Garystu

If the trailer is any indication, its just rehashing SoMI's Greatest Hits TM in full 3D. Sounds like something that would have been really novel for 2003. I understand the novelty, but yeah. I'll also probably stick to watching it on YouTube. Not onboarding onto a GaaS just for this. a part of me wants to be excited for Rare developing a Monkey Island thing but im not. oh well

I saw the Maniac Mansion run live. I got a bit worried when I saw the speedrunner get frustrated, but they didnt let frustration stop them and finished out the run. Its just good showmanship. And of course, Frozenspade is always a good watch at a GDQ. He's just really good at both performing a speedrun and giving live commentary, and this is no exception. Its a bit of a shame we couldn't hear the live audience during the song, but it doesn't matter that much.

Congrats on the quarter century! 🥳

Thank you for the recent update! ❤ Would it be possible to get an infinite lives option for the game? I just want to run through all the questions, and not get stopped.

I only saw the first two Terminator movies recently. I had no idea he was in them. I enjoyed them. I hope Earl Boen enjoyed his retirement, I hope he got a ton of painkillers for the cancer. Rest in peace.

Ron Gilbert posted an early (2020) RTMI puzzle dependancy chart on his blog. https://www.grumpygamer.com/rtmi_pdc There's a few interesting things here, including that the Loom guy was going to be involved in a puzzle, and the cannibals were going to return. Widey Bones may have been called Brother Jack, or a different character named Brother Jack may have filled her role at this stage.

I was poking around the games images with Thimblemonkey (Thanks @Didero ❤️ ) and stumbled onto this image. It's titled PickupEvidenceCU-hd.ktxbz, and shows a closeup of Guybrush's hands and a shovel on a shelf. I'm not sure where this appears in-game. And with the shovel breakdown post in the Details of RTMI thread, i'm even more confused. Where does this happen? I'll just post the image.

I think it looks like the carnival/playground Boybrush is in at the beginning of the game. Maybe it could have been the scurvy dogs store, though Boybrush's imagination? But there could be a Cogg Island connection, given the calender in the background (near the cash register). It looks like an observation telescope on top a hill to me. We know Cogg Island itself wasn't going to have NPCs (stated in Ron's interview with Cressup) so it could be for some daytime Melee/Cogg thing? Or it could have been a nice-looking but abandoned store on Cogg itself. If there is anything to that line of Melee/Cogg speculation to begin with of course.

To discuss parts of the interview that weren't about the ending: I'm glad the interview clarified the rumours regarding Cogg and Terror Islands, and cut content. Having a Myst-like area in MI would have been an interesting choice, but I'm glad the team spent their focus on polishing things that mattered more. I understand their decision. I really want to see all the early art. Somebody leak an early build please. I never felt like Terror Island had cut content? It always felt like it was intentionally a self contained puzzle in a bottle, a deliberate break from the more elaborate island-hopping puzzles of that chapter. But I know those rumours have been spreading, so its good to see them cleared up. Elaine game... I would really love an Elaine game. I think its good to see the team worry about how to communicate her personality though gameplay and puzzle solving. But I do hope it's not leading to choice paralysis. We've never had access to Elaine's inner thoughts before, and I'd buy most thought processes for Elaine so long as they were consistent with how she has appeared on the outside. She could be a huge incompetent dork everywoman in her inner monologue, and I wouldn't mind, as long as her actions insofar as others perceive her were consistent with past depictions. But I think its great how seriously Ron takes getting her right, and I wouldn't want him to take it less seriously either. I also want to see Guybrush from the outside, how does he look when we're not playing as him? RTMI gave us a little peek in cutscenes, but not really. However, if Elaine Game never happens, I suppose I'll settle for Guybrush Kart. I'm just teasing myself and shouldn't be expecting anything actually and I know that, but

Yes, it was! And that's part of why it sucked to have that trope echoed in Elaine again and again. It stopped feeling like a subversive twist, and like she was actually just a frequent damsel in distress who sometimes happened to sneak in a girlboss moment before endgame. Because in order to subvert the trope over and over, the writers had to put her in the damsel position over and over! And Elaine shouldn't be a damsel in distress. Like you said, she wasn't to begin with. And its why I really hope we don't ever see her in that role again, if we see any more new entries in the Monkey Island series.

