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Recreating the original manual of The secret of Monkey Island

bennywhitebread

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bennywhitebread

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Hi all!


My name ie Benjamin and I come from Belgium.  

 

I have a side project to recreate the original manual of Monkey Island 1 in HD version.

Why ?  Because I found the manuals on the web not in a real good shape and I have a personal project based on the Big box of Monkey Island.

 

If someone tells me it exists, my ears are opened :D


So I have started to recreated it from scratch using the right fonts and the right dimensions. (It might be a bit larger here because I'm on a A5 template).

I'm using Affinity Publisher.

 

I have already created 5 pages of it and I'll share the final HD version of it if someone is interested !


Just let me know.  And if someone wants to give a help, just drop me a MP.

I'm a computer scientist not a designer so any help in creating it or cleaning the images from the manuals I've (adjust contrasts, lights, etc) might be interesting for the project.

 

Stay tuned !

 

Have a good night !

 

EDIT 14/06/2022

Here are the link for the latest files and latest online version to comment

 

 

Capture d’écran 2022-04-18 à 20.49.47.png

Capture d’écran 2022-04-18 à 20.49.37.png

Edited by bennywhitebread
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bennywhitebread Contributor

bennywhitebread

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Hi all! 

 

A small update about the project.

 

For personal reason I had to be on "pause" for the last weeks.  I'm back on the project and have switched from Affinity Publisher to Indesign because I had the opportunity to have a Adobe Cloud license with all Adobe product.  Easier for all but need to do it again.


Will update it today with the achievements.


Stay tuned !

Edited by bennywhitebread
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bennywhitebread Contributor

bennywhitebread

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Hi all !


I'm finally sharing with you my work.

 

I'm not totally satisfied for multiple reasons I will explain but I'm here to make it fully "compliant" with the orignal one so feedbacks will be awesome and maybe some help

 

First of all, anyone who wants to give feedback directly on the pages can use the following link

https://assets.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:8b5d7412-9cb3-4e5d-ba65-56d345af1849?view=published

 

If you spot any mispelling or any update needed, please comment it !

 

Fonts, first version of PDF and original scanned manual I've used can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1y2MQqnaUTx6K2VM611F09XCTwLzVyv5b?usp=sharing

 

Let's explain what I have done and the blocking elements.

 

Things to consider

1°/ This i not a final version, I would call it a beta version of the final manual :)

2°/ I have tried to use at maximum the inner function of indesign but I've struggle a lot to achieve it (Well I didn't achieve it this way I would say :) )

3°/ I used Postantiqua font Roman found on the internet. It have found other PostAntiqua Font that seems a bit different (like spaces or height is different)

4° / The in-game images are a basic screenshot of the manual I've used.  So it's not images with a good resolution

5°/ I'm not a designer so i have limited knowledge of those tools (illustrator, photoshop, etc) but any tips or advices for getting better is welcome !

 

InDesign Configuration

  • The manual is a A5 manual (148mmx210mm)
  • Font size is 9pt
  • Margins (mm) are 16-9-9-9 (Top-Bottom-Inside-Outside)
  • I've used PostantiquaBE and PostAntiquaBE Medium for bold version (see font file I have)
    I found another "official" pstantiqua font but it was 99$ :)
  • I have used modified styles for H1/H2 and paragraph but always try to use styles for easy update

Working and struggling...

I have started by designing the template for the pages with upper line and page number and dividing each page in 2 text columns.

I have struggled a lot when trying to calibrate with Indesign hyphen system. 

 

To be cleared, I have never managed to use the hyphens system in this context and have good results.

The hyphen linebreaks didn't work for every line so I have used manual hyphen and linebreak.  I know, it sucks !

 

By at the end, we generate a PDF so...

 

The right side of the right column has too much space before the end of the column.  I have the same font size but as you notice in the attachment, the width between the last character and the upper line is smaller than the one I did.  But I don't see any glitch on the fonts and character spaces.

 

So I have 3 main concerns: 

* Not be able to use the in-app hyphen system and use manual linebreak.

* in-games images aren't in in HD

* I'm not pixel perfect with the second column, I think the rest of the document is pretty the same as the original one

 

Optimization

  • In-games images: It's just screenshots from the PDF, so the image are not in a good resolutions.  If someone can help me on this I'm open.
    I think it will be good to arrange the contrats and luminosity, etc to integrate it in HD
  • Space on the right column: Try to fix this, any suggestion is welcome
  • Others: Any update or comments is welcome

 

Any feedback is appreciated !

