Return to Monkey Island

[Aro-tron]

Whoa, I didn’t even notice his lips in the screenshots. They’re unsettling!

If LeChuck looks different on the magazine, how likely is it that those changes have also been applied to his sprite in the game?

[Rum Rogers]

3 minutes ago, Aro-tron said:

Whoa, I didn’t even notice his lips in the screenshots.

I thought that was a voodoo necklace till Ron shared a talking LeChuck on #MonkeyIslandMonday that made me notice they're lips.
I think it's pretty likely that the changes have been applied to the whole game.
That, or LeChuck changes a bit during the game.

[LowLevel]

8 hours ago, BillyCheers said:

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

 

Yeah. I don't think that Murray has the "physique du role" to support a role as a main character in the game, so I think that the hypothesis of him working as the hint system might be valid.

 

7 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Was it just me or was that article terribly written?

 

I really can't tell, but I would assume that this article was simply a piece of their marketing strategy, aimed mainly at informing non-superfans that the game exists.

 

As any communication, it has to be validated by many subjects before being published. Each subject will try also to highlight its own contribution to the project. This is quite normal, especially for projects supervised by big and popular companies.

 

7 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

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

 

I didn't think about that, it's a nice idea! Like Max was in "Hit the Road".

 

5 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

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.

 

This is a very well-balanced position, that I like and support.

 

Since I'm reading in several posts about inclusiveness focused on the game itself, I will point out that it is also a policy that applies to the entire project. For example, it can influence how people are recruited.

 

5 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

don't return in Return

 

How is that even possible?

 

3 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

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"?

 

I think that the "premiere" will consist mainly in a trailer, designed to arouse  curiosity in  those who don't already know that the game exists.

 

I'm afraid that they need to inform new people that this game exists.

 

1 hour ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

I was expecting a weekly build up

 

I have no evidence that Devolver DIgital is investing in RtMI the same quantity of time and efforts that they invested in "Cult of the Lamb" which, by the way, has been managed extremely well, from a marketing point of view.

 

1 hour ago, Rum Rogers said:

Pretty interesting how LeChuck is being modified during these last months of development.

 

Interesting comparison, thank you for pointing it out!

 

I remember Dominic Armato saying that the developers did a lot of polishing after the first shared screenshots, so these changes might be the result of that.

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by LowLevel

[Staple Remover]

7 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Wow. Was it just me or was that article terribly written? 

Yeah… they did say that Ron Gilbert “had taken something of a steering role in Escape from Monkey Island”. 
 

[KestrelPi]

4 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

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?

 

 

 

I don't think anything you've said here is totally unreasonable, but I'd say (in brief-as-i-can because I don't really want to labour the point and I'm totally not taking my own advice at this point):

 

1) Sure, headcanons aside guybrush appears to be for all intents and purposes a cishet guy. That's fine. But there are more ways to have representation than in the main character. Not saying we're entitled to it, just saying that it's something when I think back on it that was notably almost completely absent from LucasArts games despite all the other ways they were pretty diverse.

 

2) Sure, in comedy a lot of stuff is played for laughs but I don't think that's a get out of jail free card. A character might be funny for lots of reasons, but just because they're, say, gay doesn't mean that their gayness has to be 'the joke'. In the early 90s that was about par for the course. It's representation, but it's... not great.

 

But for example in Tales you have the flirtatious but androgynous Mer-people where the whole gag is 'guybrush doesn't know how to feel about their flirting' which I think just about passes for a joke in the 2000s but now might be accused of being ... ehh maybe a little lazy. Not heinous, just... of its time.

 

----

 

Incidentally I think a trans read of Largo is perfectly plausible, and I definitely like it more than the (at the time no-doubt deliberate) joke of 'ha ha he's a tough guy but likes to wear bras' joke which is.. ehh. And the thought of that annoying the pants off exactly the sort of people you'd expect it to annoy is delicious. But I'm in two minds about whether I would like this game to tackle that.. I think I would welcome it if there were trans folks involved in the writing of that character who could speak to that experience

 

(okay I WILL try to stop now though, it's just that this is a fascinating topic for me)

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by KestrelPi

[BaronGrackle]

1 hour 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.

Even though I'm sort of frothing in other forums, I will admit the mouth(s) look better with the changes. I did notice how they looked in the trailer. I thought they were still the same, until you pointed this out. For what it's worth.

 

EDIT: LeChuck's co-existing simultaneous mouth(s) is actually a sublime illustration of my hype over this game.

Edited August 19, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[demone]

LeChuck looks genuinely frightening on that cover and I love how it's a nice evolution of his zombie form while also taking elements from others as well. This might actually be my favorite design of him.

 

I think some people were afraid he would be too goofy based off that initial clip a couple of weeks ago, but if this cover is anything to go off of, I think we'll see something akin to his presence in MI2. With so much appearing to happen in this game, it's nice to see that LeChuck will still have a center stage. The series I feel is more about his rivalry with Guybrush than anything else. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by demone

[Rum Rogers]

Random thought, but what made LeChuck so scary to me as a kid was that he had the rotting body of a normal-sized human.

He could barely walk and that somehow made him a bit pitiful and a bit more disgusting as you could imagine his body being partially decomposed made him lose his full walking ability.

From CMI on he's always had this huge torso and the tiny legs made him look more of a parody.

