POLL: How are you going to play ReMI?

[Alexandra IDV]

Gonna take my time, explore, take in the atmosphere, talk to all the characters - but that's tbh pretty much always how I play video games with stories, and nothing unique to RtMI. Rushing to get to the end seems antithetical to this type of game, especially one we've waited for for so long. Not opposed to using hints, but only after getting really stuck.

[demone]

I've been debating.

 

I preordered on both Steam and Switch, but I'm leaning more towards Switch. On the one hand, my laptop surroundings make a better place for snacks and a drink and I've always played these games on my computer first, but I would love to play this game for the first time on my big screen without having to worry about connection issues between my TV and laptop, so Switch is increasingly looking like my choice.

 

Mostly though, it's because my WIFI on my computer isn't the best all the time and I think you need to be connected to continue to play Steam games. I might be wrong, as I never purchased from Steam or even really used it before. If that is indeed the case though, I don't want to risk my experience being interrupted, especially if it's during a crucial story moment like the reveal of The Secret lol

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by demone

[OzzieMonkey]

I have no shame in using the in-game hints, but I'll avoid looking anything up online. For me the story is the most important thing, so I want to see it all as quickly as possible the first go around, then when I play it again I'll probably look for in-jokes and things like that. First time around I'll still be using all dialog choices and looking at everything because I won't know how to solve all the puzzles yet, but given my track record with adventure games I'm usually pretty good at getting through them relatively fast. I finished Thimbleweed Park in about 2 days.

[Garystu]

3 hours ago, demone said:

I've been debating.

 

I preordered on both Steam and Switch, but I'm leaning more towards Switch. On the one hand, my laptop surroundings make a better place for snacks and a drink and I've always played these games on my computer first, but I would love to play this game for the first time on my big screen without having to worry about connection issues between my TV and laptop, so Switch is increasingly looking like my choice.

 

Mostly though, it's because my WIFI on my computer isn't the best all the time and I think you need to be connected to continue to play Steam games. I might be wrong, as I never purchased from Steam or even really used it before. If that is indeed the case though, I don't want to risk my experience being interrupted, especially if it's during a crucial story moment like the reveal of The Secret lol

 

Steam does an authentication check on program startup, but that's all. Steam also has an offline mode, so you don't need to connect to the internet at all after you've started the program. It just checks the internet once, its not always online.

 

So unless RTMI uses DRM other than the basic Steam authentication (hypothetically possible but not likely) you should be good. Its about as much to deal with as the Switch's DRM, now I think about it.

 

However, it seems the Switch has other advantages for you, so go for it. Just clearing up how Steam works.

[demone]

2 minutes ago, Guybrush Transmasc said:

Steam does an authentication check on program startup, but that's all. Steam also has an offline mode, so you don't need to connect to the internet at all after you've started the program. It just checks the internet once, its not always online.

 

So unless RTMI uses DRM other than the basic Steam authentication (hypothetically possible but not likely) you should be good. Its about as much to deal with as the Switch's DRM, now I think about it.

 

However, it seems the Switch has other advantages for you, so go for it. Just clearing up how Steam works.

Thank you my friend, good to know!

[KestrelPi]

Almost all of the time when I used the hint system in Thimbleweed park I thought, "Well, that was silly, I'm glad I didn't spend an hour wandering around until eventually trying that", and only once or twice did I think, "Ahh, I should have got that myself" so I expect I'll use the hints on occasion. I feel like with this game they've put a lot more thought into the interface and puzzle design, so I'm hoping that I won't need to dip into it as often (I really didn't like how much of the middle parts of TWP was correctly guessing the order that the game wanted you to tackle tasks).

 

I'm hoping to be somewhat challenged, but not constantly stuck. I thought Ron or possibly Dave made a very interesting point. A lot of us would have played the games first time when we were 10 years old. I was a pretty smart 10 year old but I'm pretty sure that 40 year old me who has played a lot of adventure games is better at solving puzzles than 10 year old me who hadn't played this sort of game before, so I used a lot of hints to get through them, and remember them as being harder than they probably actually were (also really hard/unfair puzzles are memorable, regular ones less so).

 

So I imagine this game will feel easier than MI1/MI2 but I'm not sure it'll actually be easier. I bet it will be fairer, as in less pixel hunting, less... knowing that you have to walk to a plank you have no reason to need to walk to to dislodge a seagull (I think I've watched about 10 lets plays of SOMI this year and maybe 1 person got this without help), less having to read the designers mind, just because people have got better with designing and QAing puzzles now, and to some people that equates to easier but to me it just removes the kind of difficulty that was never fun.

 

Also, being that 40 year old I maybe don't have the hours in the day I had over a summer to while away being stuck in a video game. In summary, when I played TWP I used hints whenever I stopped having fun, which was quite often in the middle of the game, and I'll have the same policy here. But in ReMI I am hopeful that I won't need to as much.

