Return To Monkey Island - MI2 sequel from Ron Gilbert

[Darkozric]

 

[talan]

I'm pretty sure that's sarcasm.

 

[Darkozric]

I'm pretty sure that's sarcasm.

It could, but in twitter's psychiatric institute anything is possible.

 

[Falksi]

Just....WTF?!?...

 

[Boleskine]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022...-island-in-action-looks-great-full-of-laughs/

We’ve finally seen Return To Monkey Island in action: looks great, full of laughs​

Grossman, Gilbert talk to us while playing final build, tease a 32-year-old secret.​

Enlarge / Dave Grossman (L) and Ron Gilbert (R) joined Ars Technica for a rare interview in Seattle at PAX West 2022.

The scene in question is unsurprising as far as Monkey Island lore goes, but I'll leave its details mum for now, except to say: it got me laughing, and it confirmed my confidence in the game's art direction.

The scene, like the rest of the game, includes accurately mapped lip sync for its fully voiced dialogue, and its hand-drawn characters are appropriately rigged to look like detailed paper cutouts being tugged every which way. Eyes bulge, faces distort, and arms and hands emote in a manner that preserves the sequel's "ripped from a picture book" aesthetic without resembling a dated Adobe Flash animation project. Instead, the conversation sequences I saw fondly recalled some of my favorite '90s children's books, especially the works of Lane Smith (The Stinky Cheese Man, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs) as if they'd been animated by devoted fans of the source material.

In describing his habit of replaying old games before making new ones, Gilbert describes "rediscovering that feeling of, oh, I once thought this, or, this is the way I wrote about this stuff. Rediscovering that about your past self is really interesting, yet also, you know, we aren't the same people anymore. So we're not going to just pretend like we made this game in 1993. We're going to use everything we've learned as designers, writers, and people, and put all that into the new game." To this point, the duo emphasized "empathy" with how players encounter and figure out puzzles, compared to the sometimes brutal difficulty walls of the original games.

Already confirmed for casual weeks or months ago, but there's another data point if you want one.

Speaking of help: Return to Monkey Island's design duo was not ready to unveil the game's built-in hint book, which, as they've previously discussed, has been created in response to how people play adventure games in the 2020s. "These days, if people get stuck on a puzzle, they don't puzzle it over for a month and talk to all of their friends," Gilbert says. "They just go to Google and they instantly find the answer. In the case of Thimbleweed Park, often, the [online] answer was wrong!"

I strongly disagree with that attitude - do you want to design your game around players who resort to walkthroughs without wanting to spend some time thinking about a puzzle, or do you want to design your game such that solving challenging but fair and well-designed puzzles gives thoughtful, patient players a deep sense of satisfaction?

I've since gotten the duo to clarify that Return to Monkey Island's built-in hints are not full of jokes, gags, or series references. In other words: If you want to be a classic adventure-gaming pro and get the most out of the game, you can ignore the hint book. (Also, if you're wondering, the system is something you stumble upon during the game, then add it to your inventory.)

Earlier some of us were thinking that the detailed hotspot descriptions might be the in-game system, or are otherwise a feature of the casual mode.

Apparently, based on how I'm reading the above, casuals will have both descriptive hotspots that tell them exactly what an action will achieve AND an inventory-based hint system.

Just click away until cutscene. Here is ReMI's target audience:

My agonizingly brief time watching the game included both callbacks and direct meetings with classic characters, along with a couple of tasteful appropriations of modern terminology to sell a few jokes that feel timeless.

"My name is Guybrush Threepwood and I want to be a pirate... I mean a bisexual pirate... I mean a bi-rate..."

---

As someone who enjoys the MI series but never loved it as much as most longtime adventure gamers do, Ron and Dave aren't really selling me on the game. While I'm being a bit harsh here and feeding the negativity of all you Retro Fascists, I am hoping the game will be good and that skeptics will find it worth the wait.

