NightWalker

That's great! I confirm that Grim Fandango works perfectly now! This is incredible ^_^

Thanks, Aaron. I can't solve the problem even deleting REGISTRY.REG. I don't know if it's only an issue of mine or not. I have even uninstalled the last stable version. I have checked the AppData directory (and the subdirectories named 'Local', 'LocalLow' and 'Roaming') and deleted the 'aarongiles' folder. With everything clean, I have installed DREAMM 3.0b4. Then, the program asked me to search the folder with the games and everything went allright, Grim was installed. But the game keeps being in debug mode. I have push Shift + P and Manny jumps to the end of the game, the Act 4, near the fountain that is like an ashtray. I don't know if I have to delete any other file in any other directory or if it's something that only happens in my computer.

I have tried the 3.0b4: and Grim Fandango is still in debug mode and it's almost unplayable by now. If you press some key combinations (Shift + P) Manny jumps over acts of the game and he appears in random places. The game can't be restarted, so if you push that combination of keys, it's impossible to get back and keep playing where you were before the accident. The emulator, by the way, is amazing. It's a DREAMM come true XD. It's great to be able of reliving every old LucasArts gem.

Thank you very much!

Hello, Aaron (I hope you read this), I'm having big troubles with Grim Fandango. I'm not a native English speaker, so I will try to write the best way I can... When I executed the game, I tried to play with the number pad on the keyboard. With the key "Bloq Num" I have been able to play with this section of the keyboard, but I have problems. If you are pressing "8" (advance), "Shift" (run) and then you press the "5" key (examine), Manny will disappear from his current position and he will appear in a kind of default position of the screen. That will happend in every different screen, everytime you press the combination I told you about. So... I tried to play with the other section of the keyboard: the cursors keys and the letters. I had even more problems. If you, accidentally, press the shift key (run) and "P" (pick up), Manny will jump to another section of the game. For example, if you are in the beginning of the game (I think it's "El Marrow" in English) and you press "Shift" + "P", Manny will appear in Rubacava suddenly (in Act 2). And if you press those two keys again, Manny will appear under the water (Act 3). It´s as if the game entered in a kind of "debugger mode" where Manny goes jumping from one act to another. Another weird problem: if you press "Shift" + "O", there will appear words on the screen. Every word is over each interactive object of the screen. Grim Fandango is not supposed to have that words, so... it's a little weird, because when you enter in the inventory, the words that appeared over every object are floating over the screen even when you are seeing Manny's jacket in a close up view. Oh, and another problem. Everytime I load Grim Fandango, the game continues automatically where I left the last time. Grim Fandango is supposed to start from the beginning everytime, but I can't restart the game anymore. If I use F12 and press "restart game", it won't work. The only way to restart the game is deleting some files from the registry of DREAMM. I don't know if this problem just occurs to me. Anyone here had such problems? I'm playing the English version with the 1.01 patch and I'm using the latest version of DREAMM from Aaron's webpage. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much!

In the fist place, I would like to say "Thank you, Aaron". This emulator is one of the coolest thing I have ever seen about videogames. I like playing the games in the original form, so I haven't played Grim Fandango in years, because I didn't want to play the remaster. Now it's amazing (a miracle!) to see the game working again in my new PC after all these years. I don't know if this is the place for it, but I wanted to tell you that the game seems to work fine, except the Shift key (which is used to run) doesn't work properly with the numeric pad. It works fine with the cursor keys and the game works perfectly with a gamepad, though. But I always played Grim Fandango with numeric pad, because I find it confortable, since I have all the functions of the game there ("5" is look and "+" is take, for example). I write this in case you want to fix that. If you press the shift key before the 8 number, Manny doesn't run. Or if you are running and try to turn with the numeric pad, Manny walks. I have tried this with my laptop keyboard and even with an external USB keyboard. Again, thank you very much for your excellent work! This is an authentic DREAM (hehe) for old LucasArts fans!

This explanation keeps bein perfectly valid to me. If we take into account that Curse if a new adventure that Guybrush tells to Boybrush, and that (as the video games) the story continues the story of Monkey 2 (that Guybrush told Boybrush too), it is a perfect way to bind all the things inside the fantasy world of Monkey Island (the world inside the imagination of Guybrush). Yeah, we know that the last minute of Monkey 2 was a rehearsal of Boybrush and Chuckie, inside their minds. But when Guybrush told the story of Monkey 2 to Boybrush the first time, the ending of the story was Guybrush being trapped inside the tunnels of Dinky Island and dissapearing from Elaine. So, inside the storytelling world that Guybrush creates for Boybrush when he tells his stories, he had to find a conclusion for the next story (Curse), and the explanation of Curse is perfectly valid since that point of view.

