Return to Monkey Island

[KestrelPi]

Yeah, nothing to me suggested this would be enforced hinting. More like... it would be integrated into the world in some way. Probably some sort of character, or something like that. Maybe the Voodoo Lady gives hints now. That'd make some sort of sense. Get your hints as a psychic reading?

 

I'm glad for it anyway, insistence on no hint systems was always silly to me because when you, the developer, control the hint system you can control how those hints are meted out. If folks are just going onto walkthroughs they might see more than they need to.

 

On the rest of the article and everything else. Y'know, the more I look at the art the more I appreciate it. I've always like Rex Crowle's work anyway. Knights and Bikes has convinced me that a) he's more than capable of producing a beautiful Monkey Island game and b) his work is WAY more expressive in motion than in the mostly still images we've seen so far. And the more I've been staring at these screenshots the more I've appreciated the little details of them.

But that and the other noises from Ron and Dave have convinced me of something way more important than anything else to me which this is not just a throwback. A throwback could only ever be disappointing because the thing we loved about these games back then was how different they felt to anything else, how surprising they could be, and you can't just bottle up that lightning and try to resell it. Just as MI2 was its own fresh take on what MI was with as much that felt different as felt the same (really, the soundtrack, art, atmosphere and even to an extent the writing is different in a lot of ways), Return should be too, and that means that it might make us a little uncomfortable sometimes. But if we go into it with an open mind, I really think we could be in for a ride.

 

 

[Asterothe]

BTW the ship in the teaser is LeChuck's! 

[Jake]

That was a great interview. 

[CalisDraws]

5 hours ago, Rum Rogers said:

I never really understood people who use hintbooks for a graphic adventure game.

 

It doesn't happen very often but I do fall guilty to using hint books whenever I'm really really stuck on a puzzle (like, multiple days stuck). I like to use UHS though to only get pushed in the right direction rather than being given the answer directly. I do appreciate the kind of hint system that doesn't ruin the "aha!" moment so I hope it'll be subtle hints instead of just giving away the solution.

And I do it mostly just cuz I don't want to stay stuck on something for too long, especially since I don't have a lot of free time to play videogames so if I stay stuck on a puzzle for multiple days it's kind of frustrating to not see any progress happen y'know? I had to use a hint for the "if this is (number), then what is this" riddle in Monkey 2... I felt very stupid afterwards haha

Edited April 23, 2022 by CalisDraws

[Jake]

I thought the way hints worked in Thimbleweed Park was really good. 

[Goury1]

8 hours ago, Zaxx said:

I always liked the difficulty options in MI 2 and 3 too so I'm glad Return will have that. Hopefully that also means that they won't hold back on the "hard" difficulty.

 

Yeah, I hope so to!

 

8 hours ago, Asterothe said:

t should be like Special editions are. As long as you do not press a key   it should not give you any. 

 

It would be a great solution!

[Lagomorph01]

Haven’t hints always been a part of Adventure Games though? Characters will always give you some clue of what to do, and if they don’t the playable character will. It was just a matter of how much information did the game designer want you to have.

It just seems that in later years, hints had to me more clearfully be marked as hints, and there needed to be much, much more, because games were getting more mainstream and the market got more and more flooded.

In most cases I can imagine them being more of a publishers fear of people moving over to the next game then a designers choice.

[Laserschwert]

I liked the way hints worked in Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space, with Max giving hints, depending on the "strength" set in the options. Those hints just gently pushed you in the right direction, not flat out telling you the solution, but rather making it sound like Max' intuition kicks in.

[Goury1]

7 hours ago, Asterothe said:

BTW the ship in the teaser is LeChuck's! 

 

Maybe it isn't? It would be a real twist if LeChuck had competition!

[Rum Rogers]

24 minutes ago, Goury1 said:

 

Maybe it isn't? It would be a real twist if LeChuck had competition!

It is, the screenshot caption was chosen by Terrible Toybox and it clearly states it is.

[Goury1]

4 minutes ago, Rum Rogers said:

It is, the screenshot caption was chosen by Terrible Toybox and it clearly states it is.

 

Thanks for clarification! I didn't notice the caption!

[Goury1]

So is the interview all we are getting at PAX East? I was expecting at least a specific release date or a presentation of how Guybrush looks...

