
If I Made Another Monkey Island (2013) - denisw
http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland
======
godot
Was actually rather surprised to find that he didn't like MI3 (Curse of)!
While I definitely loved MI1 and 2, I actually call MI3 my favorite one. (4
was pretty bad, I couldn't get through even the first 20% of the game)

It takes getting used to the art style, but I felt like 3 really hit the spot
with the humor, puzzles, voice-acting (!) and even mostly doing away with
verbs (something he stated that he wanted). I totally get that there is a
certain charm in 1 and 2 that isn't in 3 because of the major differences in
art style. I just feel that 3 is such a strong game that shouldn't be
overlooked. If I had to criticize it, I would just say that the last act (or
two?) falls short. When the theme park part starts, it felt like they just
wanted to rush to finish the game. The rollercoaster ride at the end as the
boss battle was also lacking. Though, it was actually structurally quite
similar to the final battle in MI2.

~~~
endgame
I'm lukewarm on 3 because it's got that feeling of "made by fans" instead of
original ideas coming from the original minds. So you see repeats of insult
swordfighting, the lazy crew that do nothing once you put to sea, etc.

Murray and the "A Pirate I was Meant to Be" song are both great, though.

~~~
muro
Dueling banjos were also great.

------
soneca
Not another Monkey Island game (unfortunately). This is from 2013. After that
Ron crowdfunded and built Thimbleweed Park (www.thimbleweedpark.com), an old
school adventure game using some (not all) of these ideas. I played it and it
is just as great as the best old ones.

From time to time Ron complains that Disney wouldn't sell him the rights to
Monkey Island. The only reason I believe he doesn't build one more.

Edit: he kept the verbs in Thimbleweed Park and compromised a little in the
tutorial (there is an easy mode).

~~~
k__
I must say, MI didn't age well.

The humor was pretty awesome back then, but now it just feels awkward all the
time :/

~~~
LeoPanthera
Having recently forced my partner to play through both MI1 and MI2, I must
disagree. We played the fan-created hack which is the original SCUMM version
but with the full voice from the remastered version hacked on top, and it's
super great. We laughed. A lot.

~~~
iliis
Why the hack? I think you can switch to the old graphics in the remastered
version. Or does that switch voices too?

~~~
ajsalminen
Yes, you can't have the voices with the old graphics in MI1 Special Edition so
you need the hack. Unfortunate oversight since I think many people would like
to enjoy it that way. I believe they made it possible in the MI2 remaster but
never changed this for the first one.

------
iliis
Not all that directly related, but if you like these old adventures and don't
know it yet then check out ScummVM! It's an open source project allowing you
to play all these games on more or less any modern device (including Linux,
Android, iOS etc.)

They also have a few awesome games freely available under
[http://scummvm.org/games/](http://scummvm.org/games/), for example "Beneath a
Steel Sky" (which I'm playing right now, probably for the fourth time or so
;)) or "Flight of the Amazon Queen".

~~~
djsumdog
I played Beneath a Steel Sky entirely on ScummVM. Fun little indie game. It's
kinda amazing the story telling that's possible with that engine. My favorite
LucasArts adventure game from that era would be a toss up between The Dig and
Full Throttle.

~~~
jhasse
It isn't an indie game though. It was made by Revolution Software (known for
Broken Sword) and was published by Virgin Interactive.

------
the8472
> Fifteen - It would have full voice. It's something we dreamed of back then
> and we can do it now.

Eh, I don't know. I've never been a fan of voice acting in adventure games.
You often have to repeat dialogues and stuff. Voice acting time costs, so it
always puts constraints on the content that walls of text don't. Plus voice-
over dictates speed in a way reading does not.

Some good ambient-matching tunes and occasional sound effects are all it
needs.

The other points sound like a great non-plan though.

------
huhtenberg
Tangentially related - it's a f#cking shame and tragedy that Disney pulled MI1
and MI2 from Apple Store. Those are fantastic remakes of the original.

~~~
johansch
Institutional incompetence or some stupid "Disney Vault"-like reason?

~~~
molmalo
Disney will close the MI door and lose the key, to never look back. They don't
want it to compete with their main pirate-themed franchise, Pirates of the
Caribbean.

