Return To Monkey Island - MI2 sequel from Ron Gilbert

[Hobknobling]

Make the game the way you want, let playtesters play your game. Write down the puzzles they had the most problem with(and the bugs, of course), then make them even harder and laugh evilly. Done. They always need to complicate things.

Fixed.

The Tomonobu Itagaki school of game design.

Itagaki addresses the complaints of some about Ninja Gaiden's extreme difficulty, posturing: "It was done intentionally of course. The testers who tested this game went nuts. At first it was easier, but when the testers said 'this is too difficult', I made it even more difficult"

 

[Jenkem]

Fixed.

w*stoids don't have the balls

 

[Boleskine]

I guess this would be a bad time for someone to forward this thread to Ron.

https://grumpygamer.com/

I think we all need a time-out.
grumpygamer.com will be back soon.

I didn't read any comments on his recent posts. Was the autistic screeching about the visual design worse than it is here?

Was Ron expecting only fawning adoration in response to the announcement?

 

[catfood]

Do you know anyone whose first experience with these games was the simplified mode and who went on to become a fan?

One of the first adventures I played as a kid was CMI on easy and it turned me into an adventure game fan.

 

[bertram_tung]

is ron gilbert a homo? someone be honest pls

 

[Alpan]

I recall Gilbert being touchy about social media, he "left" Twitter once, around the end of 2017. That said, unless he's been receiving hate mail I haven't seen particularly vitriolic stuff being thrown around.

I also don't get the idea behind shutting down the entire blog (as opposed to just disabling comments, or something) but it is what it is.

 

[Keshik]

I didn't read any comments on his recent posts. Was the autistic screeching about the visual design worse than it is here?

Doesn't really seem that bad - https://webcache.googleusercontent....cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d - but there are people saying they dislike the style, some saying it's a Samurai Jack ripoff, heh.

 

[RapineDel]

Releasing the interview screenshots was a pretty poor decision.

The original trailer had some questionable character models but having Murray and the traditional music made it feel enough like Monkey Island.

Melee Island stuff aside, the screenshots are just too different from anything else we've seen from the franchise to grab people's attention and the negatives are going to stand out more.

If Ron feels he's made the right decision with this art director, fine, but they should have knocked it out of the park with a trailer that includes Dominic as Guybrush.

I respect Ron as a developer but game development culture is just too rotten for them to be learning from that. I'd be almost certain the mindset is that gamers are entitled, people's feelings are being hurt and the answer to this is disabiling blog posts and social media.

I hope Ron just focuses on what he does best and delivers good puzzles, a story in line with the franchise and some solid humour. The interviews completely botched most of those expectations though.

 

[JarlFrank]

or maybe they have lives and kids now

God, I hate this justification. If you can't find the time to play a game, maybe don't, or think about your life, why that is. Also, it's the same reasoning used to defend microtransactions, like "shortcuts".

This argument is fucking stupid. As I'm growing older I cherish games that give me quality content over games that give me lots of content. And having a good puzzle to think about is quality content.
With a game like Monkey Island, having kids might even be of benefit. I played adventure games with my dad back in the day and we'd help each other out with the puzzles. It's the perfect genre for young kids to play with their parents.

If you really like games as a hobby, you make time for them. Nobody demands golf courses to be cut down to 4 holes for the people with jobs who don't have enough time to play all 18. But for video games the amount of time required is suddenly an issue?

 

[Boleskine]

When this game comes out we'll probably get the Codex equivalent of the infamous MW2 boycott:

 

[JarlFrank]

Well, I don't buy games on launch unless I am very certain about them.

The only games I bought at launch during recent years were:
- Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar
- Disco Elysium
- Knights of the Chalice 2 (even backed that on Kickstarter)
- Telepath Tactics Liberated

For everything else, I waited a year or more before buying, usually on a sale. I will do the same with the new Monkey Island.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Nothing more fitting for a pirate-themed game than... well, you know.

I'll definitely buy the game at full price if it's any good. But I'm not fabulously optimistic like many ITT.

 

[Strig]

Doesn't really seem that bad - https://webcache.googleusercontent....cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d - but there are people saying they dislike the style, some saying it's a Samurai Jack ripoff, heh.

If only we were so lucky. Tartakovsky's style still would not fit at all but he does have a keen eye for composition and his simplified designs have structure and appeal. Meanwhile the art direction in nuMI will probably be the only decent puzzle in the game, because I barely can figure out what the fuck I'm even looking at here:

 

[Boleskine]

https://grumpygamer.com/when_i_made_another_monkeyisland

When I Made Another Monkey Island
May 01, 2022

Nine years ago I wrote a blog post titled "If I made another Monkey Island" and it feels like there are some things I need to say.

I can't remember the exact incident, but the day I wrote that I was feeling down about never being able to make another Monkey Island. I wrote it in a single afternoon, and it was not much more than a stream of thoughts. In the movie version, tears would have been pouring down my cheeks, but it wasn't the movie version so I was probably sipping coffee and eating a chocolate chip cookie.

