Return to Monkey Island

[Aro-tron]

This is very fun, because I have fond memories of when Curse of Monkey Island was on the cover of PC Gamer back in July 1997. The cover was similarly big scary shot of LeChuck, and I wonder if Rex's new cover is an homage to that. PC Gamer was a very big deal at the time (in my teenage mind at least), and I could hardly believe that something as niche as Monkey Island made the cover. (I think they also did a big cover feature on The Dig, and another issue had a handful of screenshots of Ron's long-gestating "Good and Evil" project that I spent way too long scrutinizing). 

I possibly spent more time re-playing the Curse demo that came with this issue than I did with the actual game, but I completely forgot that it came with full versions of Monkey Island 1 and 2! Does anyone recall which versions of the game were on the demo disc?

 

[Niemandswasser]

I believe that was the Monkey Island Madness collection, which was the first appearance of the MI1 VGA CD version.

[OzzieMonkey]

11 hours ago, LowLevel said:

 

• a confirmation that LeChuck still keeps ghost chickens on his ship.

 

 

Ghost chickens that lay ghost eggs, apparently.

[madmardi]

I don't know if I'm reading into this too much, but isn't it strange that Murray is in so many different locations in the screenshots? Makes me wonder whether he plays a more important role, like Murray is the hint system or something. Sidekick Murray?

 

Also, the PC Gamer screenshot is the first time we've seen Elaine on Melee isn't it? I feel like that changes my view of how Melee will play out, as previously I was under the impression that Guybrush returned to Melee on his own...

[Marius]

12 hours ago, Staple Remover said:

Oh man, this is cool: Because your photo is a bit blurry, this looks like a page from an old magazine where the screenshots had that CRT monitor quality.

[Vainamoinen]

Wait what? PC Gamer is spoiling the 1911 Treasure Island cover by N. C. Wyeth?! Those bastards! 😈

[Al.DeHyde]

To sort of hark back to Escape being a more suggestive game; as a Brit I find this line way more amusing and rude than the American writers intended 😁

 

[BillyCheers]

3 hours ago, madmardi said:

Makes me wonder whether he plays a more important role, like Murray is the hint system or something. Sidekick Murray?

 

I remember Ron saying something like “Murray is a lot in this game!” 
 

Murray as a sidekick (if done well) could be cool. And I really like the hint-Murray idea! You’ll get insulted every time you need a tip… 😅

[Laserschwert]

16 hours ago, Staple Remover said:

And here’s a chicken, let the speculating begin. 

Stupid me... in a way to not get spoiled, I just glanced at these images for a moment, and what I saw on this shot was clearly a room-sized chicken sitting across from Guybrush. And since it's a demon chicken, I was sure this must be El Pollo Diablo. Now I realize it's just a ghost chicken in the foreground.

[LowLevel]

10 minutes ago, Laserschwert said:

what I saw on this shot was clearly a room-sized chicken sitting across from Guybrush.

 

I also perceived it the same way. This isn't the first time that I had trouble at understanding how deep some objects are in the scene and, consequently, how big they are. For example, in the SCUMM Bar there is (apparently) a clothed table that, at first, seemed to me a... cake!

[OzzieMonkey]

16 minutes ago, Laserschwert said:

Stupid me... in a way to not get spoiled, I just glanced at these images for a moment, and what I saw on this shot was clearly a room-sized chicken sitting across from Guybrush. And since it's a demon chicken, I was sure this must be El Pollo Diablo. Now I realize it's just a ghost chicken in the foreground.

El Pollo Diablo is in this screenshot...it's Guybrush 😜

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow. Was it just me or was that article terribly written? The first two paragraphs alone felt like random disconnected points. I really didn't get the "joke" of Dave Grossman saying he didn't need convincing. And it just suddenly switched gear halfway through earnestly proclaiming how inclusive the game was going to be (was anyone concerned it was going to be offensive?).

 

Has magazine journalism gotten worse or are my memories of 90s journalism rose-tinted from being a teenager? (Obviously the industry has been decimated by the internet, sadly )

 

Either way, as others have said: Really nothing earth shattering within (I deliberately zoomed in and around all the cut outs and screenshots).

[BaronGrackle]

Inclusive? In the context of an adventure game, I'm not even sure what that means. No copyright protection wheels? /joke

[Vainamoinen]

17 hours ago, LowLevel said:

Is it... paper?

