Return to Monkey Island

[ThunderPeel2001]

56 minutes ago, Jake said:

“Beneath Monkey Island.” It’ll actually be a huge sellout, washed up pandering mess.

 

Battle for the Escape from Beneath the Conquest of the Planet of Monkey Island?

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[OzzieMonkey]

If we're ripping off Planet of the Apes, why not Dawn of Monkey Island?

[Zaxx]

11 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Problem with that one is we already had 'LeChuck's Revenge' so revenge is done.

 

I'm willing to bet that in the other timline MI2 is called LeChuck Strikes Back though.

[Lagomorph01]

The Return of LeChuck's Revenge Strikes Back!

[Toymafia1988]

The fate of Monkey Island

Last days of Monkey Island

Romance on monkey iskand

The Chronicles of Monkey Island

Invaders of Monkey Island

The forgotten treasure of Monkey Island

 

P.s i almost wrote escape from Monkey island 😅

Edited May 3, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[Toymafia1988]

So far though Monkey Island has titles similar to Stars Wars.

 

We've had revenge and Return.

 

How about...

 

Monkey island: a new three-headed monkey

monkey island: Scurvy strikes back

Monkey island: the Phantom Lechuck

Attack of Monkey Island

Rise of Monkey Island

Monkey Island awakens

The last Banana on Monkey Island

Edited May 3, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[Thrik]

‘Monkey Island’.

[Marius]

'The Monkey Island'

[Scummbuddy]

The Seacrets of Monkey Island.

 

It's about a Jamaican bar and night club in Maryland, USA expanding into Deep in the Caribbean.

[Glokidd]

Big Trouble on Monkey Island

 

Guybrush is revealed to be 80's Kurt Russel, It also has Monkey Kombat, everyone else but Guybrush can do it and apperently does constantly. Basically the game happens very quickly around us and we really have no clue what's happening and have very little effect on the story except for one huuuuuuge fluke defeating David Lo-Chuck

[Lagomorph01]

16 minutes ago, Scummbuddy said:

The Seacrets of Monkey Island.

The Seacrest of Monkey Island.

[ThunderPeel2001]

This one definitely hasn't been taken: Monkey Island 7

[Glokidd]

3 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

This one definitely hasn't been taken: Monkey Island 7

On that note they could call it any of monkey island 1/3/4/5/6/7/ect except 2 as that is really the only one that had a number in its title lol

[TimeGentleman]

Another Ron & Dave interview:

https://www.ign.com/articles/return-to-monkey-island-ron-gilbert-dave-grossman-how-it-became-reality-monkey-island-3

[ThunderPeel2001]

Quote

I ended with one other obligatory fan question: Will the actual secret of Monkey Island be revealed by the end of this game? Gilbert paused and said, “Oh wow, that’s…um…[laugh]...I don’t know that I want to answer that,” before he added, “I think fans will be really excited and happy for what we did or totally angry about what we did.”
 

So, not unlike the amusement-park ending of Monkey Island 2, then? “Yes, very much” he said with his heartiest laugh yet.

 

Another bit of key information on what we can expect! It sounds like Ron has decided to be mischievous after all. No neat bows on this ending.

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 5/2/2022 at 3:44 PM, Lagomorph01 said:

Since the blog is up again, I decided to scroll down in his Return to Monkey Island post to see why he decided to remove the comments, and... SHEESH! I understand him completely! I'd hate it too if people were using that kind of language against me on my own blog. What an entitled bunch!

 

I finally got around to reading the last bunch of comments... I think I was expecting the worst after hearing other people's impressions. I think the biggest problem was probably just how endless they were. You get the feeling that it would have gone on forever if Ron hadn't turned them off. Sure, there were a few assholes in there, making sarcastic comments like "I know this is a joke, Ron, you'd never do this to us!", but on the whole it was fairly cordial. There weren't any direct attacks (unless I missed them). I even saw our Rum Rogers trying to politely argue another POV.

 

More than anything I could see Ron getting tired of seeing them endlessly pile up all day, every day. Better to just pull the plug until the game is out.

 

It's true that direct creator access has changed what creators have to endure these days. People get very passionate about the company I work for. We get a lot of shit from die hard fans sometimes. It never bothers me because it's just their honest opinion -- it's not personal (although with Ron, it's more personal, as he's generated a one-man brand). I personally feel lucky to work on things that people care so much about. And I'd rather face that passion, even when it's overwhelmingly negative, than be a position where we're trying to convince people to care.

 

"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

 

The only time it bothers me is when it's objectively wrong: Where people are angry with us for things we haven't actually done or are guilty of. I hope Ron can see it the same way, but with it being his game, his brand, his name, the pressure must be higher 😕 

[Zaxx]

4 hours ago, Marius said:

'The Monkey Island'

 

That's how they'll call the Disney reboot... or maybe it will be a soft sequel reboot (seaboot?) where only the first game happened. Sequel will be called The Monkey Island Kills or The Monkey Island Eternal.

[Groggoccino]

One of the things that surprise me the most about this widespread fixation with the "authorial purity" of the Monkey Island games is what happened, and still happens, with Tales of Monkey Island. Is it just my impression, or is there absolutely no general awareness of the fact that Tales was directed by one of the original writers/developers? By one of the three persons who shaped the primordial "voice" of the series?

 

Sure, there were some interviews where it was mentioned that Dave Grossman was part of the original team. But the general perception, even among enthusiasts, doesn't appear to acknowledge this at all. Judging by everything that has been written about it, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the game was helmed by a complete newcomer.

