wanted their art scanned and rendered in the game in the highest resolution available, but at the time that was pretty low, but that had the side effect of us as players imagining more details than were there, and mentally inserting a sort of 'graininess' to the art that was quite unintentional, and growing attached to that. Of course, I'm not saying that's the ONLY difference between the old art and this stuff, but I do think it's interesting that as soon as I pixelate the art, my brain adjusts and goes 'yes, that's an adventure game background like how I remember'

It's nice to have it confirmed but I heavily suspected Rex was a huge Monkey Island fan - not just because he's made fan art in the past but because in talks he's given in the past he's talked about his first computer being an Amiga 500. I couldn't imagine he had amiga in the 90s in the UK and didn't eventually encounter Monkey Island. Also this establishing shot from Knights and Bikes always reminded me of Melee Island (and a bunch of other stuff in that game is quite monkey-islandy.) I think it's useful to brace ourselves against our expectations when it comes to the art, because we've lived with the characters for 30 years some of us, and have very strong ideas in our head about what the characters and locations should be like. I know I remember initially being put off by CMI guybrush - how blond he was, how tall and lanky he looked. EVEN the voice, which we all know is great, but my guybrush spoke in my own accent, in my head. I got used to all these things after a while but at first they really threw me, and we should all expect the same thing to happen when we see the new guybrush and the rest of the characters. But hopefully it's also reassuring to know that these are also characters who have lived in Rex's head for 30 years, and are intimately related to the reason why he's working in games now. I think everyone who really KNOWS Monkey Island brings their own little piece of understanding of what makes it what it is, and you can tell. I definitely felt that from Jake's involvement in Tales, and I think once we see the whole thing we're really going to understand how much love went into it. He's not going to phone-in a project to work on the game that got him into games, is he? Well... I mean. Aside from the fact that because of COVID he literally sort of had to phone it in. But you know what I mean. But just... yeah, expect a shock at first, I guess? As for me, I'm finding more to like, the more I look at the screenshots.

Randomly came across this article about what looks like the thing you're talking about. Surprisingly she does get something. Unsurprisingly it's not very high quality https://the-gadgeteer.com/2022/05/25/indiana-jones-grail-diary-replica-review/

It seems a bit in conflict with itself me, so far (I'm in the middle of chapter 4, to give you an idea) On one hand it does seem interested in its own world and story, and having an atmosphere unique to itself. And on that level I can appreciate in in the spirit I feel like it was promoted, as a sort of lost LucasArts game found in a drawer. But on the other hand, it's a game about LucasArts games, with all the sort of reference explosion that implies. The struggle I'm having is that I'm enjoying the first thing it's trying to be much more than the second thing. And I don't know you can do the second thing without compromising the first thing. Like. I enjoyed that new Chip 'n' Dale film. I think the references are funny, and it does its job as a meta piece about chip 'n' dale and animation in general. But I also watched the trailer and knew that's what I was getting. If I thought I was getting an old school Chip 'n' Dale adventure, I probably would have come away confused. Watching this trailer I could be forgiven for thinking that TWP wouldn't be SO much of a reference explosion as it turned out to be: That said, I do think the style settles down toward the middle of the game and it gets a bit more comfortable with telling its own story. And now, because this has drifted from ReMI for too long, what I will say is that they do seem conscious of this, and I think they will have spent a long time figuring out what the tone of MI is and where its meta-humour fits in with the overall style, so I'm not so worried there.

From what I've played so far, I think they have fairly defined personalities, but I think it is noticeable around the seams. Like, I definitely felt this when I was switching between the two detectives at the start of the game and finding that for a lot of situations they had exactly the same dialogue and stock responses, where I would have expected some variations.

When I talk context sensitive verbs I less mean taking a number of verbs and reducing that and making those context sensitive and more mean playing with what verbs are available to you in a given situation. Thimbleweed played with this, with one character having a different list of verbs to the others, and MI1+2 both did this as a joke, for one scene. But I don't know any game that has REALLY played with the potential of this. What if I perform an action that gives me a new verb, but perhaps only for a short while, and the puzzle is about how to get the verb and go to the right place and use it. Like, here's a gross example: Guybrush has a drink at a bar, and it gives him a 'burp' verb which only lasts for 30 seconds. So you have to have the drink, then find the thing you need to burp at, and do that before you lose the verb. Or what if I get a pirate hook again for a short segment of the game, and during that time I have a 'hang from' 'pierce' and 'slash' verb in my repertroire that can all be used to solve different puzzles during that segment. Or what if there's a specific scene where i have to perform in front of a crowd and all my verbs change to facilitate the performance and the puzzle is about trying to do the performance correctly with the given verbs. Or what if there's a puzzle where a voodoo spell is used on Guybrush that either MAXIMISES or MINIMISES his capabilities (Talk to becomes Yell At or Whisper to, Push becomes Shove or Prod, Look at becomes Analyse or Make Lazy Assumptions about, Walk becomes Run or Limp) and you have to use these changed verbs to solve different puzzles while you're under these effects Y'know, stuff that really makes verbs part of the FUN of the game, rather than just a necessary means to interaction. At least, that's the sort of thing I might be thinking about if I was a veteran adventure game developer who had expressed the idea in the past that verbs weren't very interesting, has a history of messing with verbs for fun and gameplay reasons, and stated that I'd like to rethink how people interact with adventure game. It's possible (probable, in fact) they've done something completely different to this but it's fun to consider, at least, what the possibilities could be.

