Return to Monkey Island

[Glokidd]

14 minutes ago, Thrik said:

I think today’s kids would just assume he’s based on phone shop salesmen. 😀

 

As someone who spent the better part of the last decade doing exactly that I'm pretty sure you are right. I'm glad I got out of it but hey... I got to run an electronics store and sell games too so it made it worth it I guess lol. One of my former employees has one of my copies of curse lol, knowing anything about Monkey Island always got extra points with me 😀

[Groggoccino]

I don't consider Stan an outdated stereotype at all. If anything, I'd argue that he's more current than he's ever been. The world has been completely engulfed by marketing, self-promotion, ever-changing "personal brands" and serial entrepreneurialism.

 

I've actually lost track of how many real-life Stans I've run into in recent times.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Groggoccino

[Vainamoinen]

3 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

There’s still so many ways Stan could be let out by Guybrush only to fall for the same trick twice and be locked up by him again. (And fix the continuity issue where Stan is never actually told Guybrush's name in the process.) As someone once said to me, that's the magic of writing: You're making it up!

 

Classic example: Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed his father, only to be told in the next film he IS his father. You can write your way around anything.

 

Others have made it up decades ago and you're left with the impossible task to make your perfectly round story fit that square socket. All the time knowing that you could write a much better story if you just ignored some of the previously established material. That seems to be Dave and Ron's path though, and I'm thankful for it. 🙏

 

In most popular narrative media, having established canon that plays out in the series' future is a ball and chain. I'm off that sauce. The prequels, the interquels, spinoffs, crossovers. They tend to ruin my stories. Heck, an entire Star Wars prequel trilogy was boring as funk because you knew all the time what was going to happen, and what they made up to keep the canon in check was on the "wipe those droids' memory" level throughout. Now that's a script that Dr. Fisher couldn't fix.

 

Sure, Star Wars writers and good ol' Georgie did write their way around everything eventually. But even if they more or less succeeded, that didn't create any magical "aha" moments. The reason for those jumps through hoops wasn't to write the best story they could, it was only ever to shove that round plug into that stupid square hole. A process that, of course, tends to open up new holes in our game as well: Why doesn't Stan comment on why he's being locked into a coffin in CMI? Damn. Uhm, maybe Guybrush wears a disguise. Or we're playing another character at the time. Or maybe Stan gets knocked on the head and has amnesia ...

 

I don't know. It's all a bit too much "there I fixed it" for my taste, not trying to step on anybody's toes. They can have Stan walking around in total freedom all of the time, without explaining a single thing, for all I care. It's just this laborious jumping-through-somebody-else's-hoops that I don't like to see. "How do we write the best story" should be the question, not "How do we make ReMI fit what comes after?".

Edited May 9, 2022 by Vainamoinen
Fixed the argumentative flow. I can write around anything.

[Zaxx]

57 minutes ago, Groggoccino said:

I don't consider Stan an outdated stereotype at all. If anything, I'd argue that he's more current than he's ever been. The world has been completely engulfed by marketing, self-promotion, ever-changing "personal brands" and serial entrepreneurialism.

 

I've actually lost track of how many real-life Stans I've run into in recent times.

 

I basically have the same argument for why he's outdated.  That kind of annoying person would be the "influencer", the life style coach or the fitness guru now, not the used car salesman, right? Compared to those people Stan is just a hard working citizen doing the hustle.

[Lagomorph01]

3 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

Others have made it up decades ago and you're left with the impossible task to make your perfectly round story fit that square socket. All the time knowing that you could write a much better story if you just ignored some of the previously established material. That seems to be Dave and Ron's path though, and I'm thankful for it. 🙏

 

In most popular narrative media, having established canon that plays out in the series' future is a ball and chain. I'm off that sauce. The prequels, the interquels, spinoffs, crossovers. They tend to ruin my stories. Heck, an entire Star Wars prequel trilogy was boring as funk because you knew all the time what was going to happen, and what they made up to keep the canon in check was on the "wipe those droids' memory" level throughout. Now that's a script that Dr. Fisher couldn't fix.

 

Sure, Star Wars writers and good ol' Georgie did write their way around everything eventually. But even if they more or less succeeded, that didn't create any magical "aha" moments. The reason for those jumps through hoops wasn't to write the best story they could, it was only ever to shove that round plug into that stupid square hole. A process that, of course, tends to open up new holes in our game as well: Why doesn't Stan comment on why he's being locked into a coffin in CMI? Damn. Uhm, maybe Guybrush wears a disguise. Or we're playing another character at the time. Or maybe Stan gets knocked on the head and has amnesia ...

