OzzieMonkey

I'm actually more excited for this now than I was when this game was a hypothetical and we all thought it would erase the last 3 games from canon. Now that we know that's not exactly the case, I'm really curious about what solution Ron and Dave have come up with to start at the end of 2 but also after Tales somehow, because it sounds like it's going to be more complicated than a simple timeskip.

I've taken the liberty of writing out text for a video interview with Ron that was done by Rock, Paper Shotgun but was locked by a paywall. There's some further detail of the hint system and confirmation of how it works as a mechanic within the fantasy of the game world as well as hints to what the story is (he's still vague enough about it but it's a great tease) So Ron, what has it been like for you returning to this world? It's been a lot of fun! It's been 30 years since I really immersed myself in that world and it's a lot of fun to sort of get back to it. I was a little worried at the beginning about what that was going to be like, but it is just like a comfortable glove at some point, you know when I started working on it with Dave, we just fell into it so quickly. Awesome! So what can you tell us about the story? Well, the story is...we kinda call it unfinished business. You know Guybrush, in the first game even though it's called The Secret of Monkey Island, he never actually found the secret, so this game is really about him finding the real secret to Monkey Island, and I think it's also unfinished business for Dave and me as designers, because we never disclosed what the secret was, and you know Monkey Island 2 ended on this bizarre cliffhanger, so for us it's unfinished business and for Guybrush it's unfinished business. Yeah we were talking before about this huge cliffhanger at the end of 2, so where in the Monkey Island timeline does this land? So the game starts right after Monkey Island 2 ends...and then it just gets bizarre from there. Can you explain what kind of bizarre things we're gonna see? No, you'll have to buy the game (laughs) I love that! So one thing that was talked about on the panel was this idea of puzzle creation and adventure games are known for their challenging puzzles. Will Return to Monkey Island follow in its predecessor's footsteps, or what kind of puzzles are we gonna see, what should we expect? Well it's definitely a point and click game. There's a type of puzzle that really inhabits a point and click adventure, so we're definitely doing that. I think that times have changed, players have changed, we're different people, we've changed, and I think adventure games need to change with that. And it's not about making thongs simpler, but I think it's how you design puzzles. You need to be a bit clearer about things with people, and there are people who don't know point and click, don't know Monkey Island, and you need to kinda ease people into that stuff. One thing we've added to the game is a hintbook, so if you are stuck you can look at the hintbook. I mean these days, when you get stuck on a puzzle, you don't puzzle theough it for a month and talk to your friends about it, you just run to Google. We didn't want people to leave our game to do that, so we added a hintbook, and it's part of the fantasy of the game, it's actually a physical object that Guybrush has in his inventory. And you have to go get the hintbook, it's not something that's just given to you. So we hope that people who do want hints use our hint system, because we can be very clever about the hints, we know where you are and what things you've tried, so we can give you hints that are very tailored to the specific issue that you have. As someone who's had a relationship with Monkey Island for so long, how has your approach changed from the older games to the new one? What's different? I think creatively, design and story-wise, not much has changed at all. We start with a high concept for the thing, down to the individual parts of the game, then below that the character arcs and below that the puzzles. We've always done that with games and I don't think that part has really changed.

I remeber there being a pretty huge breaking of the embargo for part 1 of Broken Age. In the documentary, Tim was trying to figure out how to deal with it and whether or not to let other journalists break it too. Messy stuff.

We're gearing up for the penultimate Monkey Island Monday, which means we're 2 weeks away from launch. I'm now more nervous than ever that a Largo review Embargo will lift, which means lots of spoilers from careless journalists I don't expect an answer, but are Mojo staff going to get an early code? This is probably the only site I trust to give an impression without revealing too much.

I so want to meet these guys one day just to say thankyou, but I can't afford an overseas trip any time soon and the last time Ron came to an event in Australia was 2013 for his storytime speech 😢

Huh...can't complain about that one. 👕 I beat #Mojole #165 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 4/6 🖤💛🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤💛💛💛 💚💛💚💚🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

Something about his wording makes me wonder if we'll be interacting with the crew AS LeChuck. That'd be quite something!

More compelling evidence of this being mostly post Tales in this interview. https://www.gamersglobal.de/interview/return-to-monkey-island It seems as though Elaine and Guybrush will still be married in the game, which I'm glad isn't being erased.

I have failed myself and brought shame to the Mojo community...I thought it was MI1 too.

Of course, there's always the possibility that the game's hint system is so good that we won't need external help.

Ok, for some reason I can no longer share my results, but I got it in 5. Shouldn't have kept using my old guesses.

Personally I think hints should be a seperate thread so people can ask for help without inadvertently reading story spoilers. I don't want to accidentally find out what the Secret of Monkey Island is while I'm trying to figure out what order to put the skulls

Probably for the best. I still think they're keeping most of the game a surprise, hence the focus on Melee. Called it, inventory!

So what are our guesses for Monkey Island Monday this week? For my money, I'm betting on seeing the inventory, where the only item we have is...you guessed it, the horse armor.

Wow, I'd never seen those before. I read a little bit and they're incredibly detailed!

LeChuck! Harr! This name shouting is jolly good fun 😜

After that, Glottis Kart!

Nope...

Perfect release date. Of course, I would love to have it sooner, but hey, we've still got Monkey Island Mondays until then (I hope!). I got a prepaid post office MasterCard months ago specifically to buy this when the time came. Got it as soon as it became available! That little clip of Elaine is interesting, it really is looking like she might be playable, though of course they could've just cut Guybrush out of the clip (Wally was by himself in the Gameplay trailer). It looks like she might be on top of the cliff on Monkey Island where we shot the catapult, just the framing is different. I'm really excited to playing a new Monkey Island game without having to worry about system specs too, back when Tales came out I couldn't afford a proper gaming PC and was stuck with an old laptop playing it on quality level 1 on a low resolution. Now I can enjoy Return on my 4K TV on Max settings, yeah baby!

I'm really hoping for a Curse remaster soon, or a nice remastered set of all 5 games for Switch (and PC of course). The latter might be too much to ask...but I can hope.

I'm a little nervous about the trailer tbh, excited for a release date, but worried that we'll see too much. I feel like at this point, most of us could do without another trailer and just play the game already 😜

If they say it's the last one, I fully expect the game to be out super soon. Now what's everyone's guess for what we see? I'm guessing either Voodoo Lady, Elaine, Murray, or something with the UI.

I wish I could watch it live but it'll be 4am in Australia 😅

It was a complete shot in the dark this time. 👕 I beat #Mojole #151 and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. 5/6 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 🖤🖤💛🖤🖤 🖤💚🖤🖤🖤 💚💚💚💚💚 https://funzone.mixnmojo.com/Mojole/

I mean, it wouldn't be totally unheard of, Psychonauts 2 came out the day before Gamescom last year. I think I'd prefer to get a date first though so I can plan my series playthrough. Is it abnormal for a game's release date to be announced a week before it drops? Is that enough time? I'd say engagement is pretty high atm with all the Monkey Island Mondays and people are just begging for it to drop, so I can't imagine much point in waiting another month if the game's done. Of course, they could still be ironing everything out, we don't really know. This is a long 4 days