Maybe it was the original idea but it wasn't called "escape room" by then. Maybe it was a park with a kind of treasure hunt events or something like that... Look at this part of Monkey 2 I extracted the images from a video of Youtube, the original source is:

One of the best analysis I have ever read about the series. I agree with every concept you expose. I think that is the true meaning of the ending too. You exposed it perfectly.

I associate this to the gears and machinary of the park. Even if you are in the imaginary world, inside Guybrush's head, you still can hear the gears of the park. This is my interpretation, but it could be what you say too. It would have been interesting to know Cogg Island fully and maybe that would have given some answers to this sentence of Widey Bones. Widey says this too: "No one ever works together. All want their own prize". This could be a reference to LeChuck, Madison and Guybrush wanting to go ahead and have the prize everyone for himself. But it could be a reference to the fans too, because everybody had his own theory about the secret. "The secret smells like popcorn!", says Widey too. And the first thing you find when you are going to know the truth is the popcorn on the floor, when you get out of the door in the alley, in the back of the church at the ending. Yeah, the game is full of phrases with double meaning. After completing the full game, I found that almost every conversation has some link to the ending. For example, at the beginning, when you talk with Stan in the jail, he says that "he gives everybody what they want, although not everybody knows what they want". It could be a reference to how the park gives you the experience you are looking for. If you stay still in the jail, Stan will say random sentences. In one of them, he says: "They say the only real prison is the one in your head". This is amazing when you know about the ending. The curator of the museum explains, at certain moment, that "everybody makes their own connections with the exhibits, and it's highly personal and different for everyone". This could be a reference as how everybody, in the real park, lives his own experience and his own adventure. There are a lot of more links to the ending. The game is full of winks to it. It's greatly written.

Yeah, I think that too, that the world of the game could be set in the modern day. Maybe even the clothes that Guybrush and Elaine are wearing in the park, while Guybrush tell his stories to his son, are costumes that the park sells you (or rent you). And maybe the treasure of Mire Island is some other amusement park attraction or another game prepared by Stan, who knows. Anyway, one thing I found weird is that it seems to be lesser anachronisms in Return to Monkey Island than in the two first games... or maybe it was my impression. But in Monkey 1 and 2 we saw things very obvious such the grog machine, the water pump or even the signs with lightbulbs. In Return to Monkey Island... I don't remember many anachronisms... Maybe the staple remover and I can't think of much more apart from some dialogues which talk about modern things.

I couldn't figure the solution out either. Does anybody know how the puzzle works? I saw a kind of tombstone or stone with instructions (something about 4 years, steps to the right and the left)... but I cound't find the solution. As you, I tried every possible combination to solve the puzzle.

I have been thinking a while about Guybrush-Elaine relationship too... To me, the relation between them has been weird in this game too. And the character of Elaine seemed to be a little different and lack of energy and importance. But... thinking about it... Maybe it could have an interpretantion after knowing the ending. In this game (even in the first one and the second), the adventures of Guybrush are happening apart from Elaine's goals. It's like Elaine is doing adult and mature things, you know, saving the Caribbean from scurvy and using important pamphlets and such things. She seems to be doing some political actions, something very real, mature and from our era. She seems (as many of you have pointed) very disconnected from Guybrush. And, in the other hand, Guybrush is fighting Dead Pirate Zombies, looking for fabulous treasures and living thousands of adventures (something less real and more from an imaginary world). So that's could be the reading of the situation between Guybrush and Elaine. Maybe, in the real world, they used to go together to the park but, later, Elaine enjoyed the experience from a more mature point of view. And maybe Guybrush was the only one that really believed his own stories and got lost inside his own imagination. And that's should be why they are never together in this game for a long time, because Guybrush is in his own world and, as reflection of the real world, Elaine is with his own things and thoughts. Sorry for my English in all my posts. I'm not English native either.

