Return To Monkey Island - MI2 sequel from Ron Gilbert

[Naraya]

The Real Question is whether Click (tm) is a descendant or a precursor of The Awesome Button (tm)?

 

[Falksi]

Look at that font, and the inventory... Jesus Christ. It's like they didn't even create any UI, just using some kind of default template.


EDIT: Also, this "press a button to bring up inventory" trend in adventure games needs to stop. Old games did it much better, everything should be on screen at all times:

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

That inventory screen looks like something out of an ARPG.

EDIT: Also, this "press a button to bring up inventory" trend in adventure games needs to stop. Old games did it much better, everything should be on screen at all times:

Er...that's been around longer than having your items displayed on-screen. The spiritual ancestor is typing inventory and getting a list of all your items, but when mouse controls came along people had the whole separate GUI piece thing straightaway. AGS even includes that as the default, you have to work to make an on-screen inventory. It was actually Lucasarts who developed the whole items on-screen at all times bit. Pretty funny that they're not doing the thing that set apart the Lucasarts interface, instead just blindly following something they dismissed at the time.

 

[WallaceChambers]

I'm assuming "Puzzle over the arm bone" means "think about" or "examine" the arm bone? If so that's an awkward way to phrase it.

 

[Brancaleone]

I'm assuming "Puzzle over the arm bone" means "think about" or "examine" the arm bone? If so that's an awkward way to phrase it.

I am afraid it's an intentional meta-'joke' (for lack of a better word). In adventures you solve puzzles, so here when you look at something, you are 'puzzling over it'. Get it? Get it? Are your thighs sore from all the slapping?

 

[Keshik]

Also, this "press a button to bring up inventory" trend in adventure games needs to stop.

Why do you think so ?

 

[Ivan]

I'm assuming "Puzzle over the arm bone" means "think about" or "examine" the arm bone? If so that's an awkward way to phrase it.

maybe it's a joke/hint

 

[Modron]

Or it's not a joke and just the correct use of puzzle as a verb?

 

[AwesomeButton]

I searched the forums for "retro-fascists". Saw the screenshots of the game. What the actual fuck.

This looks like the current year-Cartoon Network's shitty low-budget animation. It's on the level of Peppa the pig and Gumball.

They expect for people to give them money for this?

 

[Boleskine]

 

[Darkozric]

Get your photo taken on Melee Island from Return to Monkey Island next to Guybrush Dicknose, all weekend at #PAXWest
Come on, don't play hard to get, I know you want to.

 

[Lord Rocket]

This looks like the current year-Cartoon Network's shitty low-budget animation. It's on the level of Peppa the pig and Gumball.

dunno what gumball is + don't care enough to google it, but you are being v unfair to peppa pig

(this is a serious post btw: p pig might be designed purely for ease of animation but a cursory examination of any given screenshot from the show will reveal that it uses perspective etc. in a way that is easy to parse, even for small children, and is not transparently intended to repel and humiliate the viewer. meanwhile RtMI is pretty fuckin obviously the latter, blasted directly in our faces like vindaloo-induced diarrhea straight out of an aging transvestite's blown out arsehole. very sincerely, fuck you ron gilbert & dave grossman)

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm assuming "Puzzle over the arm bone" means "think about" or "examine" the arm bone? If so that's an awkward way to phrase it.

I am afraid it's an intentional meta-'joke' (for lack of a better word). In adventures you solve puzzles, so here when you look at something, you are 'puzzling over it'. Get it? Get it? Are your thighs sore from all the slapping?

The real problem is that there isn't an "examine" verb that lets you puzzle over every single object in the game world as you click on them through the verb interface.

It's funny, Ron was part of the team that created the BEST adventure game interface ever, the verb box, with Maniac Mansion, and then refined it in Monkey Island 1 and 2.
And now he tosses it out for something vastly inferior that cripples not only the gameplay but also the potential for humor.

Old Lucas Arts adventures: lol let me try picking up this NPC maybe he will comment something funny if I try
New Monkey Island: clicking on NPCs always brings up conversations, no zany action attempts allowed

Utter decline.
I bet console ports play a role in this as you can't use the classic verb interface as smoothly with a controller as with a mouse.

EDIT:
Remember when Leisure Suit Larry 7 re-introduced a text parser for comedic effect? I don't remember if you even needed to use it for any puzzles, it has the by-then standard point and click interface all Sierra adventures used. But it also had an optional text parser to allow you some real creativity in which verbs to use. Sometimes there were hidden jokes associated with that, especially naughty jokes if you tried using "fuck" on things, because it's a Larry game.