It's still made from trees I guess, but wafer would sue you for defamation if you said it's as thin.

 

17 hours ago, Staple Remover said:

And here’s a chicken, let the speculating begin.

THREE chickens. And I take the memes over the speculation.

 

1 hour ago, BillyCheers said:

Murray as a sidekick (if done well) could be cool.

🏴‍☠️ Murray as a VERB could be cool! 🏴‍☠️

 

2 hours ago, Al.DeHyde said:

To sort of hark back to Escape being a more suggestive game; as a Brit I find this line way more amusing and rude than the American writers intended 😁

I guess the c-word was reserved for "chicken" all along.

 

33 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

And it just suddenly switched gear halfway through earnestly proclaiming how inclusive the game was going to be (was anyone concerned it was going to be offensive?).

 

Uhm ... I admit, I kind of think that it 🐻s repeating.

 

Especially when looking at the unedited versions of comments on Ron's blog or the trailer on youtube, it becomes abundantly clear that a whole lot of people thought it was going to made for cis white males. It really is better to punch these dudes repeatedly in the face with how "woke" something is going to be and how "woke" The Secret of Monkey Island and LeChuck's Revenge actually were back in the day, because they're actually really stupid people.

 

TSoMI was the story of a pudgy guy who knows nothing about the world, who first gets beaten by a competent black woman several times, then attempts to rescue a damsel for two thirds of the game even though she was in control of the situation for the entirety of the game. LeChuck's Revenge shows that "damsel" naming her dog after the protagonist and throwing him out of her house while he's not in any discomfort at all wearing a pink dress (well, it has no pockets).

 

Copy that, paste that, they don't understand even after a thousand times. I'm sure that in some forums, new shitstorms will emerge on that old info, but come release day, they will still be surprised again.

 

Regarding the criticism of modern game journalism, this really is a special case, because the journalist probably handed in his script, and then Ron and Dave said "you can't say that" to a few parts, then Devolver to others, and Disney to all of them. If this feels like shredded bits of wood, it probably wasn't the journalist who did the shredding.

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[ThunderPeel2001]

4 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

Regarding the criticism of modern game journalism, this really is a special case, because the journalist probably handed in his script, and then Ron and Dave said "you can't say that" to a few parts, then Devolver to others, and Disney to all of them. If this feels like shredded bits of wood, it probably wasn't the journalist who did the shredding.

 

Possibly. It was some of the worst journalism I can remember reading. It was just meandering bits and pieces between quotes from the team. (Not that I'm any good, but it's not my job!)

Edited August 19, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Laserschwert]

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Laserschwert

[KestrelPi]

Haha, yes, hopefully some people are going to be stewing over how 'woke' ReMI is going to be, that'd be lovely. Weird nerds not understanding what Star Trek has always been (even if it isn't doesn't always do it great) is one of my favourite genres of social media post and I'd love to see Monkey Island get a piece of that action.

 

Seriously though, I actually appreciate talk about inclusivity when it's actually followed up by tangible action. I always appreciated that Tim Schafer took a stand during the whole gramergrape thing and then followed through by actually committing to diverse hires, actually committing to building accessibility features into the game, actually letting it inform how Psychonauts 2 was written, etc. Otherwise it's all just words.

 

I'm going to draw a soft line under this and say let's not go TOO far down this rabbit hole as these conversations have a tendency to go a Certain Way after a while.

 

 

 

 

[BaronGrackle]

I guess I just can't think of any Lucasarts adventure game (from Maniac Mansion to Escape from Monkey Island) that would scream: "This isn't very inclusive."

 

I guess Zak McKraken calls the two women college students co-eds... Indy 3 and 4 have all kinds of Nazis and swastikas, even if they're depicted as your enemy... Escape's writing of creepy Guybrush and also Brittany was clearly written before #metoo empathy... and I suppose that even with the vegetarian leanings, the "primitive" depictions of the cannibals on Monkey and Blood Island (Secret and Curse) are arguably problematic.

 

I'd understand if Lemonhead and his tribesman don't return in Return.

