LucasArts Playing The Secret of Monkey Island for the first time

[LarryTyphoid]

This game's supposed to be a big classic, right? I just started with it and it's kinda weird. I expected a pirate adventure game but it's some weird meta 4th wall shit where characters keep using the TM symbol in dialogue for some reason, and there's this big advertisement in-joke within two minutes of starting. Maybe this was funnier back in 1990 but I've spent my whole life sitting through 4th wall humor and I'm pretty sick of it. I know this is petty, but I have a Pavlovian reaction to seeing the TM symbol after that gag was driven into the ground by fags on the internet the last few years. Is the whole game gonna be like this? I don't know why every point-and-click tries so hard to be funny. If you don't want a completely farcical gigglefest like your average Sierra game then you have to settle for grimdark murder mysteries like Still Life. I don't remember a part in any Errol Flynn movie where the characters sat around hyukking it up with meta humor.

 

[f2a]

There is a fair bit of humor and fourth wall breaking in Monkey Island, and a lot more of it in Monkey Island 2. I personally don’t enjoy it but the puzzles and story of MI were pretty good, so I kept playing it.
There are a lot of games of that era (Death Gate, Atlantis, Orion Conspiracy) and later (5 Days a Stranger) which do not crack jokes at every interaction.

Find something that you fancy and play it.

 

[Neuromancer]

If you don't want a completely farcical gigglefest like your average Sierra game

The average Sierra game was quite the opposite of that.
Apart from Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest and a few singular titles, the rest was more or less serious.

In fact, the description fits more to the typical Lucas Arts game, where even games like Indiana Jones 3 had silly jokes and 4th Wall breaking.

 

[SlamDunk]

LarryTyphoid™

 

[bionicman]

How appropriate, OP, you fight like a cow!

 

[Alex]

Unfortunately, Monkey Island is so widely known that it is very likely you had it spoiled to you already.

The Secret of Monkey Island

 

[Vic]

it's a puzzle game

 

[Atlantico]

This game's supposed to be a big classic, right? I just started with it and it's kinda weird. I expected a pirate adventure game but it's some weird meta 4th wall shit where characters keep using the TM symbol in dialogue for some reason, and there's this big advertisement in-joke within two minutes of starting. Maybe this was funnier back in 1990 but I've spent my whole life sitting through 4th wall humor and I'm pretty sick of it. I know this is petty, but I have a Pavlovian reaction to seeing the TM symbol after that gag was driven into the ground by fags on the internet the last few years. Is the whole game gonna be like this? I don't know why every point-and-click tries so hard to be funny. If you don't want a completely farcical gigglefest like your average Sierra game then you have to settle for grimdark murder mysteries like Still Life. I don't remember a part in any Errol Flynn movie where the characters sat around hyukking it up with meta humor.

Short answer: The Secret of Monkey Island doesn't fly today, so unless you played it in the early 90s, you can safely skip it.

Long answer: It was a different time. Until the Secret of Monkey Island all adventure games were serious business. They were advertised as "3D" and "simulators", e.g. Codename: Iceman from Sierra. The Police Quest series from the same are a humorless and unforgiving affair. The competition wasn't much better. Lure of the Temptress or Flight of the Amazon Queen. These were "serious" games and expected much from the player. Even Lucasfilm games like Maniac Mansion and Zak MacCracken were unforgiving, even though they were more "funny" or "humorous" titles. In short, adventure games were not "fun" and they were "serious" games. I suppose the first game to break this mold and pave the way for Monkey Island was Lucasfilm Games' own Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It had some humor and some of the playfulness of the upcoming Monkey Island and it had exactly the same UI and game system. I loved that game.

So in comes Monkey Island in 1990 and what it does is quite simply: It subverted your expectations. So whatever you expected from an "adventure game" it would subvert, e.g. instead of you being the hero, you're the loser. Instead of the game being super serious, it's super meta. It makes fun of the adventure games that came before it and it was hilarious at the time. And that's the key to its success. It was such a cathartic experience after half a decade of terrible, serious, stuffy and unforgiving adventure games, here was this postmodern silly meta adventure game and we could all laugh ourselves silly while discovering rubber trees.

That was the strength of Monkey Island and also its weakness. It was a one-trick-pony. Once you deconstruct the genre, there's no place to go from there. So naturally, the sequel deconstructed itself. Regardless, today the Secret of Monkey Island is unfunny cringe. That's just how things have developed, but believe me when I say; at the time of its release, it was hilarious. It simply aged terribly badly.

