[Tips for Speedrunners]

Switch has a "period" button for ending sentences, but I don't think it's possible to skip cutscenes? I'm a little surprised because I thought they had talked to speedrunners about suggestions; it's strange that there'd be no way to skip cutscenes.

[Tips for Speedrunners]

23 minutes ago, LowLevel said:

I protest. I reached what I consider to be an ending but I didn't get the Steam achievement.

 

It turns out that that ending doesn't count for the achievement. 😐

Drowned yourself in Part 2, eh?

[Return to Monkey Island 🚨GAME-WIDE🚨 Spoiler Chat]

11 minutes ago, Hube said:

I kind of wish they had done a little more with Dark Magic as an element of the plot... It would have been cool to see a Dark Magic/Occult LeChuck  of some sort

Just finishing Part 3... Lila uses Dark Magic for both the disguise and "decrypting" the map... both instances involve using personal information to steal the identity of someone else for access. First Gullet, then LeChuck.

[Throwaway lines and gags in MI games, that actually weren't]

21 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

On my recent playthrough of MI2 I noticed SO many references to it being a video game. Not sure how that fits in...

Last night the kids and I finished Part 3 of the new game. When you look at the wreckage of the Sea Monkey, Guybrush comments that it's the Sea Monkey "from Monkey Island 1".

 

So yeah, Daddy Guybrush just referenced being in a video game to Boybrush, and neither of them batted an eye.

[Details of Return to Monkey Island]

18 hours ago, Thrik said:

This is from the pre-release thread but it’s still compelling I think, especially given Ron’s cryptic post on Twitter a while back asking why Guybrush arrives on Melee Island via the arch and not via the docks — something he does again in Return.

 

 

* Archway? Park entrance?

* Guybrush and blind Melee lookout stand in the same place as Guybrush and deaf Booty lookout relative to the entrance?

* Big Whoop is Booty Town but also not? And in Return now a seaside park too?

* Big Whoop ticket desk is Captain Dread’s ship?

* Guybrush arrives on Melee expecting weenies, which happen to be next to the Big Whoop entrance?

* You also start Monkey Island 2 next to a weenie shop?????

Add to this: Elaine is the governor at the mansion.

[Throwaway lines and gags in MI games, that actually weren't]

51 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

On my recent playthrough of MI2 I noticed SO many references to it being a video game. Not sure how that fits in...

 

I wasn't remembering examples, so I just went through the text dump of MI2. Whoa, boy!

 

Clearly the story of the Monkey Island universe is about a person named Guybrush Threepwood who wants to be a pirate... as imagined by Guybrush while in an amusement park and/or local park and/or small town... and/or as narrated by Guybrush years later to his son... and/or as playacted and retold by his son with his friends who also edit the stories... as presented in a series of video games by different teams of developers across multiple decades, with original concept conceived by Ron Gilbert because, of course, the entire saga is a fictional video game series.

 

-----
 

To the Men of Fiber: "You tried to sell me the minutes of a PTA meeting in the last game, claiming it was a map."

The water pump: "What is this doing in a pirate game?"

To Rum Rogers: "Wow, this game's a cinch."

 

At the Mad Monkey: "Considering this game has no drop verb, I'm doomed."

 

In LeChuck's Fortress: "There is no way, not even in an adventure game that I'd be able to get all those locks open."

 

Asking LeChuck questions over acid: "Why do adventure games cost so much?"

Dinky Hint Line: Everything, but especially: "I'm lost in the Dinky Island jungle in Monkey II."

[Return to Monkey Island = Twin Peaks: The Return (change my mind)]

I started watching Twin Peaks when it streamed on Netflix. I was in the middle of Season 2 when it was removed.

[Throwaway lines and gags in MI games, that actually weren't]

Anything featuring a modern anachronism (e.g. grog machine). Anything referencing that they're pretending to be pirates (e.g. pirate lingo, play along!). Anything that resembles a small town (e.g. Chamber of Commerce). Anything resembling a theme park or different theme park "lands", especially in MI2. Anything that feels like a tonal shift - from goofy and childish to dark and adult, both in Guybrush himself and the universe itself, can be credited to having both adult and child narrators and playactors.