My point is these were not commandments handed down and etched in stone on a giant tablet. They were just random thoughts about a (then very unlikely) new Monkey Island game.

None of these are promises or anything I owe anybody.

People talk a lot about Monkey Island 3a as if it was the game I would have made after Monkey Island 2 had I stayed at Lucasfilm.

Here's the deal.

The totality of that idea was "Guybrush chases the demon pirate LeChuck to hell and Stan is there." That's it. That's all it was.

Games, movies, and books don't come out fully formed. They start as a morsel of an idea and then all the hard work begins.

Roger Ebert had a great quote that I am constantly reminding myself of:

"The muse visits during the act of creation, not before."

Had I stayed at Lucasfilm I might have started with that idea, but by the time the game was done it would have been something completely different and better.

And that is exactly what Return to Monkey Island is.

When Dave and I first got together to talk about Return to Monkey Island we had a nearly blank slate. We talked over ideas we'd had over the years including one of mine where Guybrush wakes up 3000 years in the future on a snowball Earth.

We talked about my original "hell" idea but other Monkey Island games had already done much of that (by pure coincidence) and there was little point in rehashing it.

The one thing I wanted to do was start the new game right where LeChuck's Revenge ended, and that became the one unmovable stone.

I have made one pixel art game in my entire career and that was Thimbleweed Park. Monkey Island 1 and 2 weren't pixel art games. They were games using state-of-the-art tech and art. Monkey Island 1 was 16 color EGA and we jumped at the chance to upgrade it to 256 colors. Monkey Island 2 featured the magical wizardry of scanned art by Peter Chan and Steve Purcell and we lusted to keep pushing everything forward.

If I had stayed and done Monkey Island 3 it wouldn't have looked like Monkey Island 2. We would have kept pushing forward, and Day of the Tentacle is a good example of that.

I never liked the art in DotT. Technically and artistically it was fantastic, but I never liked the wacky Chuck Jones style. But that was Dave and Tim's game, not mine. They can do what they want and I completely supported that.

Curse of Monkey Island also took a leap forward. It introduced us to a fully voiced and taller, lankier Guybrush with painted backgrounds that were all the rage in the late 90s. It was very much a game of its time.

When Dave and I first started brainstorming Return to Monkey Island we talked about pixel art, but it didn't feel right. We didn't want to make a retro game. You can't read an article about Thimbleweed Park without it being called a "throwback game". I didn't want Return to Monkey Island to be just a throwback game, I wanted to keep moving Monkey Island forward because it's interesting, fun, and exciting. It's what the Monkey Island games have always done.

I wanted the art in Return to Monkey Island to be provocative, shocking, and not what everyone was expecting. Rex is an amazing creative force and we have a team of incredible artists, animators, sound designers, programmers, and testers all pouring their souls into this game and it's beautiful to see, play, and listen to.

The music Michael, Peter, and Clint are doing is equally amazing. It's not AdLib, Sound Blaster, or even Roland MT-32 music. Its stunning, interactive, and recorded live.

Return to Monkey Island may not be the art style you wanted or were expecting but it's the art style I wanted.

When I started this game my biggest fear was Disney wouldn't let me make the game I wanted to make but they have been wonderful to work with.

It's ironic that the people who don't want me to make the game I want to make are some of the hard core Monkey Island fans. And that is what makes me sad about all the comments.

Return to Monkey Island is an incredible rollercoaster. Get on and have some fun or stomp out of the amusement park because it's not exactly the rollercoaster you wanted.

I hope you'll jump on with the rest of us.

*Seventeen - The game would be the game I wanted to make. I don't want the pressure of trying to make the game you want me to make. I would vanish for long periods of time. I would not constantly keep you up-to-date or be feeding the hype-machine. I'd show stuff that excited me or amused me. If you let me do those things, you will love the game. That, I promise.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Standard fan blaming and ridiculous drama ("the people who don't want me to make the game I want to make are some of the hard core Monkey Island fans" - *HAND TO FOREHEAD*) . If this guy thinks moving forward means using a derivative, sub-Tartakovsky WaCkY angular style that was stale 20 years ago, then I really don't know what to say.

There's no way this doesn't turn out to be a complete disaster.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

If they want to cater modern gamers they just need to make an action soulslike Monkey Island instead of a point&click adventure.

 

[Alienman]

I wanted the art in Return to Monkey Island to be provocative, shocking, and not what everyone was expecting.

I didn't expect shockingly bad, so I guess he got me there.

 

[Strig]

And of course he turned off the comments under his whiny rant.

 

[ghostdog]

I never liked the art in DotT. Technically and artistically it was fantastic, but I never liked the wacky Chuck Jones style. But that was Dave and Tim's game, not mine. They can do what they want and I completely supported that.

This is what bugs me most. He never liked the "wacky" style of DoTT, but thinks this new artsyle is amazing.