I know that Ron has recently said that he had no idea about his original Monkey 3 apart from Guybrush, Stan and LeChuck being in hell. But I think he really had some more ideas for the game in the early 90s. Indeed, he should have known the secret by then. Along all these years I have read once and again this interview: https://scummbar.com/resources/articles/index.php?newssniffer=readarticle&article=1033 And if you don't want to read it fully, I'll put here the important part about the secret: Ron Gilbert: I read a lot of novels and reference books, more for the flavor of the period than for accuracy. This isn't a historically accurate game. In fact, you'll see when you play that there are a lot of anachronisms, like the vending machine at Stan's used ship yard. They're there to add humor to the game of course, but they also have a secret, deeper relevance to the story -- but I'm keeping that secret for the sequel. This interview was made in the fall of 1990. So, maybe he is talking about the park we have seen in Return to Monkey Island. That's why I think he put that plaque. As Jake said, this has to be the original secret.

Yeah, I think the year 1989 is not a coincidence. The plaque says the park was founded in 1989 because, in 1990, the flooring inspector Guybrush (one year after the foundation) had his first imaginary adventure there. It's obvious to me that everything happens in the present time. When, back in the day, we played Monkey 1 and 2, there were some details that seem to point to modern times. Yes, we had anachronisms, but the important thing is those anachronisms pointed to the actual era when the games were created. The reference to Elvis is enough to see that the real park was established, at least, after the 1960s. We have references to Nintendo games (when we are hanging whit Wally over the acid pit) and even to the Flinstones (in the costume shop). I think that even the oar we take in Elaine's mansion in Booty Island had the year 1967 on it (at least you could see that if you examine it in the spanish version, I think). So, maybe in Monkey 1 and 2 the real park where Guybrush imagine everything was in the 90s... And maybe the pass of time for us (the players) has been true to the internal world of Monkey Island too... That's why Guybrush has a son and now, the park we see at the ending, maybe is in the 2022 too. Very interesting.

I forgot to write something in my former post. I was going to write about a theory of mine... Thinking about several Ron's interviews from the past and how he told that it was an error to get Guybrush and Elaine married... I was thinking whether originally Boybrush was going to exist or not. Since Ron didn't wanted Guybrush and Elaine to get married I think that, maybe, the original idea was about Guybrush being a kid in a theme park among the animatronics. I still remember how, in Scabb Island, the bartender ask for an ID to give him grog. Maybe Boybrush has been a product from Ron and Dave accepting the rest of the games as canon. Maybe the original ending of Monkey 2 was going to be explained as Guybrush being a kid imagining adventures in the park... And Guybrush couldn't get married because he was a little boy and Elaine was a worker in the park. And, since Curse of Monkey Island finished with them getting married, maybe Ron was forced to introduce Boybrush to explain the ending. It's clear to me, reading those interviews, that Ron had a powerful reason for Guybrush and Elaine not getting married. I guess he and Dave had to rework many things in this game to readjust everything. Who knows. Just a little thought... but, in the end, it doesn't matter I guess. The important thing is the ending message that Ron gave us. That's what I get overall the rest of the details.

I'm still processing the ending. I'm still not sure if it's an ending I fully like or not... But it's clear for me that Ron and Dave have had a lot of discussions, philosophical talks and work behind the game. I think the game itself is mediocre in almost every point. I don't fully like the art. I know there is a lot of work behind it, but (and this is a personal choice of taste) I don't fully enjoy the new aesthetics. There is something in the art that didn't fully get me inside the world of Monkey Island, it's like I haven't felt the breeze, the beauty of the night or the feeling of being there in the same way I did with the other games of the series. But, as I say, it's a personal opinion, nothing else. Characters, story, puzzles and even music (it's mostly a rework of the old tunes) seem not special to me. I think everything is below the standard level of a Monkey Island game. But... BUT! (Important "but", hehe) I agree with some people here. I think the message of the game and the feelings that left me after the ending were so important and deep for me that I can forgive everything. I agree that one of the most important things that Return to Monkey Island does is to lift all the titles of the series and bind them in a unique way. As if we were Guybrush having his moments of dreaming in the park, we can always escape from our reality and go back to the Monkey Island world with another story. I think the feelings the game left me were marvelous and I can't stop thinking about the whole series now. I feel that the whole series is even more special now, after that gorgeous ending. But this is a personal opinion too, not everybody is going to feel the same because every person is unique and feel things differently. You know what they say... "Not everybody reads the same book... although the title on the cover is the same". And I feel that it has been very important for the series to let go the secret topic. It's important to let it rest because the series is free now. The players are free now too, we don't have to search answers anymore if you understood the message that Gilbert and Grossmand sent us. And this is marvelous, because we will be able of enjoy (maybe) new Monkey Island titles in the future with totally fresh and new adventures without worrying about the secret or trying to explain the dark points of former games. As I said in the beginning, I think Dave and Ron have talk a lot about this and they shoud have think a lot about it. I see a lot of work behind, because they thought all the possibilities and understood that it was very difficult to please the players. They were worried about us and about the whole myth constructed around the secret. So... they sent us a sincere letter to us (the players)... but this letter had the form of a videogame. And that is Return to Monkey Island, a sincere conversation between the creators and the players, closing the secret topic once and for all. And, as any good conversation, you have to do your part too. The game ask you to look inside yourself and explore what do you expected to get from this game... or from the series itself. And I think it's a great exercise to stop for a moment in this fast and crazy world and ask to ourselves many things about this series. Maybe some of us will find what we are looking for... Maybe others not... But this is something personal and everyone will have to live his own journey with his own finale. Anyway, I would like to say that I'm enjoying this thread very much and that it has been an absolute dream to be able of playing this game at last. If you are reading me, thank you very much, Ron and Dave (and Dominic and the rest of the team). The ending really hit me in the heart and I can't stop thinking about everything. Great job!

