Return to Monkey Island

[Jake]

I love the way bright sunny daylight looks in Monkey Island 2. The way the light bounces and reflects is so satisfying and warm. Phatt Island town especially looks so good in its original painting. 
 

There’s also a little tiny hint of Day of the Tentacle in the “Library” sign. 

[ThunderPeel2001]

11 hours ago, Jake said:

I love the way bright sunny daylight looks in Monkey Island 2. The way the light bounces and reflects is so satisfying and warm. Phatt Island town especially looks so good in its original painting. 

 

Totally agree. I think what's amazing is that a modern game using these paintings would still look beautiful today. Beauty doesn't date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Vainamoinen]

I love those Scabb Island original paintings especially. Even though it's clearly nighttime, they still have great light/dark contrast and very strong hues.

 

I was playing "Gibbous" some time ago, which is mostly a night time setting as well, and even though it's a nice point & click, they really haven't thought about contrast and color. At all. It's all way too dark and muddy, the vast majority of the backgrounds are.

 

Traditional art on paper is great (so great that it's the only art I create at the time), but it seems to me that the main problem with modern adventure games is not that the art is "digital". It's that sometimes the traditional, time honored knowledge seems to have been lost in the transition, and that knowledge could easily be applied to the digital process.

 

It's just another thing that Rex understands and applies. The Melee Island color palette just feels right, the contrasts are all there.

[KestrelPi]

5 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

I love those Scabb Island original paintings especially. Even though it's clearly nighttime, they still have great light/dark contrast and very strong hues.

 

I was playing "Gibbous" some time ago, which is mostly a night time setting as well, and even though it's a nice point & click, they really haven't thought about contrast and color. At all. It's all way too dark and muddy, the vast majority of the backgrounds are.

 

Traditional art on paper is great (so great that it's the only art I create at the time), but it seems to me that the main problem with modern adventure games is not that the art is "digital". It's that sometimes the traditional, time honored knowledge seems to have been lost in the transition, and that knowledge could easily be applied to the digital process.

 

It's just another thing that Rex understands and applies. The Melee Island color palette just feels right, the contrasts are all there.

Something that he talks about in his talks about Knights and bikes is that for the art used for that he limited everything to two brushes only in order to make everything feel that more integrated. I think that kind of thinking becomes very important with digital art as it must be tempting to solve problems with all the tools at your disposal but imposing limitations really lends itself to coming up with creative solutions that feel intentional and cohesive with the overall style. God I can't wait to see this stuff in motion, in context

 

Also for me it's less about what you lose/gain from traditional vs digital and more about what inspired you. It's not surprising to me that people who are inspired by traditional art but have to work in digital art because of constraints might not make their best work. The great thing about this being a digital art project is that Rex is really motivated and inspired by the potential of digital art, you can see him in his talks talking about how when he first got an Amiga and dpaint he was really excited by the possibilities.

 

As a composer my advice to anyone wanting to try their hand is to work with whatever tools get you up in the morning, and I think the same rule applies to art. Take the path of least resistance. It's easy to feel like you're cheating by doing what is easy for you but I think really all it means is that you're free to spend your energy being creative instead of fighting with the medium

Edited May 30, 2022 by KestrelPi

[ThunderPeel2001]

2 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

The Melee Island color palette just feels right, the contrasts are all there.

 

Not to pile on Rex, who has certainly had far too much criticism and undeserved ire. And whose artwork is gorgeous in Knights and Bikes and who hasn't really had a chance to show off what his ReMI work looks like in situ. But one of the things I reacted badly to was his Melee is the colour palette.

In theory, the only source of light at night in these piratical times would be fire or moonlight (unless it's the Hook Isle sign, natch). That's why everything in the town is blue and orange in the original game.

 

There's such an odd array of oranges of light source colours that it throws me: From white, through to green, to luminous yellow to pale orange.

 

I'm sure I won't actually care when I'm playing the game, but you happened to mention the palette, and right now all I have to obsess about are these tiny selection of images!

 

Bah! Please give us more soon!

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by ThunderPeel2001

[Vainamoinen]

 

17 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

But one of the things I reacted badly to was his Melee is the colour palette.

In theory, the only source of light at night in these piratical times would be fire or moonlight (unless it's the Hook Isle sign, natch). That's why everything in the town is blue and orange in the original game.

 

There's such an odd array of oranges of light source colours that it throws me: From white, through to green, to luminous yellow to pale orange.

 

The palette seems fairly close to the original to me. The yellows and oranges are there in the original – as variants of the same hue though. What's new to Rex' depiction of the same street is a tinge of cyan, I think.

 

What still pervades the scene is, of course, that strong blue. Which certainly is the traditional choice for "night" (not necessarily " the correct" choice of course).

 

In any case, we'd need Guybrush to enter that church and light a few candles in there. That would bring us some of those right hues back.

