Vainamoinen

Things they could show in Monday tweets: More character/design reveals (like Herman Toothrot; also, if you think there's going to be a Monkey Island without cannibals, think again). Voice actor reveals (so who the F voiced the big L?). video from voice recordings/booth (Dom finally screwing a woodchuck tongue twister up). Maps or at least parts of maps. This would be a gameplay reveal as well, because if there's an overview map with multiple islands displayed, we'll likely have a choice of a few islands to go to. Music reveals, video of live instrument recordings, demonstration of iMuse-esque sequences/segues. they show us how the flashback sequences work and how they're embedded in the game. the new swordfighting mechanic, explained. a UI reveal (verb coin or bust! (yes, I know: "What's a verb bust?". You'll see.)) video of that one Tim Schafer visit I just made up, the one where he tells Dave and Ron who's boss and what they did wrong. certain spectacular fan art pieces, because those also "make ReMI special". confirmation of ongoing FIGS voiceover work. a release date.

From the musical perspective, that's the autoritative version. They even got Chris Hülsbeck to remix it back in the day – the dude that composed all those awesome Turrican tunes. 🥰

I am okay with that, but only if they use stock material of Gilbert Gottfried to voice LeChuck.

Whiners: "Ohhh no the forms in the new art style are too abstract for meeeee" Ann-Sophie: "Hold my grog" Love her portrayal of Melee Island. It looks truly three dimensional.

They have no choice. The slow and cozy flute version can only be used for the "Friendly Place" with the 🔪 and the 🩸. It doesn't even fit all those not so friendly places afterwards. My thought exactly. But I'd rather not have ten parts, because that would not just be "long" but also very linear. I'd rather have a part 2 in which the world opens up or rather explodes into a gigantic playground of four or five islands for us to explore. 🗺️ Speaking of which, they better not release an overview map of all the islands any time soon because that's probably the moment I go insane with anticipation.

Did nobody on youtube make a supercut of all the title cards in all the games with music?!

Yeah... the music. My beating heart. I for one hear a real flute, but my ear isn't necessarily trained enough. 🥰 Both Devolver tweets today drive the point home that Return to Monkey Island is targeted at an adult audience. And I'm all here for it.

In today's tweet, Devolver draws our attention to a teensy detail in the background of the New Pirate Leaders' hideout: I might never have recognized that. 🙈

IMPORTANT NOTICE This crow is not dead, it is only SLEEPING. No animals were harmed during the production of this game.

What Jake said. Its portrayal on the box is ... gruesome and quite detailed.

This dude made Guybrush's little grave digging song RHYME.

The pillow mints one really had me in stitches. 😂 Would have been exactly my kind of humor.

Quickie acrylic fan art attack

Plot twist: The crow is the only thing alive on Uncle Chuck's entire ship and she was just napping all the time. I can see it all now. The entire game is about stuffing animals into our inventory for Elaine's conservatory efforts. Guybrush is happily travelling all the islands to collect diverse birds, bunnies, owls, chicks, squirrels, fish, dogs (especially poodles), vichyssoise flavored rats, and so on. Evidently, the only reason for Guybrush to sneak on LeChuck's ship is to nick the crow from his hat. We will have to convince the zombie chef to feed the crew all sorts of things rich in iron, and then, using our giant sized magnet ... ... oh god what am I doing with my Sunday ...

David Sheep is really great at emulating the new art style. https://twitter.com/Pelayator/status/1545561387736391682?cxt=HHwWhICz6Zb59_IqAAAA (no likes needed. Go to Twitter and give the artist a like. I'll finish one of my Carlas these days and THEN ... )

Great work. Rex often turns the perspective by just a few degrees and cranks up contrast, and he often arrives at scenes that appear a good deal more three-dimensional to me than some of the original TSoMI one point perspective "bullseye" setups. Of course the ReMI art team could leave no formerly straight line alone, things slope, lean, bend, dangle, and compress, and you can almost hear that woodwork creaking in some of the backgrounds. The former rich blue is no more, Rex likes his cyan and tinges of green, but then again, these deep blues were kind of a catch-all default color on Melee Island anyway. As to mere subjective, personal taste, I don't care that much for the new Scumm bar or the governor's mansion interior, but the lookout, the prison and the giant monkey head I find even better than the original. There, I said it. The ReMI backgrounds always contain pretty much exactly what was in their 'original' counterparts. But there's always a twist and a twirl that seems to playfully pull away nostalgic recognition just out of reach. I hope that Monkey Island fans will eventually universally be able to find that nostalgia grappling hook in the inventory of their own minds, and draw themselves, by their own strength, back into childhood memory at first, and later, into the grand new adventure of their lives.

