Return to Monkey Island

[Toymafia1988]

On 4/30/2022 at 1:51 PM, KestrelPi said:

 

Here's what'll happen. (Probably. I dunno, I'm predicting here) You'll see it, and you'll instinctively be weirded out by it because it's going to be in a different style to how Guybrush has ever looked, which is always odd (same with CMI, y'know).

Then you'll see more and more of it in motion and you'll realise that it's pretty well done for what it is, and in the end you'll probably either end up liking it or just making peace with it.

I think the big take away people will have when they see it all in motion is that this is it's own style, it's not going to be like the previous games, or like the special editions. Some people will vibe with it, others won't, but it'll be really clear they were GOING for something (my main criticism of SoMI SE is that I really wasn't sure WHAT it was going for with the style.)

Yeah my expectations keep adjusting already.

 

Originally i was disappointed that the game wasn't getting the Thimbleweed Park treatment (being made to feel like a lost Lucasarts game found on a floppy disk.) 

 

I think because Thimbleweed Park happened it did give people this expectation that Ron would use that retro visual for bringing back a retro classic. Thimbleweed park had the original background artist for Monkey island back to do the backgrounds, why would you not get him back for a new monkey island game? 

 

But i respect that he's already done it and wants to do something different.

 

If not pixels then my 2nd dream visuals for the game would be Steve Purcell's visual design in this artwork below. However, i know that it would be unrealistic and never expected that to happen.

 

The style they've gone for though is interesting. I think alot of it looks wonderful, especially the backgrounds. My worry is that the character designs are unpredictable. Some character designs look great while others im not sure about.

 

But anyway i'm sure i'll adjust or love what they do, just happy this game exists at all. Thank you Ron and Dave. I'm grateful for all your hard work.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[Toymafia1988]

1 hour ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Yeah, I've been refreshing Mojo and Twitter every day since the announcement to see if any new info is out. Idk a whole lot about marketing but I would think that the game must be close to coming out for them to announce it when they did, so I would

think they'd want to strike while the iron is hot to make sure people don't forget about the game by the time it comes out, though at the same time I guess they have to build people's expectations and hype. I'm with you though, I'm dying to see Guybrush and some gameplay, along with a release date so I can plan my Monkey marathon 😁

Haha oh me too. I've been checking and refreshing everyday.

 

I keep wanting to start a monkey island game but i dont want to start 1 and 2 too early.

 

I was debating playing 3 and 4 first if there is a long wait. But worried i'll start and find out the game comes out in a month or two haha.

[KestrelPi]

5 minutes ago, Toymafia1988 said:

Yeah my expectations keep adjusting already.

 

Originally i was disappointed that the game wasn't getting the Thimbleweed Park treatment (being made to feel like a lost Lucasarts game found on a floppy disk.) 

 

 

I think that would have worried me more than anything.

 

I'm playing through Thimbleweed at the moment, and so far it's fine for what it is, but it's also so self-consciously a throwback that it has trouble being anything else. You can't go five minutes before hitting on some joke or reference which is basically 'See? Remember old adventure games?' and that's... fine, but I would hate for a Monkey Island game to be so backward looking.

Remember at the time, especially the first two games were on the cutting edge of what adventure games could be. SoMI revolutionised Adventure puzzle design overnight and set a new standard for comedy in games. MI2 only a year later achieved a similar goal but with the scope expanded massively in all directions. Hand drawn art, dynamic music, enough game that it had to be shipped on Amiga on ELEVEN disks.

These were forward looking games, and I think they've correctly realised that the same should be true of the new one. I think it would have been a sort of sad return to Monkey Island if it was just a reflection upon past glories. To me, going with a distinctive new art style is a statement, and it says: 'Yes, we're carrying on where MI2 left off, but we're not pretending that nothing has happened in games since then' and I'm hugely encouraged by this shift in thinking.

 

[Toymafia1988]

On 4/30/2022 at 3:02 PM, KestrelPi said:

I think that would have worried me more than anything.