 

[MRY]

It's sad to read that he's been discouraged by the reaction the game has had, but with the millions of dollars in support and biggest franchise names in the industry behind him, I think he'll come out just fine. It's got to feel good for someone who began from a love of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride to wrap up his work on the IP by being able to name-drop Disney. Given the challenges Ron faced over his career, and the great games he made, he deserves to be able to go out on whatever boondoggle of iconoclasm floats his and his financiers' boat! Whatever game he makes, I think his fans will always love him.

I never liked the art in DotT. Technically and artistically it was fantastic, but I never liked the wacky Chuck Jones style. But that was Dave and Tim's game, not mine. They can do what they want and I completely supported that.

This is what bugs me most. He never liked the "wacky" style of DoTT, but thinks this new artsyle is amazing.

I had the exact same reaction.

I wanted the art in Return to Monkey Island to be provocative, shocking

I think this is what the vanguard call "saying the quiet part out loud." If you wanted to provoke and shock people who love Monkey Island, then you aren't actually "sad" when they are shocked and provoked -- you're happy. To pull off this kind of post, he was supposed to say, "I wanted the art in Return to Monkey Island to be beautiful, thrilling" or something; but he fumbled. Once you say that you were just trying to put your thumb in someone's eye, you can't complain or lament that he called you a jerk for doing so.

We didn't want to make a retro game. You can't read an article about Thimbleweed Park without it being called a "throwback game". I didn't want Return to Monkey Island to be just a throwback game

This, and the "not what everyone was expecting" line in the following paragraph, are also revealing. "I don't want fans to dictate what kind of game I make" is a sentiment I can get behind; you should treat your players well, but a developer has to have his own vision. But what he's actually saying is not "I refuse to letter others dictate my art." It's, "I let the gaming press dictate my art, rather than old school Monkey Island fans." As between those two dictators, I would myself pick the old school fans. The best reaction to the gaming press is probably proud defiance. Who cares if articles called Thimbleweed Park "throwback"? Broken Age, which was praised as forward-looking, has about 4,000 Steam reviews, 82% positive; Thimbleweed Park, which was apparently blasted as retro-looking, has about 3,000 reviews, 93% positive. I don't see any evidence that the visuals in Thimbleweed Park held it back from making a strong, positive connection with players.

Anyway, godspeed, rebel! Elaine should have half her head shaved to really stick it to them!

 

[negator2vc]

I never liked the art in DotT. Technically and artistically it was fantastic, but I never liked the wacky Chuck Jones style. But that was Dave and Tim's game, not mine. They can do what they want and I completely supported that.

This is what bugs me most. He never liked the "wacky" style of DoTT, but thinks this new artsyle is amazing.

The funny thing is DoTT regularly appear in top adventure games of all time lists as number 1 with the visuals (along the excellent game design) been the top reasons.
I guess we will see if Gilbert new MI game will be remembered as fondly or if it will replace Escape as the worst MI game. My bet it's the later.

 

[Boleskine]

While I think there are very good reasons to be skeptical or ambivalent about the game, I've found some of the overreactions kind of hilarious and declarations of the game's decline somewhat premature or unfounded.

That said, among everything Ron wrote this part is the most jarring:

Get on and have some fun or stomp out of the amusement park because it's not exactly the rollercoaster you wanted.

"Get on or fuck off." Disagreeing with negative reactions and telling people you hope they keep an open mind is one thing. Antagonizing them to "stomp out of the park" because they "didn't get what they wanted" is another thing. Ron's butthurt must be quite severe, as nobody could reasonably think this is an effective way to win over detractors.

Ron must be a fan of Rian Johnson.

I wanted to keep moving Monkey Island forward because it's interesting, fun, and exciting. It's what the Monkey Island games have always done.

I'm no EMI hater but I highly doubt that when Ron saw EMI 22 years ago he praised Monkey Kombat for "moving forward."

 

[WallaceChambers]

"It's ironic that the people who don't want me to make the game I want to make are some of the hard core Monkey Island fans. And that is what makes me sad about all the comments."

What am I supposed to take from this? Are people supposed to pretend to like art they dislike so that Ron Gilbert isn't sad? It's not as if being a fan of someone is a legally binding agreement to like everything they ever produce, in perpetuity. It's funny how much we hear about entitled gamers, To me this feels like extreme entitlement, as if you're owed people's approval for simply making this game at all.

 

[bertram_tung]

he's always been a butthurt homo

ron just shut up and make a good game. or don't. we'll all be fine either way

 

[ciox]

It's just weird.

"I know what you want. It makes sense for you to want it. I talked at length in my blogs about how I want that too. And I did exactly that in very recent memory with another game. However I'm not doing it now because reasons. No that is not at strange at all, actually."

You can't help but feel like the crux of the matter is being dodged and you get a bunch of random Morshu-beatboxing instead of the truth. Feels like a very modern thing.