[OzzieMonkey]

6 minutes ago, Goury1 said:

So is the interview all we are getting at PAX East? I was expecting at least a specific release date or a presentation of how Guybrush looks...

It seems like they're still busy in the recording studio for the voices. I don't expect it will be too long though before we get more stuff. I doubt we'll be waiting until Summer Game Fest, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if the game's out by then. Fingers crossed that next week we'll get a trailer and some more interviews. I agree that PAX would've been the best place to show something though. It's not over yet though.

[KestrelPi]

If they're at the point of getting voices and music in the game, that means there's not all that much left that needs work,yeah. Still I'd be surprised if we get the game before July. If we assume they need a month to finish the VO and music, and about 2 more for testing and polish.

 

August feels about right to me at the moment based on very limited info.

[KestrelPi]

2 hours ago, Lagomorph01 said:

Haven’t hints always been a part of Adventure Games though? Characters will always give you some clue of what to do, and if they don’t the playable character will. It was just a matter of how much information did the game designer want you to have.

It just seems that in later years, hints had to me more clearfully be marked as hints, and there needed to be much, much more, because games were getting more mainstream and the market got more and more flooded.

In most cases I can imagine them being more of a publishers fear of people moving over to the next game then a designers choice.

 

Weeell, there are levels of hints aren't there? Personally I'm all for giving the player a say in how much hinting they want to engage with. I think it's maybe a little bit patronising to assume as a designer that you know best exactly how much hinting is enough, because there are so many different types of players.

When I first played The Secret of Monkey Island I was about 10, and I'd never played an adventure game or even a puzzle game before. I had no concept of adventure game logic, and also I think it's fair to say that while a smart kid, my brain wasn't as developed as it was now. I had a hintbook for Monkey Island, that I used for most of the game.

By the time I was playing the later LucasArts games I was fully in the 'hints only as a last resort' mindset. But I don't think younger me was wrong. Younger me loved Monkey Island, even though he solved very few puzzles himself. And I think that's valid. It's valid if someone, for whatever or even no  given reason, just doesn't want to solve puzzles, but wants to explore the fun dialogue and world. It's valid if someone wants to do everything themselves no matter how long it takes.

 

So if, as a designer, I want as many types of players of my game to be able to enjoy it as possible, from both ends of the spectrum, then what makes most sense is for me to implement a well thought-out hint system which gives just enough for people who might only want a little nudge, and all they want for anyone who isn't particularly fussed about challenge.

This is one of those rare situations where you really can please everyone, except for some weirdos who think that everyone else needs to enjoy the game in the same way they do... so why not?

[Lagomorph01]

1 hour ago, SurplusGamer said:

 

Weeell, there are levels of hints aren't there? Personally I'm all for giving the player a say in how much hinting they want to engage with. I think it's maybe a little bit patronising to assume as a designer that you know best exactly how much hinting is enough, because there are so many different types of players.

When I first played The Secret of Monkey Island I was about 10, and I'd never played an adventure game or even a puzzle game before. I had no concept of adventure game logic, and also I think it's fair to say that while a smart kid, my brain wasn't as developed as it was now. I had a hintbook for Monkey Island, that I used for most of the game.

By the time I was playing the later LucasArts games I was fully in the 'hints only as a last resort' mindset. But I don't think younger me was wrong. Younger me loved Monkey Island, even though he solved very few puzzles himself. And I think that's valid. It's valid if someone, for whatever or even no  given reason, just doesn't want to solve puzzles, but wants to explore the fun dialogue and world. It's valid if someone wants to do everything themselves no matter how long it takes.

 

So if, as a designer, I want as many types of players of my game to be able to enjoy it as possible, from both ends of the spectrum, then what makes most sense is for me to implement a well thought-out hint system which gives just enough for people who might only want a little nudge, and all they want for anyone who isn't particularly fussed about challenge.

This is one of those rare situations where you really can please everyone, except for some weirdos who think that everyone else needs to enjoy the game in the same way they do... so why not?