 

I'm playing through Thimbleweed at the moment, and so far it's fine for what it is, but it's also so self-consciously a throwback that it has trouble being anything else. You can't go five minutes before hitting on some joke or reference which is basically 'See? Remember old adventure games?' and that's... fine, but I would hate for a Monkey Island game to be so backward looking.

Remember at the time, especially the first two games were on the cutting edge of what adventure games could be. SoMI revolutionised Adventure puzzle design overnight and set a new standard for comedy in games. MI2 only a year later achieved a similar goal but with the scope expanded massively in all directions. Hand drawn art, dynamic music, enough game that it had to be shipped on Amiga on ELEVEN disks.

These were forward looking games, and I think they've correctly realised that the same should be true of the new one. I think it would have been a sort of sad return to Monkey Island if it was just a reflection upon past glories. To me, going with a distinctive new art style is a statement, and it says: 'Yes, we're carrying on where MI2 left off, but we're not pretending that nothing has happened in games since then' and I'm hugely encouraged by this shift in thinking.

 

To be honest i never had that with Thimbleweed Park. I remember the original games making injokes and references to other games all the time so for me that just felt like Ron's sense of humour or a lucasarts tradition. 

 

I do agree with Ron wanting to go forward with new ideas.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[KestrelPi]

4 minutes ago, Toymafia1988 said:

To be honest i never had that with Thimbleweed Park. I remember the original games making injokes and references to other games all the time so for me it felt like another game rather than a tribute game.

 

I think it's a matter of scale and quality. Monkey Island has occasional 4th wall winks, and the odd reference (I'd argue EMI is much more reference heavy than the previous games too), and every time it's well thought out and cleverly done.

But for example... MI1 2 and 3 have ... 3 jokes across the 3 games about how you can't die in LucasArts games. The first time it's the rubber tree in MI1. It's quite well done with the fake game over screen. The second time it's in MI2 where you take too long and fall into the acid and Elaine calls this out as impossible being that we're in a flashback. The third time we get the fake credits sequence in the crypt. 3 different games, 3 different versions of what's basically the same joke, each done quite well.

Thimbleweed park does a 'you can't die' joke 4 times in the first 4 hours. And each time it's just a throwaway line in the dialogue with nothing really clever about it. All it achieves is taking me out of the world for a moment. MI's best references and in jokes were either subtle enough that you might not even notice them, or so marvellously overdone that you couldn't help but appreciate the effort, or so odd and out of place that they fall into that uncanny realm of 'all is not as it seems' that MI likes to play in. They were very rarely just 'nudge, nudge, adventure games, eh?' kind of jokes, they were more purposeful than that.

Don't get me wrong though, Thimbleweed Park has some really nice writing in it so far, I just wish it would trust its own worldbuilding to stand up a little better not to have to remind me every few seconds that I'm playing something like in the olde days.

[Zaxx]

26 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

I'm playing through Thimbleweed at the moment, and so far it's fine for what it is, but it's also so self-consciously a throwback that it has trouble being anything else. You can't go five minutes before hitting on some joke or reference which is basically 'See? Remember old adventure games?' and that's... fine, but I would hate for a Monkey Island game to be so backward looking.

 

I don't think RTMI ever had a chance to be like that, those references in TP serve a thematic purpose that kind of never been part of MI's identity. I think people tend to confuse TP with the nowadays very common nostalgia bait media but the two things are very different. It's not "hey let's remake New Hope but with a bigger Death Star and the girl version of Luke because nostalgia sells" but rather "Nostalgia is an interesting theme to build a game around, let's see how deep it can get".

[Jake]

This is probably sacrilege but when I played Thimbleweed the first thing I did was turn off the injokes using the in game setting. It felt weird to choose to see less content, but the developers put the checkbox there so I consider it fair game. There were still plenty of injokes even with the toggle flipped, but it felt more like an era appropriate level. That said, Thimbleweed Park is kind of about nostalgia, and fractally diving into itself, and being a LucasArts adventure game. eg the developers of the game appear in it as themselves, and characters can call the games hint line from within the game using working touch tone telephones that you have to dial by hand (amazing imo).

[OzzieMonkey]

17 minutes ago, Toymafia1988 said:

To be honest i never had that with Thimbleweed Park. I remember the original games making injokes and references to other games all the time so for me that just felt like Ron's sense of humour or a lucasarts tradition. 

