Return To Monkey Island - MI2 sequel from Ron Gilbert

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yeah, I think he's mainly talking about the slow walking speed there.

 

[WallaceChambers]

There was a Eurogamer LP of Monkey Island where whoever played it right clicked for 90% of the game. So instead of just walking thru a door they would keep using the default open/close action and had spam click it until Guybrush eventually left.

So I guess Monkey Island's interface is too hard for some people.

 

[OndrejSc]

LucasFarts

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Fast travel with double-click is a real progress, though, UI-wise.

Yeah, I think he's mainly talking about the slow walking speed there.

Fast travel is a boon to a great many adventure games, and I've thought quite a few games needed it over the years...but MI1? I mean, I guess you could change it so that clicking on the map just takes you to the place, but Guybrush is pretty swift for an adventure game protagonist. If anything more characters need to be as swift as Guybrush. And last I checked most of Monkey Island's areas are small, so you're not exactly running across the entire game to solve a puzzle. Nor are there any confusing mazes one is expected to map. What, should Guybrush move around like Doomguy or something?

 

[Drop Duck]

Fast travel with double-click is a real progress, though, UI-wise.

Fast travel is a mechanical solution to a problem of design. If the game wastes your time by having you backtrack a lot then the issue is with the game, not that you can't instantly teleport from screen to screen.

 

[Boleskine]

https://venturebeat.com/2022/05/26/...director-talks-inspirations-and-expectations/

Return to Monkey Island’s art director talks inspirations and expectations
Mike Minotti@tolkoto
May 26, 2022 1:42 PM

What an evil, demonic skull. Image Credit: Lucasfilm Games

Rex Crowle solidified his striking art style with games like Tearaway and Knights and Bikes. Now he’s serving as art director for Return to Monkey Island, the revival of the classic, pirate-themed adventure game series.

I had a chance to talk with Crowle about his love for the Monkey Island franchise and his work on this new entry.

GamesBeat: What is your history with the Monkey Island series as a fan?

Crowle: It’s the game that made me want to make video games. I never expected to actually achieve that dream, let alone actually working on a Monkey Island game. As a kid, most games seemed to be about one rectangle shooting smaller rectangles at another rectangle. Monkey Island was the opposite of that. I cared about the characters, laughed at the jokes, pressed my nose against the screen to study the art and I actually felt super sad for weeks after finishing the game. A state I remained in until I opened up Deluxe Paint III on my Amiga and started creating my own little adventure game graphics. It’s all the fault of that game.

I remember that street!

GamesBeat: Are you pulling inspiration from any specific past Monkey Island game?

Crowle: There’s the color palettes of The Secret of Monkey Island, the more painterly approach of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, as well as some of the shaper more stylized shapes of The Curse of Monkey Island. We’re a very small indie team so we didn’t go down the 3D route, but aside from that we’ve taken something from all of the games, while making something new and specifically tailored to the story that Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman wanted to tell. An art style has to connect with the core themes of the game you’re making, its not an interchangeable thing that you apply like a Photoshop filter, and for this adventure a picture-book style was the right fit.

GamesBeat: Are you taking inspiration from outside the series?

Crowle: There’s wider inspiration from some of the other LucasArts classics like Day of the Tentacle. When making a game like this, it can be a challenge to figure out how to cram everything that’s required into each environment, as they are often just a single screen. But Day of the Tentacle has some fantastic design solutions for that, and they create a lot of variety and a sense of rhythm and flow as you move from one screen to another.

A locksmith shop.

Mostly we’re just inspiring each other on the team. We’re a tight-knit little unit and we are constantly adding to each other’s paintings. So each time [a team member] adds something to the game it creates a little ripple of inspiration. Oh, and having a playlist of Tom Waits and sea shanties playing in the background helps as well.

GamesBeat: What is it like getting to reinterpret classic settings from past Monkey Island games?

Crowle: Terrifying. The Monkey Island games mean so many different things to different people it’s daunting having that range of hopes and desires pressing down on you. Some fans picture the earlier pixel art, some remember painterly clouds, some may have happy memories of giant mechanical monkey battles. But with Ron and Dave leading the project it couldn’t be a more genuine Monkey Island game, and we’re all enjoying doing what we can to make sure their vision becomes real. Because everyone on the team has wanted to play that game for a really long time!

 

[Tramboi]

Fast travel with double-click is a real progress, though, UI-wise.

Fast travel is a mechanical solution to a problem of design. If the game wastes your time by having you backtrack a lot then the issue is with the game, not that you can't instantly teleport from screen to screen.

When you're stuck in a an open adventure world, you end up iterating everywhere to check and attempt stuff. And you don't have to use fast travel if you don't want to.