Edited September 9, 2022 by KestrelPi

[OzzieMonkey]

2 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Almost all of the time when I used the hint system in Thimbleweed park I thought, "Well, that was silly, I'm glad I didn't spend an hour wandering around until eventually trying that, and only once or twice did I think, "Ahh, I should have got that myself) so I expect I'll use the hints on occasion. I feel like with this game they've put a lot more thought into the interface and puzzle design, so I'm hoping that I won't need to dip into it as often (I really didn't like how much of the middle parts of TWP was correctly guessing the order that the game wanted you to tackle tasks).

 

I'm hoping to be somewhat challenged, but not constantly stuck. I thought Ron or possibly Dave made a very interesting point. A lot of us would have played the games first time when we were 10 years old. I was a pretty smart 10 year old but I'm pretty sure that 40 year old me who has played a lot of adventure games is better at solving puzzles than 10 year old me who hadn't played this sort of game before, so I used a lot of hints to get through them, and remember them as being harder than they probably actually were (also really hard/unfair puzzles are memorable, regular ones less so).

 

So I imagine this game will feel easier than MI1/MI2 but I'm not sure it'll actually be easier. I bet it will be fairer, as in less pixel hunting, less... knowing that you have to walk to a plank you have no reason to need to walk to to dislodge a seagull (I think I've watched about 10 lets plays of SOMI this year and maybe 1 person got this without help), less having to read the designers mind, just because people have got better with designing and QAing puzzles now, and to some people that equates to easier but to me it just removes the kind of difficulty that was never fun.

 

Also, being that 40 year old I maybe don't have the hours in the day I had over a summer to while away being stuck in a video game. In summary, when I played TWP I used hints whenever I stopped having fun, which was quite often in the middle of the game, and I'll have the same policy here. But in ReMI I am hopeful that I won't need to as much.

I think the most important part of the puzzles is not how difficult they are, but just that they're memorable. I want the game to have me doing interesting stuff, whether it takes me an hour or 5 seconds to work it out. Therefore I think in the long run I'd prefer a game I can figure out quickly but where all the puzzles have an impact over a tedious game that took me weeks to finish, OR an easy game with unmemorable puzes. 

[Scummbuddy]

How will I play ReMI?

 

Now that I'm a dad, I don't have time to game. I'll still buy it but I will immediately try the Crtl+W function.

[Wally B.]

2 hours ago, KestrelPi said:

So I imagine this game will feel easier than MI1/MI2 but I'm not sure it'll actually be easier. I bet it will be fairer, as in less pixel hunting, less... knowing that you have to walk to a plank you have no reason to need to walk to to dislodge a seagull (I think I've watched about 10 lets plays of SOMI this year and maybe 1 person got this without help), less having to read the designers mind, just because people have got better with designing and QAing puzzles now, and to some people that equates to easier but to me it just removes the kind of difficulty that was never fun.

Question: Do you think having these problems made MI1, 2 and (to lesser extent) 3, worse games that if they didn't?

 

If they remade MI1 today, would you guys want them to change things so that it would be fairer for new players? (letting people repeat hints in dialogue trees, making the plank different from the rest, remove pixel hunting, etc...)

[KestrelPi]

2 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

I think the most important part of the puzzles is not how difficult they are, but just that they're memorable. I want the game to have me doing interesting stuff, whether it takes me an hour or 5 seconds to work it out. Therefore I think in the long run I'd prefer a game I can figure out quickly but where all the puzzles have an impact over a tedious game that took me weeks to finish, OR an easy game with unmemorable puzes. 

Yeah, I think this is an important point and one area where I think SoMI is really good. It has a ton of unconventional adventure puzzles that aren't just simple inventory things

 

*Insult Swordfighting

*Follow the storekeeper

*Grog-based jailbreak

*Getting into the kitchen

*Negotiating with Stan

*The forest map

*The dreaded seagull

*Head of the navigator

*The rock-slinging/aiming

*The directions to monkey island recipe

 

All of these feel to some extent like a set piece that give the game a sense of uniqueness. MI2 is a much bigger game but I feel doesn't have as quite as many of these unusual puzzle moments and a lot of them are similar to stuff done in MI1. Off the top of my head:

 

* The fortress directions

* Spitting contest stuff

* Famous pirate quotations

* The gambler password

* Getting into the kitchen mk2

* Elaine's dialogue puzzle

* I suppose the underground tunnels could be called unusual because of the time pressure and stuff

* Finding the sunken treasure

* The parrot

 

12 minutes ago, Wally B. said:

Question: Do you think having these problems made MI1, 2 and (to lesser extent) 3, worse games that if they didn't?

 

If they remade MI1 today, would you guys want them to change things so that it would be fairer for new players? (letting people repeat hints in dialogue trees, making the plank different from the rest, remove pixel hunting, etc...)

 

That's a tricky one. It depends what you mean by the question. If they were making MI1/2 today, do I think it would be a better game if certain puzzles weren't made harder by pixel hunting or just being weird moon logic moments? Yeah, probably, I suppose. I do think the extent to which adventure game puzzles have a reputation for being illogical is exaggerated - usually that's just the 2 or 3 puzzles in a whole game that stick out, but yeah, if they'd ironed out those things I guess I do think it'd be better.

