Marius

This is escalating and I love it.

My god, it's HIM!

That's a duck!

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this never ever ever e v e r would have happened in a million, billion, squillion years, so I wouldn't spend time pining for it. Oh yea, those chances are right. One reason is the giant effort this would require. Building games is so hard, and adding things that are not planned from the beginning is an extremely complicated process and kill joy. You would basically need to make the game a second time from the ground up to achieve that goal. Nobody will pay for that (and I can't imagine the team would want to do that anyway.) Also, if the lead artist isn't the one pushing that feature, I think it's simply disrespectful to ask them to do that. Maybe his new form is salesman and he'll wear a check coat!

Amazing, thank you for sharing this Jake. It takes a lot of courage to share things the younge-self made.

That's the thing I like about some of these drawings, they didn't shy away from wild creative freedoms. Stans coat doesn't have the plaid texture, but has a weird intimidating look on its own. Also, great scarf. Also now we know that the Voodoo Lady has a part-time job as a professional wrestler.

It's so strange and weird, I love it! I like Guybrushs (Gaiburashi Suriipuuddo) look, and Stan is just wild. And excellent map drawings. 👌 Thank you for digging that up.

I really like Weird Al's version of Stan.

Hey, I love your theory. It's an exciting read, and it gave me one thought. Going full interpretation mode, ignoring dev intentions for a second: So, Big Whoop has been found and "experienced" before, causing Captain Marley and crew to hide it. Now, what if them meddling with Big Whoop once caused it to "leak" a bit of reality bending power out into the world, causing the anachronisms in Monkey 1?

I just played that part yesterday and thought the same. Classic continuity error. But then I had a stupid, funny thought: Maybe the heads missing eye was simply replaced by one of the many eyes from his necklace.

The Disney bots don't want us to see it.

Oh, by the way, a neat little thing we found while we worked on the Video Game History Foundation Event where we dug through source files of Monkey 1 and 2. This tidbit wasn't revealed in the event or the blog post, because it's not really that exciting. But I think it's a great detail for y'all. There is one script in Monkey Island 2 where a comment refers to the game's title as The Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. I think that's exciting, and changes the view on the first two games a small bit: At one point the series was not just called Monkey Island, but The Secret of Monkey Island. Now, that full title did pop up before, in old issues of The Adventurer for example. But I always thought it could've been a Marketing thing written by a PR person. But seeing this title in a script in the source files gives it more weight, since it has been written by the developers themselves. We don't know if they eventually dropped it because the game evolved into a different story, or because that title of the sequel is stupidly long. Whatever it is, I love this little detail!

It can be mentioned twice as more-or-less throw-away lines. You can ask LeChuck about it in his torture chamber: And you can ask about it on the phone on Dinky Island:

To make things even more compliated: Big Whoop isn't something that only concerns LeChuck and Guybrush. Others found the treasure before, and as Wally says, "Whatever it was, it was so wonderful - or so horrible - that they never wanted anyone else to find it." I like the idea that Big Whoop is something powerful and independent, and LeChuck is just using/abusing it's power to mess with Guybrush. Also, good profile pic @Giorgio

I haven't forgotten the context. I know what you are saying, but what is the issue? Like, where is the harm in looking for/believing in "more than just funny joke"? I love doing exactly that, even if all the facts above point against it.

Yes, well put! I often jump between looking at the mystery of Monkey Island through the narrative and the developer POV. The latter is where my head got stuck the most, where I try to rationalize my MI world view with the writer’s intention. Worst result is feeling dumb for believing a scene points at something bigger, when there are many parts of the first two games that were “”just”” stream of conscious goofy-ness.* The more I do that the more fun it sucks out of speculation, as if I’m looking for confirmation to see Monkey Island in a certain way. But that sucks, doesn’t it? What a killjoy voice in my head. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to dismiss the developers angle at all. I love analyzing the most minor things in writers interviews to discover more about their intentions! A healthy balance of the 2 views is probably the best, I think. And is, to me, the main reason we talk about these games still today. I love it! *Look, I know, painting LeChucks coat blue in the nightmare scene of Monkey 2 is a way to make him stand out from the super red background. But what if, what if, it was a choice to paint him as a mirror to Guybrush, who also wears a blue coat. He also turns into Guybrush seconds later! What does that mean? A hint of “We are bound to one another”? Them being brothers?? Could be! Or not! Whatever, I LOVE these speculations.

And I hope Return will have more of these little bits of mystery, and not explain or answer them. 😊

To me, the most interesting thing about "a secret" is this small conversation with the Voodoo Lady in Monkey 1: Ominous, isn't it? This small bit is why I never believed the Secret to be just the lava caves, but instead something that simply won't be fully revealed in this game. But to be fair, she doesn't state that she is talking about the "Secret". It could be something completely different. But it's likely.

'The Monkey Island'

ToMI-C4:TT’n’EoGT

Wow, that’s a beautiful map!

Still needs a version where Escape comes after LeChuck's Revenge ☝️ Seriously though, this is cool Jan! 👏 My goodness, we're getting a brand new Monkey Island.

If you watch Twin Peaks I recommend the Twin Peaks Rewatch Podcast by @Jake and Chris Remo. 🙂 https://www.idlethumbs.net/twinpeaks/

I hope for an ending that leaves us with plenty to discuss and makes the world of Monkey Island mysterious and hard to describe. I can‘t really put my finger on it, but the ending of Twin Peaks - The Return was amazing. It wasn't a concluding ending I hoped for, instead it left me speechless and I had to digest it first. The Twin Peaks world is too big for me to understand, and I think that’s beautiful.