 

 

Edited May 30, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[OzzieMonkey]

9 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

What still pervades the scene is, of course, that strong blue. Which certainly is the traditional choice for "night" (not necessarily " the correct" choice of course).

 

Is it possible that all the buildings are just painted blue? 😂 Imagine if it turns out that screenshot is set during the day and that's just what the buildings look like  

[Vainamoinen]

1 hour ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Is it possible that all the buildings are just painted blue? 😂 Imagine if it turns out that screenshot is set during the day and that's just what the buildings look like  

 

All those years we thought it was always 10 PM on Melee Island when in fact it was 10 AM!

[KestrelPi]

2 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

 

The palette seems fairly close to the original to me. The yellows and oranges are there in the original – as variants of the same hue though. What's new to Rex' depiction of the same street is a tinge of cyan, I think.

 

What still pervades the scene is, of course, that strong blue. Which certainly is the traditional choice for "night" (not necessarily " the correct" choice of course).

 

In any case, we'd need Guybrush to enter that church and light a few candles in there. That would bring us some of those right hues back.

 

 

 

to me the new look Melee street suggests passage of time. Things are less uniform than they were, it's not as neat and tidy - there are piles of fishbones, broken roofing, boarded up windows and crumbling walls, derelict buildings. Melee Island here has seen better days, and I think it may have lessened the effect of that to see the same yellow light coming out of all the windows. It's inconsistent now, people are making do with what they have, and the brightest lighting is being used where it's most needed e.g. in the shop areas, where the upstairs areas and prison is murkier.

 

I suppose I mean that there seem to be some deliberate choices here which are telling the story of what has happened to this location.

[Thrik]

And of course half the lights are probably fluorescent anyway. 🎡

[BillyCheers]

Hi, I also wanted to give my two pieces of eight on the topic. 🙃

 

I really love the new art style so far! I like that it goes in the direction of DOTT and I'm curious to see how crazy the overall design will be.

I also very much like the character design: Shopkeeper (?), Locksmith and ghosts in the trailer - all look great to me! With the Judge... I'm not so sure if I like it, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

I (as everyone I guess) am really excited about the Guybrush design. I would like to see a nice evolution from the MI2 Guybrush: A bit more melancholic, maybe even a bit "bitter". The old MI2 sprite always felt a bit depressed to me (in a good way). 
Also in terms of personality I would find it nice to experience a more "jerk" Guybrush again in comparison to the stupid ones we often got since CMI. Maybe even with a good portion of humility (?) and melancholy. 😁

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think SOMI's Melee shares a lot of the same colour palette with Scabb. Especially Captain Dread's dock. That luscious moonlit/candlelit world. There's a real warmth there which I don't see in Crowle's Melee.

 

Again, maybe once I play the game that will all make sense. Maybe it's all very deliberate and part of a wider look for the game that I will appreciate more when I get my hands on it. But until then, all I can do is obsess!

 

 

4 hours ago, Thrik said:

And of course half the lights are probably fluorescent anyway. 🎡

 

[OzzieMonkey]

This is actually pretty huge news...a count (or rough estimate) of the lines of dialog in the game!

 

According to Mojo's Secret History article on Escape from Monkey Island, that game had about 10,000 lines of dialog, and that game was pretty big. Looks like we're in for a hefty beast of an adventure game, and after all these years waiting for a new entry, that's really good to hear. 

[Jake]

You love to see it.

[Trapezzoid]

Maybe a few thousand of those are Guybrush saying "I have ___ pieces of eight."

[Lagomorph01]

They recorded almost unlimited versions of “I can’t pick that up”.

[Laserschwert]

Well, Ron DID recently lament the fact that MI1 has mostly generic responses for hotspots, so there's probably a lot of specific dialogue in this. But that would hardly add up to a couple of thousand extra lines.

[Lagomorph01]

I'm really interested to how this game will be structured. I replayed both MI1 and MI2 last year, and upon replaying part 2 I felt the map collecting chapter wasn't as good as I remembered. I love the fact that the game really opens up at this point, but all in all it's pretty much a generic "complete an x number of chores to continue" chapter. Of course by now this is a common trope, (I recently replayed the TellTale Sam and Max games too, and boy is it overused,) but I felt MI1 makes a wise design choice by doing that in the first chapter, rather than the second.

 

I love that Ron is constantly thinking of ways to improve and evolve the genre, so I'm really curious to how he'll structure this  game.

[Marius]

27 minutes ago, Lagomorph01 said:

They recorded almost unlimited versions of “I can’t pick that up”.

It would be hilarious if they made a unique line for every object, but it's basically variations of

• "I can't pick that up."
• "I can't pick that up."
• "I can't pick that up."
• "I can't pick that up."
• "I can't pick that up."