The devs back then thought "Hey guys, if we give the player more options on what to do, there will be a greater potential for humor!"
Now they take away options and make lame, obvious jokes instead.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Old Lucas Arts adventures: lol let me try picking up this NPC maybe he will comment something funny if I try

"I could probably do it and toss him pretty far too." -- When using the pick up key on Chowchilla Charlie in Grim Fandango.

"I have a bouncer for that, but he is busy playing the piano right now." - Trying to pick up the policeman in Calavera Cafe.

"It's not that kind of bar" - Trying to pick up a person in Blue Casket.

 

[jfrisby]

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Look at these old geezers.

 

[negator2vc]

Seriously, they really have a dialog fetish!!!
Maybe the previous "skull" gameplay contains the only actual interaction/puzzle (beside dialogs ofcourse ;-) )
of the game!

 

[Boleskine]

"Where are the three older guys who used to hold court here?"
"Who cares."
"Probably crying in an alley somewhere, wishing they were still relevant."

The original pirates were white. The three newer pirates are a black guy and two women (possibly trans or lesbian). I'm sure there is no subtext here.

 

[Viata]

Man, this art is so bad it looks like some AI drew it. kek

 

[Darkozric]

"Where are the three older guys who used to hold court here?"
"Who cares."
"Probably crying in an alley somewhere, wishing they were still relevant."

The original pirates were white. The three newer pirates are a black guy and two women (possibly trans or lesbian). I'm sure there is no subtext here.

"Permission to slaughter the annoying old wasteful man captain Madison"
"Don't bother, he's just a harmless hack who thinks he has a good idea for a pirate raid."

 

[Luka-boy]

Man, this art is so bad it looks like some AI drew it. kek

This game's art style would be an insult to carefully cultivated art AIs.

 

[Lovecraft's Ghost]

"Where are the three older guys who used to hold court here?"
"Who cares."
"Probably crying in an alley somewhere, wishing they were still relevant."

The original pirates were white. The three newer pirates are a black guy and two women (possibly trans or lesbian). I'm sure there is no subtext here.

What I find interesting in this dialogue is the duality at display here, it's not an ambiguity but rather that this is not only strongly signalling in terms of clear racial value judgement, the Disney trademarked 'strong woman' replaces men ordeal, but that it's also explicitly tied to the old games and those times. It's not that Ron Gilbert and crew only despises White Europeans or want women to be men, but wants this game to be a slap in the face to anyone who enjoyed those original games at all, whatever the reason. 'Remember those pirate captains you did trials for? Fuck those losers, we are the captains now, this is Monkey Island now', says the gay Somalian Disney pirate drawn in the style of late-stage-liberalism and points to himself. It's like what Rian Johnson did with Star Wars. Sure, one of the reasons Luke Skywalker had to be shat upon was that he was of European stock and a man, but it also had to be done to undermine and ruin the good memories people had of the original work. It compounds until it becomes the antithesis to whatever gave the brand weight to begin with, without any positive values of its own, being the child of judeo-liberalism.

Here's am embed since the poster who linked it couldn't be bothered.

 

[Darkozric]

 

[Viata]

Man, this art is so bad it looks like some AI drew it. kek

This game's art style would be an insult to carefully cultivated art AIs.

Sure. But for now "this art looks like some AI drew it" is my favorite offensive term. Given how mad artists are because of AI, calling their art something an AI did will drive them crazy.

 

[Ravielsk]

What I find interesting in this dialogue is the duality at display here, it's not an ambiguity but rather that this is not only strongly signalling in terms of clear racial value judgement, the Disney trademarked 'strong woman' replaces men ordeal, but that it's also explicitly tied to the old games and those times.

In other words its "creative parasitism". The new creation cannot stand on its own so it has to attach itself to a previous work to even make itself happen. In that sense its similar to a commentary only without the honesty of admitting that its entirely derivative of something else.

Ryan Johnson and his Star Wars are the perfect example of this because without the context of the previous expanded universe he just wrote a script about the need to end a holy order of virtuous knights for the sin of not being able to always solve every problem to everyone's satisfaction. Emphasis on the expanded universe part because what little reasoning he actually bothers to offer is entirely dependent on the many many extra materials that came after the original movies and even the prequels, not the actual movies his "movie" is supposed to be a sequel to.

Its a zombie of a creation that only lives off of the remain of something else and not itself or its own merits.