Return to Monkey Island

[MurraySchull]

MI is still very much a niche property for adventure gamers at the end of the day (in that it is very rarely referenced outside of the adventure game genre and the average joe in the street most likely wouldn't be able to name it), but as with most niche properties, the fans are more likely to be proportionately more loyal and devoted than if it were a mainstream property, since it feels more personal. Hell, most of the people on these forums were here 12-13 years ago for Tales and the Special Editions, if not 22-25 years ago for Curse and Escape! The community is smaller, but also more devoted.

 

That being said, when the ReMI announcement trailer came out, it was fluctuating between the #5 and #10 trending spots on YouTube worldwide, and not just in gaming! That has to be a good sign. Granted that I doubt the release itself will garner the same level of attention, nor the second trailer most likely, but just the fact that MI was back after all this time was enough for even casual gamers to be shocked and happy with the news, if not ecstatic.

[KestrelPi]

I don't know that there's anything particularly devoted in this fanbase compared to others I've encountered. And of course many of us became fans long before there was this kind of stratification of game budgets, and long before they became 'niche'. Despite not being the absolute massive sellers, lucasarts adventures in the 90s had the biggest production values, the fanciest music and graphics. They were made for the mainstream.

 

And like... yeah, zelda fans, pokemon fans, sonic fans, persona fans, final fantasy fans,<insert popular mainstream franchise here> absolutely can be as devoted and loyal as we are. But I think we should be fine with not being special here. I think devotion and loyalty are, perhaps, a bit of a double edged sword in the end. They have their good bits and bad bits. They can inspire great community and creativity, but they can also cause a loss of perspective.

Edited June 12, 2022 by KestrelPi

[neoncolor8]

Noah Falstein was doing a live interview right now on twitch, spoke about playing Return (Alpha testing). Nothing too specific but he says it's Ron's best work and the storytelling is one of a kind! 

He even said that the storytelling is so special that it's gonna be a topic for studies on the topic for years to come! 

 

He also said he's gonna be back playing it again soon because the VO is being implemented and he's still a beta tester. 

 

'Cressup' on twitch!

[demone]

Ron recently revealed on Twitter that the quickest a tester ran through the game was 1.5 hours on casual mode, skipping all dialogue and cutscenes. I think the speed runs for the other games were much shorter, so it looks like this game is going to be a massive MI game, especially given the amount of lines in it.

 

I wonder if the casual mode will be similar to LeChuck's Revenge or Curse. Curse added more puzzles, but the bulk of the game was still there, but LeChuck's Revenge casual mode was almost like a demo version with how streamlined the puzzles were and significantly cut down the playtime. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by demone

[Knight Owl]

Sorry if this has already been talked about – this is my first post here, although I have been lurking a lot. But one of the things I'm most interested in finding out once we see more of the game is how the heck it's gonna handle those camera perspective changes, in terms of Guybrush's look and animations. In Thimbleweed Park and the original Monkey Islands, almost all the backgrounds had similar camera angles. There were a couple of outliers here and there, and the characters did look pretty weird in those spots, but it was rarely a problem. With this game the camera perspective seems to be wildly different in every location.

 

Of course, the game is super stylized so there's a degree to which they can get away with the characters looking a little out of place in some shots. But even still, I can't picture Guybrush looking right in both that top down shot of Melee island and also looking good in the shot of LeChuck's ship from the trailer. And I can't see how there's enough space to walk around in the locksmith shop or the courthouse without Guybrush covering up a lot of the background detail – they just seem much more zoomed in than rooms in previous games. Could they be using different models/sprites for different shots? Or weirder yet, is it possible that some of those indoor shots could be from Guybrush's point of view? I really don't see that happening haha, but Ron did say they're changing up the interface. Idk, those were some of my recent thoughts.

[KestrelPi]

5 minutes ago, Knight Owl said:

Sorry if this has already been talked about – this is my first post here, although I have been lurking a lot. But one of the things I'm most interested in finding out once we see more of the game is how the heck it's gonna handle those camera perspective changes, in terms of Guybrush's look and animations. In Thimbleweed Park and the original Monkey Islands, almost all the backgrounds had similar camera angles. There were a couple of outliers here and there, and the characters did look pretty weird in those spots, but it was rarely a problem. With this game the camera perspective seems to be wildly different in every location.