 

So I have a relevant question for all of you. In the Prelude, we see Boybrush and Chucky fight on a "stage" while Dee watches and comments. Can we assume that references to the fourth wall (e.g. "Who are you talking to?" with Herman) and stage performance itself (e.g. all the world's a stage, and we are actors, from the Men of Fiber and presumably Herman) can be connected to them playing in front of an audience?

 

The latter reference to the world being a stage could indicate just that the Men of Fiber are among the animatronics.

[Achievements]

EDIT: LowLevel just referred to the Galaxy Quest story, and I missed it. Ha. /EDIT
 

I'm also remembering a part of the film Galaxy Quest. The premise is that our main characters were actors on a show like Star Trek. A group of aliens saw the episodes of this show and thought it was real; they recreated their starship in a working fashion and got the main characters to be their heroes. At one point in the film, Tim Allen's character has to get through a crazy dangerous part of the ship. He ends up calling a group of crazy fanboys (who were asking annoying questions at a convention earlier and were way too obsessed with a fictional show), and these fanboys use detailed schematics they made of the ship and are able to guide him through safely.

 

EDIT: The curator feels like a swing taken at obsessive fanboys. The factcthat he gets details wrong specifically reminds me of the guy.brush story... but it feels a little unkind to us. To better reflect obsessive fans, I feel like the museum curator would have jumped on information Guybrush gave him and harass him for more (that fits the version of guy.brush story that I hear; fans love to be given new information).

Then he could ask Guybrush specifics that nobody knows or care about, like: "Did you really meet a Bob, Joe, and Larry impaled on Monkey Island? How did you know their names?" 

[Return to Monkey Island 🚨GAME-WIDE🚨 Spoiler Chat]

When I first heard about literal "escape rooms", it definitely felt like they had inspiration from adventure games. They even use some of the same moon logic.

[Your favorite Monkey Island game]

I need to see someone put Escape first with Curse as last. Then, I think I've seen each combination.

[Achievements]

A formative event in my young adulthood was watching the DVD commentaries for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Cleese, Idle, Gilliam, Jones, and Palin were spread across two different commentaries, you see.

 

At one point, a couple of them are laughing and remembering as a new scene comes up. They start quoting the scene. And they quote the scene wrong. They quote the scene wrong, a bunch.

 

A little part of my fanbrain is still working it all out. But it was formative for me in realizing: these creators have given us tremendous gifts and shown immense brilliance in creating them. In many cases, it has been a labor of love and a bit of their lives. However, it has not been the entirety of their lives. Because they are healthy humans, it was not even the focal point of their lives. It was a job... maybe a job they enjoyed, and maybe one that they still remember fondly. But it was a career and a creation - it was not a hobby.

1 hour ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

My two favourite things in the world (Twin Peaks and Monkey Island) got decades later follow-ups and conclusions. I think I'm a bit done with looking backwards. Maybe it's time to focus on finding new things to fall in love with...

If you played Sonic the Hedgehog, then Sonic Mania is safe. Shovel Knight is also good for a hodgepodge of NES feels, but reddit tells me the jury's still out on its latest sequel.

[Achievements]

1 minute ago, Radogol said:

The second time you could actually drown, you mean?

 

I mean, Guybrush can (or must!) die to some degree in every game in the series. You can drown in Secret and Return and you can be dissolved by acid in LeChuck’s Revenge. You “die” in Curse because of mixing alcohol with medicine and you really, literally die in Tales (spoilers, heh). In Escape, there’s a time travel puzzle that allows you to straight up shoot a version of Guybrush and create a time paradox.

 

I guess my point is that Escape is underrated and would probably be lovely to play with a mouse, like Grim Fandango Remastered

Indeed, I meant to say "get a Game Over" rather than "die"! 😆

 

I do enjoy Escape.

[Niggles of Return to Monkey Island]

1 hour ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

I love ReMI, but I also need a place to discuss my niggles (and they are only niggles... very trivial annoyances that don't stop the overall enjoyment of the game).

