Vainamoinen

Sure, here we go.

Kickoff theory: The Monkey Island series is and always was set 1000 years in the future. There was an apocalyptic weather event right on what is now called Monkey Island that brought civilisation as we know it to an end. But what we know as Monkey Island today was actually a much larger island that broke in three: Monkey Island, Brr Muda and Melee Island. The original Pangaekey Island held weather in balance, but now that it's broken, Brr Muda has become this icy thingamagig. Way back when Melee Island was of course called "Meltee Island" for obvious reasons. Return to Monkey Island is about joining these islands again and fixing the climate catastrophe.

This time, Ron (not Dave) is going to show off a short scene with Elaine in an environment with an unsurpassed plethora of extremely cute critters in it. The scene will be on Monkey Island™, but they're not telling us of course. There will be a bit of new music in it, but Elaine will mostly talk over it, so the new motif can't grab hold of your brain. Guybrush and Elaine are caught in some kind of battle of wits, we don't quite know the exact context, but it seems like Elaine is winning again. They're not showing the UI, but they're using scenes from the Mac version again so there will be an extra black mouse pointer present. There, you can de-hype for now. 😇

Trailer tally: 32 🏴‍☠️ MIM tomorrow!

And beyond LeChuck just being an evil dude. He might not even be the main villain of this one. Heck, there might not even be a main villain. The website notably does not suggest that we'll be working within the old "LeChuck has new evil plan, Guybrush thwarts evil plan, end of game" paradigm again. Breaking that paradigm might be the decisive step towards a game with "deep currents" – in which the central emotional core of the narrative works, in which the protagonist is humanized through his struggles instead of being a mere projection figure. Or it could just be another Weltraumliebewachzauberkrieg. 👽

What if we have the choice to free either Stan or Otis from prison?

And Cruff.

It it's LeChuck, that would mean that it's not the same voice as Judge Plank, which in turn would mean that Judge Plank is not an alias of LeChuck! And it's so embarrassing when my bold predictions go wrong. 😔 It might be Elaine, which is dangerous spoiler terrain, because her whereabouts, calling and relationship to our protagonist is still very much an enigma. ... I think it's Elaine. But I'd be ready for a deliberately falsified teaser (like for "The Siege of Spinner Cay". That was awesome.)

I thought about it. I actually want them to be called Michael, Clint and Peter. If they give her a more sinister vibe without being outright evil, I'd be absolutely okay with it. But I never saw the Telltale 'revelation' as anything besides part of LeChuck's plan to break up the heroes' bond.

I think I'm ready for a new trailer now. Maybe you remember the first adventure gamers interview? It wasn't specific at all, but at least when I read those lines, I thought "Herman family Star Wars gazongas" immediately. Dave: "And the other caveat is that too much canon can get in the way of the story you’re trying to tell, so we decided that we would adhere to canon unless it was going to get in the way, and we would ignore some minor details if we needed to."

Every franchise should treat every instalment, episode, movie, or game title in the series like it is the final one and wrap up everything neatly and tidily. I say that because storytelling nowadays seems to consist of nothing but unresolved foreshadowing, plot twists that never make sense, character arcs that are never completed until the actor leaves and they kill him off, sudden stupid cliffhangers, red threads lost and found, a gazillion between and after credits teasers, stories that tend to end in the middle and have never even begun. Lots of friction always ending in the status quo. Story hooks and story hooks but never resolution, never closure because they're not letting you off that hook. It doesn't really matter whether Return to Monkey Island is "planned" as the last part. If it sells badly, it will be the last part, and if it sells well, it won't be. Even if Dave and Ron kill off Guybrush and Elaine in the last scene (I mean a good, visible, undeniable "Beyond Time and Space" character death), and ReMI sells well, in two years somebody will have them both pulling a Ripley, a Westley, a Shepard, or a Spock. Thesis: You can not "conclude" a truly successful serialized narrative. No, you're quite right. I would alway favor the exciting new narrative from the same creator. Sadly, it's not how the market works. The license drives the sales. Make a new franchise, no one gives a ship. The positive outlook is of course: (1) More Monkey Island from Dave and Ron? Where do I have to sign with my own blood? (2) One of the core reasons we're so excited is that it's A NEW MONKEY ISLAND BY RON AND DAVE. If Ron ever had the license for Monkey Island, he would have made a new one every few years. This is new, this is fresh, this is exciting because the series was dead for 13 years and returns to Ron after 31 years. (3) I've long held that belief, i.e. that a truly satisfying instalment in a generations old franchise is indeed impossible. Then I watched Blade Runner 2049. Maybe it's the one in a thousand sequel, but even if it is, other sequels should get the same chance.

