Scummbuddy

Hah. I loved Worms Armageddon back in the day. I even bought myself a nice big box edition for my collection just a few months ago. I do want to check out these speech packs. Max by himself could make for a good pack. Maybe purple and green tentacle too.

As mentioned earlier, my wife is playing through Curse of Monkey Island and thoroughly enjoying it. She has just lost the Blood Island "map" to Captain Rottingham and encountered the second-biggest time waster on the sea, the dreaded rhythmic shanty. She is now about to embark on insult swordfighting, against random pirate captains and then finally against Captain Rottingham himself. I was shocked to see that within the manual that comes with the game there is no space to track insults -- not even a Notes section on the last page. Just as well, within the official strategy guide there is no space to track your insults and retorts -- but are plainly written out (but shockingly not easily found within the guide). So I decided to whip up the following. These are essentially a first draft and also why I was hoping to get a larger quality version of Haggis in a separate thread here. Special thanks to: @Laserschwert for the upscaled and enhanced background art for CMI. Clearly I used the Game Options/Save background screens here. I wanted it to fit in with Guybrush's diary journal aesthetic as seen in the opening cutscene (seen here). Mojo Game Database - Curse concept art. The SCUMM Bar - Curse Insults list. Legend OF MI - Curse Insults list. Curse of Monkey Island - Official Strategy Guide Insults list. Ordinary Pirates - Empty page - For the CMI player who has never played before. Ordinary Pirates - All insults and retorts. Captain Rottingham - Empty page - For the CMI player who has never played before. Captain Rottingham - Half page - For the CMI player who has all of the retorts. Captain Rottingham - All advanced insults and retorts. I'll continue to play around with the design, adding in accent marks, and matching the shade of sketches to match across the pages (skeletons are maybe closer to what I want than the darker Barbary Coast pirates). If anyone wants the PSD file, I can make that available, specifically if someone wants to make language variations. Just looking for some opinions.

@Udvarnoky That's it. I totally had forgotten about that extra scene. Thank you for the reminder. @FaNaTiC You've got to be correct. Good point. And "Ghost Groom" and "Ghost Bride" are also the attributed names within the CMI Strategy Guide. Maybe those names are more memorable than if there were many "Goodsoups" listed within the credits. I'm still hoping for a larger Haggis sketch though!

Within the final act of Curse of Monkey Island, at the Big Whoop Carnival of the Damned, it appears that we almost had two additional characters to interact with. A "Father Pirate" and "Son Pirate". The Father Pirate was to be voiced by Denny Delk (Murray), and "Son Pirate" was to be voiced by Alexandra Boyd (Elaine). I'm curious as to what silly interactions Guybrush could have had with these characters. It's amazing how well characterization is conveyed in these sketches. I feel the dad would be both pompous and dismissive of Guybrush, while the kid pirate looks like a unfortunate loser. I wonder where they could be placed if they were to be forced into the already slightly crowded scene where Guybrush meets Dinghy Dog. I wonder if these two could have been taking up the line for the Soda Jerk, so Guybrush would have to get them to leave. As a bit of note, to me it appears that the embroidered names of Dad and Son on the hats are perfectly referencing the embroidered hats you can have made down in Disney World. Sketches found near the end of the CMI Strategy Guide. (also, Denny Delk voiced "Skully"... who is that??) I couldn't find information on these characters within the forums but maybe I didn't search strongly enough... Also, while I may have the attention of Mojo-sites webmasters, is there a larger version of this image from the Curse of MI concept art gallery? Cutthroat Bill and Van Helgen have larger versions available, but Haggis does not.

There's a minor error on the Mojo: Curse of MI Concept art page. The image of Murray floating on the plank (page image 42 of 55) is linked to a larger version of the cannon mini-game and not a larger version of the concept art of Murray floating about and cursing Wally.

@Jake I assume those two MI items in the bottom picture include a "sell sheet" for MI2 and a really clean copy of what would be put into the Adventurer magazine?? It looks pristine! What is it?? And I haven't seen that "This Store Protected By Sam and Max" window decal before. Love it. And way to get one of those Zak nose glasses store display! Just wow. I would love to see more when you can go through your LucasArts and TellTale stuff.

Last night I was watching my wife play through Curse of MI for her first time. She's really enjoying it and loving the silly dialogs. Although I feel like I've seen and heard everything in that game she stumbled upon a voice line that I hadn't heard before and it had me cracking up. Dominic, once again, really delivered on a line. Related to getting a crew together... I don't think I've heard that line before but the timing and delivery was just so funny to me.

This reminds me that years ago I once attempted to scan all of the Adventurers myself, but with a scan-bed that was not large enough to handle the full-covers and the results were a hundred scans that needed to be properly stitched together and those edges were just a smear due to the pages lifting up at those folds. That effort was futile yet I doubt I ever deleted those scans. This is nicer.

The remakes of Grim, DOTT, and Full Throttle have made their way to the Xbox ecosystem and they actually might also be a part of their "Game Pass" where they are available to download for free if you are a member. I don't know if those games have made it over to their "PC Game Pass" feature (yet) though (and PC Game Pass should essentially merge with their Xbox Game Pass).