 

Having said that, am I the only one who thinks that there's a somewhat distinct contrast between Grossman's obvious enthusiasm when discussing this upcoming game and the interviews he did while promoting Tales? Obviously, I'm not saying he wasn't interested or anything of the sort. But I do remember him saying words to the effect that he kind of felt the series had run its course; that he was a bit surprised to see the team so eager to make a new Monkey Island. Things like that (I think Tales is great, by the way).

 

Now, with Return, he keeps talking about how this is the perfect project for him, so it seems particularly promising. I hope we get a firing-on-all-cylinders adventure game, with an ambitious puzzle design.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Groggoccino

[Udvarnoky]

While Dave was involved with TMI, it's not totally clear to what degree. After the first Sam & Max season he assumed the role of Design Director at Telltale, which seems to have been an overseeing role on all of the studio's projects. Judging by the credits, the project-level creative leads on TMI were Mike Stemmle and Mark Darin, while each episode had one or two primary directors and writers. While I am sure Dave had a non-trivial role in shaping TMI, he didn't assume any of those key titles on that project, so it's hard to gauge his direct contribution.

[Zaxx]

I guess it can also be a factor that ToMI wasn't exactly loved by the fanbase in general plus the game distances itself from the plot of the main series. It's a bit of a shame because I always thought that out of all the MI games made after MI2 ToMI was the only one that could somewhat recapture the tone of the original 2. Also the MI2 based Guybrush redesign they had going on was just lovely and I always liked that Lucasarts used that design for MI2 SE too.

[Udvarnoky]

l could just be out the swim but I don't personally recall either this supposed minced enthusiam from Dave when promoting the game nor any particular rejection (at least beyond what any of the latter sequels were met with) from the fans. I seem to remember TMI being seen as something of a rebound from EMI, but I'd be lying if I said I did any deep digging or that an appetite for doing so has been worked up since.

[Groggoccino]

13 minutes ago, Udvarnoky said:

While Dave was involved with TMI, it's not totally clear to what degree. After the first Sam & Max season he assumed the role of Design Director at Telltale, which seems to have been an overseeing role on all of the studio's projects. Judging by the credits, the project-level creative leads on TMI were Mike Stemmle and Mark Darin, while each episode had one or two primary directors and writers. While I am sure Dave had a non-trivial role in shaping TMI, he didn't assume any of those key titles on that project, so it's hard to gauge his direct contribution.

 

That's true. He actually mentioned that in the recent Adventure Gamers interview:

 

Quote

Dave: Yeah, so that’s certainly been a while, and my role in that was sort of different from what it had been on [Monkey Island 1 and 2], where [on Tales of Monkey Island] I was mostly making sure other people were doing a good job with the stuff that they were doing. And I got to crash a lot of story meetings and poke holes in a lot of pitches, but I didn’t actually write a single word for it.

 

Basically, I was referring to the fact that a lot of people kind of seem to think that the two original games were single-handedly developed by Ron Gilbert, and that every puzzle and every single line of dialogue was his creation. To the point that the fact that one of the other original writers/designers was involved in the development of Tales (in whatever capacity) was not perceived as particularly noteworthy. Or at least that was my impression.

 

As for my other point, I was thinking of this Eurogamer interview from 2009:

 

Quote

Eurogamer: Why Monkey Island, Dave? Did you, as an original member of the LucasArts team, have something to do it?

Dave Grossman: Strangely no, I didn't really push for that. I sort of felt like I had my opportunity to chip my teeth on Monkey Island long ago, but that wasn't true for everybody at the company. Some people felt like they weren't finished and we could do more with it.

It's actually something we've been talking to LucasArts about as long as the company has been in existence. Just now is the start of the line properly; the right people were interested at the right time on both sides.

 

But actually, after skimming through it again, it does look as if I might have filled the blanks a bit too creatively. As in Guybrush-telling-the-story-of-how-he-defeated-LeChuck creatively. Feel free to completely disregard that.

[Jake]

This is just my recollection and may be off in some way, but: Dave worked on Tales but it was in a studio director role. So he was in story and design meetings but to my memory wasn’t a main writer on any chapter of the game, which is different from his role on Monkey 1, 2, or Return. As a design and writing lead at Telltale, Dave’s superpower was how good he was at quietly allowing people to do their own ideas and give them space, while also helping them push things into being the best version of those ideas. Dave was rarely a leader who would say “no, you should use my idea instead,” which is definitely one way you can run a team. So if anything, I’d say a perception of Dave being less involved is more, him being interested in making sure the people who were in the lead writer and designer seats on the episodes themselves were getting opportunities to talk about their work. With Return, it’s back to a tiny writers-designers room and he’s one of the only people in the seat, so it makes sense he’d be the one doing the talking. I’m very excited for that on Return - Dave was always great as a lead at Telltale, but it meant he wasn’t able to be in the nuts and bolts of the game as much as he is now. 

[Jake]

My memory of when Tales showed up at Telltale is, there was reluctance from a lot of people on the team to make the game, because the expectations were huge and it would be hard for Telltale to meet them given the smaller scope Telltale usually worked in, especially when we learned we would be targeting the Wii, which would shrink that scope even more. But once it became clear that the company would be making the game for sure, there were a bunch of people who threw in to give it their all and try to “do right” by the series as much as we could, and make the best game possible with the comparatively tiny space we had to work in. I think the games strengths and weaknesses all come from that desire. 

[Groggoccino]

Okay, I'll admit it. I only pretended to misremember that interview as an intricate way of prompting Jake to share more behind-the-scenes stories.