I agree with you there. As a kid I never wanted to use a walkthrough*, because I’d never be able to figure out that puzzle by myself again. But when I was stuck for a long time, eventually I’d still use a walkthrough, although I always felt bad about it. If a good hint system would’ve been in place, I probably could have figured it out by myself. (On the other hand, I’d more easily have used it, and I wouldn’t have been as proud of the puzzles I did solve by myself. Two sides to a coin I guess.)

 

Anyway, I think the Thimbleweed Park way was great, and no, I never used it. 😎

 

* When I was young I bought a “PC Gamers Cheat Codes book”, which came with a cd-rom on which were walkthroughs of about every Adventure Game that was released up until that point.

[DM81]

On 4/15/2022 at 9:26 PM, Rum Rogers said:

It wasn't written in stone that the game after Indy4 would have adopted the style that DOTT eventually adopted.

Certainly true.
 

But we can make assumptions, based on what we know for sure. And the assumptions, if correct, can bring us closer to the truth.

What do we know for sure?

We know that in 1993 Larry Ahern, animator of Monkey 2, and Peter Chan who together with Purcell had designed the backdrops, for the graphics of DooT - the first Lucas adventure to have a real artistic direction - chose the Warner cartoons of the years as a reference. 1950s, in particular "What's Opera Doc", which in turn was strongly influenced by the aesthetics of German expressionism of the 1920s (Metropolis, Dr Caligari etc.).
 

Why did they follow this line? Not by chance. If you remember in those years - before full motion video games like Phantasmagoria - the software house experimentation was directed towards cartoon style games. Sierra had experimented with Leisure Suit Larry 5 (1991) and Willy Beamish (1991).

So, knowing all of those informations, we can say with a reasonable security that if Ahern and Chan had worked on Monkey 3 in 93/94, following their research and the trend of those years, they would have chosen the same, deformed and expressionist style.

That is what we have now, more or less.

I said all this again to say that the style of Return to Monkey Island is everything, but not "contemporary".

It is strongly, totally, definitely retro.

Thank's God.

 

[Lagomorph01]

43 minutes ago, DM81 said:

So, knowing all of those informations, we can say with a reasonable security that if Ahern and Chan had worked on Monkey 3 in 93/94, following their research and the trend of those years, they would have chosen the same, deformed and expressionist style.

I love the artwork you’re referring to, but these assumptions are very farfetched. Different designers and project means different direction.

Going by what you’re saying it’s a wonder The Dig and Full Throttle didn’t look like Looney Tunes cartoons.

[Jake]

I think it’s a safe bet that “Monkey 3,” had that been made right after 2 instead of DOTT, would have pushed into a more stylized space, but what exactly that space is can never be known. It is clear from everything they did afterwards, the LucasArts art department was interested in pushing the limits into more stylized spaces. They also seemed uninterested in repeating themselves. It’s unlikely that Monkey 3 would have tried to look like a Chuck Jones cartoon, but it’s very unlikely it would have looked like “more Monkey Island 2.” Everything they did afterwards pushed for more illustrative and bigger characters for example. (Except The Dig but that doesn’t count because it started production before all of its contemporaries.) Again that doesn’t mean a Monkey 3 definitely would have shared that, but the odds are decent it would have at least been explored. 

 

This image was recovered as part of the VGHF dive into the Monkey Island 1 and 2 source, and nobody was able to divine what it means or what it’s from so please don’t draw conclusions. It’s NOT from any Monkey 3 project. Its impossible to say what it was for beyond a quick style exercise. It was actually found in the source files for Monkey 1, and the reason for that is hard to know (it could have just been a filing mistake, or not?) but it shows that even during production of Monkey Island 1 and 2, the artists were starting to explore pushing into more stylized looks. It really does feel like once scanning paintings was added to their repertoire, the sky was the limit on style exploration.

 

 

[elTee]

Ah nighttime Booty, with the original Stan's Used Coffins from the MI2 demo I assume

[Jake]

Yeah it is probably that*, but the buildings on the left are in a different style that definitely seems to be trending into the DOTT zone. Someone was interested in exploring more abstract shapes.
 

To my eyes it almost looks like an evolution of the wonky perspective of Melee in Monkey Island 1, but seen through the lens of the Monkey 2 artists (who went on to do backgrounds for DOTT and Hit the Road). It really does evoke some of the reference art posted earlier in the thread, but with a different end result than we got in DOTT. Ultimately Monkey Island 2 ended up looking like the right side of the image, but it’s clear that less realistic approaches to representing the world of the game were being considered even during (what appears to be) the transition time between Monkey 1 and 2. 