Big Whoop.

Maybe wait to see the product quality first before brandishing their logo? Who am I kidding... I need a fine leather jacket.

I'll just go ahead and assume we're finally getting that Star Wars point-n-click adventure game.

While you work on another one or two could you see about documenting your process a bit for a post? I would love to hear about the effort being put in here!

I've been looking to introduce Curse of Monkey Island to my wife and while I think the original CMI can look beautiful, perhaps some graphical upgrades may improve the enjoyment for a new player now that we're in the future year of 2021. Along with AndywinXp's new work on fixing iMuse issues within CMI and ScummVM, I wanted to test out the two current options for improving the looks of CMI within ScummVM compared to the standard edition. 0. No Filter. 1. Graphical Filtering (ScummVM built-in smoothing). 2. Experimental xBRZ add-on for ScummVM (Written up by Dimi on Steam, using the "xBRZ" filter by Zenju) Comparing the Difficulty screens: 0 and 1 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=357b115a-4d54-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 0 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=709b23c2-4d56-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 1 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=123c35b8-4d57-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df Comparing the LucasArts Presents Map: 0 and 1 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=505a378c-4d57-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 0 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=6b8d6e70-4d57-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 1 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=8581193a-4d57-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df Comparing the Part One screens: 0 and 1 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=0a4d4696-4d5a-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df (NOTE: I was also preparing to compare the "Part 1" screen but I couldn't get a proper screenshot of that when using the xBRZ filter for some reason.) Comparing the Guybrush and Wally dialog screens - Probably Most Interesting One 0 and 1 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=aed24c28-4d57-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 0 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=cb13434c-4d57-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 1 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=2b74bcc0-4d58-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df (NOTE: Differences in spacing of "Hello. Please don't kill me." is likely due to ScummVM engine being used follwoing the xBRZ tutorial.) Comparing the Inventory screens: 0 and 1 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=6f31066c-4d58-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 0 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=7d5891d8-4d58-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df 1 and 2 - https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=9d420ace-4d58-11eb-83c8-ebb5d6f907df So far, as I have been playing with this, I feel that the simpler ScummVM Graphic Filtering choice from within it's Loader is the best. The animated cutscenes seemed to suffer more under the xBRZ filter and turned moving items into colored blobs. For instance, during the opening cinematic, as we're zooming in on Monkey Island, the "carnival" on the right-side is a blur until we've zoomed in enough that it is showing in better resolution and moving less. I don't have my capture cards up and running just yet in order to show this visually, but if there's interest I can see about doing so after I move houses. Maybe more to come? Also, you can make your own, free, lovely comparisons at https://juxtapose.knightlab.com/

I'm glad you brought those shirts up. Recently on eBay there had been a DOTT Tri-Box and two excellent shirts for sale. The DOTT Tri-Box sold for over $406 US (300 GBP) and was available with a Buy It Now price. I was so tempted but actually the photos showing the inside of the box showed me just how flimsy the box is and it actually discouraged me to drop so much money on "a box". 😕 A Day of the Tentacle shirt was also recently sold (but I can no longer find the link (ebay.com/itm/ORIGINAL-VTG-90s-DAY is all I still have of the URL)). I think it sold for less than $200, but I could be wrong. It's a shirt sporting a graphic of the trio and Green Tentacle in a pose I don't recall seeing before, and I used to run Maniac Zombies. I am currently/sporadically working to vectorize the artwork for archiving. The Monkey Island 1 long-sleeved shirt just sold for a whopping $676 dollars by 11 different bidders.

@jake Just letting you know that I just received a SkunkApe email about getting the game at 50%, but unfortunately was sent to my Junk email.

While I certainly do not know for sure, I don't think they've released specific items from other big releases as separate releases that I can tell.

Just mentioning that I "claimed" TheScummBar on Discord before some non-mojoer could possibly claim it. I haven't brought it up before so no one uses it. I'd be happy to give it to our ScummBar site. I haven't gotten into using Discord much though I usually just enjoy these forums.

You're a witch! Or, at best, a voodoo priestess!

You can just hop onto Adventure Game Studio and use the Lucas templates. I get what you're saying but that would be so unlikely and there are already great tools available today. I do know that these creators like Ron have stated that they have looked at "available engines today" and decided they weren't good enough or didn't give them the flexibility they wanted so they made their own all over again but really, these engines are dang good enough.

The restored cutscenes of the cannibals using the Monkey Head is quite nice! https://youtu.be/DLnx2thglFQ

Murray's browline looks correct (and appropriately evil) but I feel like the jaw is all wrong. The overall [bone] structure looks like it could use refinement.

Jake, I'm not asking for you to divulge business talks here but I just wanted to say that I hope you all are considering teaming up with a group like Limited Run for physical Switch releases of these remasters.

Looking back at the horizontal Tales of MI box in my collection there, now I want to make a cardboard slipcase with some vertical TMI poster/cover art. Maybe I'll work on that.

Here was a setup I had early last year but more was added and then all boxed up for my current move. Once I find a new house and settle in I'll show off my new plans for the game display.