KestrelPi

While a cliffhanger, the thing that makes MI2's ending a bit different to other kinds of cliffhangers is that it refuses to explain itself. It just does something confusing, then messes with that setup in ways which are, in themselves, confusing. It -could- be a set up for a sequel, but it's not like you're given ANY idea how. They could, and did, take things in pretty much ANY direction from there. As soon as they decided to make a sequel to BTTF they had to address the fact that Marty, Jennifer and Doc had gone into the future to do something about their kids, which is more of how I think about cliffhangers - a specific situation is set up, that we understand needs a resolution. We're not in any way confused about where the next film is going. (Yes, I know this was supposed to be a 'the adventure continues' moment but the existence of the sequel turns it into a straight up cliffhanger) With MI2, we can't even agree on what happened. Was it all just Guybrush's imagination? Is this some kind of dream? A Voodoo spell? At what point did that take over, if so? Are they really brothers? To me, that fits with another category of cliffhanger, which is - an ending that leaves you with lots of questions, but invites a lot of interpretations which could in themselves be conclusive. So, I think they CAN be satisfying as conclusions. And if MI2 had been the last MI game I think I would have been okay with it. I'd have had my interpretation, I would have liked to speculate about other ones, but I think I could make peace with MI2's ending, as it is. It's 2001: A Space Odyssey territory, in a way: you aren't exactly sure what just happened, but it sure does stick in the head. CMI's ending credits thing is so vague it can be dismissed. It's just a vague 'lechuck is defeated... OR IS HE?' thing which is well worn. EMI wraps stuff up even if I don't care for how it does it. Tales... I dunno, for me tales is still the one that to me most overtly throws a sequel bone. But I see why people feel more that way about 2.

It's true that I haven't seen a lot of the 'here's 4 jokes, pick one' style of dialogue in evidence yet. I adore MI1 + 2's dialogue trees. I think the only game that has matched them is Grim Fandango. They're a perfect blend of well-written, silly, subversive and I'm really hoping we see a bit of that here. I think we will. We've only been shown a little.

I believe you! I am just going with how I personally felt about it. I always thought LeChuck's eye flash was more than anything a gag. Just a little 'or... IS IT?' just to mess with the player a little more than they've already been messed with. The stuff in tales felt so specific to me - first of all with the voodoo lady talking about the larger plan she was a part of, but then especially the transaction between her and Morgan. You know how the scene at the end of Back to the Future was never really supposed to be set up for a sequel, but just a fun way to end the film? But so many people who watch the series now assume that it was always planned as a trilogy because of that ending directly leading into it, and people are surprised to find out that the ending was really just nothing, a joke...? That's kind of how this situation feels to me, if there had been a Tales Season 2 I think it absolutely would have had to address those plot points or people would have said 'what the hell?' But I always read Chuckie's eyes as a little 'gotcha' gag, and would have accepted a sequel interpretation that totally ignores it, or goes with it (as CMI seems to). The fun thing is, because ReMI picks up there, we may soon very well get to see how literal that moment is. I guess the danger of leaving little teasing, dangling threads in your ending always carries the risk that later you'll be expected to resolve them no matter how tongue in cheek they were meant

Oh sure, you can be happy or unhappy with the ending - I think EMI is not a good conclusion to the series narratively, but it IS fairly conclusive. LeChuck is defeated, Elaine's thread is resolved, status quo is restored and all is well. There's not any sort of compelling sequel hook there that I recall, even CMI had a little bit of one with the post-credits and Murray. So I would say EMI was the most conclusive game since MI1. Tales I say is inconclusive because of that sequel hook, I feel like they wanted to line up some ideas for a potential Season 2 that never materialised. It feels to me much less like that trope you mentioned, and more like very specific story things being set up to be picked up on later.

