Turn on/Turn off in Monkey Island

[Scapetti]

This has most definitely been talked about before but I have only just recently become curious. Was there ever actually ANY moment where either of these verbs could be used in the first game?

[OzzieMonkey]

This has most definitely been talked about before but I have only just recently become curious. Was there ever actually ANY moment where either of these verbs could be used in the first game?

 

hmm, that's a stumper (no stump jokes were harmed in the production of this post). I know they could easily be turned into use, but it would've been funny to have jokes for it like 'turn on swordmaster', and maybe have Guybrush say something like 'it only works on Elaine,' kind of like the 'pick up bartender' in Curse.

[Benny]

This sounds like a job for ATMachine

[ATMachine]

As far as I know these two verbs have no use whatsoever. Shocking, I know.

 

Interestingly, Turn On and Turn Off were originally planned to be carried over to MI2, as seen in a very early slideshow demo.

 

Someone must have realized they were absolutely no use though, because they aren't in the final game, or even the non-playable SCUMM demo.

 

Also, early builds of the Macintosh port of MI1 had a derivative of the MI1 floppy disk green interface, but with Turn On and Turn Off removed. Proving the point that these two particular verbs are pretty much useless. (The final Mac release had the same interface as the PC CD version of MI1.)

 

 

Finally, I might mention Fate of Atlantis, which originally had a text-inventory interface with green verbs, very similar to that of MI1. It, too, lacked Turn On and Turn Off.

 

 

However, it's noteworthy that this interface design allegedly was rigged up before work on MI2 began (a game which, as noted above, initially did have Turn On/Turn Off). This is why FoA started out with a text inventory and switched to icons in the final release, while MI2 apparently had an icon-based inventory system from the start.

[Thrik]

That's really weird. Bizarre that nobody thought to remove them seeing as they seemed generally keen to increasingly streamline things with the SCUMM games.

 

Unless there's some random ultra-obscure joke somewhere Schafer just couldn't bear to remove.

[Bagge]

Turn on / Turn off is definately not needed anywhere in SMI, seeing as they were removed alltogether for the CD-ROM release of the game. However, there are a couple of cases where Turn on or Turn off is an alternative to another verb for solving a riddle. For instance, you can "turn on" the sign in the forest to make a bridge in stead of pushing it. Also, there are a couple of unique lines when using Turn on or Turn off with objects, which would not be possible to find in the CD-ROM or Special editions of the game, like these:

 

"Turn off grog machine" & "Turn on pot o' stew"

[Thrik]

Ah, I knew there had to be some line somewhere tied to it. I bet that Grog joke was a favourite of Gilbert's or something.

[SyntheticGerbil]

Haha, thanks Bagge, since I've never played the floppy version, this is really interesting to me in a profoundly nerdy way.

[Scapetti]

Aww man, I wanna try turning on and off everything in the game now! XD Or can you confirm those are the only two instances

[Giant Graffiti]

I remember using "Turn Off" on the Sun and being completely disappointed.

[Bagge]

Aww man, I wanna try turning on and off everything in the game now! XD Or can you confirm those are the only two instances

 

I believe those are the only two places where using turn on and turn off gives unique lines, however there are several places where using those verbs give the same line as use, push, pull or pick up, such as interacting with the stone idol in the cannibal village, LeChuck's bed on the ghost ship and the ghost dog.

 

Also, it's possible to turn on the shepkeeper's bell on Melee Island to ring it, in stead of pushing or using it.

[ATMachine]

Amazing work, Bagge! You could definitely have a job cut out for you as a fellow Chronicler of LucasArts Oddities.

[Scapetti]

Oh I do love Bagge, never fails to impress me

[ThunderPeel2001]

Turn on / Turn off is definately not needed anywhere in SMI, seeing as they were removed alltogether for the CD-ROM release of the game. However, there are a couple of cases where Turn on or Turn off is an alternative to another verb for solving a riddle. For instance, you can "turn on" the sign in the forest to make a bridge in stead of pushing it. Also, there are a couple of unique lines when using Turn on or Turn off with objects, which would not be possible to find in the CD-ROM or Special editions of the game, like these:

 

"Turn off grog machine" & "Turn on pot o' stew"

 

Yes! I knew about the Pot o' Stew, but I'd forgotten about the Grog machine. Very surprised ATM didn't get these!

[Nickelstein]

You know its funny, I've been wondering about this for a while when I was replaying SOMI and thought that those two verbs were completely useless. God its good to be back on this sight!