Return to Monkey Island

[Rum Rogers]

1 hour ago, SurplusGamer said:

Lucre in CMI

I believe you might be referring to Plunder? Or did you mean Lucre in EMI?

[elTee]

2 hours ago, SurplusGamer said:

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.

 

Yeah I think the CMI-ness of the MI2 art comes through really clearly when you look at the original marker images. The act of scanning and digitising those images brings MI2 back towards MI1, but that's really just a technical limitation more than an artistic choice I think.

[Goury1]

1 hour ago, Rum Rogers said:

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

 

I'm intrigued! I've never heard about this canelled Indy game! Is there a webste or something where I can find more details about it?

[Zaxx]

1 minute ago, Goury1 said:

 

I'm intrigued! I've never heard about this canelled Indy game! Is there a webste or something where I can find more details about it?

I think there was a comic made from the plot of it.

[KestrelPi]

1 hour ago, Rum Rogers said:

I believe you might be referring to Plunder? Or did you mean Lucre in EMI?

I of course meant Plunder

[KestrelPi]

13 minutes ago, elTee said:

 

Yeah I think the CMI-ness of the MI2 art comes through really clearly when you look at the original marker images. The act of scanning and digitising those images brings MI2 back towards MI1, but that's really just a technical limitation more than an artistic choice I think.

 

Yeah, it's really not much of a stretch to get from this..

to this

[Udvarnoky]

17 minutes ago, Goury1 said:

 

I'm intrigued! I've never heard about this canelled Indy game! Is there a webste or something where I can find more details about it?

 

Streaming exclusively on Mixnmojo:

 

https://mixnmojo.com/features/sitefeatures/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Iron-Phoenix-The-Lost-Sequel-to-Fate-of-Atlantis

[Rum Rogers]

20 minutes ago, Goury1 said:

I'm intrigued! I've never heard about this canelled Indy game! Is there a webste or something where I can find more details about it?

Sure, it's still in the archive. Wilmunder was uploading so much stuff back in the day, too bad he stopped. Here: https://archive.org/details/indy5roomdesign1

[Jake]

Monkey Island 1 and 2 both are pretty grounded architecturally, and then push the style of the rendering to exaggerated fisheye perspectives. Curse takes that and starts applying it to the architecture itself. In Plunder Island, the buildings start stacking vertically and haphazardly, so that the architecture is getting increasingly implausible in support of the visual style. It's only a tiny step in that direction really, but I think it's notable.

 

(I dont think this is a bad thing! It's just interesting to watch happen across those 3 games.)

[Goury1]

20 minutes ago, Udvarnoky said:

Streaming exclusively on Mixnmojo:

 

https://mixnmojo.com/features/sitefeatures/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Iron-Phoenix-The-Lost-Sequel-to-Fate-of-Atlantis

 

16 minutes ago, Rum Rogers said:

Sure, it's still in the archive. Wilmunder was uploading so much stuff back in the day, too bad he stopped. Here: https://archive.org/details/indy5roomdesign1

 

Thank you so much for the materials!

[KestrelPi]

10 minutes ago, Jake said:

Monkey Island 1 and 2 both are pretty grounded architecturally, and then push the style of the rendering to exaggerated fisheye perspectives. Curse takes that and starts applying it to the architecture itself. In Plunder Island, the buildings start stacking vertically and haphazardly, so that the architecture is getting increasingly implausible in support of the visual style. It's only a tiny step in that direction really, but I think it's notable.

 

(I dont think this is a bad thing! It's just interesting to watch happen across those 3 games.)

Sure, that's fair. I do think that feels like a much smaller leap than the one between 1's purely digital look with straight geometry in a heavily skewed perspective, and 2's marker art with more curvy weird angles going on

[Glokidd]

So when can we expect the super-mojo-exclusive dev interview where you guys ask all the hard hitting fan questions™️?

 

I'm excited for when you guys get a chance to chat with Ron & Dave and maybe even David or Rex

 

While writing this I also realized the abbreviation for Ron and Dave is R&D and I think that's pretty awesome by itself

[ThunderPeel2001]

5 hours ago, Jake said:

Monkey Island 1 and 2 both are pretty grounded architecturally, and then push the style of the rendering to exaggerated fisheye perspectives. Curse takes that and starts applying it to the architecture itself. In Plunder Island, the buildings start stacking vertically and haphazardly, so that the architecture is getting increasingly implausible in support of the visual style. It's only a tiny step in that direction really, but I think it's notable.

 

(I dont think this is a bad thing! It's just interesting to watch happen across those 3 games.)

 

Yes, it was one of the things I didn't like about Bill Tiller's art direction at the time. The world was never cartoony, it was always very grounded. Can you point me to where you found that image that you said was from the VGHF? 

 

I watched the whole thing live and have scanned their webpage... unless I'm going blind (which is definitely a possibility) I cannot see the image you claim came from there?

 

https://gamehistory.org/monkeyisland/

 

And can we all just stop for a second and appreciate the utter beauty of this image... Look at those shadows, the gentle use of colour. It's GORGEOUS. I love Peter Chan's work.

 

 

And it still looks beautiful with a limited palette..

 

 

Sigh

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Zaxx]

All the analysis of MI's art style honestly just makes me want to see some actual gameplay from Return. I very much share the opinion that what we've seen so far aims to "re-establish" continuity with the first two games' visuals but I get feeling that when we finally see this thing in motion opinions will change very much. The teaser just seems so "dynamic" and full of motion compared to MI 1-2's more static presentation that I think animation will be Return's strong point and that's the missing link we need in order to "get it".

