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benjoyce25

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  1. benjoyce25
    Here, too: As the interview wrapped up, Gilbert and Grossman confirmed that Return to Monkey Island is not the last game in the series, and that the door is open for more games in the future.
  2. benjoyce25
    I am fairly certain hopeful that, maybe 4-5 years down the line, someone will take a crack at an MI game, extending the universe, maybe beyond our most beloved hero, and delivering a shawshbuckling adventure fit for that time.
  3. benjoyce25
    Well, there _is_ a hillbilly in that game, with a very similar design, who just happens to be burning down a carnival...
  4. benjoyce25
    I adore this idea, that we may, as a community, accept that the developers take us seriously, and – through game mechanics, dialogue and storytelling – we are invited to share a vision of what certain perennial themes mean to us. And that it shall free us to (maybe) partake in new adventures, take other characters for a spin, explore pockets of the Monkey Island universe, free from "unfinished business," as Gilbert and Grossman have said.
  5. benjoyce25
    No disputes there, either way.
  6. benjoyce25
    Okay, that is a reasonable criterion. Which media products handled that well?
  7. benjoyce25
    Delightful! Reminds me of Disney's Hollywood Studios, and the very deliberate behind-the-scenesiness of the Keys to the Kingdom tour organised by the park.
  8. benjoyce25
    Care to share photo sources, if there are any?
  9. benjoyce25
    A curious notion, work. Certainly, whether we like it or not, digital gameplay might often feel like work. And yet... How would you (and y'all) define the difference between the work of figuring out the solution to a concatenation of puzzles (which can be tedious, trial-and-error, and time-wasting), and the work of interpretation (free-from flights of fancy with foundations in fictional facts)? In what ways do they tax the mind differently? Why should one of those acts of labour satisfy even the most hard-nosed adventure enthusiast, but not the other?
  10. benjoyce25
    Here is the thing though: even with quite explicitly definitive endings, even literature students (who should be at least very invested readers, if not superreaders) find out very early on that interpretation is a many-splendoured thing (thanks, Ms. Han), and that a prism of different version spring up almost immediately when someone throws the "But what did it all mean in the end?" rock into the Pool of Donchaseeit.
  11. benjoyce25
    As I am not aware of one, I would like to see the initial brainstorming sheets, similar to the way the TWP devblog has done. To wit. Especially look at 1, 6, 14, 24. (28.) When it comes to TWP (yes, wrong forum): On the other end, you can also see the bleed-through from The Cave: 16; and MM/DOTT: 19. And the eventual 'winning design', 30, with 28, 22, 21, 11 and bits of 6. Which to my mind just goes to show that, as far as the developer are concerned, "themes are my reality" (pace Richard Sanderson).
  12. benjoyce25
    Fair enough, I share a certain wistfulness for a 15-hour game with, like, Terror Island being populated with characters and Brrr Muda having more than three locations, as well as a Scurvy Island with many shops and developed characters with aspirations and personality quirks. That being said, I think the developers have been very, very focused on _theme_ being the driving force of the adventure. They wanted to work without interference, interpellation and internet critique during development. It is a highly personal project, and the way I understand it, that is the theme that interested them the most. I cannot blame them for finding a highly resonant theme and authoring a work that felt important to them.
  13. benjoyce25
    Thing about the nostalgia as well, is that it is much more of a _critique_ of nostalgia than just pure '-baiting'. Most characters talk about it in more or less subtle ways, like the Voodoo Lady who actively warns against the deleterious effects of nostalgia. It might be fruitful to think about two kinds of nostalgia: reparative nostalgia, in which you simply "want to put back everything as it was, reality be damned", and reflective nostalgia, in which you do not try to erase the passing of time, and you work through the pain, the -algia part of nostalgia, by reflecting upon the passing of time, what good and ill it had brought, and how you have changed as a person.
  14. benjoyce25
    My pet theory is that the art style (shaded and oblong Alegría/Corporate Memphis) makes perfect sense in light of the ending's representation of the world of Monkey Island. It is abstract, it is cardboard cutout, because, well...
  15. benjoyce25
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  16. benjoyce25
    To my mind, it is a cheeky aside, a knowing wink to teach that the rules of storytelling are malleable. Also, it is good parental practice to teach kids the rules, then, once they have acquired them and start applying them, you also show the limit cases where you can subvert the rules for effect. As is with writing/storytelling of any kind.
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