 

 

* (originally known as Crooked Island in those early days I believe)

[DM81]

51 minutes ago, Lagomorph01 said:

I love the artwork you’re referring to, but these assumptions are very farfetched. Different designers and project means different direction.

Going by what you’re saying it’s a wonder The Dig and Full Throttle didn’t look like Looney Tunes cartoons.

Of course, they are speculations, approximations to a truth that is possible but not certain.

It must be said, however, that The Dig, although it is from 1995, adopted some previous graphic expedients - we all remember its troubled production led by Brian Moriarty and started in 92-93.

And Full Throttle is from 1995, and was affected by the graphics research done for Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix. And the graphics of both, although not deformed like those of Dott and Sam & Max, are definitely definable as cartoonish.

What I'm trying to say is that, due to internal request within the Lucas company (the graphic designers wanted bigger characters), external influences (the Sierra cartoon adventures) and a number of technical innovations (Cd-Rom, 386, etc.) the graphic style of Lucas games typical of the years 89-92 (Indy3-Loom-Monkey1,2-Indy4) that we now identify as "pixelart" was necessarily destined to be abandoned in favor of a more streamlined and abstract style (which among other things it is the one that today suffers less in terms of restyling, just look at the remastered versions of Dott / Full Throttle).

In this aesthetic movement that is partly conscious and partly unconscious (there is still a spirit of the time, even in video games ...) how are Monkey Island 1 and 2 positioned?

Well, in my opinion a progressive "cartoon" trend was already evident.

We look to the governor of Phatt. To the guard. A Largo. To Eleine's cook.

Let's look at Guybrush.

The cartoonish graphics were already there. And, compared to the first chapter, it is definitely more present. Only it was limited by the technique of the time.

"But there are Guybrush close-ups that ..."
Yes, but we know that Ron Gilbert didn't appreciate them, because they were too distant from the rest of the game.
And in fact in the second game there are no more.

Maybe it's excessive speculation, but ... I really think that if it had been done in 93, as mentioned above, Ron and the graphics would have accentuated the cartoon aspect and not the realistic one, keeping an artistic direction not too dissimilar to what we see now.

[DM81]

25 minutes ago, Jake said:

This image was recovered as part of the VGHF dive into the Monkey Island 1 and 2 source, and nobody was able to divine what it means or what it’s from so please don’t draw conclusions. It’s NOT from any Monkey 3 project. Its impossible to say what it was for beyond a quick style exercise. It was actually found in the source files for Monkey 1, and the reason for that is hard to know (it could have just been a filing mistake, or not?) but it shows that even during production of Monkey Island 1 and 2, the artists were starting to explore pushing into more stylized looks. It really does feel like once scanning paintings was added to their repertoire, the sky was the limit on style exploration.

 

 

Very, very interesting.

[KestrelPi]

In a lot of ways I've always thought MI2's art style has more in common with CMI than SoMI. Once you look beyond the pixels, they all use cartoonish distortion, but 1's style of distortion is very linear and predictable, lots of straight lines and playing with perspective, but not much else. But MI2, as well as having a painted look like CMI (albeit with markers), really starts to play with the sort of curvy distortion on buildings and so on that you see get taken to much more of an extreme in CMI. If you compare say, Phatt Island's town with Lucre in CMI, for example, they're not a million miles apart, but both are very different to how Melee is drawn, even ignoring the palette.

[Rum Rogers]

3 hours ago, DM81 said:

So, knowing all of those informations, we can say with a reasonable security that if Ahern and Chan had worked on Monkey 3 in 93/94, following their research and the trend of those years, they would have chosen the same, deformed and expressionist style.

Sorry, I don't think it's reasonable security by far. The wackiness of DOTT was appropriate for something that was by all means a reboot of the Maniac Mansion franchise.

Monkey Island had solid foundations that didn't need that much of a dramatic change.

I suggest you have a look to the design document of the cancelled Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix.

It was certainly cartoony, but far more serious and proportioned than DOTT.

 

Edit: sorry, you already did. The page didn't update properly.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Rum Rogers