Return to Monkey Island

[MurraySchull]

19 minutes ago, Jake said:

I think in interviews they’ve since clarified this to include all the games.

Okay, that’s kindof a relief then. I don’t really want 3-5 to be undone after all the great things that came from them.

 

If it were up to me, I’d set the first third/half of the game directly after MI2, explaining how Guybrush escaped the carnival/became an adult again, etc. Then have a “20 years later” or whatever time jump, where Curse-Tales could theoretically have happened in that timeframe, but we don’t go too into the details of those games and it’s ultimately up to the player to decide if they’re still canon or not.

 

 

I guess a big question mark in terms of the plot would be “are Guybrush and LeChuck actually brothers?” Which I always assumed they are since the LeChuck voodoo doll works with the skull of Guybrush’s parents, but it’s a pretty huge thing for the rest of the games to completely ignore! So I’d imagine we’ll finally get an answer on that now!

 

Also I don’t know if/how Ron would U-turn on Guybrush/Elaine being married since that apparently wasn’t his original plan. If we do have a time jump to post-Tales, I personally think he’ll keep them together and maybe introduce some complications, but that’s all speculation! And finally, Ron did hint at one point that the Voodoo Lady being evil was an idea that he had that Tales ended up hinting towards. I feel that after Tales, that should be explored more here. (Also would love to know if they got Leilani Jones Wilmore back too! Looking over her filmography, she’s mostly been providing audio description tracks for movies lately, the latest being 2019. Hopefully she can be convinced to return!)

Edited April 25, 2022 by fentongames

[KestrelPi]

10 minutes ago, fentongames said:

Okay, that’s kindof a relief then. I don’t really want 3-5 to be undone after all the great things that came from them.

 

If it were up to me, I’d set the first third/half of the game directly after MI2, explaining how Guybrush escaped the carnival/became an adult again, etc. Then have a “20 years later” or whatever time jump, where Curse-Tales could theoretically have happened in that timeframe, but we don’t go too into the details of those games and it’s ultimately up to the player to decide if they’re still canon or not.

 
Yeah. I mean...

 

I quite enjoyed the film Hook too.

 

Seriously though, considering how cagey they've been about talking about where this fits into the story, I wouldn't be surprised if either it's something like that, OR, it's something way more like... well, if we take the idea of MI as Guybrush's childhood imagination (and I think there's a lot more evidence for that than just the ending of MI2, it's a constant theme through 1 and 2) and run with it, well, then in that case it doesn't MATTER if Guybrush wants to make tweaks and edits to his own canon. Want Murray to exist earlier in the story? No problem! etc etc. Maybe Monkey Island is more like a cluster of ideas rather than a coherent linear narrative. I wouldn't hate that, and it gives the game lots of scope to go into that weird uncanny zone that I like MI to be in.

But yeah, it could be as simple as an older Guybrush re-engaging with his childhood imaginings of mighty piracy, and we end with a shot of Guybrush staring at a Mortgage Application from the Big Whoop Building Society.

[Thrik]

I’m expecting ReMI to not only fail to concretely clarify anything about the deeper lore of MI1&2, but actually make it even more ambiguous, driving fans mad for another 30 years. 😀
 

The mystery and feeling of there being something else there that you can’t quite grasp is such a fundamental part of the original two games’ atmosphere that I think a spiritual sequel to them would be robbing both those and itself if it gave everything up and tried to play the explain game.

 

I will thoroughly enjoy a ReMI that continues to play with those themes in a non-commital manner, rather than trying to make literal sense of them like Curse. Creating ambiguity around what has and hasn’t happened canonically in the series will only enhance this wonderful effect.

[Goury1]

2 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

well, if we take the idea of MI as Guybrush's childhood imagination (and I think there's a lot more evidence for that than just the ending of MI2, it's a constant theme through 1 and 2) and run with it, well, then in that case it doesn't MATTER if Guybrush wants to make tweaks and edits to his own canon. Want Murray to exist earlier in the story? No problem! etc etc. Maybe Monkey Island is more like a cluster of ideas rather than a coherent linear narrative.

