In rare interview, Monkey Island designers tell Ars about long-awaited Return:
Nine years ago, The Secret of Monkey Island creator and designer Ron Gilbert wrote a blog post laying out what he would do if he made another Monkey Island game. But now that Gilbert is actually working on Return to Monkey Island—his first work on the franchise in over three decades—he told Ars that the 2013 blog post seems like it was written by a completely different person.
[...] Today, Gilbert describes the process that finally led him back to Monkey Island as "a star alignment thing." While Gilbert said he had considered a return to the series many times over the years, it wasn't until a pitch from publisher Devolver Digital a few years ago that "the ball started moving forward on stuff."
Before diving back into Monkey Island, though, Gilbert said he wanted to make sure any new game could live up to expectations that have risen sky-high after three decades of the first two Monkey Island games being hailed as the pinnacle of classic adventure game design. "That was my No. 1 concern when Devolver first approached me about this—just the weight of [expectations]," he said. "Was that something I really wanted to take on?"
To get past those fears, Gilbert consulted with fellow Monkey Island programmer and writer Dave Grossman to discuss whether revisiting the setting would actually be valuable. The pair asked themselves a series of questions before committing: "Do we have a good idea? Can we move this forward? Do we have... a story that fits the legacy?"
"For me, [the prospect of] working with Ron definitely was a big draw," Grossman told Ars. "[But] just to sort of check ourselves, we got together before we definitely said yes to make sure that we had something to say with [a new game], that we were going to be able to take it in some interesting directions. So we met for a weekend and decided that, yeah, that was the case, and we should make a game."
So fellow Soylentils, are you fans of Monkey Island?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @10:54PM (2 children)
Untested , not verified,
https://playold.games/play-game/the-secret-of-monkey-island/play/ [playold.games]
I'm not much of a gamer. I had never even heard of the game, so I looked it up and ran across the above link. It needed to download a lengthy file, and I am using a phone.
I got so snarled up back in the C-64 days of DRM and head banging software I had written games off as a useless exercise in futility, much like annoying ads have weaned me off of television. To me, gaming was the the business of first taking my money, then telling me I am an invalid.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @11:39PM (1 child)
Sites like the one you linked use a javascript port of Dosbox [js-dos.com] or even a Windows 3.1 VM [pcjs.org] to run old games in your web browser.
And the download? That was only 3.2 megabytes. Some of the games from around that time used a full CD-ROM, so your phone could have attempted to download several hundred megabytes.
(Score: 5, Informative) by dmbasso on Monday April 25 2022, @12:40AM
There's also an interpreter to the game's data files: https://www.scummvm.org/ [scummvm.org]
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @10:54PM
OOGA BOOGA
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2022, @10:59PM (1 child)
4 Men Gang-Raped, Killed and Ate a Protected Monitor Lizard
Forest officials in India are investigating four men who gang-raped, killed, cooked and ate a monitor lizard in one of India’s most protected forest reserves. It was the only monitor lizard in the park.
The incident took place on March 29 at the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. The forest’s camera traps, meant for tracking tigers, caught the accused men trespassing the reserve’s Chandoli National Park. Forest officials arrested the men between April 1 and 5, and found photos and videos on their phones of them gang-raping a monitor lizard, and then killing and eating it.
“I have never seen a crime like this before,” division forest officer Vishal Mali told VICE World News. “The men are in their 20s and 30s, and they appear to have done it for fun. There was no religious or black magic agenda.”
The men were identified as Sandeep Pawar, Mangesh Kamtekar, Akshay Kamtekar and Ramesh Ghag, all locals. They are charged under India’s Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972. A local court granted them bail last week.
India’s monitor lizards are endangered, and are a protected species by law. Violators may be punished with a seven-year jail term. A report by wildlife advocacy groups recorded 82 cases of sexual abuse against animals in India between 2010 and 2020. This was out of a total of 500,000 cases of animal-related crimes that include torture and killings.
Most recent cases of sexual abuse against animals include a man raping and killing a pregnant goat in southern India, and a 60-year-old man raping a female stray dog last year.
While the suspects are out on bail, Mali said the photos and videos of the incident have been sent to a forensic lab to build evidence for the case. Forest officials are also seeking legal advice on charging the accused under a law that criminalises unnatural sex between humans and animals. “Not only is this cruel, but there is a risk of zoonotic diseases from this kind of case. There are concerns of men carrying STDs and other infections from their act,” Mali said.
The Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, which is spread across over 1,166 square kilometres (116,600 hectares), is governed by the Indian government, and encompasses three national parks. The Chandoli National Park is spread across over 300 square kilometres (30,000 hectares) and has wildlife ranging from tigers and panthers, to reptiles such as monitor lizards and geckos. There is no official census of animals in the park, but Mali said it has 30 animals per square feet.