 

[Darkozric]

While I'm being a bit harsh here and feeding the negativity of all you Retro Fascists, I am hoping the game will be good and that

Nooo! Don't try to balance things.

 

[Comte_II]

Does Guybrush embrace his genderqueer identity in this game?

I love when he wore a dress breaking down cultural norms in gaming!

 

[Star Citizen]

Is this game seriously for real

 

[Star Citizen]

Couldn't think of a worse way to fuck a franchise in the ass. Like this shit legit seems like some kinda joke to me still.

 

[Modron]

Did you miss the special edition graphics?

 

[Star Citizen]

Did you miss the special edition graphics?

This is on another level of shit compared to those, joke's over...

 

[Darkozric]

Just....WTF?!?...

 

[lightbane]

The more we know about the new art style, the more it makes fucking CalArts look good, which is indeed fucking terrifying for all the wrong reasons.

 

[Falksi]

Just....WTF?!?...

So this is the cunt to blame....



Bet he's expecting loads of work after this now

 

[Cyberarmy]

This is not OK, that abomination is not LeChuck

 

[Viata]

Bet he's expecting loads of work after this now

People like him is the reason I don't hate AI drawing.

 

[Ivan]

wonder if others will look back and laugh at all this graphic/artstyle whoring

 

[Lord Rocket]

wonder if others will look back and laugh at all this graphic/artstyle whoring

they won't, because this shit is well beyond a joke

 

[JarlFrank]

Bet he's expecting loads of work after this now

People like him is the reason I don't hate AI drawing.

Just went to an online AI image generator and put in a Monkey Island related prompt.

This one:
https://creator.nightcafe.studio/
Prompt: "Guybrush Threepwood on a ship"

No Guybrush, but the ship looks damn nice.
Yeah, the AI is better than that "art director" LOL

EDIT:
Used this one: https://hotpot.ai/art-maker
With the simple prompt: Guybrush Threepwood

Yeah, that's way better than the new artstyle. AI wins.

Same AI for bearded Guybrush:

 

[Falksi]

Bet he's expecting loads of work after this now

People like him is the reason I don't hate AI drawing.

Just went to an online AI image generator and put in a Monkey Island related prompt.

This one:
https://creator.nightcafe.studio/
Prompt: "Guybrush Threepwood on a ship"

No Guybrush, but the ship looks damn nice.
Yeah, the AI is better than that "art director" LOL

EDIT:
Used this one: https://hotpot.ai/art-maker
With the simple prompt: Guybrush Threepwood

Yeah, that's way better than the new artstyle. AI wins.

Same AI for bearded Guybrush:

The difference is incredible. That actually looks like a pretty fine evolution from young Guybrush into older Guybrush.

I might keep an eye on the dweeb who's fucked MI up, and start contacting those who employ him for future projects with these comparisons.

 

[Dexter]

Didn't really get very good results with simple Prompts in SD, but got this with a somewhat more elaborate one:

Spoiler

 

[Darkozric]

Bet he's expecting loads of work after this now

People like him is the reason I don't hate AI drawing.

Just went to an online AI image generator and put in a Monkey Island related prompt.

This one:
https://creator.nightcafe.studio/
Prompt: "Guybrush Threepwood on a ship"

No Guybrush, but the ship looks damn nice.
Yeah, the AI is better than that "art director" LOL

EDIT:
Used this one: https://hotpot.ai/art-maker
With the simple prompt: Guybrush Threepwood

Yeah, that's way better than the new artstyle. AI wins.

Same AI for bearded Guybrush:

Same AI
"Pirate LeChuck"

"Pirate LeChuck bearded"

"Pirate Elaine Marley"

 

[Boleskine]

david bowie as guybrush threepwood​

https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/EYTBmhWwAlo58hInJrRS

 

[Tom Selleck]

His hand is like a slingshot holding a cupcake.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Bad news: Ron's gained weight since I last saw him.
Good news: Al's had his eye fixed (it was foggy) since I last saw him.