 

Of course, the game is super stylized so there's a degree to which they can get away with the characters looking a little out of place in some shots. But even still, I can't picture Guybrush looking right in both that top down shot of Melee island and also looking good in the shot of LeChuck's ship from the trailer. And I can't see how there's enough space to walk around in the locksmith shop or the courthouse without Guybrush covering up a lot of the background detail – they just seem much more zoomed in than rooms in previous games. Could they be using different models/sprites for different shots? Or weirder yet, is it possible that some of those indoor shots could be from Guybrush's point of view? I really don't see that happening haha, but Ron did say they're changing up the interface. Idk, those were some of my recent thoughts.

 

Do we have any real evidence of that? They've said that the camera tech allows them to do all sorts of fancy pans and zooms they couldn't do before, but the screenshots we've seen so far all seem like they would support a side-on guybrush just fine. I can't see any real issue with the same guybrush model being in all of them. It'd be quite zoomed in for the shop, but that's fine, because it's a pretty small location that doesn't look like it has a ton in it.

[Knight Owl]

7 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

 

Do we have any real evidence of that? They've said that the camera tech allows them to do all sorts of fancy pans and zooms they couldn't do before, but the screenshots we've seen so far all seem like they would support a side-on guybrush just fine. I can't see any real issue with the same guybrush model being in all of them. It'd be quite zoomed in for the shop, but that's fine, because it's a pretty small location that doesn't look like it has a ton in it.

Here's a quick little mockup I made using the special edition sprite. Obviously with the correct lighting and Rex's style it'll look worlds better, but I can't help but wonder if they might have come up with some solution to allow for a greater variety of camera angles.

[KestrelPi]

I guess there's another way to settle the question of perspective. all this looks fine to me. The box looks a bit odd sometimes but usually guybrush isn't going to be hauling a box so that's fine.

[Knight Owl]

16 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

I guess there's another way to settle the question of perspective. all this looks fine to me. The box looks a bit odd sometimes but usually guybrush isn't going to be hauling a box so that's fine.

Oh yeah. The monkey statue one especially looks pretty good.

[OzzieMonkey]

Another thing we don't know is what look they've decided to go with; the shorter Guybrush from the first 2 games or the taller, lankier one from Curse onward, or something new? That would have an effect on how he fits into those scenes. Maybe the size of the locksmith door is a good indication, unless he's meant to be comically smaller? I suspect that, given we start at the amusement park, Guybrush will initialy be a child, so there's that.

[Vainamoinen]

It would simply be awesome if the Guybrush sprite changed with the perspective. It wouldn't be without precedent – we had a top down view during the rope attachment scene in TSoMI, the conversation with the fisherman in LeChuck's Revenge used a more detailed Guybrush model. No idea how probable this is, but I wouldn't rule it out. The graphics and animation team's effort is definitely going somewhere, it may just not be where you'd expect it.

 

Now for the important thing: Can we start with a "ghost guy delivering boxes to all the places" meme already?

 

4 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

Another thing we don't know is what look they've decided to go with; the shorter Guybrush from the first 2 games or the taller, lankier one from Curse onward, or something new?

 

Listen, don't tell anyone, but I figured it all out.

 

The "real" secret of Monkey Island is that the Carnival of the Damned contains a lot of doors that lead to different places and moments in Guybrush's life, past, present and future (most of them are locked though, so he'll need a lot of keys). But once he passes through such a portal/door, he'll look just like he did in the respective game, costume and body build included.

 

That's it, that's the game. Strange, it's much more dayofthetentacly than I thought. 🐒

[OzzieMonkey]

23 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

Listen, don't tell anyone, but I figured it all out.

 

The "real" secret of Monkey Island is that the Carnival of the Damned contains a lot of doors that lead to different places and moments in Guybrush's life, past, present and future (most of them are locked though, so he'll need a lot of keys). But once he passes through such a portal/door, he'll look just like he did in the respective game, costume and body build included.