But I would love if they called Ron, and in some future movie, they introduced
a young pirate-wannabe, Guybrush. That would be great, and would put in good
use their MI IP. And maybe then, we would get a new game.

~~~
rosege
Uncharted 4 had a little nod to MI

------
coroxout
But with no verbs how would you do the gag from Monkey Island where the verbs
change for the parrot?!

[http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Murderous_Winged_Devil?fi...](http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Murderous_Winged_Devil?file=Prod_parrot.gif)

(I kid; the verbs are mostly superfluous, as "look" and "use" basically cover
all the options, but I really do fondly remember the verb-changing gag
above...)

------
hobarrera
> I wouldn't raise huge sums of money or break any records

This guy would raise a ton of money, even if that wasn't his goal and didn't
try to oversell anything. His history in making games speaks too much for
itself.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Look at how much money Star Citizen raised, largely due to nostalgia and
reputation of the Wing Commander games.

------
ParadisoShlee
"It doesn't need 3D. Yes, I've seen the video, it's very cool"

Anybody know what he's talking about? edit:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bInZ7_y4Lw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bInZ7_y4Lw)
most likely

~~~
czeidler
Looks awesome, is there any first person 3D point and click adventure? I only
know the very old Normality but otherwise I'm not aware of any game that
follows the "classic" adventure approach... Firewatch is cool but there are
not many real puzzles.

------
jonplackett
I will throw money in his direction to make any version of monkey island he
pleases. I loved monkey island 2 so much. I'm old now and actually got monkey
island free with our first Creative sound blaster 2 Soundcard. The games after
that just didn't have the same humour and the graphics were overdone. I'm
guessing if he hasn't made it by now though then it isn't going to happen :(

------
stuartmemo
Sounds like he got to do most of those things in Thimbleweed Park -
[https://thimbleweedpark.com/](https://thimbleweedpark.com/)

------
ajnin
It sound like much more than "thinking and dreaming", he thought about quite
concrete points like the number of people being part of the team or the kind
of tools he'd use. The only thing holding him back seems to be the IP issue.

I'd add an eighteenth point to the list, if Ron would agree :

 _It wouldn 't include puzzles that require to be a part of a particular
culture, or speak a particular language, to solve._

I'm specifically thinking of the "Monkey wrench" puzzle from Monkey Island 2.
Let's just say that as a kid, playing the French version of the game, getting
past that part of the game was quite frustrating.

~~~
paines
>I'm specifically thinking of the "Monkey wrench" puzzle from Monkey Island 2.
Let's just say that as a kid, playing the French version of the game, getting
past that part of the game was quite frustrating.

Touchè for the german one. Years later I finally understood the joke behind
the puzzle after finding out the english/americans call that specific tool a
monkey wrench. In germany we call it "engländer" (->english man) but it seems
that sometimes or in someparts of germany they call it "franzose" (-> french
man)...

------
incompatible
"Four - It would be a hardcore adventure game driven by what made that era so
great. No tutorials or hint systems or pansy-assed puzzles or catering to the
mass-market or modernizing. It would be an adventure game for the hardcore.
You're going to get stuck. You're going to be frustrated. Some puzzles will be
hard, but all the puzzles will be fair."

Difficult, in the age of the ubiquitous walk-through. You'd need to introduce
randomization so that each instance of the game was unique, but even then,
sites can describe methods of finding the solution.

~~~
patrickyeon
I don't agree on that. Of course, if someone wants to bypass a puzzle they
can, but that's not the spirit in which I read the "no tutorials or hint
systems" bit. What he's really offering is the option for the player to elect
to never see hints and training, and puting the constraint on himself that he
has to use gameplay and good design to explain the problems and not beat you
over the head with the solution.

I believe his goal is not to make it more fun by making the "finished this
game" more exclusive, but rather make it more fun by designing it to be
intrinsically fun for the audience he's targetting.

------
aedron
> If I used Kickstarter, there would be no fancy videos of me trying to look
> charming (as if I could). No concept art or lofty promises or crazy stretch
> goals or ridiculous reward tiers. It would be raw and honest. It would be
> free of hype and distractions that keep me from making the best game I
> could. True, I wouldn't raise huge sums of money or break any records, but
> that's not what I want to do. I want to make a game.

Whoa, a jab at Double Fine? In the documentary they made a big deal about how
Ron Gilbert leaving was a simple change of plan and not because he was unhappy
with anything at all. This seems to belie this (as if we didn't know already
but still).

