Islands by day / night

[BillyCheers]

@Marius' wonderful thread on the MI1 alley has brought me back to a topic I wanted to post about some time ago...

 

We only see most of the islands during day or night. Actually, only "Tales" is the exception with Flotsam Island in chapters 1, 4 and 5 (and maybe the EGA sunrise in MI1). Now, I'm sure we've all wondered what one or another place looks like at a different time of day - and luckily there's a source or two to give us a little idea here: 

 

MI1 - Parts of Mêlée Island during the day (Fanart videos, apparently even playable)

 

 

 

 

MI2 - Booty Island at night (Official Concept Art)

 

 

CMI - Plunder Island at night (Fanart)

 

CMI - Blood Island during the day (Fanart)

 

Maybe there are even more of such wonderful "what ifs" out there? If so, why not post them here, too? 🙂

 

I find it totally exciting to see these places in a different light and mood, as it directly changes the whole scenery. Plus, it leads to certain mind games, such as:

• Where do the pirates go when they're not in the SCUMM Bar?
• What does the Voodoo Lady do when her store is closed?
• Does Carla also spin back and forth in front of her cabin during the day?
• What does Stan do in his spare time?

(Same questions for all the other games of course!)

 

Sure, there are no concrete answers to any of this (so far), but it's fun to think about. Let's see what happens!  

[ThunderPeel2001]

Melee during the day makes me think of Kings Quest for some reason... and not in a good way.

[Thrik]

Yeah not keen on the Melee treatments there, but I absolutely love Blood Island and Puerto Pollo!

 

We get the briefest of glimpses of a nighttime Puerto Pollo during the CMI intro:

 

I saw this a while ago, which is a take on Melee during the day that I find more appealing:

 

 

 

[BillyCheers]

I totally agree: Those Mêlée daytime works feel kind of strange. I think to me it’s too much brown… If I’d get at it, I think I would try to paint the houses more in gray tones.

 

Plunder is great at night, yeah. Totally forgot about the opening shots in the intro, thanks, @Thrik!

I imagine most places look nice(r) at night than the other way around. Although I really like the Blood Island graveyard at daytime. It just feels much friendlier, but still interesting. I have the urge to wander around there and explore more of the island at that time (much more than with Mêlée). 

[LowLevel]

9 hours ago, BillyCheers said:

there's a source or two to give us a little idea here

 

Thanks for sharing the second video ("Daylight Melee island from a fan game I almost started making about 12 years ago"), I didn't know it!

 

I like these daytime depictions of Melee from an artistic perspective and I've always been curious about how those places would have looked like during the day. Still, I think that the atmosphere in Melee was particularly mesmerizing for me because everything happened under the calm and mysterious cover of the night. When I played the game for the first time, in some scenes that mysteriousness turned into a slightly unsettling sensation, linked to possible dangers hiding around corners. I'm sure that the nightly theme contributed significantly to those emotions and I'm also glad that MI2 starts in the same way as well. 🙂

 

 

[BillyCheers]

Absolutely! And I don’t think that it would be a good idea to show an official version of either Scabb or Mêlée as it’d probably ruin the place for me in that moment. It’d take too much of the mystery.

 

Visiting places like Booty, Monkey or one of the new islands in “Return” by night however - or have some actual change while playing - could be really cool. Just imagine, finding out something at the cannibals by day and then sneaking in the village by night to do or steal that later by night... 😌

 

I really liked what “Tales” did with Flotsam in Chapter 4 and 5. Of course it was kind of a good way to save money/resources, but it also made me change my opinion on the island a lot (as I didn’t really care for it in Chapter 1…). 

[Lagomorph01]

I'm not too keen on the dithering used in the Melee during the day video, looks a bit to Sierra-esque for my taste. Other than that it's feels strange, but still familiar to see Guybrush walk through those places during the day. I'm glad you can only do so at night in the game though, it makes the introduction to pirating more mysterious.

[LowLevel]

5 hours ago, BillyCheers said:

Visiting places like Booty, Monkey or one of the new islands in “Return” by night however - or have some actual change while playing - could be really cool.

 

Oh, absolutely! Am I wrong, or we might get this opportunity for Monkey Island in RtMI?

 

It seems to me that in both the trailer and the banner of Terrible Toybox Twitter profile, the zone around the giant monkey head is lit by the light of the dusk.

 

It doesn't necessarily mean that the entire island will be lit by that kind of light, though. Instead, the developers might have used the same trick adopted in Thimbleweed Park, where the light changes slightly depending on the location.

 

I think both the village of the cannibals and the area around the giant monkey head would look gorgeous if depicted at night with a few torches casting menacing shadows around.