You could say its a secret... a secret of monkey Island!

Elaine has been a mothering partner to a childish husband in the past and that was tedious (insert EMI bashing here)! Elaine is just as in fantasy as her fantasist husband. And right now, in RTMI, she's a supporting, loving, and equal partner. RTMI is a narrative half-coming from a guy who never wanted Guybrush and Elaine to even get together in the first place, and its the best romance the couple has ever had. It's put all past depictions of their relationship to shame. Its completely changed my view on their romance in the past, and I even liked the couple before. I do wonder how people who didn't like the couple are parsing this. Guybrush and Elaine could have been broken up or on the rocks in RTMI, but instead Ron and Dave knocked their romance out of the fucking part. Damn. PS: Jesus christ I am glad Elaine didn't have a Damsel in Distress™ moment in RTMI. It stopped being cute after the first one in SOMI. I hope she never has another one again. i'm serious, i will be so mad if

Has the dust settled? The game hasn't even been out for a month. ah well,so I don't know where I'd place this game compared to the other MI games. I voted "religious experience" although I don't think it was that world-changing for me, it was a very very good game. That was the "positive option without invoking comparisons" so that's why I voted for that one. Honestly though? RTMI is my fave game in the series right now. That's 100% newness bias and I know it, but its how I really feel at this moment. Anyway any of my initial misgivings about the art style were cringe of me. I mean I never hated it and was willing to give it a try, but that was an understatement because it was cute and beautiful from start to finish. I came in with tempered expectations, and they were all exceeded and crushed and smashed and destroyed. The art was SO GOOD. ending discussion (implied spoilers, I don't state anything concrete but implied spoilers are still spoilers):

It really was all about the friends we made along the way.

⚠️‼️ RTMI ending spoilers ‼️⚠️

Making the Scorched Alaska hot. For whatever reason, I became fixated on somehow filling the empty demon pepper shaker as a solution, and wasn't considering all possibilities. The quarantine form wasn't a roadblock to me, but I did solve it by accident. I tried once legitimately, and failed. Then I thought "I bet there's a trick to this" and "it would be funny to only select the last option and see what happens, a massive failure might give me some good info towards solving the puzzle" or something like that. And I got it right away. I was so surprised it was so funny. Thats some trivia for you. You don't have to tick that you have limes on the form. The judge will give you a line of dialogue saying he'll fill that bit out for you, if you didn't select it.

guybrush tells the story directly to me (like this)

I have a save file just before that point, so I tried some different routes through the dialogue tree with Wally out. And you're right, you can talk to Wally and not get the line one he's freed. Good catch + my bad. I'm think asking Wally about why his office was ransacked, and then thanking him for the mop map, makes Wally connect the dots and you get the dialogue after you free him. Which is the order you do things in if you just go through the dialogue tree top to bottom. So if Wally says these lines, he'll then ask you to get out of his life after he's freed. If he doesn't say them, he'll run off silently. I'm pretty sure, anyway. From like five minutes testing a few different dialogue tree paths While i'm making screenshots, here's the screenshots of what Wally says while shackled up and if you actually paid for the sea map (in a spoiler to save space)

People have discussed setting accounts with Wally already, but his dialogue in the scene at the end where he's chained up also changes a little bit based on if you paid him or not. If you don't pay him, Guybrush mentions how Wally did all that work for free. If you do pay him, Guybrush says the sea map was expensive, but it all worked out. Then Wally questions what Guybrush means by "everything working out". Also, if you free Wally without talking to him first, he doesn't tell Guybrush to get out of his life. He doesn't say anything, and silently just runs off.