 

Here's one... 

 

 

and yes, one gives you a "wrong" answer

 

I think the Special Edition has the graveyard scene with boxers, but I could be wrong. I've had enjoyable conversations about how these scenes suggest Guybrush is actually changing his underwear behind the scenes, as days pass.

 

Ron was strongly behind the graveyard scene, so is the correct answer Briefs?

[Achievements]

5 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

The fans...

 

For example, in MI1 if you try to claim you work for Stan cleaning his ships ("I clean ships over at Stan's used ship yard"), you're immediately shut down: "I haven't seen a clean ship over there in years."

 

In ReMI: "This is the bucket Stan used to use to clean his ships."

 

All of us are going to like or dislike different things with this. So you may never be satisfied on this topic (just as I may never be able to look at the game's character art without becoming furious or sad).

 

For me? For me, the Prelude set the tone for this game: it isn't going to be perfectly consistent. I shouldn't expect it to be perfectly consistent. They're going to sort of try, and they're going to be consistent in SOME areas... but it isn't their priority. If we can, we should leave that expectation behind at the "scary door" that 'Brush and Chucky came out of.

It's not my favorite kind of story. But... I think it is the story, and where the creators are coming from.

[Your Current Headcanons]

Game info: the Big Whoop map pieces

- Upper left is Lindy's piece (with a compass rose), which Guybrush bought at the Booty Boutique

- Upper right is Rapp's piece (with the X on it), which Guybrush received from Rapp

- Lower left is Rogers' piece (with the landing site and Rogers' arm still attached), which Guybrush found below his cabin

- Lower right is Marley's piece, which Guybrush found in Elaine's possession

 

All four pieces were last possessed by LeChuck's forces after they were seized from Wally.

 

- The piece in Guybrush's scrapbook is Lindy's piece, its compass rose still visible.

- The piece in the museum is Rapp's piece, the curator having acquired it from Wally, but the zoomed-out nature makes it unclear whether the big X is still visible.

 

HEADCANON 1: Wally reacquired Rapp's map piece because it landed near him when the Fortress exploded.

HEADCANON 2: The big X on Rapp's piece has faded away with time. It wouldn't be visible on a zoom-in.

HEADCANON 3: Guybrush saw Lindy's piece in a store recently at a very low price because it was old/obsolete, and he happily rebought it.

 

This final headcanon mirrors the handful of instances when, in adulthood, I've rebought old games or game rereleases that I had in childhood but had lost or garage-sold. I like to think that Guybrush literally purchased this map piece on two occasions, decades apart.

[Achievements]

22 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

I really don't understand this achievement. If Guybrush tries to down himself during Monkey 2, he simply swims back to the top for air. It feels like Ron and Dave forgot this.

I feel you on this theme.

But in this specific example, the fact that they make you work so hard for it makes me think they wanted to add the second time you could actually die in this franchise!

[Return to Monkey Island 🚨GAME-WIDE🚨 Spoiler Chat]

51 minutes ago, roots said:

 

Technically neither. I'm referring to the games themselves. RTMI didn't feel like a Monkey Island game to me, it felt like a commentary on them above all else.

Can it be a Monkey Island game, by virtue of being a commentary on Monkey Island games?

 

Still in Part 2, I'm kind of amazed to watch this reality where nobody is afraid of LeChuck (neither the town nor his crew), and he and Guybrush are both suddenly really interested in the Secret of Monkey Island out of nowhere.

 

It's sort of like a dream sequence, an alternative dimension. But when this is over, can I really value a T-Shirt in a chest over that coveted E-Ticket in a chest?

 

That would let me get on... ANY ride. I don't think I've done a MI2 playthrough yet where I've left the Treasure of Big Whoop E-Ticket behind.

[Return to Monkey Island 🚨GAME-WIDE🚨 Spoiler Chat]

Are you guys talking about the literal Monkey Island, or the world of the Monkey Island games?

 

Because Mêlée Island kind of takes center stage, heh.