Most exciting news this week: LeChuck now named "Uncle Chuck".

I meant: "They'd never, but I'd appreciate it". 🤣

I really really need to put a damper on my enthusiasm until my platform is confirmed. But as this thread hasn't had a new post in two days (!!), here's some things that I don't expect from Return to Monkey Island, but would love to see. Maybe you have a few "I don't think they will, but I'd be over the moon" ideas of your own. Guybrush's diary / "quest log" in the main menu, scrap book style, chronicles his exploits in his own words. Ghost pirate violinist lady voiced by Sarah Hamilton. Finally, the return of the "Lookout" musical motif from The Secret of Monkey Island.

¿ɹǝɥʇoɯ ʎɯ noʎ ǝɹɐ ˙ǝɹɐqpɐǝɹɥʇ uıqqoq sı sıɥʇ

And now you'll have to explain to us what "slingshot kissing" is. These kinky dudes! 😘 I actually interpreted "kissing" as the sound that the slingshot makes. I can hear what it possibly refers to rather distinctly in my head, and am now in the involuntary process of continuously reproducing the sound with my mouth. My co-workers are looking at me funny, and it's all Dave's fault. On the prospect of Elaine and Guybrush kissing "for realz" Ron Gilbert is back at the helm, and just about the only thing he felt was totally wrong in CMI was that Guybrush and Elaine were married. They had grown distant in LeChuck's Revenge, and it was Guybrush who demolished any chance of them reuniting. Elaine deciding to go into conservation, that also seems to hint at her being "her own woman". But I wouldn't say "fat chance" to the expression of love, because that's a theme that the Guybrush-narrator in the trailer explicitly mentioned. There's love in this. And even gameplay with Elaine as a playable character. If we're lucky, LeChuck's Revenge has shown to us what separates them and Return to Monkey Island will show us what unites them.

@tmetic / @El_Pollo_Diablo These are absolutely stellar works, you're really setting the bar here. 🥰 I have ... these guys.

The Tales' "reveals" about the Voodoo Lady were part of LeChuck's plot (badmouthing her, destroy trust), so I don't think we'll have them verified in Return. The Voodoo Lady is always scheming, that's her thing. Her voodoo was always an uncontested power of good with the exception of a voodoo doll now and then on LeChuck's side. I think the Very Important Pirates will try their hand at voodoo and might act as the very first antagonists to the Voodoo Lady directly. I also like the idea that Carla has retreated into the governor's mansion, fighting the invasion of the Brr Muda / Key King's forces. I wouldn't like to see her as an antagonist really, maybe she's just fighting Guybrush for old times' sake. Or practice to show him the (new) ropes, become his teacher. Ohhh I'd like that. Taking the reins from Smirk. We don't really need the swordfighting insult paradigm back for fencing sequences to be more brainy than mashing some button or two. We see several instances of protagonists fencing some opponent in the trailer (Guybrush vs. Swordmaster, Guybrush vs. LeChuck, Elaine vs. Mystery Pirate Lady with square collar), so it's a given that there will be some form of repetitive mechanic tied to swordfighting. We're being shown a fencing animation while there's some clever other thing you're doing that decides who wins. Which really could be anything. We've been discussing the "collect your crew" trope before and the consensus (more or less) was that it has become a trope / necessity / stereotype / meme in the Monkey Island series only with Curse, the game that first repeated the TSoMI-era puzzle. If Ron's not into repetition here, that would be appreciated. It's not just that Wally is back that excites me. He's a mapmaker again and I love maps! Making him a wannabe pirate like Guybrush was a bad idea. I also don't want him to have any magical powers, making maps is magically enough. It's a literal superpower that far surpasses voodoo and only Wally possesses it. The Screaming Narwhal wasn't a bad ship. It was in fact a very good ship, it just had a lot of recycled and repurposed parts. Whatever Guybrush's on for ReMI is rock bottom. This thing has its steering wheel literally tied to its bow with ropes. I'm not even sure it's a complete ship ( ... the wheel is usually at the stern 🤣). Maybe it doesn't even have a sail. Ron writes the grumpy characters. Murray is a very grumpy character. I think I can do the math.