 

That's it, that's the game. Strange, it's much more dayofthetentacly than I thought. 🐒

To be honest...that actually sounds pretty cool! It's so wild to me that we know there's a new Monkey Island game coming out but we've yet to see the lead character (or any of the main cast) ...has that ever happened for any of the other games? I think it's gonna hit me in a whole different way once we see more familiar things that make us go "oh yes THIS is a Monkey Island game", not to imply that what we've gotten so far ISN'T Monkey Island, I don't feel that way at all, just that we've mostly seen what's new (art style, the locksmith, a judge, snowy island) and a very fleeting glimpse of the old (Murray, Melee wideshot and alleyway). It's when we start to see those characters again that it'll truly feel like we've come home. One look at Mr Threepwood is that powerful. 

Edited June 13, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[Marius]

1 hour ago, Vainamoinen said:

we had a top down view during the rope attachment scene in TSoMI

I always forget there is this special perspective, and I LOVE it. It's one of these many elements of SoMI that feel handcrafted. Aah, it's hard for me to explain... As a developer, I look at this and think "Today, someone would say we can't produce this room. It's too expensive for for just that. Either have more top-down rooms or change the perspective so we can re-use the standard sprites.".

In the Unpopular Opinions thread it was mentioned that the parts after Mêlée Island are kind of "less" than what's going on in Part 1, but the vibe this specific room gives me is the reason I find the whole game exciting. The "emptyness" on Monkey Island doesn't feel like "less developer work", but actually like a relatively empty and lonely place.

Aah! I love SoMI so much 🥰

 

[Marius]

7 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

I guess there's another way to settle the question of perspective. all this looks fine to me. The box looks a bit odd sometimes but usually guybrush isn't going to be hauling a box so that's fine.

I love these box-carrying-ghost-pirate screens.  😄 It looks like they got lost and have to ask around where the dock is. So much determination.

[OzzieMonkey]

8 minutes ago, Marius said:

I love these box-carrying-ghost-pirate screens.  😄 It looks like they got lost and have to ask around where the dock is. So much determination.

I'm reminded of that hilarious anecdote Tim told about how the chef and Captain Dread's chip had the same character number and there was a bug where it used to chase you around the island yelling "no good punk" and "transient hooligan" etc. 

Btw, who else wants Ron to keep that bug in where Guybrush's mouth flaps rapidly if you move the controller when he talks? 

Edited June 13, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[KestrelPi]

I have to admit, something about the art really clicked for me once I did this and saw an approximately to scale character placed walking in the scene. I'm more convinced than ever that it's going to look really lovely in motion.

[Thrik]

40 minutes ago, Marius said:

I always forget there is this special perspective, and I LOVE it. It's one of these many elements of SoMI that feel handcrafted. Aah, it's hard for me to explain... As a developer, I look at this and think "Today, someone would say we can't produce this room. It's too expensive for for just that. Either have more top-down rooms or change the perspective so we can re-use the standard sprites.".

In the Unpopular Opinions thread it was mentioned that the parts after Mêlée Island are kind of "less" than what's going on in Part 1, but the vibe this specific room gives me is the reason I find the whole game exciting. The "emptyness" on Monkey Island doesn't feel like "less developer work", but actually like a relatively empty and lonely place.

Aah! I love SoMI so much 🥰

 

It even had a bespoke and in-depth animation for Guybrush climbing the rope, which the Special Edition paid tribute to by having him essentially glide up it instead, as if he were using The Force™. 😀

[Thrik]

[Marius]

Just now, Thrik said:

Hold on! Both are delivery people. Aren't they colleagues?

[Marius]

[Thrik]

LeChuck likes to keep his fortress and galleon delivery staff separate.

 

Did anyone notice that the format of that Monkey Island room is quite Big Whoop tunnels-esque? 🤔 

[Vainamoinen]

8 minutes ago, Marius said:

Hold on! Both are delivery people. Aren't they colleagues?

 

No, they're two different companies. On the left is some guy from Damned Heists of LeChuck (DHL) and on the right is a ghost pirate from Undead Pirate Shipments (UPS).

[BillyCheers]

I already love this ghost meme so much

 

[Vainamoinen]

3 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

Now for the important thing: Can we start with a "ghost guy delivering boxes to all the places" meme already?

 

This community really rubs me the right way. 😊

[Laserschwert]

26 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

 

No, they're two different companies. On the left is some guy from Damned Heists of LeChuck (DHL) and on the right is a ghost pirate from Undead Pirate Shipments (UPS).

So I guess the guy from Free Etheral Delivery Exhumation (FedEx) had his day off?