 

I don't know. It's all a bit too much "there I fixed it" for my taste, not trying to step on anybody's toes. They can have Stan walking around in total freedom all of the time, without explaining a single thing, for all I care. It's just this laborious jumping-through-somebody-else's-hoops that I don't like to see. "How do we write the best story" should be the question, not "How do we make ReMI fit what comes after?".

This and exactly this! Couldn’t have put it better myself. Just focus on writing a good story.

 

I don’t know if anyone’s interested in the works of Carl Barks and Don Rosa, but if you read the Carl Barks stories, he has such a wonderful free style of writing, which has story above all. If Donald Duck needs a second story to his house for a comic, he just has one. No need to explain it.

It’s fun to read the Don Rosa comics too, because they came after the Barks comics and try to make an interwoven story of it (especially the Scrooge stories). They’re great comics in their own right, but he sometimes writes himself into corners, because he tries to make “canon” out of it.

 

Back on topic: Gee, isn’t Monkey Island swell?

Edited May 9, 2022 by Lagomorph01

[Rum Rogers]

2 minutes ago, Lagomorph01 said:

Gee, isn’t Monkey Island swell?

It most definitely is!

[Vainamoinen]

Big spoiler:

Comments are possible again on Ron's blog it seems. Go and spread that positivity.

[ThunderPeel2001]

6 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

I don't know. It's all a bit too much "there I fixed it" for my taste, not trying to step on anybody's toes. They can have Stan walking around in total freedom all of the time, without explaining a single thing, for all I care. It's just this laborious jumping-through-somebody-else's-hoops that I don't like to see. "How do we write the best story" should be the question, not "How do we make ReMI fit what comes after?".

 

I wrong a big long reply to this, but I'll spare everyone and just say... I completely (but respectfully) disagree
 

Edited May 10, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[ThunderPeel2001]

2 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

Big spoiler:
 

  Hide contents

Comments are possible again on Ron's blog it seems. Go and spread that positivity.

 

 

Wow. Brave move from Ronzo!

[Lagomorph01]

8 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

Big spoiler:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Comments are possible again on Ron's blog it seems. Go and spread that positivity.

 

I won’t click if it’s really a spoiler for the new game.

Please keep using spoiler tags while further discussing this, people. Thanks in advance!

[Jake]

It’s not a real spoiler. It’s about how Grumpy Gamer comments are turned on again. 
 

Agreed that if any real spoilers show up folks should use spoiler tags aggressively. Eventually we may need to make a dedicated spoiler thread, but so far it’s been all speculation no spoilers, so it’s fine. 

[Lagomorph01]

Ah, thanks for checking that, Jake. 😊

[Vainamoinen]

Oh, and don't worry. I'd never.

 

Depending on when ReMI will be available on DRM/launcher free platforms, I'll have to rely on you folks to keep things very very spoiler free.

[Lagomorph01]

It makes me sad that some people are bringing up their quarrels with the art style AGAIN! It's like they were just waiting for the comments to open up again to continue spitting their bile. Some people never learn... 🙄

 

Most of the comments are positive though, I hope it stays that way. Otherwise, if I were Ron, I'd just close the whole comment section down until after the game is released.

[Thrik]

It’s one thing to not be so keen on the art. Sure, that’s an opinion, life goes on. It’s the way they treat it almost like a campaign, like they’ll get what they want by just going on… and on… and on.

 

You sometimes see this sort of thing manifest into review bombing, etc. I hate it.

 

This is the art style. That ship has sailed. Enjoy the game or do not. But nobody really needs to be hearing ranting and raving about how it looks. It’s just poisonous and sad.

[MurraySchull]

If the trailer is any indication, the full effect of the art cannot be perfectly represented in the screenshots. There will be camera motion, flowing animations, atmospheric effects, parallax scrolling, etc. Similar in many ways to the Telltale tool.

 

I'll bet that shot of Melee town, for example, will have the foreground rooftops on a different plane to the backdrop art, possibly with some additional fog/camera effects, giving the piece a greater layer of depth and atmosphere than what might be coming across in the art.

[roots]

I think we've tipped past the peak with the art issue and descended into being a reactionary counter-jerk. It seems now to be vastly more people complaining about other people complaining which really isn't any more helpful that the latter.

 

People are going to have negative and positive responses to the art regardless. Better to just drop it and move on.

