The Monkey Island box set from Limited Run Games

[ThunderPeel2001]

Agreed Boen was consistently brilliant. Even in the dire MI1SE (where even the otherwise perfect Dominic Armato seemed to struggle).

[Thrik]

All that trouble to get Boen after the release and it never got patched in. The mind boggles. That version also becoming the standard option now is just a sadness, compounded further by this definitive collection including it.

 

When we were trying to check this I skimmed through loads of ‘Let’s Play’ videos and found that almost all of them feature the non-Boen voice. I’d imagine that most PC players have played the digital non-Boen version.

 

I did think while doing this (separated from the immediate disappointment of it not being Boen all those years ago) that the original voice actor did a pretty good job of mimicking many aspects of the performance. But when you hear the Boen version it’s like a brick to the head — in a good way, like.

[Lagomorph01]

When I played it the first time I was sorely dissapointed. It was immediately clear to me that it wasn’t Earl Boen, and I didn’t really like the replacement. Now, when I check the Let’s Play video’s, I actually like how close the recast comes to sounding like Boen. Funny thing how time changes things.

In the end though, there’s no contest. Boen for the win!

[MurraySchull]

I remember the original plan being for the Boen version to replace the downloadable version on the TTG site (with Boen being the default and the Harrington version becoming the “rare” edition). But then one thing after another happened (S&M3, the Universal deal, The Walking Dead deal, the “New” Telltale) and I guess it just slipped further down their priorities list until it fell off completely. I’ll need to use an older computer to get the TMI DVD files from it, but for the timebeing, Benny’s patch works great! (A few glitches in the timings, but nothing the right-click skip button can’t fix!)

 

Slightly off topic here, but speaking of recastings, in the event that Skunkape ever gets the opportunity to remaster Tales in the way they’re remastering S&M (unlikely, but one can dream!) I wonder if they’d recast the Voodoo Lady for the same reasons that they recast Bosco. I say this because TMI is the only game in the series where her character was re-cast (likely due to the original actresses inability to commit to monthly recording) but if they were able to bring in the original actress to record the Voodoo Lady’s TMI dialogue now, that would give her continuity across the series, so I’d absolutely be open to that being done should we ever see TMI Special Edition. With Curse and Escape, I’d be happy with merely a resolution increase.

Edited December 29, 2021 by fentongames

[Lagomorph01]

I’d applaud it in the Voodoo Lady’s case, but I’m afraid Winslow would get the same treatment. Roger Jackson was epic in that role!

[MurraySchull]

True. Winslow’s voice was iconic, but then again, so was Bosco’s at the time. So it’d probably be up to Skunkape to review the decision.

 

I personally don’t think Tales will ever be revisited (same with Curse/Escape) beyond rereleasing them occasionally, but in the event that Tales was to be remastered, I think those two characters’ voices would be up for consideration. It’d need to be the MI1-MI4 Voodoo Lady, however, not a new actress, if just for the sake of completion.

Edited December 29, 2021 by fentongames

[Thrik]

Someone did a side-by-side of the code wheels if anyone were curious. 😀

 

 

[ATMcashpoint]

IIRC all the US versions of the original Dial-A-Pirate codewheels that I have are cut like the ones from the Anthology, with the front layer showing the pirate faces from the nose downwards. I've never seen one with it cut from the chin downwards. Interesting. Is that a UK/US difference? And what do they mean by  "the Sol original"?

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think that chap just happened to get a poorly cut Dial-A-Pirate. I've never seen one cut like that before.

 

Another typo spotted:

 

[Lagomorph01]

I’m sad to see that such an expensive box didn’t have a proper editor to check the whole thing. These mistakes are just sloppy.

[Thrik]

More hijinks for observant eyes to enjoy. 🥲

 

 

[Laserschwert]

I really don't know what to say anymore It wasn't my fault, I swear!

[Lagomorph01]

I second my last comment. 🙄

[Nano]

Hi Mojo.
Now that a few weeks have passed since the release of the anthology and, above all, of the book Monkey Island Chronicles, have you had time to read it? Are there new and unseen things? revelations?