I hope that the sizable number of spoken lines (we're talking three quarters of Mass Effect 2 here 😃 ) means we'll get a sizable number of locations to explore. It would be a bit of a disappointment if Mêlée Island is limited to docks, lookout point and governor's mansion, especially since there wouldn't be an overview map (SACRILEGE). I want all the overview maps. Mêlée, Monkey, Brr Muda, Terror Island + Dread's map. In fact, I'd love to control the ship a bit more directly on the overview map! I'm kind of interested in returning to Stan's old shop. According to Stan on the website, these ships all sunk to the ground, so that would be an absolutely terrific location for somebody with ten minute air reserve lungs to explore. I'm pretty convinced that Dave and Ron wouldn't just redo two entirely known islands and then add two more with just one or two locations on top. They know that this won't do the trick. There has to be a balance between the nostalgia and new, shocking and exciting – and they've struck the right chords for that with the graphic style already.

Correct, the TSoMI Special Edition rolling credits calls them "Pirate Leader I", "Pirate Leader II" and "Pirate Leader III". With the particular way Guybrush stumbles through the world, I'm uncertain whether they finally get names though.

Ohhhh Tim would sue their asses off. 🤣

"Towering one in the middle" is a good guess though. 😄

Quick question: Did we have another character name reveal without me noticing? https://monkeyisland.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_Madison Where was she called "Captain Madison"?

Morgan LeFlay can strictly speaking be considered a henchperson of the Marquis, so Morgan LeFlay it is.

Octoburp the Burpteenth it is. Not surprisingly, a Thursday! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Clearly, the storekeeper was evicted by Stan for owing him 5,000 pieces'o'eight. 😱

So the plot of Return is that Guybrush has a diminished lung capacity from drinking too much grog and he can't even win a belching contest let alone hold his breath for three minutes. His sole superpower is GONE and we still have a game. Take that, Marvel! By the way, I had this scene on repeat in the background now for 15 minutes. Something is wrong with me. Somehow I have the feeling that the solution to this puzzle is the longest belch in history, and that @Dmnkly intends to tell us that he got it right on the first take. 🤭

I see we are going back to the basics. 😅

Precious few reply with the correct answer. But the people who understood "What video games do you want [us to make] real hard [difficult]?" sure are hilarious.

Mind blown - 🤯 - thank you! That completes the picture! I've been following McCaig's blog back in 2010 when he was posting a bit of art instruction. Unfortunately his blog is dead now, but man he's so great. I visited his short and sweet artstation account just now, and although he switched to digital in the meantime, I still think he wields the stylus like paintbrush. Occasionally a traditionally painted piece steals the show. His watercolors especially because those leave no room for mistakes. A whole lot of artists study themselves in the mirror for facial expressions, so a partial likeness is something that does occasionally happen as a happy accident.

Some time ago, I stumbled on the tidbit that some (most? all?) of these portraits were actual LucasArts employees. Life really sparked from those closeups, from the Swordmaster, Elaine, Sophia Hapgood's newspaper picture. They ruined it all for the special edition of TSoMI of course, because that's a horrifically tricky rights situation. Today, the portraits are a reminder that the carefree can-do attitude of the LucasArts adventure crew is gone forever, and that adventure games today will absolutely have to innovate because they can not go back to what is impossible today.