[KestrelPi]

13 minutes ago, Lagomorph01 said:

I'm really interested to how this game will be structured. I replayed both MI1 and MI2 last year, and upon replaying part 2 I felt the map collecting chapter wasn't as good as I remembered. I love the fact that the game really opens up at this point, but all in all it's pretty much a generic "complete an x number of chores to continue" chapter. Of course by now this is a common trope, (I recently replayed the TellTale Sam and Max games too, and boy is it overused,) but I felt MI1 makes a wise design choice by doing that in the first chapter, rather than the second.

 

I love that Ron is constantly thinking of ways to improve and evolve the genre, so I'm really curious to how he'll structure this  game.

Well arguably MI2 does this in both the first and second chapter

 

Generally speaking I think the 3rd chapter of MI1 isn't particularly interesting. It has a nice sort of atmosphere, but wandering a huge island and mainly speaking to two characters (HT and the cannibals) just isn't that interesting to me. When I've been watching play throughs I've been skipping chunks of that part regularly.

 

At least in MI2's long part 2 I get to meet lots of new characters. and its Dinky Island chapter feels fairly compressed i comparison to Monkey Island.

[KestrelPi]

Thinking about how 34 actors means at LEAST 34 characters and it's likely they recorded more than one character.

 

MI1:SE had 15 actors play about 45 characters (questionable if all of these are 'characters' - rat?)

MI2:SE had 17 actors play about 40 characters (surprised this is less kinda, but see above)

CMI had 29 actors play about 42 characters

EMI had 40 actors play a whopping 76 characters (about 10 of these are pirate 1, pirate 2 etc, but still)

 

EMI had by FAR the largest cast of characters of any of the games, and this has more lines recorded than that. I suspect they've gone for more people playing fewer characters, like CMI - the special editions seemed to be stretching the voice cast as far as it could go but CMI/EMI seemed to want a lower character/actor ratio and I do think it shows in the quality of some of the performances.

 

I'm going to guess here that there are 34 actors playing about 50 characters.

[KestrelPi]

9 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Thinking about how 34 actors means at LEAST 34 characters and it's likely they recorded more than one character.

 

MI1:SE had 15 actors play about 45 characters (questionable if all of these are 'characters' - rat?)

MI2:SE had 17 actors play about 40 characters (surprised this is less kinda, but see above)

CMI had 29 actors play about 42 characters

EMI had 40 actors play a whopping 76 characters (about 10 of these are pirate 1, pirate 2 etc, but still)

 

EMI had by FAR the largest cast of characters of any of the games, and this has more lines recorded than that. I suspect they've gone for more people playing fewer characters, like CMI - the special editions seemed to be stretching the voice cast as far as it could go but CMI/EMI seemed to want a lower character/actor ratio and I do think it shows in the quality of some of the performances.

 

I'm going to guess here that there are 34 actors playing about 50 characters.

 

I'm going to further guess that most of the additional lines vs EMI are Dom's and it's owing to how they've done the UI this time providing motivation/opportunity for more lines to be recorded - more custom responses to different kinds of action, etc.

[Lagomorph01]

23 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Well arguably MI2 does this in both the first and second chapter.

Good point! Maybe that's why it felt more stale the second time.

24 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Generally speaking I think the 3rd chapter of MI1 isn't particularly interesting. It has a nice sort of atmosphere, but wandering a huge island and mainly speaking to two characters (HT and the cannibals) just isn't that interesting to me. When I've been watching play throughs I've been skipping chunks of that part regularly.

I actually loved the 3rd chapter of MI1. I really felt like I was stranded on a strange island and like I was slowly going mad (like Herman). Also I think it helps that it wasn't structured like chapter 1. Of course there are less people to talk to, but I love that it gives you all those places and things to explore and toy around with.

26 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

At least in MI2's long part 2 I get to meet lots of new characters. and its Dinky Island chapter feels fairly compressed i comparison to Monkey Island.

I was a bit dissapointed in my last playthrough about how short the sections after the four map pieces were. It felt kinda like the bulk of the game comprised of that chapter and after that you're already really close to the end. It just didn't feel as epic to me because of it.

 

(Fun fact: after my last playthrough I've actually changed my favourite Monkey Island game to SOMI instead of MI2. Funny how time can still make me change my opinion on things.)

[Vainamoinen]

 

14,000 lines of dialog? That's nothing.

1. woodchuck jokes - 1,500 lines
2. possible answers to Toothrot's latest zen question - 250 lines
3. Guybrush's renewed attempt to "pick up" Kate Capsize - 500 lines
4. Stan's latest sales pitch - 5,000 lines
5. insult swordfighting - 200 lines
6. Guybrush getting back together with Elaine - 143 lines
7. Elaine breaking up with Guybrush - 1 line
8. LeChuck explaining his latest evil plan - 6,406 lines

[Lagomorph01]

Ha! Ha! I love this one:

1 hour ago, Vainamoinen said:

7. Elaine breaking up with Guybrush - 1 line