------
Mithaldu
I love that he dumps on the art style of the games after MI2. That was the
main reason why i never touched any of those.

~~~
khedoros1
MI3 was pretty great, despite the change in style.

------
Jyaif
That man wants to make that game so bad.

------
guybrushT
"I would lose the verbs. I love the verbs, I really do, and they would be hard
to lose, but they are cruft. It's not as scary as it sounds. I haven't fully
worked it out (not that I am working it out, but if I was working it out,
which I'm not, I wouldn't have it fully worked out). I might change my mind,
but probably not. Mmmmm... verbs."

Signature Monkey Island writing style . Ron Gilbert wrote one of the greatest
all time scripts - one can read the entire game here:
[https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/562681-the-secret-of-monkey-
isla...](https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/562681-the-secret-of-monkey-
island/faqs/23891)

------
wiz21c
>>> The only way I would or could make another Monkey Island is if I owned the
IP.

Ron is a creative mind, and he proved his value to society (gamers of course,
he didn't cure cancer after all).

Reading this paragraph on IP is so disheartening.

------
jug
First, note that the article is from 2013, before Thimbleweed Park was
conceived. Or maybe he had the seeds, the returned urge to write an adventure
game again as he wrote this blog, as the Kickstarter was announced in 2014?

> Three - It would be a retro game that harkened back to Monkey Island 1 and
> 2. I'd do it as "enhanced low-res". Nice crisp retro art, but augmented by
> the hardware we have today: parallaxing, depth of field, warm glows, etc.

Much of this was Thimbleweed Park's style. It does have both "enhanced low
res" pixel art and paralllax too; as part of the very first scenes, no less! I
don't think it has DOF effects though, maybe it was deemed they didn't help
once he got an actual retro game in front of him?

> Five - I would lose the verbs. I love the verbs, I really do, and they would
> be hard to lose, but they are cruft.

These were strangely in Thimbleweed Park though, and even from early
alpha/beta screenshots. I wonder if they were always there. He must have
changed his mind early on. What's weird is that TP doesn't even have the
reduced verb set found in later LucasArts games? It's the full, clunky 180 of
what he wrote here! I think only three are actually essential: "Act", "Look",
"Combine". "Acting" on a door opens/closes it, acting on a light switch turns
it on, acting on a person talks to him/her, acting on a book in a bookshelf
reads it... Looking is always passive, for descriptions. Combining is to
combine items in your inventory to contraptions.

Otherwise he nails a lot of those points in TP. He did rewrite SCUMM, he did
introduce humorous conversations, juicy pixelated inventories, use a small
team, and even used Monkey Island cameos.

I've had this theory that Thimbleweed Park is secretely played in the Monkey
Island universe. I wish that was true, but alas the in my opinion a bit too
Gilbertesque ending kinda disqualifies it for that. If it weren't for that,
there is a "G <3 E" (Guybrush <3 Elaine) in the elevator, you find a
Navigator's Head, etc. It's also been theorized that Thimbleweed Park has an
ending originally envisioned for "his" Monkey Island 3 since it would go well
along with similar fourth wall breaking in that game, but Gilbert has
expicitly said that he wouldn't reuse such an MI3 ending for a different game.

I think TP wasn't really a financial smash hit so I have my doubts we'll ever
see MI3 unless Disney on a whim donates him the rights. Maybe then, because
Kickstarter funding would obviously be no problem that time? He'd also have
his new adventure game engine to build upon. It's a shame Disney is so closed
up and uncommunicative like a clam about those rights that has seemingly
little relevance to their current works.

~~~
kuschku
> Combining is to combine items in your inventory to contraptions.

Combining is also just acting with you selecting an object first.

Daedalic removed the verbs entirely, and made left mouse button act, right
button look.

To combine, you click on an inventory item, and then on another item or
object.

To talk, you click on a person.

To flip a switch, you click it.

To look at stuff, you can always right-click.

Daedalic has made many games in the spirit of the old Lucasarts games, and
been very successful. And demonstrated you don't need verbs in the game.

~~~
reboog711
The bulk of adventure games use the 'single cursor' control scheme these days;
Daaedalic is not the first.

~~~
kuschku
Daedalic actually was the first, they've done it in basically all their games.
And they do it very well, which is why I mentioned it.

~~~
reboog711
As a company, Daedalic has only been a company for 10 years. Here are some
games older than 10 years that use a 'single cursor' interface:

King's Quest 7 from 1994

Zork Grand Inquisitor from 1997

The Longest Journey from 1999

Blackwell Legacy from 2006

Pretty much, this has been the standard interface for most P&C games since the
mid 90s.

------
Sevores
I thought that some of these points were digs at how the Broken Age
kickstarter went and how that game was compromised on so many levels by
modernisation until I've read the date.

~~~
tormeh
Broken Age was good, though. Not extraordinary, but good. I wouldn't say that
the old PACAs were a lot better. But maybe I like story more than most.

------
michaf
This post is from 2013, maybe add this to the title?

------
eizo
That font..brings back nice memories

~~~
jug
I think he used this one, or a close relative?
[http://style64.org/c64-truetype](http://style64.org/c64-truetype)

------
forgotmypw
He's making another Monkey Island?!

------
std_throwaway
I can't seem to find the kickstarter link.

~~~
nowherecat
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimble...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimbleweed-
park-a-new-classic-point-and-click-adv)

edit: found in "Final Hours!" Blog post from Dec 17, 2014

------
smegel
> I'd do it as "enhanced low-res". Nice crisp retro art, but augmented by the
> hardware we have today

I think we now refer to that as "pixel graphics".

~~~
dfgdghdf
Tooth and Tail has this style
[http://www.toothandtailgame.com/](http://www.toothandtailgame.com/)

~~~
wingerlang
That looks amazing. However I am not sure how it plays, it says RTS, there are
some building in the videos but it looks more like a diablo style hero-focused
gameplay.