 

If they were making a faithful as possible remake of the game, as in not just a remaster but a ground up remake? I think I'd want to keep the gameplay as similar as possible but just change the UI and graphics and music and utilise a hint system.

 

If the goal was for a grong up remake in the spirit of the original, and following its story and characters but not a shot-for-shot remake, like the FF7 remakes? In that case, I think I'd want them to write the puzzles with modern audiences in mind. It's a fascinating thought experiment to consider what a modern, high-production value complete remake of MI1 might even be like. I absolutely don't think it's warranted, or remotely likely, but it's fun to think about what that would even be.

[Captain Mystery]

What I'd love to do before playing Return to Monkey Island is read a handy summary of each game, as I don't sadly have the time to replay the whole series (as much as I would like to). Has anyone produced such a thing? Do the Wikipedia entries for the various games cover it? For some of the entries, like Escape, it's been over 20 (!!!) years since I played them.

[Scummbuddy]

There are the official Memoirs/walkthroughs of Guybrush Threepwood for the first four games, I believe all written by the same employee at LucasFilm/Arts, Jo 'Captain Tripps' Ashburn.

 

I had tried to reach out to him at one time to see if, as a fan, he would be interested in continuing the work for Tales but he didn't seem to notice my request.

 

From the hint guides, 

1. (Can't find yet; need to get to sleep)
2. Start on page 52 on: https://archive.org/details/Monkey_Island2_HintBook/page/n57/mode/2up
3. Page 126 on: https://archive.org/details/Curse_of_Monkey_Island_The_Prima/page/n125/mode/2up
4. (Can't find yet; need to get to sleep)

 

Seems someone has made audiobooks of (some of?) these as well, but I haven't listened to them yet.

• https://archive.org/details/memoirs1
• https://archive.org/details/memoirs2

 

 

 

[OzzieMonkey]

55 minutes ago, Captain Mystery said:

What I'd love to do before playing Return to Monkey Island is read a handy summary of each game, as I don't sadly have the time to replay the whole series (as much as I would like to). Has anyone produced such a thing? Do the Wikipedia entries for the various games cover it? For some of the entries, like Escape, it's been over 20 (!!!) years since I played them.

If you have an hour to spare, this does a pretty good job of summing everything up 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by OzzieMonkey

[Captain Mystery]

41 minutes ago, OzzieMonkey said:

If you have an hour to spare, this does a pretty good job of summing everything up 

 

Thank you, ideal background listening between now and the 19th, and combined with the links @Scummbuddyposted this should help to plug the gaps in my Swiss cheese memory (hey @Remi that's a Quantum Leap reference, you can't shame me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1)

[BaronGrackle]

9 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

If you have an hour to spare, this does a pretty good job of summing everything up 

 

Nice; I'm still watching it gradually.

 

But the picky Grackle all of you love to hate is a TAD disappointed that he highlighted the thievery trial last. We miss out on the sappy romance scene between Guybrush and Elaine - which is sort of the main indication Secret gives us that Elaine's even attracted to Guybrush.

 

The future games' use of pet names (e.g. Plunder bunny) are callbacks to that scene, and... your Honor... I daresay they cement the canonical story variant much in the same way that Escape indicates Guybrush sank his ship, or Return suggests Guybrush spared Bob.

 

In conclusion, the Grackle-recommended order of the Three Trials is treasure huntery, then thievery, then swordfighting, both so as to give Guybrush and Elaine this scene while also foreshadowing the quests in Revenge (treasure hunting Big Whoop), Curse (thieving the Lost Ring of Blood Island from other thieves while furthering relationship with Elaine), and Escape (insult fighting dissected and explored).
 

This also encourages the variant of Guybrush buying a sword (at the same time he buys the shovel), then surrendering it to Fester during the thievery trial because he hasn't learned to fight with it yet, and then getting a free identical replacement underwater, which he uses to actually learn swordfighting and complete said trial... which all plays into the MI1 themes of red herrings, substitutions, and positive nihilism. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[Jake]

35 minutes ago, BaronGrackle said:

The future games' use of pet names (e.g. Plunder bunny) are callbacks to that scene

EXCEPT in the opening scene of Escape where elaine calls Guybrush “Snugglecakes”!!! Why is she calling him the nickname of one of the pirate barbers of Puerto Pollo? An innocent slip of the tongue, or something far more damning?? 

[BaronGrackle]

5 minutes ago, Jake said:

EXCEPT in the opening scene of Escape where elaine calls Guybrush “Snugglecakes”!!! Why is she calling him the nickname of one of the pirate barbers of Puerto Pollo? An innocent slip of the tongue, or something far more damning?? 

Her father forbid her from dating pirates. But barbers...

[KestrelPi]

11 hours ago, OzzieMonkey said:

If you have an hour to spare, this does a pretty good job of summing everything up 

 

 

This video was very well done though I note the same criticism as @BaronGrackle pointed out.

 

But also I'd say this video needs a summary. This is half plot summary half-walkthrough, they probably could have got through the important story information in half the time.