 

I do agree with Ron wanting to go forward with new ideas story-wise.

 

Although if they want to avoid nostalgia why start the game in Melee Island rather than a new place.

 

Why start the game in Melee Island unless as a nostalgic remember this?

 

Do you think Melee Island will be a very short visit or will it the 1/3 of the game?

 All we know so far is that Ron wanted to start the game at the carnival. How we get from there to Melee is a mystery at this point, but I think that most of what we do there will be exploring new things like the locksmith's, maybe we don't even go anywhere but the areas we've been shown in screenshots (and probably the mansion). We know that there's a new island in the game that appears to be snow-themed, which I love, and obviously Monkey Island with that catacombs screenshot. It's really hard to get a sense of the game's scope at this stage, in fact it's hard to get a sense of anything really, they're being quite cagey about things like gameplay and plot, all we've really got to go on is the art style. There's going to be just a waterfall of discussion in these forums once a story trailer drops and we see the main cast.

[Goury1]

1 hour ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I'm dying to see Guybrush and some gameplay, along with a release date so I can plan my Monkey marathon

Yes, I want to see Guybrush and LeChuck too! I'm already doing the Monkey Island marathon - one game a month. I will end with TOMI in August. I hope that by that time, we will have an RTMI release date! 

[Trapezzoid]

37 minutes ago, Zaxx said:

 

I don't think RTMI ever had a chance to be like that, those references in TP serve a thematic purpose that kind of never been part of MI's identity. I think people tend to confuse TP with the nowadays very common nostalgia bait media but the two things are very different. It's not "hey let's remake New Hope but with a bigger Death Star and the girl version of Luke because nostalgia sells" but rather "Nostalgia is an interesting theme to build a game around, let's see how deep it can get".

 

MI2's ending potentially has the same issue as TP though, which is that it takes all the parody and anachronisms of MI and gives them an in-universe explanation. I personally think leaning into the it's-all-a-dream twist takes the fun out of those elements, once you get over the mindfuck.

 

So I kind of hope they do stick to the curse explanation, and they have a good out: The Big Whoop carnival doesn't look explicitly modern. Guybrush's parents are still dressed old-timey. The carnival looks like something that could easily exist in MI's satirical 1700s, maybe even a place Guybrush remembers visiting as a child. All the commercialization and fourth-wall jokes don't need to be explained by the carnival, they're just part of the MI aesthetic.

[ThunderPeel2001]

1 hour ago, KestrelPi said:

 

I'm playing through Thimbleweed at the moment, and so far it's fine for what it is, but it's also so self-consciously a throwback that it has trouble being anything else. You can't go five minutes before hitting on some joke or reference which is basically 'See? Remember old adventure games?'

 

Jake has already mentioned it, but I was going to point out that the developers literally added an option to turn off in-jokes, which says lot. That said, I guess I'm glad Ron got all the self-referential stuff out of his system. He seems to be focussed on making a solid pirate tale, so I'm looking forward to that aspect of it!

 

13 minutes ago, Trapezzoid said:

The carnival looks like something that could easily exist in MI's satirical 1700s, maybe even a place Guybrush remembers visiting as a child. All the commercialization and fourth-wall jokes don't need to be explained by the carnival, they're just part of the MI aesthetic.

 

An interesting take. I wonder if they could massage it into being in the same universe... the problem is Chuckie's t-shirt, but I'm sure Ron will find a way to explain it. (Presumably, "voodoo!")

[Trapezzoid]

2 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

I wonder if they could massage it into being in the same universe... the problem is Chuckie's t-shirt, but I'm sure Ron will find a way to explain it. (Presumably, "voodoo!")

My point is that occasional anachronisms like t-shirts and grog machines are simply part of the storytelling style of Monkey Island. Retconning them into the plot itself is overwriting. It'd be like Airplane ended with Striker waking up on a flight with a copy of Mad Magazine over his face.

[Zaxx]

2 hours ago, Trapezzoid said:

 

MI2's ending potentially has the same issue as TP though, which is that it takes all the parody and anachronisms of MI and gives them an in-universe explanation. I personally think leaning into the it's-all-a-dream twist takes the fun out of those elements, once you get over the mindfuck.