India’s monitor lizard population is steadily declining because of poaching. Eating monitor lizard meat is common across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Africa. Reports of the reptiles being hunted for their meat are common in India even though it’s illegal. In 2016, an Indian forest official was arrested after serving monitor lizard meat at a party. Monitor lizards are also hunted to make traditional medicine.
Mali said that manually surveilling over 1,000 square kilometres of reserve area is challenging for forest guards, but there are plans of deploying a new special protection force. “We will get a team of 100 people who will guard the premises more efficiently,” he said.
-= https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb9xq/india-gang-rape-monitor-lizard-animal-abuse [vice.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 25 2022, @03:11PM
Boy, it sure sounds like the poster would be fine with the whole endeavor so long as the lizard wasn't endangered!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @01:12AM
I sure hope so, because a mix of monkeys and NFTs is a recipe for fun!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @08:34AM
guybrush threadbear junior the 4th, the great-greathgran son and a pupile of the late dr johns discoveres a hint to a old nazi submarine base under the monkey island. also the bunker doors need a special tune to open ... to a "hanger"?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday April 25 2022, @10:49AM (2 children)
I quite liked Monkey Island, and many of the early Lucas Arts SCUMM games. It was fun and quirky at the time (some weird quests, the insults, the fencing, the grogg!). That said I'm not sure it aged well for the new generation of players tho. The UI is, or will feel, probably quite old. Yet not as old as if compared to when you had to type things in by hand, but then I don't really see a great nostalgia for early Zork (the Grue is the only remaining thing people seem to recall) etc. But perhaps something was lost there from type typing and your imagination to when you mostly would just move the mouse all over the screen to see if there was things to interact with and then check your commands and inventory and see if you could cobble something together.
But as with a lot of series I still think it's the first Monkey Island I have fond memories of, not any of the sequels -- ok LeChuck was ok to as it was in the same style but then it went downhill quickly as I recall it and I don't even think I bothered with the once after the second one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @04:23PM (1 child)
I highly recommend Monkey Island 3. Well worth it.
Your review sounds like it is for Leisure Suite Larry. The first was.really good, but it goes downhill. Which is sad. You can still download the music for free from the author's website.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday April 25 2022, @07:40PM
The first Larry was excellent to. So many valuable life lessons :) But yes I guess they went somewhat downhill after the first one. I guess it's just so many subtle (or not so) tits-n-arse jokes you can put in there and still be funny.
I liked the Sierra games to. That said I liked those more when you actually had to type things. When they changed to the pointy-clicky-ui (was it with one of the mid-late Kings Quests?) I felt it sort of went down hill. But the early Larry, Police- Space- Kings quest etc was excellent. But very, or somewhat, different to what Lucas did with SCUMM and Monkey, Indiana Jones, Mansion etc.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 25 2022, @02:02PM (1 child)
I definitely remember seeing it, but I never got it and played it. The one series I got that was quite similar to this was the King's Quest series.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @04:26PM
King's Quest taught me the value of constant saving. A lesson learnt well with great use in an IT career.
Also the value of maps. Inventory. Perception. Puzzle solving. :)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by richtopia on Monday April 25 2022, @02:31PM
I've struggled through a few point and click adventures with no hints - as a kid LOOM by Lucas Arts was one of my favourite games (and I still recommend it 32 years later). However, as I've matured and revisited the Monkey Island series, I've come to terms with my inability to follow the game's humour/logic all of the time. Even if I have a guide open on a second monitor, it is still really fun and satisfying thanks to the writing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TrentDavey on Monday April 25 2022, @03:51PM (2 children)
The lore holds that there were no sprites on the system they developed it on; they were called brushes. The "guy" they moved around became Guybrush.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday April 25 2022, @04:33PM
I recall the story. But that version is only partially true. The Amiga most definitely had sprites. So that is not it. What it also did have was a program called Deluxe Paint and that programmed had/used something called Brushes. Which today are common in most painting packages -- as some kind of sprite of some shape form or size that you can use to draw with like a painting brush if you will. But if you will it's an image saved in another format. You could use them as that and or as frames or segments of an animation etc.
So the character or "Guy" is then a brush so he becomes the guybrush and hence his name. Each segment of his movement being one brush each and then you just chain them together and your have a your various movement animations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluxe_Paint [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday April 25 2022, @09:17PM
I'd been wondering about his first name, thanks... I did know that "Threepwood" is a reference to P.G. Wodehouse's humorous Blandings novels, which reportedly had also inspired Douglas Adams and at least some of the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 25 2022, @04:20PM
Monkey Island 1 was awesome. Monkey Island 2 was great. (Shout out here for Loom too). Monkey Island 3 was really good. It had its moments. A Monkey Island 4 would be excellent. It's a pity they never continued the franchise.
While we are here, it would be great if Lucas or someone could get the team back together and make a Star Wars 1-3 trilogy. Episodes 4-7 are still a great watch (Han Shot First!), and the latest ones are ok (Eps 7-9). Maybe one day they will do this. Maybe? Could Pixar pull it off?