 

Agreed though, this is the scariest I've seen him since Monkey 2!

[Niemandswasser]

1 hour ago, BaronGrackle said:

EDIT: LeChuck's co-existing simultaneous mouth(s) is actually a sublime illustration of my hype over this game.

 

Just curious--how so?

[BaronGrackle]

15 minutes ago, Niemandswasser said:

 

Just curious--how so?

Why... simultaneous joyful anticipation and blue-fired rage/fear, of course. Co-existing in the same space.  

Edited August 19, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[Vainamoinen]

4 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

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"?

 

I'm not up to speed in game culture these days, so I'm going to ask: How often has this actually happened these last ten years? Because I'm going to guess "never". 😬 I absolutely expect the new trailer to be a release date trailer though, I mean, how many damn trailers are they going to make?

 

8 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Possibly. It was some of the worst journalism I can remember reading.

 

Had the forces of evil prevailed eight years ago, this (link) is the kind of journalism we'd have today, minus the sarcasm.

 

7 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

Why... simultaneous joyful anticipation and blue-fired rage/fear, of course. Co-existing in the same space.  

 

For me, the ghostly image of fleshy lips superimposed over the rotting skelletal jaw symbolizes ... ermmmmmmm .... let's say, getting the word out there about a new instalment in an aging series, against impossible odds.

[KestrelPi]

Mm, there's absolutely no point them releasing another trailer at this stage if it doesn't have a date in it. I'm going to say ... 80% we'll know on tuesday.

[demone]

Well, as long as it comes out this year (there's been no indication it would be otherwise), the wait will be shorter than the amount of time passed since the game's announcement. This is where I really start to enjoy the wait for an upcoming game.

 

Next week seems like it's going to be an awesome one. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by demone

[KestrelPi]

I continue to be quietly/loudly confident it's september.

 

Devolver have been releasing 1 game every 3-6 weeks (about a month on average) all year, and they start ramping up publicity for the games in the month or two before the release. Devolver just released Cult of the Lamb, and with very few exceptions that's the only other game it's tweeting about right now except for ... ReMI. There's a couple of other games it could be releasing soon, but they're not talking about those ones on social media at all, while ReMI is getting a twitter series, mainstream magazine articles, a new trailer and show appearance.

 

ReMI is coming out in September, if not earlier (but I doubt earlier), and if I'm wrong I will happily eat crow.

[demone]

18 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

ReMI is coming out in September, if not earlier (but I doubt earlier), and if I'm wrong I will happily eat crow.

 

Agreed, you've been dead on with most of the marketing and I think you're right about the release date as well.

Edited August 19, 2022 by demone

[BillyCheers]

I don’t know… since the trailer drop at the switch event (which in retrospect makes totally sense), I’m not so sure about predictions anymore.

 

But yeah: A game release doesn’t seem right as it would lose a lot of hype they could build up with a release date upfront. So the safest bet is: trailer and/or live gameplay with Ron and a release date next week. 🥳🥳🥳  
 

but who knows: Maybe they’ll postpone it to 2023 because LeChuck needs another lip boost before the release. 💋

Edited August 20, 2022 by BillyCheers

[Laserschwert]

Releasing a game during something as big as Gamescom would be a bit counter-productive, as the audience they announce the release to, would spend their weekend at the very same event, with no time to play the game. But a next week release would still be possible.

[OzzieMonkey]

6 minutes ago, Laserschwert said:

Releasing a game during something as big as Gamescom would be a bit counter-productive, as the audience they announce the release to, would spend their weekend at the very same event, with no time to play the game. But a next week release would still be possible.

I mean, it wouldn't be totally unheard of, Psychonauts 2 came out the day before Gamescom last year. I think I'd prefer to get a date first though so I can plan my series playthrough. Is it abnormal for a game's release date to be announced a week before it drops? Is that enough time? I'd say engagement is pretty high atm with all the Monkey Island Mondays and people are just begging for it to drop, so I can't imagine much point in waiting another month if the game's done. Of course, they could still be ironing everything out, we don't really know.  

This is a long 4 days  

[Staple Remover]

9 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I think I'd prefer to get a date first though so I can plan my series playthrough.

I need to plan mine out as well. I’m aiming for 2 runs back to back, one just to play and experience the game and the other to go back and explore everything in the environment. 

[Toymafia88]

Does anybody know the British time and date the trailer drops?

 

The timezones get a little confusing.

 

 

[Blondebeard]

1 hour ago, Toymafia88 said:

Does anybody know the British time and date the trailer drops?

 

The timezones get a little confusing.

 

 

Hard to predict the time when the trailer airs as the Opening Night Live is a 2 hours showcase and starts at 7pm here in the UK.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Blondebeard

[Toymafia88]

25 minutes ago, Blondebeard said:

Hard to predict the time when the trailer airs as the Opening Night Live is a 2 hours showcase and starts at 7pm here in the UK.

Thanks pal is that on the Tuesday still? Ill be watching live 😬

[Rum Rogers]

Did I create the longest Mojo™ thread ever?!

[OzzieMonkey]

11 minutes ago, Toymafia88 said:

Thanks pal is that on the Tuesday still? Ill be watching live 😬

I wish I could watch it live but it'll be 4am in Australia 😅

[Toymafia88]

35 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I wish I could watch it live but it'll be 4am in Australia 😅

On the plus side you will wake up with a great start to the day 😃