 

PS: Credit to @Laserschwert for the cover design. I have used to illustrate the cover

 

Capture d’écran 2022-06-03 à 14.19.22.png

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Serge Enthusiast

Serge

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Looking good - a quick look, and added a few typo/OCR corrections - sorry for possibly ruining the pristine preview for others. 😉 I'm guessing the difference in character width may simply have to do with PostAntiqua not really being owned by a single foundry, so there'll likely be slight variations between them. Or they might have done a slight no-no, and stretched the design in the original manual. The flowery bullet is a "bit" low-res - but that may be the Adobe previewer. In any event, very well done so far - impressively accurate! 😁

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Serge Enthusiast

Serge

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11 hours ago, bennywhitebread said:

Thank you Serge !  I will integrate your comments in V -0.2

 

I think the leaf needs to be rebuild from scratch in Illustrator and the in-game images needs cleaning.

If any designer out there wants to help, it would be great ! Message me !

 

I don't think you need to rebuild the leaf - it's a relatively common glyph in fonts, called a "hedera" or "fleuron" or "aldus' leaf" or - in unicode - "floral heart", and although I'm not sure where this exact design originated, many fonts copy it - or try to. One of the ones I think does it best is "Symbola" (free):

 

image.png

 

https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/symbola

 

But there are many others copying the same design. You'll also find copies of this design in MS Gothic (not quite as well drawn), or in Deja Vu Sans (really badly drawn) and somewhere around hundreds of other fonts (although some will obviously do their own design fitting with the general font design).

 

The sharp corner towards the top of the left glyph here is intentional - and it looks like it's also in the MI manual - an "ink trap". The glyphs are at U+2766 and U+2767 - or you can try just copy/pasting these, and changing the font: ❦❧

 

A pretty nice version without the ink trap (although I'm not particularly a fan of the way the swirl and the heart meet in the upright glyph) is Bainsley: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/bainsley

Edited by Serge
Forum decided to delete all my text and only leave the image...
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bennywhitebread Contributor

bennywhitebread

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On 6/5/2022 at 8:26 PM, Serge said:

 

I don't think you need to rebuild the leaf - it's a relatively common glyph in fonts, called a "hedera" or "fleuron" or "aldus' leaf" or - in unicode - "floral heart", and although I'm not sure where this exact design originated, many fonts copy it - or try to. One of the ones I think does it best is "Symbola" (free):

 

image.png

 

https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/symbola

 

But there are many others copying the same design. You'll also find copies of this design in MS Gothic (not quite as well drawn), or in Deja Vu Sans (really badly drawn) and somewhere around hundreds of other fonts (although some will obviously do their own design fitting with the general font design).

 

The sharp corner towards the top of the left glyph here is intentional - and it looks like it's also in the MI manual - an "ink trap". The glyphs are at U+2766 and U+2767 - or you can try just copy/pasting these, and changing the font: ❦❧

 

A pretty nice version without the ink trap (although I'm not particularly a fan of the way the swirl and the heart meet in the upright glyph) is Bainsley: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/bainsley

Thank you serge for those clear explanations!  Didn't think about Glyphs !  I have integrate it from symbola font.


I think I have integrate all your feedbacks. If anyone has feedbacks, go on ! (see next post)

 

I also updated the share folder with  a version 0.2 PDF ! 

 

Still pretty unhappy with the right column but I found multiple postAntiqua fonts on Fontgeek and will try them.  i don't know how I missed them but will try it on a sandbox file.

 

Thank you !

Edited by bennywhitebread
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New version with some fixes:

https://assets.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:799b14d4-5e4b-4bab-b703-5a42ad104a64?view=published

 

* Font increased from 9 to 9,1

* margins are adjusted based on MK2 manual (I have the Amiga big box version)

* Leafs are from the Symbola font

* In-game on page 6 changed and in-game on page 4 has been "optimized" a bit (color and lights)

* Mispellings

 

To fix:

* Spacing to be pixel perfect

* In-Game images should need a graphic treatment

 

Well I guess it could be soon the V1  !

 

Unfortunately I can get it pixel perfect.  It stranges, sometimes on a page the left column is right but using the same parameters on the next page doesn't give the same result.

 

Playing with some other fonts doesn't do the trick !

Edited by bennywhitebread
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Marius Proficient

Marius

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Hey Benjamin, just wanted to say that this project great! What a wonderful idea and and contribution to preservation. I like that it‘s a reminder that, back then, the „experience“ of Monkey Island wasn‘t just playing the game, it was also holding a box, fiddling with the code wheel, and reading a manual.

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bennywhitebread Contributor

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Thank you all !  I will update this version tomorrow. I already have made the changes but not generate a new PDF!

 

I will do the same with MK2 as well after this one :)

Could be my "hobby" to recreate manuals :D 

 

As @Marius said, the manual was important at that time and is full of funny sentences !  

 

Oh also if someone has a scan of the manual in other languages, I could make multilingual version of the manual !

Feel free to contact me.  I'm looking for the french manual but I can integrate any language if you want :)

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Hi all, small updates done:

* Mispellings

* Comments added

* Some missed bold typo

* Small leaves moves from 7 to 8 pt and has been moved to a nearly perfect position :)

 

I have added the updated links for shared files and comment review on first post and will do so if I creates another version.

 

Time to go to bed !

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