I didn't really mind that for MI2SE, I tend to think that non-use verbs are needed SO rarely in most adventure games that I'd actually rather have a subtle hit for the rare occasions when they're needed. Also when replaying MI2 I got to see a lot of custom responses I didn't know about because verb would be there when the response wasn't generic, so that was fun. But what I am thinking about more when I talk about context based verbs is the entire list of available verbs changing based on context. We already know Ron likes playing with this stuff. I haven't tried Dolores but I thought it was neat that for example, and I always thought it was fun when they'd play with the verb interface in the old games. So why not go all the way, and REALLY play with the concept of what a verb is in an adventure game. Make them fun to explore in a way they usually aren't.

I haven't but that sounds interesting. Should I finish Thimbleweed first?

I'd be surprised (pleasantly) if the Elaine controlling segment made it, considering how early it was. Also ... if I were Ron, I'd have been tempted to edit that out of the post if it actually ended up happening - leave it as a surprise. The thing that stuck out to me was the comment about the UI. He's mentioned having done interesting things with the UI in a couple of places. It makes me think that what we're going to get is not going to be like the old school SCUMM interface (unsurprisingly) but also isn't going to be like CMI, or even MI2:SE (which I think is the best version of that kind of thing). It makes me think they've really thought about what a verb is. Here's my out-there guess: In the new interface, the verbs available to you change, based on the context. And the context might be where you are, what you're doing at the moment, and maybe even what you know. This introduces a whole vector of puzzles that you can do, because you're not just limited to the same 3-9 verbs that are used in all screens but you can add and drop verbs as needed. It also means you can tell jokes with this part of the UI. Remember how fun it was when all your verbs change in MI1 before you touch the parrot? Imagine that, but stretched across a whole game where verbs can change from context to context for both puzzling and humourous reasons. Personally, I agree with Ron here. The status quo isn't great. And part of that is that verbs aren't very compelling. Basically, when it comes down to it, everything is just use. They are, as Ron has said in the past, cruft. I once went through the entire walkthrough of DOTT, a 1993 adventure game, and even back then there were only 3 or 4 actions in the whole game that couldn't be solved by 'walk to' 'use' 'talk' and your inventory items. Several years ago I had a sort of epiphany while thinking about a set of adventure game puzzles I was designing: inventory items are verbs. When you say 'use banana picker with bananas' all you're really saying is 'banana pick those bananas'. But inventory items are SUPERverbs. You can do all sorts of things with them you can't ordinarily do with regular ol verbs. You can gain them, and lose them, exchange them for something else, they can have a quantity (pieces of eight), they can change over time (mug of grog) and you can combine them together to make new stuff, and that ultimately makes them more FUN to play with than verbs as they traditionally exist in adventure games. If Ron and Dave have designed a new UI which brings some of the flexibility of inventory items to the world of verbs, they might have found a way to make them relevant again. Of course none of this actually addresses how the interface might actually look/respond. For that, I have no guesses.

Indeed. It's a pretty old instrument. As I understand it it's a bowed instrument, like a violin, but the bow is operated by that crank, and is in a sort of loop, so you can just turn and hold notes indefinitely. And then the other hand controls the notes through keys.

Well they also said it's a game about pirates, and: "we also were very aware that there are probably way more people out there in the world who’ve never played Monkey Island but have heard about it. We also wanted to do something that was accessible to them so that they could be eased into the world of Monkey Island and not feel like outsiders the moment they started the game. Those are really important story and design aspects of what we tackle." I think there'll be some weirdness throughout, but much like MI2 it'll be heavily confined to the end (and probably the start. (Hard to start where MI2 left off without being a BIT weird.)

I think people were more thinking that he could be slightly older if there is a timeskip involved. I doubt they'd make him particularly old. Anyway, while I'm here I might as well reshare one interpretation of how a new-style MI theme could sound. It was based on the idea that MI1 and 2 had quite different takes on the theme, and I'd like it if ReMI went for soemthing different too.