Hi, everybody! In the first place I would like to be sorry for my bad English (I'm Spanish). I will try my best. Pardon me if I make many mistakes. The most important thing is to share my happiness with you since a new Monkey Island game has been announced (and Ron is back!). I think this is an echo in the history of video games and graphic adventures. Fans have been waiting this moment since 30 years or more... I can't believe it yet... But it's great. I'm not very fond of the art style (I wouldn't like Guybrush was very alike to Animal Crossing characters), but... maybe even with that art style everything could work if the atmosphere was right (as many of you have stated before). But it's amazing that Ron is going to make his "Monkey 3" at last. I still remember the interviews with him many years ago, when people asked him about "the secret of Monkey Island". I remember very fondly the long nights reading forums and posts about theories and analysis of the game. The ending of Monkey Island 2 was such a great moment in the history of video games and it had many heads blown up XD. I have replayed the first two games many times, trying to figure out the secret or looking for more clues. Back in the day, reading the clues in Ron's interviews was amazing, it made you to think about the secret a lot. I specially liked to thing about the anachronisms, since Ron Gilbert stated that they were important and hid a secret in the games. I hope we have an answer for good, we deserve it after 30 years pondering this great mystery. I a gree with everybody here about the special/creepy/mysterious atmosphere of the first two games. I love Monkey 3 and 4 (Tales not so much, but I liked it), but there is something definitely different about the first two adventures. There is something weird and magical at the same time. I haven't felt anything similar with the others Monkey Island, just with the first two. It's just that, what you were saying, a creepy feeling below the Monkey head... That kind of thing is amazing. I remember that, when I played the games for the first time, I felt very uncomfortable at Mr. Rogers house... And that skeleton on the bath with that music. Even the tunnel inside the waterfall of Phatt Island made me feel nervous. It was a great feeling of mystery, as if something were lurking in the dark along the whole game. It's difficult to explain. And, of course, the great and unique ending of Monkey 2 has a brilliant feeling and atmosphere. For me, the soundtrack in this point is absolutely outstanding. I'm still trying to figure out why a elevator would lend you to the lonely alley of Mëlée Island... Too many questions. I love the comments on this post. I love the comments about Monkey 2 feeling depressing because Ron wanted to tell us something. If you remember, Guybrush lost even all his treasures at the beginning of the game. It's as if almost everything in Monkey 2 was a dark and a depressing version of what we lived in Monkey 1... Who knows. Anyway, I would like to write more things, but I'm a mess with English and my brain is steaming right now. Take care and I hope everybody enjoy this new Monkey Island game. I'm looking forward it!