Wikipedia says the first videogame escape room game was a 1988 text adventure. The genre seems to have really taken off in the early to mid 00s though, which does match my personal experiences, but the early to mid 00s is also when I saw A Lot of gaming for the first time so I don't have a clear perspective. Modern escape rooms were inspired by a subgenre of adventure video games, which is really fun to think about! ...In the context of a fan theory which I don't really agree with. Or even have strong feelings about liking or disliking. "Is monkey island an escape room?" idk, no strong feelings from me tbh. Oh Well.! I could just talk about escape rooms, is all. I mean to some extent, of course Monkey Island has always been like an Escape Room. Like a platformer is like parkour, like an FPS is like extreme paintball. I know the fan theory here is trying to make a deeper connection and I get that, but.

briefs? no ,those are boxer short shorts.

I don't believe Guybrush, Elaine, and Stan are the real ones, with all other characters being cutouts. Why? Because we saw those three as cutouts at PAX and Gamescom. Uh I didn't in person but I saw photos on Twitter link link. Guybrush, Elaine, and Stan are as fake and as real as the rest of the cast. Yes, we have to consider real world memorabilia in this reading. Just before we were shown the cutouts in game, we had to solve SOMI's codewheel, so considering real world memorabilia is on the menu here. It feels so arbitrary to denote those three as real. Guybrush and Elaine I get, but I can't accept an ending when Stan is real. Stan is an important reoccurring character, yes, but he's a cartoon of a man! Yes they all are, but Stan especially! He will NEVER be real to me 😊. Also, how is Chuckie related to LeChuck? Is it solely though Boybrush's imagination? A common read, but. Maybe LeChuck also had a son who became friends with Guybrush's son, and they are both picturing themselves as their fathers in their imagination? And if LeChuck had a son, I don't know how an anamatromic would reproduce. A lot of "what ifs" here, to be fair. I get being let down and/or wanting more lore and clarification. That's me, in some regards. Ambiguity can be difficult to deal with. I felt full from the story overall, but I understand being left feeling empty. It is funny to consider the lime poster conversation as the most real conversation in the entire game though. You and your very real buddies getting together to vent about covid deniers and do arts and crafts. good times

I actually love this? The You Suck Speech is a tried and proven trope in video gaming. Metal Gear Solid did it twenty or so years ago. Hotline Miami did it. Spec Ops: The Line did it. Undertale was considered incredibly subversive, because you got a choice to suck or not, and that's its a sign of how common a forced You Suck speech is. There's way more games too, my point is that Games Do This. So I was also primed for this confrontation and blindsighted when I didn't get it. It is was concerning! You'd done some really horrible things, and it felt wrong to have Elaine just shrug it off like that! This is where she should be ripping into you! The scene is very close to the ending. When you reach the theme park, you understand. Of course she shrugs these things off. Don't take it so seriously! It's a game. At least that's how I saw it. There's problems with this reading as well, but because there's always problems with readings of a meta story with an unreliable narrator. If you turn on the character names in the subtitles, that's the name displayed for Boybrush.

I think it would have been funnier if Boybrush and Chuckie were actually brothers. Those would have been some wild genetics, and a funny naming method for your two children. Oh well. In an MI continuity where Guybrush and Elaine didn't get married, I think its very likely Dee would have instead been baby Elaine in the park. This is just personal speculation of course. But still. It's a good thing Guybrush and Elaine did get married, or we wouldn't have been treated to those amazing anchor facts. I don't think Elaine would have known that much about anchors. Nobody knows more than Dee.

I haven't gone for this either, but there's two guides on Steam. (note to lurkers: both these guides contain full game spoilers) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2866331468 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=286760748 Sorry if you already saw these. Actual speedrunners seem to have a community-imposed embargo on themselves, although it sounds like they're already talking in their discord. https://www.speedrun.com/return_to_monkey_island/news/2561 I understand their decision is for the good of their community and agree with it. It is bit of a shame for achievement hunters currently, oh well. Though actual speedrunners tend to use more demanding techniques, I'm really curious as to what details their routing will provide. It could still be of use to those of us seeking the achievement. We'll find out I guess. Just gotta wait a week.