In some German forum that I'll definitely frequent much less in the future, I've seen this petition badmouthed as the work of "children" that are somehow on the same level as the "children" that put hateful content in the commentary section of Ron's blog. The execution may be a bit raw, the 'petition' idea a bit silly, the English a bit crude and the focus a bit wrong as Kestrel has noted, but it still is a push in the right direction, an organized spearhead of positive emotion. I don't think I'll sign it for now, but I think it's absolutely all right that it exists.

I've gone through all the youtube comments. Yes, there are those three, in short succession, and I totally understand why it makes no difference that they're in the minority. That's the thing with toxic comments. With toxicity, you don't need 50% poison in your blood stream for it to become lethal. Much less suffices. Coolest comment translated for all those who don't speak German: grdguardian: Good morning, this is nicely done, but there are some, you know, mistakes in regards to content. Was that done on purpose? Marius: I know, the fisherman accidentally has two pipes. Some mistake with the layers. A comment I also had to shrug about was the dude who felt entitled to have a German version before the English. Because you're German, apparently that only comes with duties, not privileges. Why would you serve the larger international audience first when your domestic audience is thirsting for this? 😆 Has it really just been 13 years since the Tales? It feels like 130. Maybe I'm way too nostalgic, maybe there was a horrific backlash when Telltale showed its first scenes from Tales. I just looked up the first trailer on Telltale's youtube channel though, and about the most negative thing I found was "I definitely prefer the 2D hand-drawn look. Especially in Curse'! That doesn't kill my excitement for this latest installment though. ". And seriously, Telltale's graphic style was no less of a shock to lifelong fans than Terrible Toybox'. People were more polite and thankful for Monkey Island to return. So maybe this is the age of entitlement, whining, right-wing disregard of other people's feelings, and destruction of fun for everybody else. Maybe this is why we can't have good things. But it's also the age of interpassivity, and that's a soothing thought. It's an era in which we watch reaction videos to intensify our joy in narrative media. Joy created through other people's enjoyment, a perpetual motion device of positivity! And back on April 4th, I wasn't just royally fucking hyped because a new Monkey Island was announced, this hype was much intensified by your reaction video. It wasn't just "Monkey Island is back", it was "Majus is back" as well. Back in the Tales timeline, those 130 years ago, it wasn't even Telltale's episode trailers, it's been the IwwhiToMI series of Flash videos that was getting people infinitely hyped. The wait between episodes was excruciating, people were racing to the finish line and then suddenly there was the trampoline for our excitement, these Flash vids (and of course, the "I'm more piratey than you" video). You had yourself baked into that fandom and into the whole Monkey Island legacy. Dave is so right for retweeting everything you do. Think Monkey Island, think Marius. This new Flash vid is incredible. All the good of the old plus guest star. I don't think I would have drawn so damn much fan art in my life if it wasn't for you showing the world that some people and some franchises deserve that devotion, and the joy it brings to me for just throwing myself into a new piece regardless of the outcome quality. So, yeah, I hate seeing you down like that. I understand why these comments sting, disproportionately so. I really want to play Bud Spencer, banging the heads of those youtube commenters together. But we can't be Bud or Batman, we can only ever be Barbara Streisand. And that means the only path open to us is to smack them silly with positivity. To not even react to the negativity in any way, but just place a ridiculously positive comment right beneath. I think I can do it. In part, you showed me how. Oh, and by the way. My friend was overjoyed, and treated this with love and care, but put it behind glass, and it's been over a 100 years now, so it's a bit bleached out. Maybe you can make a new one one of these days.