Hi, everybody! I have always found this webpage (and forums) very enjoyable and interesting. The first thing I would like to say is I’m Spanish, so I hope you can forgive my (for sure) numerous errors along my posts. I will try my best to communicate with you. ATMachine, you have brought up a very interesting topic here. Certainly I have found this post very interesting and mysterious. You have a great documentation. It’s incredible how you have brought up some things from almost lost archives or old magazines… But… while your documentation is impressive, your conclusions seem to be a little rush to me. I hope I don’t hurt your feelings. Don’t misunderstand me: I love the post and everything you have said. I would like it to be true… But, you know, there are some things that seems to be unlikely possible to me. I hope you don’t get bored with my long post. I will try to comment some things. The point that fails to me is generally the assumptions you make about some things. For example… A time-capsule archive? Why that and not other thing? One of Sherlock Holmes’ quotes I find more interesting is that in which he said that we have to make theories with the evidences we have. As he said, we can’t do the contrary. We can’t distort the facts to support our theories. What I’m trying to say is that I love the facts and data you have posted. But the conclusions or theories you have about them are as valid as other theories completely different as well. So… it’s hard to believe that many things LucasArts did (or even other companies did) is related with a secret project that has been hidden this whole time… Although you have some interesting points which are worth to be examined. I think there are some secrets and projects we didn’t know about in LucasArts indeed. But I don’t think everything is connected or something like that. I think that is something that happens in many companies. It’s normal. Do you know the “Resident Evil 1.5” matter? It was a previous version of the final Resident Evil 2 that Capcom discarded years ago and it didn’t come to the stores. Along many years, “Resident Evil 1.5” was nothing but an urban legend… But, one day, the pieces of that lost game appeared and we knew that the development of the game had been difficult and Capcom had to throw away a lot of the material to remake the game again and create the final version we saw in 1998. I bet there were a lot of beta versions or entire projects that were discarded in LucasArts those years, but is something normal that happens in many companies. I think they are isolated incidents and they are not connected to a secret project or something like that. But, hey, it’s just my opinion. I think there are a lot of things that seems to be logical to me. I don’t see any mystery on them. For example… when you mention the quote of Jhonathan Ackley talking about a “secret budget”. I don’t see any strange on this affirmation. I think he is talking about the company knowing that the project leaders were making their first game. So, the company didn’t entirely trust that they could be able of staying inside the planned budget… So, LucasArts had some extra money saved in case Ackely and Arhem (both supposedly inexperienced in leading a project) needed a little more because they weren’t able of doing a good maths about the needed money to create the game. Sorry about my bad English and explanations… I’m trying my best. I hope you can understand me. The same happens with the interesting story about Kit Williams and Masquerade. It’s a great story and a very interesting experiment but I don’t see why that proves that LucasArts was working in a secret project. The Gabriel Knight mysterious actor before Dead Erickson… I haven’t seen the original material. You gave us the link (thanks for that!) but I don’t know if I have to run the exe in DosBox or something? I don’t know how to see the original material to get some context of the situation. Anyway… Maybe it was a very early casting… Or just a little test with a random person. It seems to be a Gabriel closer to the original look of “Sins of the Fathers”. Pay attention to the short hair (more look alike to the first game than the Dean Erickson’s mane) and the black jacket (again, more similar to the one of the first game). Maybe they changed some little ideas at the early stages of the development. Nothing weird there. It would be interesting to know anything else about this first actor and his experience with Sierra, though. About Sierra doesn’t talking about that… it’s not strange. Companies are very shy about certain things. Sometimes they make the workers to sign legal stuff and they are not allowed to talk about the things that happen inside the company. It’s normal, I don’t see any conspiracy here. All your conclusions about George Lucas wanting to make different Star Wars movies from the ones we watched… It’s your theory, but we don’t have any proof of that. In fact, if you have read interviews with Lucas (or watched some videos) he is very happy with the result of the movies and the message of them. If he wanted to change something, he made the changes in the special editions. Although, as I said before, I think there are a lot of interesting points you have brought up and we should not discard. For example… It would be interesting (as I said before) to know more about the early actor on Gabriel Knight 2 (although, as I said, I don’t think he is related with any secret project or something like that). But it’s an interesting fact in its own. It should be investigated to know more about the video games history and the development of Gabriel Knight series. To know even more about The Dig development it would be very interesting to investigate more about what was the thing Brian Moriarty showed to people in that mysterious conference at the end of the video. Doesn’t anybody know about it? I guess he can’t talk about it because of legal reasons (Disney would own the rights of Loom, The Dig, etc, I guess), so… maybe we won’t know much more about that topic… But it would be very interesting to know about the things Brian showed… Or even to know more about that mysterious “meta-game” he was talking about. I wonder if anyone could arrange an interview and ask him about it. The same about Tim Schafer’s comments about “a secret library project” or something like that… I wonder if anyone could ask him about it in an interview or something. It would be very very interesting certainly. We need more proofs and data, because that “secret project” Schafer is commenting about could be anything (not necessarily your theory). Maybe it was even a normal game that never came out and was cancelled. Who knows… The best way of knowing more is asking him directly. The other assumptions you make seem to be too far-fetched to me, sorry. But, anyway, I have found this topic and your posts very interesting. I hope someone could shed more light in some areas.