It's basically as I've been saying, the real answer is probably complicated and half lost to time. Do I think they had a detailed idea of what MI3 was going to be? No, and I don't think they've ever really claimed that. Do I think they had multiple ideas? Yes, they've said as much. Do I think Ron probably thought about the story more than "guybrush goes to hell and stan is there?" Yes. I mean, *I've* thought about it more than that, and it's never even been my job to make it, so obviously he had lots of thoughts about where to possibly take it, both thematically and in terms of plot. It would have been impossible not to. Do I think Ron remembers all the ideas he had for MI3 in 1992 and who he might have talked about them with and in how much detail and what order? No. I don't believe most people are capable of recalling a brief period of their life 30 years ago with that much clarity. And ultimately, it doesn't matter. It's not lying to say that he never had a direction for MI3. It's not lying to say he had a basic storyline. These things are compatible because as he's consistently said, the initial thoughts you have don't amount to a story or a design or a direction, they're just a starting point and during the process of creation things become formed. It's also natural for him to want to downplay the importance of those early ideas because they have become irrelevant in the face of what he's decided to make now. Why would he want to say 'yeah we had all these cool ideas for where to take it' if he knew that if he ever got to make a new MI he wouldn't be using them? The only Monkey Island game that actually matters, ultimately, is the one we're getting.

I think to give it a kinder read, though this part: I think he's trying to say go for the ideas that both FEEL right, and have a purpose, but also are likely to produce this effect. That's what I want to take away from this. Because I really think the best creators aren't thinking 'ah, how can I piss people off next' but rather they have, over time, developed intuitions about where to take the work that pushes it in interesting directions - which sometimes results in making controversial choices. Even so though, I think the best thing to do is not try to guess at how people will respond to the choices made. I don't think it's very healthy to use your imagined audience's response as a sort of barometer for how good the idea is. That to me feels as off as trying to be crowd pleasing or deliberately contrarian. It makes one very curious about where this next Monkey Island will take us, since he's already talked about how he thinks it'll piss some people off, but I guess there's just no way of telling until we see it for ourselves.

I haven't read this before, but I'm not sure how much I like it. I agree in principle that polarising media can be the most stimulating and there's maybe a loose rule of thumb that if you make something some love and some hate you might be doing something creatively daring. But here it almost sounds like the GOAL is to be polarising, rather than... being polarising as a possible side effect of being creatively daring. I'm not sure I love the idea of rubbing hands in glee at the idea that you'll irritate a large portion of the audience, that feels a bit like the tail wagging the dog.

I'm deeply curious, but I would beg people to stick to spoiler tags as I'm still playing about where the story of Thimbleweed is going to go. After all, Monkey 2 also had a rug pulling ending, but while some people didn't like that, a lot of people, especially here DO like it, and are intensely interested in what that ending means for Return. My reaction to the ending of MI2 at the time was that it sort of blew my mind while being confused. As time went on I started noticing all of the stuff through the first two games that support (while not fully explaining) the ending, and now it's hard for me to imagine it ending any other way. If I'm going to get the rug pulled in some way with Thimbleweed i think I'm going to have to really get into my 10 year old brain and try to imagine if it would have blown my mind similarly. Anyway, they don't call me the Topic-Get-Back-Onner for nothing. Let me make a prediction: at some point during Return, a character will call Threepwood "Thimbleweed"

Well, I agree with some of that, but I don't know about that bit. Depends how you measure success, but arguably Psychonauts 2 is their first real commercial success and the rest just... did enough to keep them afloat, and had decent long term sales. One thing that I think was very striking about Double Fine is that in all their struggles, and all their never-quite-exploding in the way I would have loved, they basically managed to retain staff for WAY longer than most game companies, and only really had to consider redundancies on a couple of occasions, under extraordinary circumstances (and I think some of those people were subsequently re-hired). I think the selling to Microsoft feels like way less of an unpredictable move when you consider just how long they spent cruising under their own power, and how much of a struggle it must have been NOT to constantly be firing people and cutting back. Some people took some stories from Broken Age and wove it into a narrative of financial incompetence, but to me, the story of Double Fine is overwhelmingly one of extreme resiliance against all odds, and this Microsoft thing is just Tim coming to terms with the fact that if he keeps rolling the dice, he's going to hit snake eyes. I think Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, some but not all of Broken Age, and Psychonauts 2 have made me realise I do really like Tim's voice as a writer, and while I can't untangle the first two games enough to understand exactly what might be absent without him, I hope they manage to absorb enough of that DNA from the first two games to make his presence felt indirectly.

I turned it off after a few hours, and I think it's been better for it.

