Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 244: The Secret of Monkey Island

Episode Date: September 6, 2019

Now that Retronauts has transitioned to deep dives of single titles over the past few years, it's about time to focus on a genre we rarely touch: adventure games. That said, this marks the beginning of a limited series where I (Bob) will be covering the entire LucasArts adventure library—one game per episode—hopefully with new and/or rare guests. Since I'm not covering these games in any particular order, there's no better place to start than The Secret of Monkey Island, the release that would define LucasArts' house style for its remaining decade of adventure game output. And there's no better guest than Monkey Island superfan Nina Matsumoto (of FanGamer and Sparks fame), someone who's loved the series since 1990 and even created the cover art for Ron Gilbert's latest adventure game, Thimbleweed Park! So join us as we enter the world of corrosive grog, rubber chickens with pulleys in the middle, and insult sword fighting and jump back in time nearly 30 years to explore a game that launched a much-beloved series.

This week on Retronauts, we vowed to never pay more than $20 for a computer game. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Retronauts. host for this one, Bob Mackey, and the topic this week is the Secret of Monkey Island, the 1990 classic LucasArts Point and Click Adventure Game. Now, we have a special guest in the show. I'm going to have her hold her horses briefly while I explain what I'm doing with this topic. I'm kind of doing an informal series on all of LucasArts games, not necessarily in order, but I've always wanted to do sort of a deeper dive on each of the entries in the LucasArts catalog, and I'll be doing that. Hopefully throughout the next year, I want to hit all of them

from the very first one, which is Labyrinth, the last one, which I believe would be the escape from Monkey Island. There might be one more I'm forgetting about, but I don't think so. I should know my facts better, but I am prepared for the rest of this podcast. So this is the first one in the series, and we did do another episode about Monkey Island way in the past back in 2015 with Ron Gilbert. That is episode 45. That was more of an interview-based episode touching on Ron Gilbert's career and basically all the things he's done. And this will be more of a deep dive on the Secret of Monkey Island as a whole. But it will be also a nice companion piece to that interview episode. But so without further ado, we have a special guest on this show. Who is our special

guest for this episode all about the Secret of Monkey Island? Hey, I'm Nina Matsumoto and Bob, why are you a podcaster? You don't look like one. Your face is too sweet. That's true. Thank you so much. And people are surprised that I'm not a hideous troll whenever they're seeing me. They're like, you don't... There's not a slam on other podcasters, by the way. That's a line from my favorite game of all time, which is Secret of Lucky Island. That's why I'm here. But also people, I don't know if podcasters

have a stereotype of being ugly, but people are always surprised by what I look like, even though it's very easy to find pictures in video of me. Like, I didn't think you'd look like that. And I think they're assuming more neck beard, more disgusting, slobary, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, you're kind of a

guyber's type. It's true. It's true. Especially third game, Guybridge, but that's not like that. I have a weird cartoonish body. But yes, Nina, so Nina, of course, you are a great comic artist. You've done tons of Simpsons Comics. You have the somewhat recent graphic novel Sparks. You work for fan gamer designing merchandise, but also, most importantly, you are very connected to the world of creator Ron Gilbert, the creator of Monkey Island, and that you are the cover artist behind his most recent game, Thimbleweed Park. Yeah, I did some work for him through Fan Gamer, which was a huge honor, by the way, because, like I said, Secret of Monkey Island,

or rather the whole Monkey Island series is my favorite video game series of all time. Lechuk's Revenge is my favorite. Secret of Monkey Island is a very, very, very close second. I kind of go back and forth between the two, which one I'd like better. But, yeah, I did the cover art for Thibble League Park. I've always been, like, inspired by the cover art by Steve Ressel and also just the great sprite work that you see throughout the first two games. That was like a really huge honor to be able to do something for the creator of my favorite game.

Now, that is awesome. And I'm having you on this podcast also because Monkey Island is your favorite game of all time, I'm guessing, or at least favorite LucasArts adventure game. And for this podcast, I want to let everybody know that you played through it twice for research for this podcast. So you played through it once in its original form. And once again, in the special edition form. And for you, Monkey Island is what Maniac Mansion is for me, where it's like as soon as they sit down, the list of things I need to do in order,

pops up in my head and I can just sail right through the game. Yeah, I think this is the only game I could have a really speed run. Yeah, the same for me. As much as you can speed run an adventure game. It's the same for me in Maniac Mansion where it's just like, this is the one I could actually do, but I'm sure someone is a thousand times better at than me. Like they know everything frame perfect, but still you've done a ton of research and you've done a ton of work for this podcast and I really appreciate that.

But I really want to know how you got into the Monkey Island series. You got into it much, much earlier than I did. well first of all I want to stress that I've played it more than twice yes you played it twice recently I played it twice in like the past 24 hours yes that's very important but you probably played it 20 or 30 times before that right yeah yeah well for to prepare for this podcast I played it once I played the Steam version the special edition release I played it once on classic mode a second time the special edition version and I clocked in at under two hour two and a half hours for

each one. I think that's because of having to wait for the dialogue to end. If I could crank up the dialogue speed, I could finish it a lot faster or like exit out of dialogue. Yeah, you can't fast forward through dialogue in the special edition for whatever reason or make it go faster. That was kind of bugging me. Yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird feature. But I know, I've played this game like a billion times because I first played it back in 1990 when it was first released. but it was on the IBM XT which is an orange and black screen computer I encourage everyone to go and find

the video of Monkey Island running on this because it's a miracle it's excruciating because Guy Brice walks at like four frames per second and the screen scrolls at like two frames per second so like when you're first coming into when you're first coming into the village and you're walking across the dock

like that part takes forever to get through And then you entered a scum bar and I think the software could recognize when like the computer just can't handle the game and it would kind of like take away some details because like this the pirate that's usually swinging in the chandelier

was missing entirely like he's just not there like there's just like fewer animations and the sound was terrible of course I mean like I've played this game on the IBMxte and also I play the EGA 16 bit version and then eventually the 256 color version

and the CD-ROM version I've played like so many different versions of it well every time the sound is different because they all depended on what kind of sound card you had on your computer that's true and if you had the dreaded PC speaker then you were in for a lot of literal blips and beeps like it sounds like the PC speaker technology

was basically what you would hear very early cell phone rings that's basically the same level of technology I would judge the sound quality of a computer based on how it handled Monkey Island. Like there are two parts of the game that are very different depending on what computer you use, the sounds of the swords during the insult sword fighting, and also the sound the rubber chicken with a pulley makes when you use it on the cable to Meat Hook's Island.

Those sounded very different depending on the quality of your sound card. You needed a sound blaster. The music was always good, though. Yeah, the music is fantastic. We'll get into more of the details. I just wanted to find it up front how you got into the series. I found it much later in life. So you had computers in your house earlier in your life than I did

because your dad wasn't an industry that worked with computers. So from an early age you had computers in your house and you were very lucky because I had to wait until 1996 for our very first computer and that is when I found this series via the Curse of Monkey Island, the third game. I think because I played it first, that's why it is my favorite,

although it is also a very, very good adventure game and really the last very pretty two-de-es. adventure game. We can argue about that later. Yes. There will be an episode about the Curse of Monkey Island. I have strong opinions about Curse of Monkey Island as someone who grew up with the first two games.

I don't hate it. I like it, in fact. But yeah, we'll talk about that later some other time. It was a very tall order to follow up Monkey Island 1 and 2 with a whole new staff. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah, no, like I didn't realize how privileged I was growing up. Yeah, my dad had access to older computers.

Like, I should mention the IBM is from 1983, so it's older than I am, and that's what I played this 1990 game on for the first time. We had like at least two or three computers growing up at any point in our lives. And yeah, I grew up with PC games, actually. Before Monkey Island, I played Commoner 64 games and the NES, and that's pretty much it. I would have been so jealous of you growing up because if a friend had a family computer, I would want, like, show me these games, show me what it looks Like, I was just drooling over computer stuff. I knew, like, computers were very, very expensive before the mid-90s,

before they started making mass market sort of like Dell and Gateway would enter the industry. And computers became more of a household fixture than this specialized expensive item only for the elite. Whenever I'd go to a house and see a computer, I would just want to play with it. And at my local software store that also sold Nintendo games and Sega games and stuff like that, I would just paw over all of the big computer boxes and wonder, like, what is this game like what is that game like i would read a pc gamer without owning a computer and i would get the little discette in the magazine and i would say one day i would play this demo of jungle strike and and i always love the old pc box uh pc game boxes yes they were huge and they were full of

things yeah it's full of phileas yeah that's what any physical merchandise was called back then just that came with a a game a giant oversized instruction book often you know maps and stuff like that And just having a big, nice, sturdy box was great. And, you know, Maniac Mansion I found on the NES. That's where I played the game the most. And knowing that there was a sequel to Maniac Mansion that I couldn't play, drove me nuts. Oh, man.

It drove me crazy. That must have blown me away seeing what the graphics look like in the sequel. Yeah, just seeing the pictures and magazines on the box, I'm like, oh, it's not fair. Like, life is not fair. Oh, and the fact of those voice acting, too. Yes. It's talking. When I would see computers on display at stores with talky games,

I just lost my mind. I just, it made me resent my family, like, why can't you make more money? I must play these games. I want to bring back the term as Feeleys and talkies, yes. We need more... That's what a podcast should be called. Feeleys and talkies? Yeah.

Man, if there could be a retronaut spin-off about PC adventure games, we could call it that. Oh, that would be perfect. Yeah, so I found... So LucasArts, the 1996 adventure game, Curse of Monkey Island. That was my first real LucasArts adventure game after Maniac Mansion on the NES. And from there, I worked my way backwards through the... the treasuries that were released around that time. So LucasArts brought out a few treasuries.

So I played my way through all the back catalog through like 1996 to maybe like 1999. I was playing through all of the LucasArts games. You went from the NES Maniac Mansion to Crystal Monkey Island? Yes. That's a huge leap. It is a very huge leap. And I was hungry for adventure games. I knew they existed on the PC in a great number.

But the NES had like three. Yeah, you know what? We're kind of backwards in that regards because I grew up with PC games. You grew up with console games. I went from, like when it comes to console gaming I went from an NES to a PlayStation 1 So it's kind of the equivalent of what you went through with PC games That's a crazy leap

Yeah and you know what In retrospect I think Growing up in a household with more than one computer Help me play more PC games And spend time on something like Monkey Island And Monkey Island too Because I imagine if

Most people grew up with just one computer in their house And, like, I had my own practically, so I could just spend however much time I wanted on my games, whereas, like, most people couldn't. They had to, like, take turns with their siblings or let their parents use it. This is Monkey Island privilege you're talking about here. Check your Monkey Island privilege. Yeah, that's why I know this game so well and why I fell in love with putting click adventure games. It was a good, it was a good, I shouldn't say time waste for it because it didn't feel like a waste of time. It was a good way to spend the time.

before the internet. So yeah, I didn't play one and two until I played three because I believe around that time there was a CD-ROM release. But between maybe 1998 and 2009, there was only piracy as the way to play Monkey Island. So you know what? I think when I first played Secret Monkey Island, it was a pirated copy. Because like, you know, the copyright protection thing, the Diala Pirate Coel. We had that, but we had it in photocopied form. Oh, wow. Okay. Like, my dad also had access to a photocopier where he worked. And I think he photocopied, like, he would just like take the code wheel. It was, uh, should I explain what that is, by the way.

Sure, sure. It was a, it was called dial a pirate pirate pirate. It was a triple layered code wheel. And, uh, the copyright protection back then, like for Secret of Monkey Island was at the beginning, uh, there would be like, uh, quote unquote history quiz. Like, it would show you a face of a pirate made up of a top half and a bottom half. They, they usually didn't match at all. And it would ask something like, when was it? this pirate hanged in Jamaica

or something like that and then you would turn the layers in the code wheel to match the top half of the face with the bottom half as shown on the screen which would then produce a location and a date and then you'd enter that location or date whichever you were asked to do yeah it was slightly more fun than

you know it asking you what is the third word on page 17 of the instruction book oh yeah what a lot of copy protection would do yeah it was fun and my dad took that and photocop copied every configuration. You know what? I bought Fibbley Park. You've worked for Ron Gilbert. Oh yeah. It came with that certificate. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, no. When you, uh, well, I backed Thibaldi Park in the Kickstarter. Maybe that's how I got it. It sent everyone who backed it

a certificate that you could print out saying like, oh, we forgive you for pirating LucasArts games. I hope for your dad's sake it's legally binding. So there will be a few spoilers on this podcast just up front. We will be a few spoilers on this podcast just up front. We will be spoiling things like plot information and puzzles. It's sort of necessary to talk about this game. But as we said before, the game is widely available on Steam. It's very inexpensive. And if you know the game as well as Nina, it's a two-hour game. For me, I poked away at it for about two hours a day for three days and I finished it and maybe seven, eight hours.

So it's not a super long game, but it's a very satisfying game. I know adventure games have a reputation for being full of obtuse puzzles and things that make no sense. But Secret of Monkey Island is designed so well that I don't think you'd ever find yourself super. frustrated or stuck at any point. Yeah, and there's a very good hint system made into the game, too, that they've added to the special edition. Oh, right, yeah, I've never tried that.

It's a very, it's not as good as the one in Thimbleweed Park, but it is sort of the same approach where pressing the button once will give you, like, a very broad hand, like, have you looked in this place yet? Maybe you should go back here. Like, usually that's all I needed was just like the prompt to shove me in the right direction,

like, oh, go back to this place. There might be something waiting for you there. That's great. You use that when you replayed the game for this? I did because I don't, of all the puzzles memorized. Right, you don't have a lot of time either. Yes, yes. I feel like the HIN system is there for these like busier modern times. It's there for, it's there for the modern, the modern life we all live where we can't pay attention to one thing for too long because... Where did you

get stuck on? Oh, I mean, the Stan puzzle, we can talk more about individual puzzles later, but the stand, the Stan talkie puzzle, I don't think, I think it's the worst puzzle in the game. I think it's the only puzzle I would call bad in Monkey Island, but the dialogue puzzle with Stans. Yeah. And I get the joke, but it's kind of a rough puzzle. But I want to get a few basic things out of the way just to provide context for the Secret of Monkey Island. So, as I said earlier, first release in October of 1990. That was the 16 color version. And the 256 color version, which all future versions would be based on, that came out in December of 1990.

So yes, it's a 1990 adventure game. Like we said earlier, there's a 2009 special edition. It's still available on Steam. It has tons and tons of ports. This is just a bunch of minutia for you guys, just so you know, like this was a very popular game, even got like a Sega CD port, and just some basic facts about it.

It was inspired, obviously, by Pirates of the Caribbean before it was a mega movie franchise that's made billions upon billions of dollars for Disney. And also loosely based, sorry, loosely inspired, I won't say based, on the 1987 Tim Powers novel on Stranger Tides,

which was a pretty obscure novel until the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise bought the rights and made the fourth movie a very loose, adaptation of that novel. Yeah, I think Ron Gilbert said that he was inspired by the ride because he felt like getting out of the boat and talking to the pirates and seeing what their deal is. Yeah, yeah, and it's funny. He probably got murdered. It's funny and also kind of tragic that now Disney owns, so Disney owns Pirates of the Airbnb, obviously, but they also own Monkey Island and they don't know it. They can't know they own Monkey Island because they bought us sitting around on it, not doing anything with it and they never will. Yeah, they bought too much stuff, frankly, and it's just in the back in a cabinet somewhere. should give that back to Ron Gilbert. I agree. I know he wants it back.

Yes. I want more Monkey Island games. I love Tales of Monkey Island. I guess Telltale was able to make their series because Disney didn't own it yet. They just were able to, you know, talk to somebody at LucasArts when it was still a thing. And it was good. I know it's a little bit divisive, but I enjoyed it a lot. And I was hoping for more after that. And now Telltales is gone, too. Yeah, it's unfortunate. Yeah. The future is still up in the air. But there's quite a few Monkey Island games to talk about in this series. The first one, of course, is actually

the six LucasArch Adventure game. So in the LucasArts' timeline, the first game is Labyrinth, an adaptation of the movie. The second game is Maniac Mansion. The third game is Zach McCracken and the alien mind-benders. The previous game of Monkey Island was Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, and then we have

Monkey Island. And if you play all of these games in order, you sort of see Ron Gilbert and other designers finding their way towards what would become the house style for LucasArts Adventure games. and Monkey Island would be the foundation on which the rest of their adventure games would be built for the next decade. Have you played those other games, by the way? I have. I haven't finished Zach McCracken or Labyrinth.

I have played and finished Maynick Mansion a ton, and I think I have finished the Last Crusade once. I've played all of Zach McCracken. I don't have kind things to say because that came, unfortunately. I'm going to have to talk about it. I want to find a fan, but I feel like it is sort of an evolutionary dead end for LucasArts games, and that Monkey Island is the path that they would take and Zach McCracken is a weird Sierra-Light version of their path they didn't take.

I will say one thing about Zach McCracken. It's not kind, like I said. I don't like how you can run out of money in that game. You've got to fly around everywhere and you only have a finite amount of money and you have to buy a plane ticket every time. Like imagine in any game if you had to pay to go to a different location.

That was a bad idea. And you can't earn money. there's a finite amount of money in the game. Yeah. So I'm glad you brought that up because Monkey Island is a game designed by a guy who was frustrated with adventure games. In fact, Maniac Mansion was created sort of as a response to things like Kingsquest. And Ron Gilbert, who played a lot of adventure games in 1989 while developing Monkey Island, wrote a sort of manifesto called Why Adventure Game Suck and what we can do about it. And I recommend you Google for that. It's still online. You can read it. And it is still a very good set of rules for both adventure

games and game design in general. And approaching game design from the perspective of a player instead of a designer was sort of a revolutionary idea. And Ron Gilbert was asking designers, think of this from the player's perspective. What will they be frustrated by? What will they be annoyed by? What should we be telling them? I feel like those are lessons that still should be followed. And things like Sierra games, which were very fun and popular and actually much more popular than LucasArts games, they were much more antagonistic than LucasArts games ever were. And they sort of reveled in that antagonism. I grew up with some Sierra games. I know you didn't. Yes. You say some pretty harsh things about Sierra games. I would say harsh but

deserved. Yeah, I mean, I can't argue with you on that. You know what's funny, like when digging out the, the mic for this podcast, I realized it was behind the box I can. I keep the mic in. It's right behind my King's Quest 5 box. So I have to like shove it out of the way to get this mic out of the way you style. I still love that game though. It's not great. I guess I like it ironically as you would say these days. Yeah, I mean the voice acting and the music is something else. Yeah, I like Kings Quest. I liked Space Quest. I liked the Larra Bow series as well. But I definitely like LucasArts games more because it is a lot more forgiving. It doesn't punish you for trying things, which is a big thing.

Yeah, yeah. You can tell the other distaste for Sierra Games in Thibbleweed Park, where it comes up a lot. Yes. And especially, well, also in Secret of Mucket Island, too, there is a joke or there's a slam against Sierra games in there. I guess it's more like a reference, like a parody. Like at one point, a guy just straight up dies when he walks off a cliff. and that like prompt comes up saying oh no you really script this time yeah it was exactly like the lucas arts or sorry it was exactly the sierra pop-up box that you know says oh i love that

it makes fun of you for dying of course and then asks you want to restore or restart or whatever but yeah it was funny that he doesn't buy he doesn't actually die by the way ron gilbert was challenging conventional wisdom and saying why are these games like this they did they don't have to be and in fact they shouldn't be and because of his uh his his wise teachings i internalize the rule set from LucasArts where, well, of course you can't lose an item you need to progress. Well, of course you can't die. Well, of course you can't get yourself into an unwinnable state. These were all things I internalized because I played LucasArts games. So much later in my teens, on a computer, when I was going back to play Sierra games, I'm like, what is this? Like,

this is not fair. This is frustrating. And these games are so mean to me, and they're making fun of me at every turn. I mean, that was part of the fun. But in Monkey Island, the one way you can die is an Easter egg that you have to really work hard for. When you make Eyebrush drown, you are screwed unless you restore a save. There's no way out of it. But you have to be down there for over 10 minutes. Yes. Yes. Famously, Guybridge can hold his breath for 10 minutes. And that is... Like, there's no way you could actually spend that long down there. Because the solution to that puzzle is very easy. Without knowing, there's an Easter egg, there's no way you would spend 10 minutes because there's one thing you click on and it's,

and eventually you will try all the options before 10 minutes is up. You know what? As much as I have a fond nostalgia for Sierra games. It is kind of weird how they punish you for trying things by killing you, but also it punishes you for not trying things by putting you in a dead end where you didn't pick up an item at the very beginning of the game that you need at the end of the game and things like that. Yeah, it's weird. Like, it's almost gaslighting the player.

It is pretty cruel. Yeah. Now that I think about it. I mean, I really want to talk about those games and I feel like I need an expert for those games on this show. But those are games I can only appreciate, like, philosophically. They're very hard for me to play because I know that I could just be wasting a lot of time. Yeah, I would, if anyone wants to play series games, I would recommend using a walk-through.

Yeah. And so one thing I learned, sorry, relearn from reading this manifesto again is that often on retronauts, I will excuse bad ideas or time-wasting ideas with the excuse, well, this was like this because people had fewer entertainment options. So, of course, they would sit with a game. or people just had more patience back then. That kind of might be true, but reading Ron Gilbert's writing from 30 years ago made me realize like, oh, no, people have always had better things to do

than be frustrated because Ron Gilbert writes in his manifesto, like, people will turn the game off and stop playing. We don't want that to happen. We want to encourage people and keep them trying. So I was like, oh, right, people have always had better things to do with their time. And maybe people were slightly more patient

without smartphones, but still, he was right. And maybe I should stop saying, well, things were different then. Or there is only one computer in the house. Yeah, that's true. And people only have so much time to spend on it. That is true, yeah. But I did want to talk about a few other things about the thing that Ron Gilbert wrote, of course.

I still feel like Monkey Island One is the foundation that their games will be built upon for the future. But Monkey Island 2 was sort of like refining the foundation. And that will be a podcast soon in the future. But in Monkey Island One, there are a few things that are remnants of past adventure games and the path LucasArts would not take. things like mazes and there's a few mazes in this game which were generally put in adventure games to pat things out the mazes in this one aren't too bad and they're actually fun puzzles but still they are mazes and also there's a few instances of pixel hunting where

things are hard to find unless you are hovering directly over the little cluster of pixels that represent the item or location especially when you actually get to monkey island I was stuck for a bit because I missed a few locations because they're just tiny little clusters of pixels that you have to Like the fort? The fort, yes. The fort really messed me up. But I feel like in the future, that would never happen again.

Yeah, that fort is weird. Like, even when I know where it is, it takes me a while to find it. Yeah, it still feels like they're in the mindset of like, well, it's fun to scar this big screen full of things. But even in Monkey Island, too, I don't think they would have you do that. I don't even think were there. Oh, there was a world map in Monkey Island, too, at least in Woodtick. But everything was very clearly defined.

You mentioned to me that you like the first half of the game or the second half? Yes, much more. I like the setting of Mealy Island. I like that it takes place at night. I like the more... I like the commentary on theme parks and sort of corporatization of culture and things like that.

Did you want to talk about your theory about that? Oh, yeah, yeah. If you want to get high-minded and slightly weird. I've been reading this game now because we live in the future 30 years later where Disney owns everything. They now own Monkey Island, of course.

And, you know, Ron Gilbert was sort of being tongue-in-cheek about the tackiness of theme parks, the tackiness of merchandising. And my Marxist reading of Monkey Island is that there's a kind of melancholy to Melee Island in that Guy Brush arrives after it has been

corporatized. Like, all of the adventuring and pirating and swashbuckling has happened decades ago. And Guy Bruss is arriving after this land of culture and fun and adventure has been essentially turned into a tourist attraction. He's just one more tourist being funneled

through this thing that wants take his money. Are you saying Guy Brush is a millennial? Guy Brush is the original millennial. I wouldn't go that far. I wouldn't go that far, but I think there is, and I'm sure it's intentional, but maybe not approach with this level of specificity, but I feel like there is a sort of commentary

on corporatization and over merchandising and how that sort of thing ruins culture. And if you look at a melee island compared to Monkey Island, Monkey Island is where the danger and where the actual adventuring is. But Mealy Island is much more the safe thing built for tourists that they expect you to show up to.

And they tell you, well, here's how you become a pirate. And when you pass the test, you get T-shirts. And it's all like sort of making a once proud and interesting culture tacky and very easily merchandisable. Yeah, that's really interesting. For me, like all that stuff, that kind of theme parky stuff, I was kind of half-bought into the theory, the fan theory, that the first two games, what was intended was it's all taking place in a little kid guy

which is imagination when he's at a pirate theme park and that's why those things are there yeah I can see that too of course the third game would kind of deviate from that from that story but I think thematically the theme park stuff does make sense and it's followed Ron Gilbert throughout his career like I don't know if you played the cave

no I haven't but that takes place in a very sort of tourist trapy area where a cast of characters are trying to overcome trauma but it's in the setting of a tourist trap cave. Okay. So I feel like he is, and I really should ask him about this because I've talked to him a bunch of times and interviewed him, but I feel like he is like fixated on the idea of, you know, capitalism sort of making culture and something to sell, which is, I mean,

he's kind of doing the same thing by making a video game about pirates, but there's a lot of commentary about how Malay Island is now just a shoddy tourist attraction when it once was a land of pirates and adventuring. Now it's just people will just entertain tourists and take their money. as they travel through this land. Yeah, that's a really smart reading on it. Too smart for me. I just enjoyed all the anachronisms in the game because I've always been a fan of anachronisms in fiction for some reason. I just thought it just makes it fun. I'm not super into historical period pieces.

And I think if Michael Allen were more historically accurate, it wouldn't be as fun. Well, I did go to grad school in the humanities, so I can't help but see a too deep reading. and everything now. My brain is poisoned. Right. There's also a fourth wall breaking throughout the game, too. Yeah. Yeah. Which tickled me as a kid. It's very fun. And I want to talk about the story then. So the story is very, very simple, which is why it's so appealing in that you play as a man named Guy Briss Threepwood, a very fun name.

He arrives at Mali Island, and he is basically like, I want to be a pirate. And then you find out here are the things you need to do. And then he does those things. It's a very straightforward plot that lets the game introduce tons of fun characters and fun settings in a way that doesn't make. take itself too seriously. Do you know why he's called Guy Brish, by the way? Yes, because they were trying to find a name for him, and his art asset was called guy.combrush, which I guess, dot BRS or BRSH,

was the file extension for whatever art program they were using. So the guy eventually became Guy Brush. I actually, I looked into this some more. That's very close, but it's actually the final name was Guybrush. Oh, okay. The brush part was added there by Steve Purcell, who did the Sprite work. They used a program called Deluxe Paint, and it was a brush file. Okay.

So he named it Guy Brush, but the extension was BBM. BBM, got it. Big, beautiful. Man, monkey. I don't know. But, yeah, so, like, I love it that it doesn't, it's not a real name, but it sounds like one. It's awesome. Yeah, I love that name.

And Threatwood was just a company contest. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, I love Guy Brush, and it's, it's one of the best names. period, one of the best fictional names, and that it sounds like a real name, but it's also ridiculous. And there have to be actual children, or now adults name Guy Brush now in this world. There has to be. Oh man, you think so? There has to be. How many Guybushes versus Sephora? Sephora. There's more, there's more Sephora, but there's fewer Turox in the world, I think. Well, Guy can just be shortened down to Guy or Guy, I guess.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, there are guys in geese, but there's no Guy Brushes before Monkey Island. I love the first pirate you talk to in the scumbar Who Makes Funny Your Name And then it turns out his name is Mankom Seep Good Yes I love Mancombe It also sounds very gross Yeah

Seep Good But yeah so the story is great It's very straightforward Very simple And it lets them just have a lot of fun With the setting There's a really fun cast of characters They make appearances

All throughout the series And this is where it all begins And it feels like kind of a cop-out But I was going to talk about our favorite characters but mine is Guy Brush. Yeah, mine is too. Like, he's just the funniest and kind of the straight man, but sometimes not.

He kind of alternates depending on how you want to play him as in the first two games. Like, he has more of a defined character, like, from Crystal Monkey Island and then on. But I like how in the first two games, you can play him as, like, super polite or as a total jerk. Well, he's more of a jerkness. In the first game, especially, you had your choice. Another kind of choice is what I loved about this game. There are degrees of jerkiness in Monkey Island, too. I don't think there's any ever polite route.

I mean, you kind of bury stand alive in that game, which is the most sadistic puzzle. I like that he's more of a jerk in a second game, though. Yeah, it's that beard. In the first one, like, I like him just straight out, threatened to kill people. Yeah, that's true. And, yeah, so, I mean...

But nobody takes him seriously. Yeah, because of who he is. Just a kid. But how old do you think he is in the first game? I'd say, like, 18, 19? He's 19 in the second game, for sure. So he's got to be. 17 or 18 in the first game. I think 17 or 18. And I always read

Elaine as a bit older than him. Does she have a defined age? Never. Interesting. But she's been the governor for years. Huh. So I just imagine her as always being like at least 20. You thought she looked like she's in her like late 20s or 30 years old? Yeah, like late 20s. Based on the close up. So yeah in this first game, a lot of the characters when you first talk to them, they get these very real, like almost photorealistic

in the technology of the time, close-ups. And I think women and men both looked a lot older back then, based on how they dressed in their hair and their makeup and everything. But the woman in that shot looks like she's like 27 or 28. She could be much younger. She could be much older, but

based on what I'm seeing, she seems like a decade older than Guy Frush. She was based on an artist worked there at the time. I wonder how old she was. Yeah, I wonder. But yes, Elaine is the romantic interest. And what I like about her is that throughout the entire series, she is the most competent pirate, much more so than Guy Brush and the more competent adventurer. And what I really like about this

game is that she is sort of damseled in this game and that halfway through she is kidnapped by Lechuk. But it turns out in the end, the kidnapping was intentional. She went with it because it was all part of some large plan to destroy Lechuk. And in the end, when Guy Brush breaks up the wedding, he's actually interfering with the plan she has set up. So ostensibly, you could tell an entire adventure game from her perspective. You could tell an entire Monkey Island game from her perspective like what she was doing while Guy Brush was adventuring. And based on that, the wedding part, you think Elaine was named after the character in The Graduate? Yes. This could just be a coincidence in them saying, oh, we have a character named Elaine. Let's do a graduate reference. I think

they had the graduate reference in mind when making this game and they sort of wrote their way backwards. Like, I want a character to interrupt her wedding screaming Elaine, which happens in the graduate. He screams it a lot in that movie. Yeah, I wonder, like, I don't think they ever explained how she was named. I could see that. It's a pretty normal-sounding name, but you think it's because of that? Yeah, yeah, because throughout the game, she is called Governor Marley, and I don't think you really call her Elaine or the word Elaine doesn't pop up that often until the end.

Yeah, true. So I feel like... No, I really like her as a character. Yeah. So, you know what? I didn't double check, but maybe the first time you hear... hear Elaine is in that scene. And maybe that's the first time they wrote it.

They could have went back and put it on her poster for the governor. They first see, like, Governor Elaine Marley. But I feel like it was then they named her Elaine. Yeah, like, you were talking about how simple the story is. What do you think of, like, just how quickly they fall in love with each other in this game? It's, I think the fact that it's so contrived as part of the joke. Yeah, I feel like. And that they play the romantic music and everything and that they're just winking at you, like,

Yeah, well, of course, this is a cheesy love story. Yeah, you know, when I first played the game, because I saw Elaine as being so much older than Guy Brish, it kind of caught me off guard when all of a sudden they were in love. I was like, wait a second. I thought he was supposed to be like a little, like a teenager, and she seems like a much older woman, what's going on here? Well, it was a lawless time.

That's true. I think it's kind of cool, though, that she does read as more as older than him. So throughout fiction, there's always this trope of like the, the competent, mature woman who falls in love with the idiot protagonist, which I've never liked. That's sort of like in Adam Sandler movies. Every sitcom and movie, basically. Yeah, but for some reason, it doesn't really bug me in this.

Maybe it's because he's not, a guy, which isn't a terrible person. Yeah, yeah. And when he does become a terrible person in the second game, she leaves him. Yeah, it's true. That is very true. It kind of makes you wonder, like, why she falls from him at all? She's tired of all the disgusting pirates. Yeah, he's rather clean.

and has all of his teeth and all of his appendages. He has a sweet face, like she said. Yeah, yeah, he's got a boyish face. She doesn't like beers, I guess. Yeah, I don't think so. That comes up to the second game. Maybe that's why she, oh, that's probably why she left him too then. Yeah.

When he grows a beard in the second game, maybe he gets too pirity for her. It could be. Elaine doesn't like toxic masculinity. I don't think so. And that big pirity coat that he wears in the second game? I do love that coat. I love the coat, but he's significantly more pirity.

He is, yeah. I love the second game look. He's kind of like a, A little dandy boy in this cane. I do like him. He's a fancy lad. Even though he just washed up a shore. Yeah, yeah.

Did he wash up or did he like take a... Well, that's kind of a retcon, I guess. Okay, yeah, that's true. Never explained how he arrived in the island, but in later games, they say he washed up ashore. He's looking rather well for being washed up on the beach. Yeah, with that white shirt? Yeah.

Probably shouldn't wear white if you try to be a pirate. Not a good choice for pirates is white. It's very hard to get the blood stains out. I do want to talk... And the grog stains. The grog stains. Well, the shirt, well, the shirt is just gone if you spill grog on it. that's true

I do want to talk about the puzzles now so of course we're going to spoil some of the puzzles in this game but this game has a lot of

very interesting puzzles that are usually pretty fair and one of the coolest ones that would be implemented in later games is insult sword fighting

so what this is is a very unique system it's sort of like I would compare it in a way to RPG random battles and that on the world map there are random pirate encounters and when you encounter them

you get into a sword fight and it's not about an action game system more about actually fighting the pirates, it's an insult system in which you trade lines back and forth and you need the right retort in order to defeat the pirate. And by defeating the pirates and by hearing the different insults and retorts, you eventually learn them.

And once you learn enough of them, you can go on and fight the sword master. So instead of gaining experience or gold, you're gaining the knowledge of insults to defeat your opponents, which is really cool. And I like the things that they did with the system in the future, except for the one in Escape from Monkey Island, which I never got to, but I hear is very bad.

No, the coolest part about the insult sort of fighting, the lines were written by Orson Scott Card, by the way. I don't know why, but he did a good job. Yeah. We don't have to talk about him, but the work he did on this game is awesome. I will stand by his monkey island insult work. I did like Ender's game. I read it too late in my life, and I hated it. Oh, I'm sorry.

I had to study in school, but I liked it back then. I watched the movie, too. It was boring. But anyway, what's really cool about the insult sword fighting is, You collect all these retorts, and then you're like, all right, I can fight the sword master now. And then you go to the sword master, and she has completely different insults. But the retorts you collected, you can still use those against her because the retorts are written in a way that they can be a snappy comeback to more than just one insult. And I think that's like, it was mind-blowing to me when I first played it.

Like, did that catch you off guard when you thought you were so prepared to fight her? Yes. If it comes out with these, like, totally different insults. Yes, I can't remember if there was a similar twist and curse, but I was kind of off guard. But yeah, that's a really cool twist they do. They could have easily just had or have the same insults that it would have been fine and people would have liked it. But the fact that they are all different insults, but the retorts, there was still a matching retort for all the new insults. It's a very cool idea and very smartly designed.

I wonder, like, I know there's many different language releases for this game. And I've not tried any of them, unfortunately. Like, I guess I could play it in French, but I wonder how well they translated in other Do you know if there's a Japanese version of Monkey Island? There is, yeah. Really? The Sega version. Oh, have you played that?

No, like, there's no way for me to play it. I guess I could buy it. You could emulate it. I like to know how things are translating. I really want to play it in Japanese. I actually did watch a Japanese stream of it once, which is really interesting. Like, everyone calls Guy Brish Oni's son. Oh, wow.

Yeah, and the player was very confused by the concept of root beer. he's like root beer what's root beer because they don't have it in Japan oh and I should mention when I first played this I was six years old and English is not my first language so I had some trouble with the insult sword fighting I didn't understand a lot of words

were being said and I didn't understand a lot of the answers either which made the sword fighting against the sword master even harder yeah like there's lots of fun antiquated pirate language and words like Kerr and things like that when I first played the game that was before the CD version

which had the graphics in the inventory. So before, it was just a list of words, and there were some words I didn't quite understand. Like, yeah, so when you were trying to get the idle of many hands from the governor's mansion, you need a file to get through a lock. And then you talk to a prisoner who says, like, oh, I have this carrot cake that my aunt baked me, and I hate carrot cake so you can have it.

And then you open it, and there's a file inside. And you can use that on the lock. But I didn't, like, that really confused me because I thought by file, they meant, like, files, like papers. And I was like, why is that in a carrot cake and why am I using it against this lock? But then later, when I played the CD version, I was like, oh, like, file as in, like, a nail file. That's the only thing I need what a file was from back then. So this game helped you with English by telling you how confusing it was?

Yeah, and like, this makes me wonder, like, was Mikey Island for all ages or was it more for adults? I think that, of course, there were computer games designed expressly for children, like education software and things like that. But I feel like the adventure game market was either family or adult because the person buying a computer game in 1990 was fairly wealthy and probably was using it for themselves for their own personal use. I don't think teenagers or kids were buying computers. They might have been being, they might have been given a computer as a gift if they were very fortunate. But the market for people who are buying these games, I believe were adults at this time.

Oh, so back to the insult sword fighting. So I forgot, you played Chris of Michael Island first, which meant you played the rhyming insult sword fighting first. Yes. So when I played that, I thought the rhyming made it too easy, because it was obvious which answers matched up with which

insults. I think there were also fakeouts, though, that there were rhyming ones that didn't match up. Oh, true. I guess that's how they compensated. It wasn't a matter finding the one that rhymed. There were like, I think all of the right answers rhymed, but only one of them worked. So they had to put even more effort into it, I guess. Yeah, like,

I mean, I appreciate that they spent a lot more time on that idea, and it was a cool way to reuse that system in a different and fun way. And I believe, would Tales of Monkey Island have its own insult for sort of funding system, too? Oh, I don't remember.

I think there was. It's been 10 years for me, but I think there was. But the one in escape is when I didn't get to and I'm speaking out of ignorance, but nobody likes it. And in fact, that's the reason people say don't play the game. It's called monkey combat. Oh, oh, God, yeah. Sort of like mortal combat, but yeah.

The sword fighting thing is great. Like I said earlier, there are a few maze puzzles in the game. They're very straightforward, but they're still like, again, a remnant of past adventure game. So the first maze puzzle, basically, you buy a map to the forest, but it's actually a dance step routine

and you just follow like, left, right, down. You basically just look at the dance steps to find your way through the forest. It's pretty straightforward. And the other maze at the end of the game is you're holding a navigator's head and the way his head points is the way you should go and that's fairly simple too but they do feel like

a little padded out a little bit unnecessary but the good thing is like because it's a wrong Gilbert game he was very much thinking about the player's time and how convenient he wanted to be so like you go through a maze to find the sword master and once you find her you can just

go immediately right to her without going through the maze again I don't think a Sierra game would have you have that shortcut for you Oh God, yeah, if it was in a Sierra game You have to go through the whole thing again And also there'd be like chasms You have to cross over You can click on the right steps

One by one Avoid the snakes Yeah I mean there are so many time-saving things in the game Of course it will only get better over time But I like how in certain scenes Like well this scene is over And now Guybrush has to be back in town

Often they will just fade into the town Like just cut to town And the guybrush is there Like if something needs to happen Not like well first you have to walk to the town And then to the right area Guybrush They just like, oh, for the sake of simplicity and time, now that you're done talking to this character, Guy Brush needs to be back in town for something to happen, so here he is in town again. Or here he is at this location. In a kind of cinematic way, they know where to cut and what to trim. They especially time skip a lot when you actually reach Monkey Island.

Yes, yeah. Thank God, because walking around that map can take forever sometimes or roaring around. That is something they would definitely, so that's another, I feel like, remnant of a past adventure game, and that this game kind of takes its time in a way that even the second game wouldn't. And, yeah, when you actually get to Monkey Island, you are a tiny little dot of pixels on this huge map with many portions, and it takes so long to get around. In a way, and we can talk about the graphics next, in a way I could see because, you know, Lucasarched adventure games were sort of boutique items. They were graphical showcases and often audio showcases of their time.

and it kind of astounded me, especially in the beginning like, it takes so long to walk through the town but it was for the sake of like, look at how nice this seascape looks, look at how this town looks, look at how nice this city block looks we made. They were very much just showing off

the graphics, so you often have to walk through a lot of landscape to get to where you're going. Even in the second game that we trimmed down drastically, I don't think they make you walk through as much aimless territory as they do in this first game. Which is good because the second game is so much longer. it is much much bigger. There's so many more locations. Yes. But I mean, you've just played it. It takes so long to walk through the town to get out of the town. It takes so long to walk through it. Yes. And I always use that little shortcut. It's not short enough. It just saves you like two seconds. It does. But it's just like, boy, I might as well not even bother.

Um, before we go into the graphics, though, I want to talk about a few more of the jokes, especially the stump work. Yeah, please go on. Yeah, stump joke is super infamous. So, like, when you're going through that forest map, at one point you come across a stump and you examine it and garbage is like wow there's like a whole series of catacombs in there and we try to enter it it asked for it asks you to enter disk number 22 so this is a very very outdated joke like this is back when you needed all those discs to play the game like when you went to the next section of a game you had to like swap out the disc and so like when it prompted you like there is no disc 22 and so the whole joke is that there's an entire section that you can't access because you don't have the disc for it. But a lot of people thought it was real and they would like call the the hint line asking about it. That's right. And I think there's even a joke about that in Thimbleweed Park. Actually, the box edition of Thimblewee Park, which you can get at Fangarek.com, by the way, which I did the artwork for, that comes with disc 22. That's awesome. Yeah. And I believe

it's an actual disc though. Yeah. And I think in the second game, you actually call the hint line. Yes. And they're like, the person on the other end is like, please stop calling me about the stump. That's right. Yeah. They take it with a joke. entirely. They were too clever. Yeah, so like a fourth wall breaking humor like that was a staple of this series. And you said you didn't like the buying the

ship puzzle, if you could even call it a puzzle. I can explain that in that the one puzzle I think is bad in that you're definitely not given in the information you need and you think you're doing something wrong, but you're not really is, so you need to buy a ship from Stan. You only have so much money but he won't accept

anything less than a certain amount. So the solution to the puzzle is basically wearing him down by saying no to all of his offers. I think there's other things you have to do, but it's just never clear when it's okay to buy the ship. Like, it makes you feel like, am I doing the right thing? Am I saying the right thing? Do I need to give him something? Do I need

to find more money? I feel like you're not signaled enough about that puzzle to let you know if you're on the right path. Because it just is like a never-ending loop of dialogue and you're like, well, he's out of dialogue, but he's restarting. What do I do? I feel like... I mean, I know what to do at that point, but I want to see what is a fastest way to finish that section. There's a lot of talking.

Yeah, I looked it up actually to see what other people like said, because that is a puzzle I'm sure most people get stuck on. So I looked it up online and so many people came up with different solutions for it. It's like, yeah, of course you need to turn down all the extras first, but after that it's like, what do they do? And a lot of people mistakenly think you have to say, actually this may not be the shit for me after all and like start

walking away at which point Stan will try to convince you to come back. And he does lower the price after that, but that's not necessary. Like, after he turned out all the extras, what you've got to do is you got to make him an offer and start low, like low ball him, like 3,000, and then go up to 4,000, and then 5,000, which is like the most you can offer him. And then he'll accept. You don't have to walk away at any point.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the joke is, because he has a used car salesman type, is that you as Guy Bruch have to be as tedious as he is. That's sort of the joke. Like, you have to go through every option with him and wear him down because he's he's trying to wear you down. It's just not really signaled well enough. And maybe they include a few lines of dialogue. Like, you need to exhaust him. You need to wear him down. But I forgot that is the point of that scene. And I was just like, man, this takes forever. I just

want my ship and I want to get out of here. But there is so much dialogue to go through. That's, that's like the one tiny part of this game that I feel like could have been tweaked a little bit. Speaking of Stan, by the way, I feel like he's never done quite right in any games beyond the second game. I think everyone has a different interpretation of how he moves and looks and sounds. So he varies wildly throughout the games and I don't like how it was in Chris and Mikey

Island. Like, since I grew up with the first two games, Chrisomike Island, Stan felt super off to me. Like, what did you think when you play the third game first and then went back to play the other two games? I don't, like, I don't really remember what my take was. I just remember people online saying they didn't like Stan. And

going back and seeing his animations in the first two games, I felt like this voice wouldn't work for this Sprite version of Stan. I get what they were going for in the third game, the low slow voice, but I feel like he should be more high-pitched energetic

and more like a Phil Hartman type. Yeah, I was thinking that Lionel Hutz that sort of voice should be the perfect one, like a confident but sort of weasily voice. He's too much of like, I'm an announcer kind of guy. Like it doesn't really, it's too slow, especially when he has a lot of dialogue to read. When you play it

without the voice acting, the first two games, the text coming out of him, does come out really fast. That's why I always pictured him as being fast-talking. Also, like, his wildly swinging arms. Yeah, all the gesticulating he's doing. Tales of Monkey Island got him right, I felt. He's the closest to how I imagine Stan to be like.

It's just a hard character to portray in 3D and with a voice. I feel like he's perfect in these silent 2D games, but he's too up to interpretation for, like, a 3D model and a voice actor. I do appreciate how they tend to keep the print on his coat the same and that it doesn't move. It stays fixed in reality, but he moves. Yeah, I think Stan is from a different reality. Yeah, yeah. I like how that's intentional, too.

It's not just like, oh, we couldn't make it work. They could definitely make it work, but he's like this, I don't know, lovecraftian creature or something. Who knows? Oh, one more puzzle I wanted to go over. Oh, sorry, more on Stan? Yeah, I mean, like at one point you walk away from him and then he comes back to you. Yes. Like, from an entirely different direction.

He used, like, the Pac-Man Warp Zone to find you. Yeah, that actually scared me the first time. One more puzzle I want to talk about is sort of an automatic puzzle that I feel is definitely Ron Gilbert making fun of Sierra Adventure Games and maybe even some of his past work where at a certain point, you break into the governor's mansion and you have to go kind of behind the scenes. You go behind the wall that the player sees. And all of this crazy stuff happens.

All these, you pick up all of these crazy items, you use them on crazy things. the verbs are all different and the entire time you have no control the game is just sort of running itself and I feel like everything that's happening behind the scenes are all the puzzles you would see in a regular adventure game like give wax lips to yak

use the can of gopher repellent on the horde of gophers like he knew how comes out of the wall and takes a manual style from a bookshelf and he's like I'll be needed this it's like what's going on back there

yeah and I feel like even things like the so the chicken so the rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle as a staple of the series. And that even in 1990 was a commentary on how ridiculous adventure game puzzles were. Like, why would this exist? It only has one use.

Why is it here? Why do I need to pick it up? Even this early in the genre, which I guess the genre was around for 10 years, they could parody it. And the people playing these games were aware of what they were making fun of. Like, this ridiculous item,

as useless as it seems, you should pick it up because it will have one use and you will need that one use to progress. You know what I appreciate about the, part behind the wall is once you get, or once Guy Brish picks up all those items on his own, he doesn't keep them afterwards, which is great. That is so nice, yeah. Yeah.

Because otherwise, like, I think a lesser game would have kept those in the inventory. There are some great ways the game gets rid of all of your red herrings, except for the red herring and all of the items that you don't need, like certain things. A literal red herring. That is an important plot item you need to get past a bridge, but the game does... I didn't understand that, by the way. I didn't know the meaning of red herring either when I was a kid. But there are certain things the game does through the plot that's like, well, Guy Brush lost all his items or Guy Brush had to get rid of all these items.

And Maniac Mansion, you can pick up everything. And I would say 30% of the items have no use. It's just, oh, I could pick up the decaying turkey on the table. There's no point, but I can have it in my inventory. And by the end of the game, you have like one thing in your inventory and that's it. Basically, yeah. And that's the game from you. You don't need anything else.