 

Small additional question to the owners of the book: A friend of mine, Jean-Baptiste de Clerfayt (developer of Lancelot Hangover) was interviewed more than a year ago to appear in the book, but he finally never had a news from LimitedRun and don't even know if his stake was kept ... Would you be so kind as to tell me if so?

[Daimakaimura]

Hi all, my copy has also arrived, unfortunately with the box cover ruined. Fortunately Limited Run Games is sending me a new one.
My problem is the version of Monkey Island 2 for Macintosh. The .img files are corrupted. I wrote to LRG and they gave me the link to download the whole USB package, but again, the img files are still corrupted.

To read them I installed a Mac emulator with OS7 and OS9, but in both cases, the img files are not mountable.
Has anyone managed to open them?

[Laserschwert]

I finally got my box... luckily no damages. And, to my surprise, the USB drive works without problems.

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 1/11/2022 at 6:44 PM, Nano said:

Hi Mojo.
Now that a few weeks have passed since the release of the anthology and, above all, of the book Monkey Island Chronicles, have you had time to read it? Are there new and unseen things? revelations?

 

Small additional question to the owners of the book: A friend of mine, Jean-Baptiste de Clerfayt (developer of Lancelot Hangover) was interviewed more than a year ago to appear in the book, but he finally never had a news from LimitedRun and don't even know if his stake was kept ... Would you be so kind as to tell me if so?

 

Yeah, dammit. Any of you lucky pups read this thing yet and gleaned any brain-shattering revelations?

[dwa]

On 1/13/2022 at 10:20 AM, Daimakaimura said:

Hi all, my copy has also arrived, unfortunately with the box cover ruined. Fortunately Limited Run Games is sending me a new one.
My problem is the version of Monkey Island 2 for Macintosh. The .img files are corrupted. I wrote to LRG and they gave me the link to download the whole USB package, but again, the img files are still corrupted.

To read them I installed a Mac emulator with OS7 and OS9, but in both cases, the img files are not mountable.
Has anyone managed to open them?

 

Hi,

 

Yes, Monkey Island 2 for Macintosh works here, but I had to use a Leopard Mac to extract the .img contents, and then Mac OS 9.2 to extract the archives themselves with StuffIt Expander. Modern versions of macOS won't extract the old HFS .img files anymore, but you can use the ScummVM companion (https://www.scummvm.org/dumper-companion) on a modern PC if you want to extract the .img files.

 

(I'm sure other extractors exist for modern systems, but since I have some old Macs here I just did it this way for the moment.)

 

 

I might write a small guide about this if people need it, because indeed Limited Run Games just put raw floppy images with zero instructions.

 

By the way, some of you may have noticed that the Limited Run Games version of MONKEY1-EGA has a corrupted DISK4.img file, which means that the game will crash when reaching the Mêlée Island map.

Fortunately, they also provided KryoDump images, so there's a way to recover a functional MONKEY1-EGA. Here's my guide for this:

https://dwatteau.github.io/scummfixes/corrupted-monkey1-ega-files-limitedrungames.html

 

[Nano]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:41 PM, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

Yeah, dammit. Any of you lucky pups read this thing yet and gleaned any brain-shattering revelations?

 

I have the feeling that everyone left the book in its wrapper paper... 

[OzzieMonkey]

If you want brain shattering revelations, I've got one for you. 

 

Both Craig Derrick and Bill Tiller said in the book that if Curse ever gets remastered they would use 3D. Craig wanted to replace all the assets in 3D, and Bill wanted to repaint the backgrounds and use 3D characters.

 

Personally, I think this would be a huge mistake and it's kinda soured my excitement for a remaster to be made. You just don't do that with a game so heralded for its 2d character animation. Maybe it could work, and I just have limited imagination, but idk, seeing Tiller's other work doesn't inspire much confidence that it could live up to the stellar work that has already been done with the original game.

Edited January 24, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[Nano]

13 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

If you want brain shattering revelations, I've got one for you. 