 

EDIT: Though one of my favorite jokes in Curse is when Lemonhead downplays the natives' understanding of medicine by bragging about their European-influenced, state of the art BLOODLETTING center. That was irony done well. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[KestrelPi]

(not taking my own advice here, I know)

 

I've always thought LucasArts has been ahead of its time with its writing, but that said there is a trap here. Pointing at Elaine and Carla and claiming the slam dunk (which I'm not saying anyone is doing here) isn't ... it, and there's no doubt that regardless of how inclusive they were in some ways, they were all products of their time (struggling to come up with any non-hetero coded character/moment in any LucasArts adventure that isn't played for laughs, even as far as Tales)

 

Being progressive is... well, it progresses. It changes over time. In the early 90s having a token, unusually randy gay character in a sitcom was progressive, now it's the opposite because in the early 90s being represented at all was a big win but now it's happened enough we can afford the 'luxury' of nuance in how that portrayal is done.

So that's why it's always welcome to me to know that this is something creators actively think about. I love to hear they're thinking of ways to be inclusive because that is an acknowledgement that their attitude isn't just 'eh, we figured out inclusivity in 1990, solved it, no need to revisit that ever'

 

I know it's tiresome to some, and that it can seem like a constant uphill climb where nothing is ever good enough (again, not saying anyone here has expressed that attitude, just to explain why I personally like genuine nods to inclusivity), but I promise that there are people out there who see the efforts when they are made and appreciate it.

[BaronGrackle]

42 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

(struggling to come up with any non-hetero coded character/moment in any LucasArts adventure that isn't played for laughs, even as far as Tales)

This is something that can be overcome in a Lucas style adventure game, but it feels more difficult to imagine in Monkey Island specifically because:

 

1) Guybrush is our protagonist and our vehicle, and he's been firmly established as hetero coded (only flirts with women, has been seen as identifying/dressing male as a very young child). So that's our primary game perspective.

 

2) It's comedy, and a huge portion of Guybrush's reactions to his world are comedic. A lot of things are played for laughs.

 

I feel like the most genius types of inclusion are the most subtle ones, but that's hard to pull off because subtlety might not get the message across.
 

As an example... imagine Largo LaGrande comes back, and Ron decides he has always been a transgender male. (I heard a fan suggest this once as an alternative explanation for the bra.) If Ron wanted to canonize this... how would it even be depicted? It's a topic where subtlety is often the best and most beautiful means, but if you're too subtle then the fans accuse you of pulling a "gay Dumbledore" without any real evidence shown in your work.

 

I can stop if this is crossing uncomfortable lines. I think I'm done with my thoughts on it, anyway?

 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[OzzieMonkey]

This may be a long shot, but is it possible that the "World Premiere" next week is just the game dropping and the trailer we get is in fact a launch trailer to tell people "go buy it right now, it's out"? Also, will there even be a Monkey Island Monday next week? Premiere, to me at least, suggests a release, unless they simply mean "premiere of this specific trailer", which to me feels like being strung along tbh. Either way, whether it's just a straight up drop of the game or a date, I'm at least 80% sure we'll know when it's out by then. 

[ThunderPeel2001]

Didn't Devolver say they had lots of ReMI content planned for this month? I was expecting a weekly build up (outside of Monkey Island Mondays), possibly with a release date being announced by the end. 

 

We're halfway through and although it's great to get a PC GAMER cover story, what much else has there been?

[demone]

6 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Didn't Devolver say they had lots of ReMI content planned for this month? I was expecting a weekly build up (outside of Monkey Island Mondays), possibly with a release date being announced by the end. 

 

We're halfway through and although it's great to get a PC GAMER cover story, what much else has there been?

They said there would be more/big news this month. If Tuesday has a trailer and a release date, that's enough for me and would still make that tweet 100% true.  

Edited August 19, 2022 by demone

[Rum Rogers]

Pretty interesting how LeChuck is being modified during these last months of development.
Now the Jolly Roger on his hat has real bones that have been roughly tied together, and his "lips" are more thick, noticeable and green. Here they are for comparison.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Rum Rogers

[JacquesSparkyTail]

32 minutes ago, Rum Rogers said:

Pretty interesting how LeChuck is being modified during these last months of development.
Now the Jolly Roger on his hat has real bones that have been roughly tied together, and his "lips" are more thick, noticeable and green. Here they are for comparison.

Oh yeah… and I don’t think he had those epaulettes in the trailer. Although it’s difficult to tell as his beard is obscuring that area. Maybe i’m reading too much into this (in fact, i definitely am because naval captains wore those too) but to me that just screams admiral. 
 

Also i just learned the word epaulette