 

So I kind of hope they do stick to the curse explanation, and they have a good out: The Big Whoop carnival doesn't look explicitly modern. Guybrush's parents are still dressed old-timey. The carnival looks like something that could easily exist in MI's satirical 1700s, maybe even a place Guybrush remembers visiting as a child. All the commercialization and fourth-wall jokes don't need to be explained by the carnival, they're just part of the MI aesthetic.

 

I'm 100% certain that they'll "stick" to the CMI explanation as in they won't care much about explaining that stuff at all. I think that anyone who wants a "true" explanation for MI2's ending is kind of missing the point in that it's these secrets that keep MI engaging to this day. Some mysteries are not to be solved.

 

This is where Thimbleweed Park differs I think, there the goal of the story was to ultimately solve a mystery that was packaged into the game's referential, nostalgic nature. That's a level of self reference that MI will never go to I feel.

[Zaxx]

Oh and btw. just because I like to live dangerously by making wild guesses: I'm pretty sure that the reaction  to RTMI will be similar to what Twin Peaks season 3 got in that a lot of people will complain for a lack of explanation and closure while the other half will ask questions like "what the hell, you expected closure from David Lynch?"

[OzzieMonkey]

So grumpygamer.com is back up but with comments removed...good idea. Ron has also written a new post titled "When I Made Another Monkey Island" which has basically confirmed that he really didn't have much of an idea of where the game was going to go until he made it. He also made it abundantly clear that when he made that post in 2013, it was not, as he put it, "commandments handed down and etched in stone on a giant tablet". 

 

I hope that now people can put their complaints to rest, wait for the game and just enjoy the ride. This is going to be something special and unpredictable, and that's exciting.

[Lagomorph01]

3 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

So grumpygamer.com is back up but with comments removed...good idea. Ron has also written a new post titled "When I Made Another Monkey Island" which has basically confirmed that he really didn't have much of an idea of where the game was going to go until he made it.

Great quote from this post which should put the whole “MI3a would absolutely positively have looked like Day of the Tentacle” thing to rest:

Quote

I never liked the art in DotT. Technically and artistically it was fantastic, but I never liked the wacky Chuck Jones style. But that was Dave and Tim's game, not mine. They can do what they want and I completely supported that.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Lagomorph01

[Lagomorph01]

Also, I found this in the "About" section of Grumpy Gamer. Could this be a reason why Tim Shafer isn't involved with RtMI? (Next to having his own studio to run and make his own games.)

Quote

I worked at Double Fine for a bit making a game I've had rolling around in my head for close to 25 years called The Cave. Double Fine was sold to Microsoft, who now owns The Cave, and once again I got nothing and someone else owns my IP.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Lagomorph01

[Jake]

35 minutes ago, Lagomorph01 said:

Great quote from this post which should put the whole “MI3a would absolutely positively have looked like Day of the Tentacle” thing to rest:

I don’t think anyone argued it would look like Day of the Tentacle, but that DOTT was an example of the sort of thing the art team was interested in doing, as opposed to just repeating themselves. Gilbert says almost exactly that in the blog before the part you quoted. 
 

“If I had stayed and done Monkey Island 3 it wouldn't have looked like Monkey Island 2. We would have kept pushing forward, and Day of the Tentacle is a good example of that.”

[DM81]

1 hour ago, Lagomorph01 said:

Great quote from this post which should put the whole “MI3a would absolutely positively have looked like Day of the Tentacle” thing to rest:

 

 

 

27 minutes ago, Jake said:

I don’t think anyone argued it would look like Day of the Tentacle, but that DOTT was an example of the sort of thing the art team was interested in doing, as opposed to just repeating themselves. Gilbert says almost exactly that in the blog before the part you quoted. 
 

“If I had stayed and done Monkey Island 3 it wouldn't have looked like Monkey Island 2. We would have kept pushing forward, and Day of the Tentacle is a good example of that.”

This.