Since we're getting into it a little. Preface all the following by saying: I completely respect anyone's decision to use or not use any game service for whatever reason they see fit. All the below is just where I land on it all, and other people's mileage may vary. Firstly, I think I have similar beef with CD Projekt that @Niemandswasser has talked about. For me the issues I have with them are far more personal to me and far more relevant to me than an ideological opposition to DRM. Secondly, I'm not really particularly ideologically opposed to DRM. I think it's unnecessary, and I think the best data we have shows it does very little to prevent piracy and could in fact contribute to the problem. GOG is right about that. But I largely subscribe to the idea that for almost as long as software has existed, software license agreements have existed. The idea of 'ownership' of commercial software has always been an illusion, for better or worse, and it ought to not be surprising or alarming that some companies would try to find technological solutions to enforcing the software license. Thirdly, over the years I have recieved quite mixed messages about whether Steam actually enforces DRM. As far as I can ascertain, it's the publishers that have to include it, rather than Steam thrusting it on everything. I'm willing to be educated on this, but as far as I know a game can exist on Steam with no DRM at all. It is true that if Steam disappeared your ability to download the game would also disappear but I think that's true of any online platform to download games, and has little to do with the DRM conversation. As I say I'm willing to be educated on this but because of my second point, I haven't been very motivated to look into it myself because I really am totally ambivalent about DRM. Fourthly, I believe that having a Steam library is a fair trade off in convenience. This is coming from a personal perspective, knowing how I play games - 95% I play a game once, and never again, and if I lost access to it I wouldn't even know. The other 5% of the time I might try to get a physical copy if I like the game enough. Or, if not available, I might buy it on multiple platforms. If all else fails, the idea of having to spend £5 re-buying a game I lost access to 20 years from now doesn't really haunt me. I know, I know, for some it's the principle of the thing less than the practicality of the thing... but see point 1. That principle is more important to me than the notion of possibly having to pay for something I used to own again at some undefined point in the future. Given that I lost my MI2 Amiga codewheel years ago, and one of my MI1 disks, and my MI1/2 CD is scratched to bits... I feel like it's just not accurate to say that our access to our own games is being put in jeopardy by DRM. It has never been less in jeopardy (preservation of old editions aside, which is a whole other conversation), even if the whole DRM industry feels like basically snake oil for media businesses. It is so easy for me to access all my games now and I have trouble with the idea that DRM is any sort of threat to that because I've never had that threat materialise, ever.

What I'd like is a game that would work really well as the last one ever released, even if it isn't. MI1: yes MI2: yes if like me you're fond (largely due to MI2 existing for most of my teens without a sequel of mysterious, freakout endings) no if you like things explained/resolved CMI: Yeah, it works EMI: Sure Tales: I think... no? The Voodoo Lady stuff is too intriguing to leave hanging, but if they decided to ignore it for ReMI I guess it doesn't matter any more (if they pull one thread from Tales, I hope it's this) None of these games were called the conclusion, but most of them work as one.

This really isn't good enough, I demand you all have a heated argument about the legal status of out-of-fiction but in-game monkeys. If we don't keep this going we'll have to start thinking about the coundown to ReMI.

More on review embargo: it looks like Cult of the Lamb was embargoed until the day before release, and Weird West was on the same day. So Devolver might not have a firm policy on when they embargo until, but it's probably around release day. If I had to call it I would say they'll embargo reviews until the 19th, release day (reviews won't go up over the weekend, friday would be a bit too soon, so might as well let them hit on Monday, with the game) I'm not too worried, I'm not planning on reading any reviews (at least not in any detail) until I've played through the whole thing.

It varies from publisher to publisher and game to game, the best thing to do is see when Devolver have previously done. Commonly, though, review embargoes go until the game's release. Sometimes they're a few days before. Quite often, a website will accidentally break the embargo.

I also like that aspect of it. To be clear, it's not so much the decision that I found weird (there are all kinds of reasons it might make sense to keep them married), it's the reason that he gave in the interview that felt odd to me. Especially since in the past he's talked about delighting in making choices that upset a large number of fans.

But guybrush doesn't ONLY exist in that void. Presubably we're looking at an imaginary, out-of-fiction guybrush, since there's no real in-fiction explanation for what is happening. I think at this point regardless of how you count there's no version which doesn't put MI2 at least number of living monkey heads, regardless. Tales and CMI both have more than 3 monkeys on a screen at a time, MI1 probably has 7 living monkey heads, but it could possibly be counted as 5. Escape has loads. So it's MI2, for sure. My argument about the intro monkeys is that if 'living monkey heads' is to count for anything it must mean that 1) You have to be able to see at least part of the head 2) It has to be at least arguably a distinct monkey (which means either it appears with other monkeys in the same shot or it's at least plausibly a different monkey) 3) It's alive within the fiction of the game. (that last part because if it had to literally be alive then all the games would have 0 monkeys) Since the monkeys of the MI2 intro exist ostensibly outside of the fiction of the game, they fail on that point, and so MI2 has 1 monkey. An alternate 3) is 'it appears on screen during the game and is depicted as alive' In this version MI2 has 3 monkeys. I don't care which is which, I just want people to argue about it.

