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So, I have gotten my hands on a preview version of the new Monkey Island 2 special edition. Oh wait, no I haven't. Around seven or so years ago I stumbled upon an obscure version of Monkey Island 2 made for the Russian home computer Elektronika BK-0011(M). I got the thing running on some emulator and intended to do some research on it but I never did. I came to think of it the other day and thought that there might be some interest in it and as far as I know it has not been mentioned around here before. I hope no one objects to me posting a link to the game, which you can get right here. It is possible to run the game with the help of the emulator Emulator 3000 which, among other systems, emulates the BK-0011(M). It is in English so getting the thing running should be no match. Obviously this is not an official port of the game but rather some sort of fan made thing. But a rather ambitious one at that. Potentially, it was made by some company and perhaps even sold. My Russian is a bit rusty so I don't know for sure. There appears to be some sort of copyright claim dated to the year 1995, so I assume that is when the game was made. The BK-0011(M) seems to be a rather limited home computer but the game is actually pretty impressive considering these limitations and it seems to be a rather ambitious remake. I don't know much about the actual limitations of the BK-0011(M) (as I said, I never came around to doing any research on this and I still haven't, I'm posting this hoping one of you will. ) but the game runs in 4 colors. These appear to be changeable but for the most part they are the classic CGA palette 1 colors (black, cyan, magenta, white). Here are some screenshots of it: Click! As you can see, it does not have any verbs like we're used to. Instead, you interact with objects and characters simply by clicking on them. There are no options for how to interact with them. The text below the action screen is the inventory list. I have also uploaded a video to YouTube showcasing the gameplay in case you're too lazy to actually run it. Note that while this video does not have sound, the emulator does emulate sound. (This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.) The file structure seems to be similiar to that of the original SCUMM interpreter. There are 45 room files (or 44 depending on if 00.lfm is a index file as in SCUMM, or the first room) which hints that not all of the original game has been remade as Monkey Island 2 has more than 100 rooms. In addition, the rooms are not scrollable. The Woodtick town overview for example, is three screens wide and I would suspect that these three screens are in turn represented by three "rooms" so it would take up three room files. This is just speculation though, as I have not done any examination of the actual data files (yet). Mostly, because I have not yet found a convenient way of extracting the data files from the image file. The game does have some sound and music. The very first music cue (while the monkeys are dancing during the intro) has been remade to some sort of recognizable version but after that most of the scenes either have no music at all or some generic music. I have not played through the entire game so this just applies to the first few scenes but since there are only 11 sound files I guess there isn't too much audio going on. It would be interesting to know how this thing was done. Perhaps this is some sort of stripped-down version of SCUMM created by reverse-engineering the original game? Here is a list of the game data files. As I said, I still have not found a way to extract them to separate files from the image file. Maybe some kind RUssian-speaking person can help out in hunting down some tools for doing that. Most of the related sites (and the tools themselves) are in Russian. File Name Adress Size MONKEY\ monkey exe 744 72700 00 lfm 36000 16276 01 lfm 36000 20552 02 lfm 36000 31570 03 lfm 36000 22524 04 lfm 36000 23030 05 lfm 36000 52434 06 lfm 36000 21572 07 lfm 36000 31374 08 lfm 36000 21744 09 lfm 36000 43440 10 lfm 36000 35426 11 lfm 36000 22604 12 lfm 36000 26434 13 lfm 36000 30266 14 lfm 36000 33274 15 lfm 36000 22236 16 lfm 36000 26524 17 lfm 36000 25620 18 lfm 36000 31514 19 lfm 36000 13650 20 lfm 36000 40106 21 lfm 36000 20160 22 lfm 36000 14776 23 lfm 36000 26062 24 lfm 36000 43112 25 lfm 36000 7244 26 lfm 36000 46220 27 lfm 36000 32376 28 lfm 36000 47450 29 lfm 36000 52334 30 lfm 36000 20666 31 lfm 36000 21230 32 lfm 36000 54254 33 lfm 36000 33210 34 lfm 36000 37362 35 lfm 36000 25330 36 lfm 36000 50464 37 lfm 36000 34614 38 lfm 36000 27424 39 lfm 36000 33052 40 lfm 36000 24320 41 lfm 36000 36510 42 lfm 36000 21750 43 lfm 36000 46410 44 lfm 36000 24714 00 ovl 1000 135412 01 ovl 1000 1442 02 ovl 1000 752 1 sgm 5052 5006 2 sgm 5052 5006 3 sgm 5052 5006 4 sgm 5052 5006 00 snd 20000 5472 01 snd 20000 4604 02 snd 20000 4452 03 snd 20000 4770 04 snd 20000 5712 05 snd 20000 3376 06 snd 20000 5022 07 snd 20000 3706 08 snd 20000 4350 09 snd 20000 5336 10 snd 20000 4574 Are there any Russians around here that have heard of this version before? Maybe someone who knows the language can translate some of the text from the credits screens I posted above.

Hey all, just wanted to say hi and drop a little shameless plug. I realized Monkey Island 2 is my favorite game of all time when I got to thinking about it. I do a bit of freelance writing and decided that I would write an article about the game, a little of its history and what else was out there in 1992 (some big games). I also wanted more people to know about and play the game, as I am often surprised how many people actually aren't aware of the series, especially younger gamers. Anyways, I created a digg post and hope to get it dugg more both for myself and for the special edition release of the game on Wednesday. I'll be buying both through Steam and the PSN! I you want to Digg the best game ever... please do so. Regardless I would love some comments/critique. Thanks. -James

Big Whoop! Monkey Island® 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge® Sets Sail This Summer Never played this game. May get an iPhone this summer so I may try it out then.

Hey! I am a student journalist who has recently graduated with a degree in media and film. I started a blog as a pet project and it has grown very fast. (I also write for Adventure Classic Gaming) I have several stories that may interest Monkey Island fans! Dominic Armato Interview http://alternativemagazine.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/interiew-in-conversation-with-dominic-armato/ Alexandra Boyd Interview http://alternativemagazine.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/interview-in-conversation-with-alexandra-boyd/ Hanns Appell Interview (The guy who did those cool Monkey Island 2 Special-Uber Edition vids on youtube!) http://alternativemagazine.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/interview-in-conversation-with-hannes-appell-loneclone-vfx-creator-of-the-monkey-island-ii-special-uber-edition-youtube-phenomenon/ Dom Armato has also agreed to do a mini-interview after every Tales Of Monkey Island epsiode has been released after I review it, so make sure to bookmark the site, and check out the rest of it in the meantime (plenty of film reviews) and add the twitter: http://twitter.com/AltMagOnline Cheers!

Hey! I am a student journalist who has recently graduated with a degree in media and film. I started a blog as a pet project and it has grown very fast. (I also write for Adventure Classic Gaming) I have several stories that may interest Monkey Island fans! Dominic Armato Interview http://alternativemagazine.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/interiew-in-conversation-with-dominic-armato/ Alexandra Boyd Interview http://alternativemagazine.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/interview-in-conversation-with-alexandra-boyd/ Hanns Appell Interview (The guy who did those cool Monkey Island 2 Special-Uber Edition vids on youtube!) http://alternativemagazine.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/interview-in-conversation-with-hannes-appell-loneclone-vfx-creator-of-the-monkey-island-ii-special-uber-edition-youtube-phenomenon/ Dom Armato has also agreed to do a mini-interview after every Tales Of Monkey Island epsiode has been released after I review it, so make sure to bookmark the site, and check out the rest of it in the meantime (plenty of film reviews) and add the twitter: http://twitter.com/AltMagOnline Cheers!