 

My own thought exactly! If it's all imaginary, then there is no problem with Guybrush making tweaks to his own head-canon. There would be no problem with him meeting Murray before COMI! Heck, even things like Herman Toothrot being Grandpa Marley or the Giant Monkey Robot under Monkey Island would suddenly make sense!

[KestrelPi]

26 minutes ago, Thrik said:

I’m expecting ReMI to not only fail to concretely clarify anything about the deeper lore of MI1&2, but actually make it even more ambiguous, driving fans mad for another 30 years. 😀
 

The mystery and feeling of there being something else there that you can’t quite grasp is such a fundamental part of the original two games’ atmosphere that I think a spiritual sequel to them would be robbing both those and itself if it gave everything up and tried to play the explain game.

 

I will thoroughly enjoy a ReMI that continues to play with those themes in a non-commital manner, rather than trying to make literal sense of them like Curse. Creating ambiguity around what has and hasn’t happened canonically in the series will only enhance this wonderful effect.

 

I do agree with this and I suppose what I mean when I talk about the stuff I think ReMI might play with is that I think these are the sorts of things that we might be talking about in 6 months or whatever. I don't really think, and in fact hope that it isn't the case that everything will be 'explained.'

Subtext, around which fans can speculate and build a narrative is what I like, and I think expect.

[Lagomorph01]

1 hour ago, Thrik said:

I’m expecting ReMI to not only fail to concretely clarify anything about the deeper lore of MI1&2, but actually make it even more ambiguous, driving fans mad for another 30 years. 😀
 

The mystery and feeling of there being something else there that you can’t quite grasp is such a fundamental part of the original two games’ atmosphere that I think a spiritual sequel to them would be robbing both those and itself if it gave everything up and tried to play the explain game.

 

I will thoroughly enjoy a ReMI that continues to play with those themes in a non-commital manner, rather than trying to make literal sense of them like Curse. Creating ambiguity around what has and hasn’t happened canonically in the series will only enhance this wonderful effect.

I second this completely! A lot of franchise movies try to explain way to much about the lore that was left ambiguous. Looking at you, Disney, no one really wanted to know what happened to Belle’s mother, they just liked to speculate about it. It’s even more true about Darth Vader, or Hannibal Lecter, or Batman. They were interesting because we couldn’t quite grasp them, but wanted to so much. The mystery is worth more than the solution.

Please keep the secret of Monkey Island a mystery. It will be much more valuable that way.

 

1 hour ago, Goury1 said:

 

My own thought exactly! If it's all imaginary, then there is no problem with Guybrush making tweaks to his own head-canon. There would be no problem with him meeting Murray before COMI! Heck, even things like Herman Toothrot being Grandpa Marley or the Giant Monkey Robot under Monkey Island would suddenly make sense!

In that same sense, I like this speculation, but I would hate it if this was officially revealed.

[TimeGentleman]

4 hours ago, elTee said:

This may be as close as we'll get... 

 

I was thinking more:

 

 

Also, what's all this "ReMI" nonsense? It's not CuMI or TaMI, so it shouldn't be ReMI! I'd change to that if the designers had a strong preference, as with COMI (over CMI), but Dave Grossman uses RtMI:

 

 

[Laserschwert]

12 minutes ago, TimeGentleman said:

 

Also, what's all this "ReMI" nonsense?

I'm pretty sure that was a reference to Mojo chief @Remi (who also posted the news on the Mojo front page)...

 

Edit: Then again, maybe not. Move along. Shut up.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Laserschwert

[Thrik]

Listen… in these parts it’s ‘ReMI’.

[Remi]

ReMI is the preferred usage in the Mojo Style Guide^TM. I'm just following orders.

[elTee]

We've been known to use facetious acronyms in the past - STFU (star wars the force unleashed), Indiana Jones and the KOCS etc. 😁

[TimeGentleman]

Somehow I had not noticed the acronym at all on the main site, but I just came back here via the front page and noticed it immediately - it's all over the place! I thought it was just a quirk of Thrik's that was getting picked up on!