[ThunderPeel2001]

I agree with you there (but I still hate the lighting in the new Melee scene -- although I have grown to like the other two examples we've seen).

[Lagomorph01]

 

8 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

I agree with you there (but I still hate the lighting in the new Melee scene -- although I have grown to like the other two examples we've seen).

I agree with you on the shadow work in that one image. It’s hard to see where the light comes from. I think though that if they removed the hard drop shadows of the church and prison or made them a bit softer, it would be much nicer on the eyes.

[KestrelPi]

If people haven't seen very much of Rex's art before I really do recommend Knights and Bikes. I think some of the stuff going on thematically should appeal to Monkey Island fans and while it looks like it's not exactly the same style as they're going on for Return, there's obvious overlap and I think what you'll see is that when in motion it really comes together and the character work actually becomes really expressive.

[Thrik]

Man, this one really drives home the DOTT-esque aspect of MI2's graphics.

 

[DM81]

6 minutes ago, Thrik said:

Man, this one really drives home the DOTT-esque aspect of MI2's graphics.

 

... as something that was already there, and that was growing ... just waiting for the right time.

[Thrik]

It might be they decided that was a bit too wacky for MI2 rather than just cutting it for disk space/gameplay speed reasons. It is definitely a step beyond.

[vandands]

23 hours ago, DM81 said:

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.

 

 

 

They've mentioned several times which artist was the definitive inspiration and they both said it was Maurice Noble, famous for designing the backgrounds for a lot of Chuck Jones shorts. I can't recommend this book enough: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Tod-Polson/dp/1452102945

If you get soaked with Noble's body of work you can definitely see that they continue to pursue his style, even though the color rendering is different from the 2 previous games. I am very psyched to watch what they did, honestly I don't get all the hate that the art style got. We, as fans, should be rejoicing with joy that most of the original team is back (even though of course we all wanted Tim to be part of this). I get that not a lot of people loved the art of Broken Age but c'mon a lot of us waited so many years for this to actually exist so I will quote Stimpy: "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!"

 

[ATMcashpoint]

6 hours ago, Thrik said:

It might be they decided that was a bit too wacky for MI2 rather than just cutting it for disk space/gameplay speed reasons. It is definitely a step beyond.

It was included in MI2 at the time of the rolling demo, according to demo datafiles. However, at that point, besides the concrete pit with the treasure chest, there was no ending in place - not even the frame story from the intro. So the underground tunnels from the ending hadn't been implemented yet. Once those were added, the giant underground tunnel room beneath Phatt Island might have been an easy and logical cut for disk space reasons.

 

(This also raises the question of whether waiting at the acid pit in MI2 was originally a genuine "kill Guybrush" Easter Egg like drowning in MI1, before the frame story was added and Guybrush naturally couldn't die during it.)

Edited April 24, 2022 by ATMcashpoint

[ThunderPeel2001]

7 hours ago, SurplusGamer said:

If people haven't seen very much of Rex's art before I really do recommend Knights and Bikes. I think some of the stuff going on thematically should appeal to Monkey Island fans and while it looks like it's not exactly the same style as they're going on for Return, there's obvious overlap and I think what you'll see is that when in motion it really comes together and the character work actually becomes really expressive.

 

The more I look at the images we have (especially in high res) the more it's growing on me. I think it looks worse when it's shrunk down to a thumbnail size, which is obviously not how we're not going to play it.

 

I especially like that courtroom in hires, actually (might have to open in a new tab and zoom in to see all the detail): 

[KestrelPi]

36 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

The more I look at the images we have (especially in high res) the more it's growing on me. I think it looks worse when it's shrunk down to a thumbnail size, which is obviously not how we're not going to play it.

 

I especially like that courtroom in hires, actually (might have to open in a new tab and zoom in to see all the detail): 

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same, the art does much better larger. You start to see the grain of the brush strokes, and it all starts to have a bit more of a distinctly stylistic feel, to me at least. The sooner they can put out a proper trailer where we get to see some of the characters animated and a little bit of how these scenes work in motion, the better I think. I think they're feeling it a little too, because they've implied a little in some of these interviews that when we see the whole thing working, a lot of people will realise that they actually like it.

Of course, it's not going to please everyone. Not everyone liked how CMI looked, and that's valid, even if I think it's very pretty. But what I really hope is that we get away from the idea I've seen in a few places that this art is 'cheap' or 'like the MI1 special editions' which I just think really isn't true and makes no sense. You don't hire someone like Rex if that's what you're going for. This is an artist who is a big fan of Monkey Island, trying to do the best interpretation he can of it in his own distinct style. We're not obliged to like it, but I do think that we need to accept that this is the style Ron and Dave wanted, and they like it, and that it's nonsense to suggest that it's just some cheap-out option that they would have avoided if they had more of a budget.

I've seen people tweeting mean things at Rex, as well as Ron and Dave, and I hope that everyone here is going to be better than that.

Edited April 24, 2022 by SurplusGamer

[Jake]

It’s clear we’ve been fed very little when very very hungry. People commenting on the lighting choices of one image, or the presence or absence of grit in brush strokes when you zoom in. It’s not bad stuff to talk about, but I’m really really excited for when the full meal arrives. Even if the effect in aggregate isn’t to everyone’s taste, there will be so many more (and much more interesting) things to talk about.