 

[Tramboi]

Fast travel with double-click is a real progress, though, UI-wise.

Yeah, I think he's mainly talking about the slow walking speed there.

Fast travel is a boon to a great many adventure games, and I've thought quite a few games needed it over the years...but MI1? I mean, I guess you could change it so that clicking on the map just takes you to the place, but Guybrush is pretty swift for an adventure game protagonist. If anything more characters need to be as swift as Guybrush. And last I checked most of Monkey Island's areas are small, so you're not exactly running across the entire game to solve a puzzle. Nor are there any confusing mazes one is expected to map. What, should Guybrush move around like Doomguy or something?

MI certainly isn't the worst offender, I agree.
But don't consider it when you know it by heart like you mostly do now. When you're exploring, trying to connect dots and so on, you end up traveling A LOT.
There is tedium involved (not even talking about swapping floppies :D)

 

[Darkozric]

Fast travel with double-click is a real progress, though, UI-wise.

The problem for some adventures is the walking speed not the lack of teleport, plus if the game is well designed you don't have to backtrack a lot.
Overall, I can't stand the fags who can't handle a bit of backtracking. Seriously, if you don't have the patience to navigate between a few screens you're playing the wrong genre. Go play a hidden object instead, there in no backtracking in those.
Imagine those backtracking butthurts playing a game like Riven for example, their tiny rotten brains would melt in an instant.

 

[Tramboi]

Yes backtracking is totally ok if you have enough interesting stuff to do and parallel puzzle threads. It's a ripple consequence of complexity and openness, that's why I agree that fast travel is great.
It works greatly in interactive fiction and point'n'click alike, it's an abstraction that's useful when you're working on puzzles.

 

[Drop Duck]

Fast travel with double-click is a real progress, though, UI-wise.

Fast travel is a mechanical solution to a problem of design. If the game wastes your time by having you backtrack a lot then the issue is with the game, not that you can't instantly teleport from screen to screen.

When you're stuck in a an open adventure world, you end up iterating everywhere to check and attempt stuff. And you don't have to use fast travel if you don't want to.

Adventure games shouldn't be open-world.

 

[Tramboi]

Adventure games shouldn't be open-world.

You're in a Monkey Island thread mate.

 

[HeroMarine]

 

[OndrejSc]

I can't breathe for 10 minutes under water.

 

[Drop Duck]

Adventure games shouldn't be open-world.

You're in a Monkey Island thread mate.

As I remember it the first game had the islands being self-contained and it only got badly designed in the sequel, where you had to go back and forth across the islands, but I played the games on release so it has been a while.

 

[Tramboi]

As I remember it the first game had the islands being self-contained and it only got badly designed in the sequel, where you had to go back and forth across the islands, but I played the games on release so it has been a while.

But locations on a given island were far from self-contained. You walk a LOT on Melee Island, especially in town.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Fast travel with double-click is a real progress, though, UI-wise.

Yeah, I think he's mainly talking about the slow walking speed there.

Fast travel is a boon to a great many adventure games, and I've thought quite a few games needed it over the years...but MI1? I mean, I guess you could change it so that clicking on the map just takes you to the place, but Guybrush is pretty swift for an adventure game protagonist. If anything more characters need to be as swift as Guybrush. And last I checked most of Monkey Island's areas are small, so you're not exactly running across the entire game to solve a puzzle. Nor are there any confusing mazes one is expected to map. What, should Guybrush move around like Doomguy or something?

MI certainly isn't the worst offender, I agree.
But don't consider it when you know it by heart like you mostly do now. When you're exploring, trying to connect dots and so on, you end up traveling A LOT.
There is tedium involved (not even talking about swapping floppies :D)

But I don't know it by heart, I've only played it once. Well, twice if you count opening the game up to check the walking speed. And if I'm traveling a lot to solve a puzzle, I don't think its bad at all. Its not like you're just walking around trying to advance the story, or heaven forbid, trying to figure out what is even going on in the game.

 

[JarlFrank]

A lot of modern adventure games have a more linear structure with smaller areas where you never get more than 5 rooms or so at once, which only have 2-4 puzzles at once. Then you proceed to the next area which has a similar amount of puzzles, and so on and so forth.

Both of the original Monkey Island games have much larger areas where you get lots of different puzzles at the same time.
In MI1 you can explore all of Melee Island from the start, with only a few areas locked by puzzles (gotta get the rubber chicken to go over to Meathook's, gotta give the fish to the troll to pass the bridge). The first major goal is to accomplish the three trials, and those can be approached in any order you want. You might even stumble upon the solution of one trial while you're looking for the solution of another!
In MI2, the same applies to Scabb Island. You gotta make a voodoo doll of Largo, which requires several parts. You're free to seek out those parts in whichever order you like.