Edited May 10, 2022 by roots

[KestrelPi]

19 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

 

Yep, that's exactly it. And this clip from Used Cars, too. He's even got the same checked jacket:
 

 

 

Man, that character just IS stan, to me.

[OzzieMonkey]

6 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

 

Man, that character just IS stan, to me.

Damn, so true. The only thing putting me off was that he was calling the other guy Stan.

[KestrelPi]

1 hour ago, Lagomorph01 said:

It makes me sad that some people are bringing up their quarrels with the art style AGAIN! It's like they were just waiting for the comments to open up again to continue spitting their bile. Some people never learn... 🙄

 

Most of the comments are positive though, I hope it stays that way. Otherwise, if I were Ron, I'd just close the whole comment section down until after the game is released.

If people have the energy to post positive/not agressive or flame-warry rebuttals to some of the comments, then it may well be appreciated.

 

Back in the Double Fine Kickstarter days I pretty heavily posted on their forums, and spent quite a lot of time correcting folks' knee jerk responses to stuff and misinformation and... while I was mostly polite I was worried that I was adding to the noise and helping to maintain a bad atmosphere. But years later I learned that they knew my name in the office, and they really appreciated the time I took being a voice of reason. So later on I'll definitely be posting some encouraging words over on the site.

[elTee]

7 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

 

Man, that character just IS stan, to me.

I'm so glad other people see Stan in this character. I actually asked Tim Schafer about it in 2004, and this thread prompted me to dig out the email:

 

Me:  I was just wondering if the character of
Stan in SOMI was based on Kurt Russell in Used Cars? He even looks like him in the early scenes! ... Anyway, still eagerly awaiting Psychonauts, and I *know* there will be a Gamecube version, right? ... right?

 

Response: No, and I am afraid no.

Both questions.

Sorry to bring you down

[Lagomorph01]

What? No GameCube version of Psychonauts?!? I'm angrily marching to their forums right now!!

[KestrelPi]

I posted this on Ron's blog but I think people here might be interested too, so:

By the way, if anyone reading this wants to get more of a feel for Rex Crowle and how he thinks about developing a visual style for a game, he did a really interesting talk about this in the context of Knights and Bikes called "Overtaking nostalgia to create the fantasy of Knights & Bikes", which you can find online on twitch and places if you search for it. I was lucky enough to be present for this talk, and I've been following his career since.

(Incidentally I really enjoy the thing he says about influences on visuals not having to be visual - I've been saying this for years, that it's never too early to engage a musician on a project - concept music can, in some ways, work just as well as concept visuals)

No matter what you think about the tiny amount you've seen so far of Return, it's extremely clear to me that Rex is a guy who really thinks very deeply about developing a visual style, and was never going to just throw something together thoughtlessly, and that we're really going to need to see the whole thing to get the full effect.

I think a lot of the themes that he was thinking about for K&B have overlap with Monkey Island, and I know he's a huge fan so believe me when I say he's one of us. He's exactly the kind person who would have been disk swapping Monkey Island on his Amiga 500, and who feels the atmosphere of Monkey Island in his bones. This project is very probably an absolute dream come true for him, and I hope one day to see a talk from him where he shows some of his working like he did with K&B.

[Toymafia1988]

3 hours ago, fentongames said:

If the trailer is any indication, the full effect of the art cannot be perfectly represented in the screenshots. There will be camera motion, flowing animations, atmospheric effects, parallax scrolling, etc. Similar in many ways to the Telltale tool.

 

I'll bet that shot of Melee town, for example, will have the foreground rooftops on a different plane to the backdrop art, possibly with some additional fog/camera effects, giving the piece a greater layer of depth and atmosphere than what might be coming across in the art.

Definitley agree. I think the animation in the trailer really brings it together. 

 

The screenshots really don't give us the full picture.

 

I kinda wish instead of screenshots they posted 30 second clips that showed off how the game will look and feel when not static.

 

I really hope there is a proper reveal soon. Maybe next month.

 

They need to show gameplay of Guybrush in action, i think that would calm alot of peoples concerns.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Toymafia1988

[MurraySchull]

Is E3 happening this year? If so, I'd imagine we'll hear something there. Otherwise, whatever the next big gaming event is should hopefully reveal some more info!

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what all of the characters look like. Murray looked great in the preview, but to be fair, it's a skull! And I can't wait to hear brand new Guybrush Threepwood dialogue after all these years!

Edited May 10, 2022 by fentongames