Oh I agree with that, certainly - I just would buy 'we would need to spend writing effort addressing it that we felt served the story better elsewhere' than, 'we kept them married for the fans'

Can the MI2 dancing monkeys truly be said to be alive if they only exist in an imaginary void where the credits are happening?

I found that a bit odd, honestly. I think it's true that some people are attached to them as a couple, but are people really that attached to them being married? And even if they were, his feelings about it have been known for years, would it really have been that shocking if he'd divorced them? I feel like there are interesting ways of exploring their relationship dynamic outside of them being a married couple. I don't feel strongly about it, but I'm just a little surprised Ron felt this was such an unshakable part of the series now that he couldn't mess with it at all.

I don't think the game script should be used as a primary source on which money is which, because it only tells us about how they decided to program something, not about what the intent behind it was. In the MI2 intro do the two monkeys use the same named sprite? If so, by the logic of using the script, they are the same monkey, somehow in two places at once

This is 3 monkeys according to the stated rules of the poll. So we're up to 7 monkeys in SoMI?

you sure?

If I had to guess more on how the puzzle will work

Sol-fa syllables are relative, so it's any note depending on what key we're in. But if you assume the first skull struck (Mi) is in tune then the Re and Fa also work relative to that Mi (they're not completely in tune, Murray sounds to me a bit like he's in between two notes on first listen, but... close enough to make it work, probably) On the puzzle itself...

Myst has had an interesting trajectory, and a fairly uncommon one I think. It was a very, very commercially successful game (it remains the 25th top selling game ever and was #1 for the majority of the 90s), but now has more of a reputation of a cult following. In other words, it tells a story of mass sales, but fairly niche appeal. Jake is absolutely right in pointing out that the game had and still has a significant following, but I think it's also fair to say that its sales were massively inflated by its status as a killer app title for CD ROMs and so forth.

The dialogue from both Full Throttle and Grim Fandango persuaded me that he was probably responsible for a lot of the writing that I enjoyed most in the first two games (not that I know for sure, it's just that there's stuff in the way that those two games are written that I feel like shares DNA with the first two MI games and DOTT.) So I've no doubt it'll be a bit different, but how much so I'm not sure. Part of the reason that Ron's earlier rumblings about revisiting MI irked me is that it was always about how he wanted the rights, he wanted to do MI3 his way, etc etc and there wasn't much acknowledgement that actually it was a team effort - not just in the writing, but in the design, in the music and how much that lent to the atmosphere. Graphics too, though obviously they've changed from game to game. I was so glad that with ReMI they have pitched it as a collaboration between Ron and Dave from the start, and brought back the main 3 composers, have the involvement of several other people who have a history with the series. I don't think I would have been half as excited for it if it were just The Ron Show. I would say that it's probable that Ron talked to Tim about it when it got going a couple of years ago, and Tim had to say that he was deep in the writing of Psychonauts 2, and because of his Microsofty obligations, getting involved in another project in that way would have been contractually dicey. I can't imagine a conversation didn't happen. Some people speculate that Ron is sore about the rights to The Cave getting swallowed up by Microsoft. That's possible, but I don't know. They're all grown ups that have been in business a long time, I don't think that would have affected things that much. The timing just wasn't right for Tim. I'll also be interested to see what that does to the mood of the game (and trying to sort that out from the effect that a 30 year gap had on the game, too)

I think you're probably okay? I checked the spec of a 2015 macbook pro against those graphics card requirements and it came out comparable: I couldn't find anything to directly compare the cards, but I reckon if your system has a bottleneck it'll be the graphics card. I think you'll get away with it though. Disclaimer: I dunno, really but it looks OK to me.

Return to Monkey Island is the #10 top seller on Steam, which I think is about where I thought it would be. We're still a niche, and it's probably not going to set the world on fire but it's going to do okay. The currently heavily discounted Monkey Island Collection has snuck into the top 100 too, so there are at least some people who either want a refresher on the series or who have decided to play it for the first time.

Re: holding the game back for 'marketing reasons' - like others have said, this isn't really a thing. Devs work on a game right up until the second of release nowadays because there is so much prep that needs to happen to get the game onto the stores that stuff needs to get submitted and go through cert, so then there'll inevitably be a patch. Yes, they probably picked this date specifically because of its significance, but they won't be just twiddling their thumbs for a few weeks. ...But even if they were, that's okay, right? If some marketing folks bumped their heads together and thought 'hey lets release it on the pirate themed day, that might improve sales by 1-2%" why wouldn't we want that for Ron and team?