 

[f2a]

Long answer: It was a different time. Until the Secret of Monkey Island all adventure games were serious business. They were advertised as "3D" and "simulators", e.g. Codename: Iceman from Sierra. The Police Quest series from the same are a humorless and unforgiving affair. The competition wasn't much better. Lure of the Temptress or Flight of the Amazon Queen. These were "serious" games and expected much from the player. Even Lucasfilm games like Maniac Mansion and Zak MacCracken were unforgiving, even though they were more "funny" or "humorous" titles. In short, adventure games were not "fun" and they were "serious" games. I suppose the first game to break this mold and pave the way for Monkey Island was Lucasfilm Games' own Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It had some humor and some of the playfulness of the upcoming Monkey Island and it had exactly the same UI and game system. I loved that game.

So in comes Monkey Island in 1990 and what it does is quite simply: It subverted your expectations.

Flight of the Amazon Queen was released in 1995. Lure of the Temptress in 1992.

Monkey Island was released in 1990: it cannot have been influenced by/subverted those two!

So whatever you expected from an "adventure game" it would subvert, e.g. instead of you being the hero, you're the loser. Instead of the game being super serious, it's super meta. It makes fun of the adventure games that came before it and it was hilarious at the time. And that's the key to its success. It was such a cathartic experience after half a decade of terrible, serious, stuffy and unforgiving adventure games, here was this postmodern silly meta adventure game and we could all laugh ourselves silly while discovering rubber trees.

Space Quest I (1986), II (1987) and III (1989), all released before MI, put you in the shoes of a janitor! The whole Space Quest series is notorious for breaking the fourth wall:

The success of The Secret of Monkey Island derives in my opinion from very good characterisation, some witty lines, a tangible evolution in gameplay and very good production values for the time (music and animations especially). Fast forward 30+ years and some of that still stands.

 

[Atlantico]

Flight of the Amazon Queen was released in 1995. Lure of the Temptress in 1992.

Doesn't matter, they represent the type of adventure games that Monkey Island was deconstructing.

Please, check your autism at the door.

Space Quest I (1986), II (1987) and III (1989), all released before MI, put you in the shoes of a janitor! The whole Space Quest series is notorious for breaking the fourth wall:

I never mentioned breaking the fourth wall. I wrote it was meta and subversive and deconstructed the genre.

Breaking the 4th wall is just a really old gag and has nothing to do with anything.

I recently replayed Monkey Island and I was bored to tears. It was old, outdated and not funny. The things that stood out as having aged well was the graphics (especially the 16 color), music is wonderful, game engine is perfectly fine and that's it. Everything regarding the plot, humor and "twists" is just sad and old now.

 

[Zann]

Flight of the Amazon Queen was released in 1995. Lure of the Temptress in 1992.

Doesn't matter, they represent the type of adventure games that Monkey Island was deconstructing.

Please, check your autism at the door.

Flight Of The Amazon Queen was comedic through and through though (an evil scientist turning girls from an amazon tribe into dinosaur hybrids to take over the world ? Secret base in the jungle hidden beneath a Lederhosen factory ?)
If anything it was precisely a love letter to Monkey Island & the Indiana Jones games.

 

[Atlantico]

Flight of the Amazon Queen was released in 1995. Lure of the Temptress in 1992.

Doesn't matter, they represent the type of adventure games that Monkey Island was deconstructing.

Please, check your autism at the door.

Flight Of The Amazon Queen was comedic through and through though (an evil scientist turning girls from an amazon tribe into dinosaur hybrids to take over the world ? Secret base in the jungle hidden beneath a Lederhosen factory ?)
If anything it was precisely a love letter to Monkey Island & the Indiana Jones games.

Theme is not what I am talking about and the theme you're describing is more Maniac Mansion than Monkey Island or Indiana Jones. Love letter lmao. No, there were plenty of "wacky" adventure games before Monkey Island. You are missing the point.

Monkey Island is deconstructive and subverts expectations as an adventure game. That it's "wacky" is irrelevant.

 

[lightbane]

What about MI games starting from the third title (minus Return of course) then? Are these considered deconstructions or regular adventure games?

 

[f2a]

If anything it was precisely a love letter to Monkey Island & the Indiana Jones games.

It was. In the words of the author:

Monkey Island was a huge inspiration for my Flight of the Amazon Queen graphic adventure game. I was a huge comic fan and had been making arcade style games prior to seeing Monkey Island, but when a friend showed me the game a light bulb went off in my head. This was a game that was like a comic book!

Not only that, but there are numerous references to both The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2. Interface, gameplay, dialogue lines, graphics, everything was influenced by LucasArts.

 

[ValeVelKal]

I played the first MI for the first time 7 or 8 years ago and I liked it (I loved the sequel and the third opus though) so it is not only nostalgia speaking.