 

Both Craig Derrick and Bill Tiller said in the book that if Curse ever gets remastered they would use 3D. Craig wanted to replace all the assets in 3D, and Bill wanted to repaint the backgrounds and use 3D characters.

 

Personally, I think this would be a huge mistake and it's kinda soured my excitement for a remaster to be made. You just don't do that with a game so heralded for its 2d character animation. Maybe it could work, and I just have limited imagination, but idk, seeing Tiller's other work doesn't inspire much confidence that it could live up to the stellar work that has already been done with the original game.

 

Thanks a lot. 

Is there even a chance that this remaster will see the light of day..?
Personally, I would be more curious that a new opus be developed rather than play endlessly on nostalgia. Nostalgia which invariably leads to a certain disappointment indeed...

[AndywinXp]

13 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

If you want brain shattering revelations, I've got one for you. 

 

Both Craig Derrick and Bill Tiller said in the book that if Curse ever gets remastered they would use 3D. Craig wanted to replace all the assets in 3D, and Bill wanted to repaint the backgrounds and use 3D characters.

 

Personally, I think this would be a huge mistake and it's kinda soured my excitement for a remaster to be made. You just don't do that with a game so heralded for its 2d character animation. Maybe it could work, and I just have limited imagination, but idk, seeing Tiller's other work doesn't inspire much confidence that it could live up to the stellar work that has already been done with the original game.

For the love of whoever-you-want, keep COMI away from Bill Tiller! Why is there such need as fixing what's not broken in the first place?

 

The hope is that nobody would invest the amount of money necessary to make something more than what's actually useful, which is a remaster with the original clean and high resolution assets...

[OzzieMonkey]

2 hours ago, Nano said:

 

Thanks a lot. 

Is there even a chance that this remaster will see the light of day..?
Personally, I would be more curious that a new opus be developed rather than play endlessly on nostalgia. Nostalgia which invariably leads to a certain disappointment indeed...

I don't usually look too deep into rumours because it's usually someone's shoddy attempt at clout-chasing, but a few months ago someone in a Monkey Island Facebook group directed me to a stream of MI2:SE where someone claiming to have been part of the animation team revealed in the chat that they were working on an MI3 remaster. Sadly this streamer doesn't save their videos so I can't direct you to it, but what made it credible to me was that they didn't just volunteer the info out of nowhere, they showed up to say "thanks for playing this game I worked on" and then was asked what they were doing now they said "oh, Hollow Knight 2, and this might be a spoiler but there's gonna be an MI3 remake". 

 

Someone also posted on another fan group about how a developer friend told then that the Business Dev at Disney let slip that a new MI game was being made and indie publisher Devolver Digital were involved, but who's actually making the thing was not said.

 

Take it all with a grain of salt, I'm just less sceptical that someone in this community would stoop so low as to raise our hopes like that, and that this series is too niche to randomly make up something like this for clicks. Nothing's come of it since though, so idk.

Edited January 25, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[Rum Rogers]

29 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Someone also posted on another fan group about how a developer friend told then that the Business Dev at Disney let slip that a new MI game was being made and indie publisher Devolver Digital were involved, but who's actually making the thing was not said.

Well, Ron's Terrible Toybox has been working on a new 2D point and click graphic adventure for a long time now, and kept absolute silence about it. We still don't know what they're doing and, when things get so secret, I might end up raising my hopes.

[OzzieMonkey]

7 hours ago, Rum Rogers said:

Well, Ron's Terrible Toybox has been working on a new 2D point and click graphic adventure for a long time now, and kept absolute silence about it. We still don't know what they're doing and, when things get so secret, I might end up raising my hopes.

Ron seems to be generally uninterested in feeding people's hype though. This is just standard practice for him. I highly doubt that any new Monkey Island game would be his 3rd game, it's gonna be 6, which personally I'd be thrilled about cause Tales left a lot of interesting character stuff to pick up in another game. I totally get wanting Ron's story told though, it'd be wonderful for him after all these years. I just think it's highly unlikely that either Disney sold the rights or Ron accepted working with them.