[Return to Monkey Island 🚨GAME-WIDE🚨 Spoiler Chat]

4 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Playing it through again... I can't believe I never noticed that the background in the Prelude changes. I was so focussed on the characters that I didn't notice the background.

 

Kind of like this thing:

 

 

I missed it too, before reading about it online.
 

(But the nature of the outhouse got my suspicion tingling.)

[Details of Return to Monkey Island]

3 minutes ago, LowLevel said:

If you have a savegame of the first minutes in Melee Island, load it and try to make sense to what Widey Bones says.

 

After completing the game, her words become a little more meaningful and I had the impression that some phrases were written as if they were referring to fans or to what fans might say after completing the game. 🙂

• They all think they deserve it. Well, they do and they don't!
• Lights out always comes sooner than you think.
• It's a fairly good story. I wonder if there will be a sequel?

Also, this might or might not be related to Cogg Island: "If you listen close, you can hear the gears grinding."

 

 

My daughter wanted to halt progress in Part 1 to document everything Widey Bones says and try to put it in the "correct order" for a narrative. The idea intrigued me, but I vetoed it so we could make a little progress.

 

(Currently in Part 2.)

[Details of Return to Monkey Island]

12 minutes ago, Thrik said:

Or at least, the 80s!

Something something Thimbleweed Park something something weaver magic something something Caponian stupidity machine finally starting to affect the planet something something should've never let that Purple Meteor escape something. . .

[Details of Return to Monkey Island]

I posted the contents above. It starts with "Guybrush Threepwood" and ends with "Threepwood is considered armed and dangerous". So either the middle part was copied on back, or the middle part is preserved elsewhere.

 

Note also: this means the museum teaches that Kate Capsize defeated G.P. LeChuck in MI1. Thus she joins the ranks of other claimants such as Voodoo Lady, Elaine, and LeChuck himself drinking too much root beer.

[Details of Return to Monkey Island]

3 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

Hmm. Could we say that the "Guybrush" part had been torn off, but the crimes remained maybe?

We can say what we want!  There's not much room below Kate's picture itself, but perhaps the crimes were preserved on a nearby plaque or paper. Maybe they were rewritten on the back.

 

EDIT: Here

 

WANTED: GUYBRUSH THREEPWOOD

for the murder of G.P. LeChuck^ ^also for the use of witchcraft on the person of Largo LaGrande^
^the thievery of clothing and medically prescribed hair supplements for such witchcraft^ ^graverobbing^

^trespassing^

^larceny without a permit^

^disturbing the peace^

^illegal gambling on a sporting event^

^use of falsified identification for the purchase of alcohol^

^exceeding allowable FDA limit for rodent parts in vichyssoise^

^premature entombment of a non-dead individual^

^reckless tampering with city-maintained plumbing without prior acquisition of an environmental impact report^

^transportation of animals not in a mental state to give consent^

^vandalizing a historical miniature^

^reckless use of gardening tools^

^impersonating a woman in order to evade prosecution^

^unauthorized exiting from a penal institution^

^two counts of unauthorized exiting from a penal institution^

^unauthorized exiting from a penal institution^

^impersonating a federal mail boat^ ^reanimating dead persons within city limits^

^possession of library books not specifically checked out to oneself^

^mixing drinks without a liquor license^

^and releasing a dangerous reptile in a populated area.

Also wanted for questioning regarding the disappearance of prescription eyewear. Reward offered for information leading to the suspect's apprehension. Threepwood is to be considered armed and dangerous.`

[Details of Return to Monkey Island]

56 minutes ago, Blondebeard said:

No, I didn't even knwo you could do that. What's their reaction?

The hovertext says "Settle accounts with [name]."

Guybrush asks, "Do I owe you anything right now?"

Locke says something like, "Thanks for noticing."

Wally says something like, "Thanks, with all this business I tend to forget about getting payments for small orders like yours."

Voodoo Lady says something like, "Much, but not monetary" and doesn't take payment.

 

I don't remember trying the coinpurse on anyone else yet.