[KestrelPi]

51 minutes ago, LowLevel said:

 

Oh, absolutely! Am I wrong, or we might get this opportunity for Monkey Island in RtMI?

 

It seems to me that in both the trailer and the banner of Terrible Toybox Twitter profile, the zone around the giant monkey head is lit by the light of the dusk.

 

It doesn't necessarily mean that the entire island will be lit by that kind of light, though. Instead, the developers might have used the same trick adopted in Thimbleweed Park, where the light changes slightly depending on the location.

 

I think both the village of the cannibals and the area around the giant monkey head would look gorgeous if depicted at night with a few torches casting menacing shadows around.

 

It's only really after seeing this in the trailer that I noticed that in the original Monkey Island the Monkey Head is also a dusky scene in contrast with the rest of the island.

 

Why was this done at the time? Just for atmospherics? It looked cooler? Probably.

 

Why did they seem to decide to replicate this for ReMI? Same reason? Maybe. But it's an interesting detail isn't it? I can't help but look at that, and think about the Melee Island and wonder if some of this day/night stuff might now have a bit of a deeper significance.

 

Spoiler

 

[BillyCheers]

I was going to say the same about the monkey head, although in the EGA version it looks much less “dusky” (if at all) and more just mysterious with the purple swirls in the sky:

 

 

Good point with the time aspect for ReMI. 🤔

[Blondebeard]

Not really an island, but I tried to convert one of the pirate ship scenes from The Curse of Monkey Island from day to night so I could use it as the dark mode header/cover on my website.

(The original is an upscale by Laserschwert)

Edited August 18, 2022 by Blondebeard

[Jake]

Converting a day scene to night reminds me that I did the first pitch for converting the opening of Tales from day to night. It was originally a bright sunny day at the start of the game, and I suggested we change it to a dark night with thunderstorm, rain etc, and then have it fade to day as Guybrush washes ashore on Flotsam. 
 

The effect animation I made to test this time of day transition looked extremely goofy at 10x speed (which is a common speed to run at in Telltales tools because it has a 10x/1x toggle hotkey for quickly getting through things without skipping over any keyframes or code) because of how LeChuck and the ships bobbled around, and became a video I dumped onto my personal YouTube the day before the game came out 

 

 

[BillyCheers]

25 minutes ago, Jake said:

It was originally a bright sunny day at the start of the game, and I suggested we change it to a dark night with thunderstorm, rain etc, and then have it fade to day as Guybrush washes ashore on Flotsam.

Good decision! I had some problems with the first episode of “Tales” but really liked that it started in the mid of another adventure. And the bad weather added so much to the atmosphere. 👌

[OzzieMonkey]

16 hours ago, Jake said:

Converting a day scene to night reminds me that I did the first pitch for converting the opening of Tales from day to night. It was originally a bright sunny day at the start of the game, and I suggested we change it to a dark night with thunderstorm, rain etc, and then have it fade to day as Guybrush washes ashore on Flotsam. 
 

The effect animation I made to test this time of day transition looked extremely goofy at 10x speed (which is a common speed to run at in Telltales tools because it has a 10x/1x toggle hotkey for quickly getting through things without skipping over any keyframes or code) because of how LeChuck and the ships bobbled around, and became a video I dumped onto my personal YouTube the day before the game came out 

 

 

Haha I remember this video! Good times. Also, great idea to change it to night, it really added to the opening of Chapter 1. 

It's interesting that most people's favourite locations in the series are the ones that take place at night. Probably something to do with that air of mystery that comes from darkness. I think the best daytime area in the series was probably Plunder, it just feels like a nice time being there. 

[BillyCheers]

1 hour ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I think the best daytime area in the series was probably Plunder, it just feels like a nice time being there. 

Totally agree! To me it felt like a very nice and cozy vacation place (maybe apart from the guy at the Brimstone Beach Club). The artwork, music and whole atmosphere there ist just: 👌

[ThunderPeel2001]

Ron Gilbert has said that one of the "characters" in any adventure game is the location. I hope we get some wonderfully new vibey locations to explore.

[BillyCheers]

1 hour ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Ron Gilbert has said that one of the "characters" in any adventure game is the location. I hope we get some wonderfully new vibey locations to explore.

And you can totally see that in MI1, MI2 and also Thimbleweed Park. You Never get enough of wandering around and just enjoying the atmosphere. 🥰

[KestrelPi]

1 hour ago, BillyCheers said:

And you can totally see that in MI1, MI2 and also Thimbleweed Park. You Never get enough of wandering around and just enjoying the atmosphere. 🥰

As much as I had some quibbles with Thimbleweed Park, I think it did location very well.

[Romão]

I don't remember where I found this, but I think it is particularly cool and proper interpretation of what Mêlée Town might look like during the day: