Return To Monkey Island - MI2 sequel from Ron Gilbert

[JarlFrank]

Such a bizarre thing.

"I'm utterly washed-up, and since MI games have always been about my current existential state, it's only right and fair that RtMI should be washed-up as well. Yes, I'm telling you this only after you bought the game, otherwise you probably would not buy it."

A few pages back I compared one of the maps in the game to the shitty maps Jeff Vogel makes.

It all makes sense now. Ron Gilbert is the Jeff Vogel of adventure games. Old and tired.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Such a bizarre thing.

"I'm utterly washed-up, and since MI games have always been about my current existential state, it's only right and fair that RtMI should be washed-up as well. Yes, I'm telling you this only after you bought the game, otherwise you probably would not buy it."

A few pages back I compared one of the maps in the game to the shitty maps Jeff Vogel makes.

It all makes sense now. Ron Gilbert is the Jeff Vogel of adventure games. Old and tired.

Vogel has made good games, bad comparison.

 

[Star Citizen]

Alpan Why would I play the game? I didn’t play EMI, TMI, QFGV, KQ8, SQ6, GK3, most of the Police Quests, SpaceVenture, Hero-U, not to mention Unavowed, any of Grundislav’s games, most of Steve A’s games, most of Daedelic’s catalog, etc. And I skipped most of those titles back when I had much more time than I have now. The only way I was going to play this game was if I felt very powerfully drawn to it (I don’t) or if the kids were interested in playing it together (they aren’t; they shared the view that it looked like tremendous decline, which is saying a lot since they prefer the remakes of MI1 and 2).

The discussion about the game pre release wasn’t about the game; it was about the relationship of devs and players. I have much more interest in that topic than this game.

Oh man u missed some bangers...

 

[The BRM]

Seems like the boys at mxnmojo love the game. I do not know what they are smoking. It's ok at best.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

https://www.eurogamer.net/fans-think-lucasfilm-games-is-teasing-a-maniac-mansion-return

Fans think Lucasfilm Games is teasing a Maniac Mansion return​

Return to Monkey Island has just come out, and the reception to it has been overwhelmingly positive. This reception has, of course, not been missed by those at Lucasfilm Games, or more specifically, Craig Derrick who worked with Ron Gilbert and co to get the game released.

Now, Derrick has shared his delight at all the positive feedback for Return to Monkey Island in a heartfelt Twitter thread.

This alone is nice but not especially newsworthy. However, at the end of his thread, Derrick wrote some simple words that have caught the world's eye: "I'll be standing by when it's time to go BACK TO THE MANSION!"

Many have now surmised that the mansion Derrick is referring to is that of Maniac Mansion, Lucasfilms' first self-published game from 1987.

This game was designed by Gary Winnick and a certain Ron Gilbert, and saw players solving various puzzles as they made their way through the mansion of the fictional Edison family.



While this tweet alone may not be enough to conclude that Derrick was indeed teasing a revival of the point and click adventure, others have pointed out that he similarly tweeted about his desire to return to the mansion back in August.

Again, with a confident use of capitals, Derrick tweeted: "I know that I must... GO BACK TO THE MANSION!" Accompanying this tweet was a trailer for the 1989 EGA enhanced version of Maniac Mansion.

I like the graceful subtlety in his last tweet.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

About Monkey Island 2 ending presented in the beginning, people are seeing it as a retcon, or a lousy explanation, when in fact it is a red herring: Ron marketed the game as a monkey island 2,5, when in fact this is set after tales. The ending of monkey 2 canon is the official explanation given in curse: it's a voodoo magic spell circus that Le chuck used to trap guybrush. In RTMI, it's "guybrush junior" reenacting that ending, as he is a fan of his father adventures.

I've seen coments anout how successful RTMI is compared to Broken age, but what made broken age fans angry is that they backed that game through kickstarter, and they were promised an old school point and click adventure game, but double fine kind of screwed expectations, had financial problems that made then split the game in two parts. Ron did a kickstarter and delivered a much better alternative with thimbleweed park. It was really a scumm-like game only with modern quality of life improvements.

With his new Monkey island venture, he was not obligated to follow crowdfunding promisses, and went on a different approach. He did his broken age, but he was not funded by fans. I don't know how much freedom he had to make this game under devolver/disney umbrella.

Well, I played it some more. As I was expecting, the art style is something you get used to after a while. The animations are very fluid, it's colorful. I has something strange in it, when you're seeing the familiar places and characters, and hearing their voices, it just feels like it's monkey island. I lauched curse of monkey island and played it for a while, and for me, It's the same effect when in 1997 I saw that art style and tried to get used to it. One thing I thought I would hate is that the arts woul feel too flat with no perspective, but it actually works. I guess the fluidity helps to compensate.

Puzzles are easier, but it's no walking simulator. It's about the same level as broken age. It's not as clever or funny as the first 2, but it's far better than escape (monkey 4). it actually managed to make me smile and laugh in some places. I'd say it is for me almost on the level of monkey 3, just above tales pf MI. It's first to third chapters kind of reharsh monkey 1, and chapter 4 does feel like Monkey 2 when you have to search for items scattered around the game.

I've seen the spoiler of the end here in the thread, but I still want to keep playing it.

 

[The BRM]

About Monkey Island 2 ending presented in the beginning, people are seeing it as a retcon, or a lousy explanation, when in fact it is a red herring: Ron marketed the game as a monkey island 2,5, when in fact this is set after tales. The ending of monkey 2 canon is the official explanation given in curse: it's a voodoo magic spell circus that Le chuck used to trap guybrush. In RTMI, it's "guybrush junior" reenacting that ending, as he is a fan of his father adventures.

I've seen coments anout how successful RTMI is compared to Broken age, but what made broken age fans angry is that they backed that game through kickstarter, and they were promised an old school point and click adventure game, but double fine kind of screwed expectations, had financial problems that made then split the game in two parts. Ron did a kickstarter and delivered a much better alternative with thimbleweed park. It was really a scumm-like game only with modern quality of life improvements.

With his new Monkey island venture, he was not obligated to follow crowdfunding promisses, and went on a different approach. He did his broken age, but he was not funded by fans. I don't know how much freedom he had to make this game under devolver/disney umbrella.

Well, I played it some more. As I was expecting, the art style is something you get used to after a while. The animations are very fluid, it's colorful. I has something strange in it, when you're seeing the familiar places and characters, and hearing their voices, it just feels like it's monkey island. I lauched curse of monkey island and played it for a while, and for me, It's the same effect when in 1997 I saw that art style and tried to get used to it. One thing I thought I would hate is that the arts woul feel too flat with no perspective, but it actually works. I guess the fluidity helps to compensate.

Puzzles are easier, but it's no walking simulator. It's about the same level as broken age. It's not as clever or funny as the first 2, but it's far better than escape (monkey 4). it actually managed to make me smile and laugh in some places. I'd say it is for me almost on the level of monkey 3, just above tales pf MI. It's first to third chapters kind of reharsh monkey 1, and chapter 4 does feel like Monkey 2 when you have to search for items scattered around the game.

I've seen the spoiler of the end here in the thread, but I still want to keep playing it.

Enjoy. I was for the most part ok with it but the issues kept building the further I got into the game. I do think the art style was a mistake, but I can live with it for the most part. The game would have been an average rated adventure game released in the 1990s, but we live in a different time.

 

[taxalot]

Finished it. It was a fantastic game. Not shocked at the usual codexian attitude of deciding a game guilty before it even had an opportunity to speak for itself. I was skeptical and the final result totally convinced me.

Also funny to see that some people are mad at the ending which just flat out says again what happened in Monkey 2 for those who refused to see it. It took balls to reconfirm it and was a nice gesture for the fans.

The retcon was CMI. Not this game.

 

[The BRM]

Finished it. It was a fantastic game. Not shocked at the usual codexian attitude of deciding a game guilty before it even had an opportunity to speak for itself. I was skeptical and the final result totally convinced me.

Also funny to see that some people are mad at the ending which just flat out says again what happened in Monkey 2 for those who refused to see it. It took balls to reconfirm it and was a nice gesture for the fans.

The retcon was CMI. Not this game.

But CMI's general idea was better quite honestly, the whole IT WAS ALL A DREAM idea sucks, always has, and always will especially if you have to go out and say it. Though I do think that the game was fine with the hints at the concept in MI1 and MI2, honestly my biggest issue with RMI is that the game's ending is basically the same damn ending as MI2 but with no climax or worthwhile story leading up to it. The islands are all pretty mediocre, and the puzzles are rather boring as well. Thatt and the ending even refuses to make sense on its own terms. It's easy to see what he was going for, they flat out said it in the letter, but the game itself felt like it was going through the motions. And if that was the point then good for them, but the game was missing the joy of MI and the sense of optimism that the other games had.

 

[Rincewind]

But CMI's general idea was better quite honestly, the whole IT WAS ALL A DREAM idea sucks, always has, and always will especially if you have to go out and say it.

But... *this* is all just a dream...

 

[Darth Roxor]

actually it's the cycles of guilt

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

The retcon was CMI. Not this game.

The ending of LeChuck's Revenge was sent right to the trash by the Curse team, because that is where it always belonged. They turned the theme park into the Carnival of the Damned, which fit the setting quite well, but Ron had to retcon that due to his apparent narcissism.

 

[Rincewind]

The ending of LeChuck's Revenge was sent right to the trash by the Curse team, because that is where it always belonged.

Nah. I loved that ending; the whole thing was a fantasy in a child's mind all along.

 

[WallaceChambers]

Finished it. It was a fantastic game. Not shocked at the usual codexian attitude of deciding a game guilty before it even had an opportunity to speak for itself. I was skeptical and the final result totally convinced me.

Also funny to see that some people are mad at the ending which just flat out says again what happened in Monkey 2 for those who refused to see it. It took balls to reconfirm it and was a nice gesture for the fans.

The retcon was CMI. Not this game.

I actually think there's more going on to the ending, meta-textually, but the fact that you took it that way is kind of the point and the biggest success of the ending. RtMI is largely Ron's reflection on story telling and how his games have been perceived over time and he and his fanbase has grown older. What I gathered is that he believes the various interpretations and personal connections people made with Monkey Island are greater than any one secret, so he purposefully constructed the ending in a way that can be interpreted in alignment with what the player believes. While also giving the player some agency on how it actually turns out by what they do in the final playable scene and dialogue choice. Seeing the various post-credit epilogue sequences brings more clarity to that (massive spoilers ofc).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I've been catching up on the past few pages, and had to stop to point out something: The quality of spelling in posts in this thread is atrocious.

It's not just typos, it's whole verbs becoming non-words that render the sentences unreadable.

Whatever points several Codexers are trying to make don't even get off the ground as a result.

Please check your spelling.

 

[negator2vc]

RtMI ending is Gilbert's FY to the fans.
Also a good ending require skill while a meta ending don't.
That's why the game end suddenly and most of the major NPC story arcs are left unresolved!
The letter at the end is just a red herring

 

[Brancaleone]

The entire RtMI affair in a nutshell:

 

[JarlFrank]

The ending of LeChuck's Revenge was sent right to the trash by the Curse team, because that is where it always belonged.

Nah. I loved that ending; the whole thing was a fantasy in a child's mind all along.

Spoiler alert: when you play a game, or read a book, or watch a movie, you are the child in whose mind it's all real.
Until the retarded author barrels through the fourth wall during the ending, grabs you by the hair and yells in your face: "IT'S ALL JUST A MADE UP STORY DUDE, NONE OF THIS REALLY HAPPENED!!"
And then the spell breaks and the story is no longer real in your mind. And you feel disappointed because none of the story's buildup paid off in the end.

Unless you're some kind of schizo, you know the story you're being told isn't real. But you still engage with it as if it were. That's the contract made between storyteller and reader/viewer/player: for the duration of playing the game, reading the book, watching the movie, you pretend that the story is real. You enjoy the sights, the characters, the plot twists, the humor that results from quirky characters interacting with each other. You're having fun.

But then, when the author is supposed to give you a satisfying ending for all the plot threads he had constructed up to that point, he instead reminds you that none of this was real so it doesn't matter anyway.
And in doing so, he breaks the trust you put into him to tell a compelling story. He ruins his own work through his cleverness (which isn't actually that clever, because you knew all along this isn't real).

 

[toughasnails]

I would never make a game like this because I don’t like it.

For me, game development is a hobby/passion

Metaphors, allegories, solve some casual puzzles in a tiny carnival , a few more metaphors, some additional allegories, repeat the loop of nonsense. A whole fucking 4 hours - Hobby/passion Muhsterpiece!
Imagine if it wasn't a -passion/hobby- Muhsterpiece. Dude is the real shit.

Damn, Strangeland filtered you HARD...

 

[Brancaleone]

He ruins his own work through his cleverness (which isn't actually that clever, because you knew all along this isn't real)

Worst thing is, they got a large swath of the public used to the idea that this shit is clever storytelling, rather than incompetent storytelling.

 

[Alex]

The ending of LeChuck's Revenge was sent right to the trash by the Curse team, because that is where it always belonged.

Nah. I loved that ending; the whole thing was a fantasy in a child's mind all along.

Spoiler alert: when you play a game, or read a book, or watch a movie, you are the child in whose mind it's all real.
Until the retarded author barrels through the fourth wall during the ending, grabs you by the hair and yells in your face: "IT'S ALL JUST A MADE UP STORY DUDE, NONE OF THIS REALLY HAPPENED!!"
And then the spell breaks and the story is no longer real in your mind. And you feel disappointed because none of the story's buildup paid off in the end.

Unless you're some kind of schizo, you know the story you're being told isn't real. But you still engage with it as if it were. That's the contract made between storyteller and reader/viewer/player: for the duration of playing the game, reading the book, watching the movie, you pretend that the story is real. You enjoy the sights, the characters, the plot twists, the humor that results from quirky characters interacting with each other. You're having fun.

But then, when the author is supposed to give you a satisfying ending for all the plot threads he had constructed up to that point, he instead reminds you that none of this was real so it doesn't matter anyway.
And in doing so, he breaks the trust you put into him to tell a compelling story. He ruins his own work through his cleverness (which isn't actually that clever, because you knew all along this isn't real).

The ending of MI 2 is not that either. Saying that everything that happened in the two games had been just imagination would be stupid. But that isn't what the ending is doing. The game foreshadows that something strange is going on. In particular I remember there were tunnels and whatnot that were completely out of place. The ending showing that Chuckie is still somehow Le Chuck and that Elaine is still around clearly show that is not what it was aiming for.

But likewise it is stupid to retcon the whole thing into some kind of spell or whatever (sorry, I've never actually played MI 3). This idea completely ignores the foreshadowing and turns the whole event into something rather prosaic. The whole point of waiting for Ron's version of the game was that, at least for me, the hope that he had an actual idea of how to give those things a half-way decent pay off.

 

[The BRM]

Meta endings tend to think they are far smarter than they actually are. It's pompous bullshit unless the writer did one HELL of a job. The game pretends its about something deep, but not even the story it is telling has a shred of depth. If Gilbert really wanted this game to excel he needed to focus on the puzzles, gameplay, and story first. Instead, he spends too much of his time either retreading old ideas and areas or setting up entire plotlines that go absolutely nowhere. It's not great. At least parts of the game are slightly amusing.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Finished it. It was a fantastic game. Not shocked at the usual codexian attitude of deciding a game guilty before it even had an opportunity to speak for itself. I was skeptical and the final result totally convinced me.

Also funny to see that some people are mad at the ending which just flat out says again what happened in Monkey 2 for those who refused to see it. It took balls to reconfirm it and was a nice gesture for the fans.

The retcon was CMI. Not this game.

I agree in part. The ending of 2 and the beginning of return of monkey are two different situations. In 2, it is guybrush. In return, it is guybrush Threepjunior, his son, reenacting the old guybrush stories. Ron just did a prank this time. You see that when gubrush is already married in Return, meaning it at least takes Curse into account.

 

[El Presidente]

Adventure games have been dead for quite a while.

Two more weeks, to be more precise

 

[taxalot]

Finished it. It was a fantastic game. Not shocked at the usual codexian attitude of deciding a game guilty before it even had an opportunity to speak for itself. I was skeptical and the final result totally convinced me.

Also funny to see that some people are mad at the ending which just flat out says again what happened in Monkey 2 for those who refused to see it. It took balls to reconfirm it and was a nice gesture for the fans.

The retcon was CMI. Not this game.

I agree in part. The ending of 2 and the beginning of return of monkey are two different situations. In 2, it is guybrush. In return, it is guybrush Threepjunior, his son, reenacting the old guybrush stories. Ron just did a prank this time. You see that when gubrush is already married in Return, meaning it at least takes Curse into account.

In Return, some rare instances of dialogs mention Morgan Lefay. So it's set after Tales chronologically.

It is a direct sequel to MI2 only thematically.