And there is also this quote from Steve Purcell, back to 2000, that could be used to push the speculations about "Monkey 3" art style:

"When I saw the style Larry Ahern and Bill Tiller set for the game I was impressed. It looked fantastic. They did what we would have wanted to do on One and Two. Ron Gilbert always wanted the games to a have a storybook feel. We got close on the backgrounds of Monkey 2 but we were still had graphics limitations. One thing that's fun about the Monkey Island series is that visually each one is a departure from the last".

And is curious that he use the same words "storybook feel" that Dave uses in the last interview.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010405020541/http://lucasfans.adventuregamer.com/index2.html

 

[Jake]

That Purcell quote is great and really interesting. To me, especially coupled with todays Grumpy Gamer blog post, it’s one more reminder that these things aren’t made from some grand master plan, but are really the result of the people making them at the time they are made. 

[Redbeard_1973]

I have just read Ron's latest post on grumpygamer.com. I have to say, I find it very sad, that we now live in a world where an artist feels that he needs to vindicate his artistic decisions. Being a fan is great and everybody is entitled to have an opinion but being toxic isn't.

[Toymafia1988]

Just read Ron's new article. It's an interesting read and i just feel bad for Ron, Dave and his team.

 

Its pretty obvious this is a game they are all passionate about.

 

Its a miracle that Ron has been given 100% freedom to make the Monkey Island game he wants. That's insane and so exciting!!!

 

Although I had expectations for a pixel game, i now realise the thing i really wanted most was Ron Gilbert's vision. I don't want Ron feeling he has to compromise the game to fit what we have in our heads.

 

He is right about letting him make the game he wants to make. I'm excited to see a unfiltered Ronzo 3rd Monkey Island game that isn't afraid to be its a own thing.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[Toymafia1988]

1 hour ago, Lagomorph01 said:

Also, I found this in the "About" section of Grumpy Gamer. Could this be a reason why Tim Shafer isn't involved with RtMI? (Next to having his own studio to run and make his own games.)

 

Aw man... i just realised that The Cave is never going to come to ps4/ps5 now because of the Microsoft ownership.

 

I hope Ron and Tim are still on okay terms.

 

That's sad, i'm surprised there was never a deal made before development started so that Ron could have some ownership of the ip.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[TimeGentleman]

I think it was statements like "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" and the argument that therefore a 1993 Monkey Island 3 would have looked just like RtMI does, that muddied the waters a little. But yeah I think we're all in agreement that a 1993 MI3 would have moved the style on somehow, quite possibly in a more stylised direction, and that not having the exact same art style as MI2 is not some betrayal on Ron's part.

 

Re. Ron and Tim, not that I know them or anything, but I'd be surprised if they'd fallen out over the Microsoft purchase. Surely Ron knows this is the nature of the business and that unless he had a contract with Double Fine saying he owned the IP then something like this was always a possibility. It feels more like a general grumpiness on the state of the industry and how, much like in the comics biz, creators generally don't get to retain rights or even get residuals etc. It didn't stop him making another MI with Lucasfilm Games.

[Lagomorph01]

14 minutes ago, TimeGentleman said:

I think it was statements like "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" and the argument that therefore a 1993 Monkey Island 3 would have looked just like RtMI does, that muddied the waters a little. But yeah I think we're all in agreement that a 1993 MI3 would have moved the style on somehow, quite possibly in a more stylised direction, and that not having the exact same art style as MI2 is not some betrayal on Ron's part.

This is exactly what I meant. Thank you for digressing that.

15 minutes ago, TimeGentleman said:

Re. Ron and Tim, not that I know them or anything, but I'd be surprised if they'd fallen out over the Microsoft purchase. Surely Ron knows this is the nature of the business and that unless he had a contract with Double Fine saying he owned the IP then something like this was always a possibility. It feels more like a general grumpiness on the state of the industry and how, much like in the comics biz, creators generally don't get to retain rights or even get residuals etc. It didn't stop him making another MI with Lucasfilm Games.

Could be. I think Tim not working on RtMI has more to do with him running Double Fine and working on other games, but this post did strike me as a little resentful. Ron did leave Double Fine pretty fast after The Cave. I hope it didn't come between them, and that they still have good contact.