Okay, I'm onboard, but I think we're going to have to start referring to the others as SeMI, SeMI 2 LeCh, CuMI, EscMI and TaMI for consistency's sake.

Back on-topic, though, I wonder if ReMI is going to have any iMuse-y cleverness around its music tech. It'd be great to have high quality music but with really nice SeMI 2 style transitions and stuff.

[Jake]

TSoM12:Le’sR

[Marius]

ToMI-C4:TT’n’EoGT

Edited April 25, 2022 by Marius

[Jake]

Apparently for quite a while Tales Episode 4 was the longest game name on Steam and was used for testing. Eventually other games with longer names have displaced it. 

[ThunderPeel2001]

22 hours ago, TimeGentleman said:

Somehow I had not noticed the acronym at all on the main site, but I just came back here via the front page and noticed it immediately - it's all over the place! I thought it was just a quirk of Thrik's that was getting picked up on!

 

It started as a tongue in cheek request on the news pages:

 

Quote

ReMI*

*Remi has “suggested” that this be the abbreviation Mojo perpetuates for Return to Monkey Island, and we didn’t find his bolt action argument easy to disagree with.

 

And for some silly reason it's stuck 😅

Edited April 26, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Remi]

True fact: it was actually elTee who can up with ReMI. 

[elTee]

I was joking 🙃

[Remi]

Well, it backfired. ;

[elTee]

Most of my jokes end up getting adopted as policy, I'm used to it! 

[Glokidd]

that's why I've been doing LSD for at least 10 years straight... 

 

... did you guys just see that crab talk?

 

good times 😀

[MurraySchull]

I'm very curious if we're going to be going back to the more "jerk-like" Guybrush that was more prominent in MI1/2 (i.e. insulting Meathook, trapping Stan in a coffin, sawing off the pegleg, getting the cook fired for money, etc.) With Ron/Dave writing the next game again, I think it's fairly likely that Guybrush will be more along the lines that he was in MI1/2, which I feel would be a welcome change of pace.

 

Before the talkie version of MI1/2, I did always feel a disconnect between the Guybrush of the first two games to the rest of the series (not a huge one, but it never gelled 100% between writers) but having Dom's voiceover in the first two games definitely helped to bridge that gap knowing that all of Guybrush's dialogue has now been delivered by the same voice actor, and I can now completely believe it's all the same character.

[Zaxx]

34 minutes ago, fentongames said:

I'm very curious if we're going to be going back to the more "jerk-like" Guybrush that was more prominent in MI1/2 (i.e. insulting Meathook, trapping Stan in a coffin, sawing off the pegleg, getting the cook fired for money, etc.) With Ron/Dave writing the next game again, I think it's fairly likely that Guybrush will be more along the lines that he was in MI1/2, which I feel would be a welcome change of pace.

 

Before the talkie version of MI1/2, I did always feel a disconnect between the Guybrush of the first two games to the rest of the series (not a huge one, but it never gelled 100% between writers) but having Dom's voiceover in the first two games definitely helped to bridge that gap knowing that all of Guybrush's dialogue has now been delivered by the same voice actor, and I can now completely believe it's all the same character.

Oh yeah, I'd love it if the game returned to the somewhat more cruel sense of humor of the first two games. Even in EFMI some of the best jokes came from Guybrush cluelessly doing some really bad things in SoMI (like how he just left his crew stranded on the island and how the monkey that opened the gate to the monkey head eventually died from exhaustion).

Edited April 27, 2022 by Zaxx

[ATMcashpoint]

Personally speaking, MI2 Guybrush always felt like a lot more of a jerk to me than MI1 Guybrush. I do wonder if this was due to the preponderating influence of Tim Schafer, since for much of MI2's development Dave Grossman was off working with Noah Falstein on an early version of The DIG.

Edited April 27, 2022 by ATMcashpoint

[MurraySchull]

26 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

(like how he just left his crew stranded on the island and how the monkey that opened the gate to the monkey head eventually died from exhaustion).

 

Exactly! That kind of humour wouldn't have been out of place in the first two games. I'd definitely be open to more of those kind of jokes here.