Of course, the bit that's always in my head (while I agree with most of this) is how much will we miss the lack of Tim's voice. I mean Ron's said in the past he would give Dave certain characters, Tim others, and keep some for himself and generally knew how to portion that out based on the character. If Ron is all instinct and Dave is all positivity, then I wonder how Tim used to complete the set, and how much we will miss that. I think, just looking at Tim's worlds he created after Monkey Island, he is really good at evoking a vibe. If you think about the world of Full Throttle, and how it felt like this vaguely post apocalyptic, sort of futuristic but sort of old fashioned, but never completely defined world, and then the writing in Grim Fandango and how good the writing of that was at layering in detail without feeling the need to spell everything out. He's an excellent vibesmith, creating and maintaining an atmosphere in a game, usually one where there's a bit of lurking darkness as an undercurrent. I often wonder how much he had to do with how CREEPY LeChuck is in MI2, for example. There's something a little bit ...I don't know, metal? about his portrayal in that game. If Ron is the impulse and creativity, and Dave is a positive, intellectual force, maybe Tim is the grit that gives the thing texture and depth, and I hope they find a way of bridging that gap.

To be fair I didn't even start it until this year. The type of nostalgia it was going for (as in the art evoking early early lucas style) just isn't something I was that interested in, and I didn't particularly find the bits I'd seen very funny, and I didn't really want to play something that was quite so heavily referency, so I put it off. I'm trying to meet the game on its own terms, and I'm quite enjoying it so far, but not without reservations.

Yeah, I definitely don't think the Mel Brooks approach is bad, I just think there's a definite difference between what it does and Monkey Island does, and partly it's the density of it (I really think it's an exaggeration to say Monkey Island does it every 5 minutes, but it's not much of an exaggeration to say that about, say, Spaceballs) but it's also something about an the nature of the gags themselves. Like, Monkey Island will have Guybrush turn the the camera and say "I bet you're feeling something similar" or end with "Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game" and do a fake game over screen like a sierra game. It can have anachronisms like the grog machine. But all of these feel like moments, they're fleeting, they come and go and we move on. They're not really delivered as 'bits'. The closest they get to being a 'bit' is at the end of MI2 when they drag out the LeChuck/Darth Vader parallel joke to an extent which, in hindsight, feels a bit out of step with the rest of the series. But it still works on its own merits (I hadn't seen Star Wars when I first played MI2). In fact, That's another thing that marks a difference that even when it IS doing parody, MI is doing it pretty straight. Both MI2 and Spaceballs have a parody of the 'I am your father' thing - and I would argue one of them works pretty well even if you haven't seen Star Wars, and the other one doesn't. Mel Brooks may believe that his parody is always in service to the story, but I think even he would have to admit he walks that line HARD, and the parody work that MI dabbles in is much more subtle. I don't think classic MI would ever do a bit like in spaceballs where the bad guys look up a video of itself to try and figure out where the good guys are. I don't think it even does a whole lot of jokes like 'perri-air' or 'beam me up snotty'. And - an in-hindsight-bad monkey wrench puzzle aside, it doesn't really engage in jokes like 'jamming the radar' very much. Even stuff like the grog machine, the grog machine is just THERE and the font looks a bit like Coke, it's barely even played for laughs. When it returns in MI2, it's even a bit creepy. Until you get to EMI, when the whole thing becomes so referential, and self-referential that I feel like it stops doing little parody moments and instead does lots of 'bits' - the lua bar, Planet Threepwood, Starbuccaneers, all that jazz. Definitely don't talk about the Thimbleweed Park ending, because I haven't finished it yet.

There's a lot of moments I liked in that interview relating to the writing - i like the idea of them replaying those older games to try to get into the voice of those old characters, and I really like "We revisited some locations and characters, but you have to be careful that it’s more than just a trip down nostalgia lane." I was a little surprised by "Gilbert: I’ve always been a fan of parody. For me Monkey Island was about making fun of stuff." because it's always been important to me that Monkey Island ISN'T parody in the way that I understand it, and fails hardest (parts of EMI) when it is trying too much to be parody. It has parody moments, of course, especially when it wants to reference star wars or indy. But it's not like a Mel Brooks film or Airplane or something. The comedy isn't that broad, most of the time. It's more like a pastiche of a pirate story, done in a kind of unique comedic style.

Yes, it's true. I suppose a more basic thing for me is that I hope I find it funny. So far I've found Thimbleweed's humour a bit of a mixed bag, and that's the latest example I have to go on. It has a bit of a habit of running jokes into the ground, or making characters that have one defining characteristic and then playing it to death. But then there are some moments that I think have been quite amusing. I'm hoping that now some of that super referencey stuff is out of Ron's system, and with Dave there also with his hands in it we'll get a comic style that feels a bit more 'Monkey Island). I suspect the lack of Tim will be noticeable, I just don't know HOW noticeable.