Both games are very open in their structure.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Anecdotally my son often gets frustrated with the walking speed in older adventure games, but he’s 4 and not exactly the most patient sort.
The only place where I think MI1’s speed can be a problem is on Melee when you’re just sort of wandering around the map collecting insults and retorts. It’s one of those puzzles that you solve quickly and then spend another twenty minutes executing the solution. That sequence is saved by the humor and writing present, but on repeat playthroughs it can play a little stale.

 

[Neuromancer]

I thought Melee was okay.
The only slightly annoying part for me, when I first played the game, was on Monkey Island, when you had to transfer between the Cannibal Village and the Monkey Head/Le Chuck's ship, where you couldn't go directly, but also had to row around the rocks (The game itself even jokes about this later, when it - luckily - shortens the last trips and just shows some text boxes instead).

 

[Parsifarka]

Since we are talking about this, I will admit I ended up abusing the hints guide for Monkey Island because I grew exhausted of the walking speed so that it felt as if I was being cruelly punished for not figuring out a puzzle (or rather, not clicking in some pixel that didn't look any distinct to its neighbors) every time I thought of checking something somewhere else. Years ago when I had more time and less games I guess I would have put up with that, but not today.
The sequel was even worse —far worse— in this regard, strangely after achieving perfection in its first act.
Special mention for certain unskippable non-walking animations, such as LeChuck's spells in the final confrontation. Truly a test of patience. It made me realize instantaneous movement is one of the reasons why I like Myst-clones so much, just like blobbers.

 

[Neuromancer]

Special mention for certain unskippable non-walking animations, such as LeChuck's spells in the final confrontation. Truly a test of patience.

Yes, the ending chapter of Monkey Island 2 is very bad for the reasons you mentioned.
I replayed this a few months ago and although I (almost) remembered everything I had to do, it took a lot of patience and time to finish.

Spoiler

Not only, you can't skip the animation, but the appearance of Le Chuck and where you are teleported to are quite random.
At one time, I go pretty unlucky: I just had to get to a specific room to get an item there, but it took me almost 10 minutes, because Le Chuck randomly appeared on the way and teleported me in the other direction each time.


Figuring out the puzzle while doing this, is even worse. I am not sure if I would have had the patience today for this anymore...

 

[negator2vc]

The only place where I think MI1’s speed can be a problem is on Melee when you’re just sort of wandering around the map collecting insults and retorts. It’s one of those puzzles that you solve quickly and then spend another twenty minutes executing the solution. That sequence is saved by the humor and writing present, but on repeat playthroughs it can play a little stale.

That's why you stay at the fork near the town and you let the pirates come to you instead of chasing them.
The combat is MI1 is excellent and fast unlike the similar combat in MI3 where you have to return to port in order to "upgrade" your guns between battles.
Still better of course than MI4 combat ;-)

 

[Karwelas]

Special mention for certain unskippable non-walking animations, such as LeChuck's spells in the final confrontation. Truly a test of patience.

Yes, the ending chapter of Monkey Island 2 is very bad for the reasons you mentioned.
I replayed this a few months ago and although I (almost) remembered everything I had to do, it took a lot of patience and time to finish.

Spoiler

Not only, you can't skip the animation, but the appearance of Le Chuck and where you are teleported to are quite random.
At one time, I go pretty unlucky: I just had to get to a specific room to get an item there, but it took me almost 10 minutes, because Le Chuck randomly appeared on the way and teleported me in the other direction each time.


Figuring out the puzzle while doing this, is even worse. I am not sure if I would have had the patience today for this anymore...

This is so wonderful opportunity to introduce a new joke: if you get interrupted three times in a row, option like "Oh, can you f__k off?! (PICK ME IF YOU ARE ANNOYED)" appears in dialogue tree, which of course makes Guybrush utter it, to shock of LeChuck, at which Theepwood explains that it wasn't him, it was frustration of the player due to randomness of his appearance in this section. At this point LeChuck turns to the screen, takes of his hat, bows and in hilariously humble tone he apologizes for causing the problem for the respected client of ESCAPE FROM THE MONKEY ISLAND™ and explains he will now give you free ten moves around the place without interrupting - which he really does - and turns to Guybrush, scoffs at HIM in character for not explaining this option to the player, calls him unprofessional in hilariously cold tone and disappears.

 

[Cyberarmy]

And to think I played Monkey Island 2's last chapter without a mouse back then. It was really stressing to target Le Chuck's underwear with arrow keys that fast

Or giving the dragon its medicine in Simon the Sorcerer...