Staple Remover

I for one am very disappointed, we were promised the voice of a character we were excited to hear speak and she didn’t say anything!

I think Return to Monkey Island will have Guybrush searching for the secretory of monkey island, accessible by 3 stone disks hidden throughout the Caribbean. He will partner with Elaine, who now has a voodoo necklace associated with a voodoo god and together they island hop to retrieve them before LeChuck and his ghost army. Long story short, the secret of Monkey Island turns out to be orichalcum.

I’m curious if this finale will address the cliffhanger set up in Tales regarding the voodoo lady setting up Guybrush and LeChuck, that was always something I was eager to see addressed in a future Tales sequel.

I wasn’t a fan of it in Thimbleweed Park, but I did love the Ransom uncensored DLC for being a new “version” of the game.

My vote is Hardtack from Tales. He smelled good and looks great in a wig.

Where the lite version of the game loses me is by obtaining Lindys map piece for 100 pieces of eight. I think by trading the plaque for 6000 pieces of eight and obtaining the map at that price would be a sufficient lite puzzle. The drinking puzzle is a good one too, I think that’s a pretty big omission. The bone song is just fun and creepy and it should be in this version.

After a recent playthrough, I have developed the wildly unpopular opinion that If they included the spitting contest and the bone song, the Monkey Island 2 lite version would be a better than the regular.

Someone tell me I’m reading too hard into this, but I’m suspecting a big drop on Monday.

I’ve started my MI run backwards from Tales and working my way to end with MI1. I’ve scribbled my notes for so far. I’ve finished Tales and EMI and I shared my general musings. I’ll share more as I continue onto Curse. Tales - so many good puzzles on Ep. 1, the getting onto the Narwhal and De Singe’s lab are the top ones - was Davy Nipperkin axed in the later episodes due to public reaction to the character or because there was no use for him in the story? - the audio jungle maze was always a miss for me, I can never get the cues correct. - the Ep. 1 cliffhanger was such a fun time on the telltale forums, with everyone speculating if it was Kate or Carla. That was one of the best (or only) benefits of the episodic gaming, getting the community invested in a game long term (insert Half Life 3 joke). - Ep. 2 does feel the most off out of all of them, human LeChuck is a delight. - the face making contest in Ep 3 may be too silly, but it makes for a great insult swordfighting replacement, as is the duel in Ep. 5 - Ep. 4 is perfect. - Ep. 5 is the only time besides MI2 that we get a proper final act in the series. - the Crossroads/MI2 tunnels theme is a top 3 for me for the music). EMI - I like the artwork overall, it gives it a fun environment. - Melee is sorely lacking from the predecessor, and is always a slow point in the game. - the “cushy government jobs” is a prime example of punishing the player with a bait-and-switch solution. Having to look in a different angle of the room to find it is cruel. - best VO cast out of the entire series. Nearly every top voice actor at the time was featured in this game. - Mysts O Tyme runs way too long as a puzzle and the tank controls don’t help - Jambalaya Island/Knuttin Atoll is the best section of this game. - I love the idea of Planet Threepwood, referencing past adventures/memorabilia and the mythology of Guybrush threepwood, while nobody really believes that Guybrush is actually him. This and the Church of LeChuck make for fun dialogue. - I actually found the Starbucks jokes funny in 2022, and I have to get my sense of humor checked out now. - Miss Rivers is the absolute greatest. - Monkey Island is… well they make a great case for wanting to escape from it. - Church of LeChuck is hilarious, and the lava flume dialogue is so funny it makes up for the infuriating navigation of it so I can hear Guybrush singing. - I’ve made peace with Monkey Kombat, the robot, H.T., but I stand by my claim that if Dante Alighieri wrote about Adventure Games, he would place this puzzle in the lowest circle of hell right next to the Grim Fandango signpost puzzle. 10x worse than Monkey Kombat.

The Judge acts and sounds like he’s straight out of MI2, and it’s nice to hear more of Guybrush again!

We got a dialogue tree! And VO in action!

So… on a scale of Slim to None, what’s the likelihood of a Demo happening? I know that demos are becoming more archaic for game development/releases, but every Monkey Island game (citation needed) had a demo in the past. It might not be too far-fetched to expect one on a MI Monday drop?

I think it will be Guybrush saying “I can’t pick that up.”

It is so interesting watching someone brand new to the genre play the SCUMM engine games, because so many of them struggle with the verbs, whereas it seems like second nature to all of us that grew up with the interface.

That music is incredible! And the Melee dock is looking great! I need this game out already, it looks too good to be not playing already!

There seems to be a lot of hype around Monkey Island Mondays…

I really want the Fate of Atlantis box set to include a box full of orichalcum beads and a wad of chewed gum 🤣

In today’s “news for the slow news day”, the Thimbleweed Park account switched over to become the Terrible Toybox account, I have a feeling we will be seeing even more good times and free grog headed our way!

I’m very excited for the prospect of #monkeyislandmonday! Maybe we’ll be getting closer to the release than we thought!

Slight off-topic but I had the pleasure of working with Larry briefly on a work project. I had to do my best to not “fanboy” over his work but I told him how much I enjoyed CMI, and he was very polite and great to work with!

Did Jesse Harlin’s cover of the Maniac Mansion theme ever surface? I’ve been looking for it for awhile on the web.

I would be so excited if that happened. I really enjoyed the fan made Maniac Mansion Deluxe, but this would be so great to see.

I would love a remaster of Zac McKracken but I’m also a wimp and would want a mode where I won’t run out of money in the game.