That's all you need. And that's great. It kind of speeds it up. Yeah, yeah. It like it limits the amount of things you can use to interact with, Chuck at the end in order to win the game. It's like, you've made it this far. We want you to beat the game. We don't want you to get stuck here. So here is the one item you need. It's right in front of you. Now use it. Like, I really like how that was designed. One other puzzle I like

is the directions to Monkey Island. I think that's something people get stuck on a lot too. Which one is that again? That's where you get a list of ingredients that you need to make a suit that will then cast a spell to take you to the Monkey Island. That's true. Yes. So the second chapter is really just a kind of a bottle. episode where you were on a ship with about five screens and you have a bunch of stuff to pick up, but you have to find all of the ingredients for this recipe. And it's interesting in that all of the things you can pick up sort of apply to what's needed in that recipe. Yeah, you can't find the exact ingredients, so you kind of have to improvise, which is something that took me a while to

realize. Yeah, like it needs brimstone, but you don't have brimstone so you use gunpowder instead you find gunpowder in the cannon. And you need all of these like weird, uh, food additives so you actually have to add cereal to the which is cap and crunch yes in the in the old 2d version it's literally just a parody drawing of captain crunch but they make things less litigious you know what though uh in the special edition

I did notice that when he opens a cabinet yeah the covers of the boxes are totally different but once you get that in your inventory it's cap and crunch okay yeah there's feels like it was a last minute change there are weird about to change the inventory graphic I think so there are weird like copy written characters in the game like in the in the chef kitchen, there's a picture of the Pillsbury doughboy on the wall. Oh, yeah. And things like

that. They were much looser with what they could get away with in 1990. There were tons of references in this game. Mostly Star Wars and Indiana Jones, though. Not of which I understood. Yeah, I still barely understand them. But now I know what they are. It's like, oh, yeah, leather brackets is Indiana Jones. So there we go. Before we go, though, I want to talk about the graphics and the music. So we haven't groused too much about the 2009 version, but I feel like What I appreciate the most about the old version of the game is that this was created pixel by pixel. And I appreciate the painstaking nature of someone creating sprite art and having to convey all of this emotion and atmosphere and information with very tiny sprites and not a lot of memory.

And Nina, I know that you in the past, along with all of your traditional art, you have also made sprite art. You can probably speak to how difficult that is and the limitations in how much meaning needs to be conveyed with little tiny squares in just the right areas. Yeah, it's not easy. And I especially appreciate the color design in this game, too. Especially since the first half of the game when you're on Malay Island, where it's constantly 10 o'clock. It's always nighttime. But they convey that so well. And I think nighttime scenes are some of the hardest to color. Yes. You can't make everything completely black or dark. You have to play with the values a lot. I imagine it was especially hard when there were only 16 colors available to them. Yeah, I need to go back and look at that version again because they had to make it work. I really want to see. what they did. But yeah, even with only 256 colors on the screen, the nighttime

scenes are so gorgeous and just evoke a lot of emotion and feeling in me. And I love seeing them. And we can talk about the special edition now. We haven't talked about it much, but I feel like so the second special edition for Monkey Island 2 is much better in a lot

of ways, but the art in the special edition for this one, I feel like there's not really a very consistent style and also it does feel super rushed. And Yeah. I can kind of feel the pains of the artist looking at the artwork in this special edition. Because like, like you said, it just feels very rushed and it feels like they just were not given it enough time to do all these backgrounds. And beyond that, though, like, I don't like how Gibrish looks especially with a weird undercut haircut haircut.

Yeah. He's... And the close-ups, too. The close-ups are just... They're not really a consistent style either. They're like, so Monkey Island Three, either, whether you like that style or not, it's a very consistent style. They're all drawn in a very consistent way. In the special edition, it feels like they're reaching towards the style of three, but they don't quite know what they want to do. So every character just looks sort of like a mutton's or like Muppity almost. It's weird.

Yeah, and I'm personally not a big fan of the style of Currisomey Island. I love it. I know you love it, but I am not a fan because I grew up with the first two games, which had the more realistic versions, like in the cover art. And then when you see the close-ups of the characters, it's more realistic and I really like that and then to have that change

to the super cartoony stylized look of Chrisamika Island like it was just a bit too jarring for me I could see what they were doing these games I don't know I wasn't into it I can understand coming to it after

the first two games they could turn you off but I feel like it was very smart in that so day of the tentacle the game they would make in 1993 it was really riffing on Warner Brothers shorts of the 50s and 60s in that style

and I feel like Curse of Monkey Island was sort of riffing on the 90s cartoon style of the time. Like, everything is slightly warped. Characters have weird proportions like, sort of like Claskey Chupo, Rocco's Modern Life, like, well-designed ugliness is what I'll call it, where like all the doors are like warped and just like the perspective

is weird. I feel like they were kind of riffing on the cartoons that were surrounding that game at the time. One thing that bug me the most is I just love how quiet and somber the village looks when you first walk in there at the beginning of the game and it just seems empty because no one's out there pirating. But in a special edition, they put all these ships in the background to make it more detailed, but it just feels off. I feel like they shouldn't be there. Yeah, it should be a

melancholy, again, sort of like a tourist trap that's outlived its life. And it just sort of, you know, going through the emotions or going through the echoes of what it once was. And the fact that you see little ships in the background, just like, well, this is a different story you're trying to tell. This is a different tone for this. And I think I figure out why I like the look of the for his two games compared to the cartoonier look of the third game and beyond. I love how it looks kind of serious, but then when you actually talk to the characters, it turns out their goofy cartoon characters, just like that contrast. Yeah, yeah.

But then the special edition, they look cartoony and goofy. Yeah. So you never kick them seriously to begin with. I can see that in that, in the original version, they're portrayed in realistic proportions. They're cartoony in some ways, but they do look like dangerous, dirty pirates. But then when you talk to them, they're lovable, they're fun. Yeah. I can see how, yeah, the goofier design sort of give away the intent of the game a little too much. And growing up, I always liked live-action sitcoms more than cartoons.

I was the other way around. Yeah. I'm a cartoon boy. It's why I do all those podcasts. So naturally, I will enjoy Data Tentical and Curse Monkey Island. And What a Cartoon podcast. Yes, it's an amazing cartoon podcast. It happens to be named What a Cartoon. Yes, the graphics are really good. I want to talk about the music briefly in that it's

It's not just Michael Land. I thought it was just Michael Land. There's like three other composers, and only one of which went on to do other things. But Michael Land is the musician most associated with this property, and he wrote the Immortal Monkey Island theme, which has been remixed countless times throughout the series, and every time I hear it, it gives me goosebumps.

It's such a good theme. Yeah, I would say it's the only piece of music that gives me chills every time I hear it, especially when it's overlaid on top of the opening shot of Miley Island. It's just beautiful. it's an amazing piece of art and the music is perfect for it yeah the music so in this game um there's not a lot of music compared to the wall-to-wall music you would hear in future lucas arts games because sound cards which you would need to play specialized audio on your computer were still a boutique

item and they would continue to be for a few more years but it would not be until monkey island two that they would focus on sound design and music as one of the features for this very you know sophisticated and very well-designed piece you could buy for your computer to show it off. In Monkey Island One, they weren't quite there yet. There's still quite a bit of music, but it's not the wall-to-wall music you would hear in two. Like, Two has a very long soundtrack,

and the technology that goes into the making of that soundtrack, we'll get into that in that episode, but it was the only time they focused on it that deeply. They really had an intent with that game to show off the music. The iMuse system, interactive music streaming engine. Yeah, I love the soundtracks of both of these games. So much. And the second game,

yeah, you're right. It has more music. And I love how, like, when you're in Woodtick and you go into the different buildings, the music changes every so slightly and the transition is like perfect. Yeah, yeah. And it's not just trained. It's not just a changing instrumentation. It's moving into like a new suite of that song or a new version of that song. But the transition that makes is organic. So compared to that, yeah, the music in the first game does feel a little more primitive.

Yeah. Yeah. And to be fair, no other LucasArts. games would be that advance in terms of music. I actually asked Ron Gilbert why future games weren't that advance in terms of how they were implementing music. And he said, we put all that work in a Monkey Island too and no one noticed. Really? No one noticed? Yes. Only in retrospect do I see people writing about it. But it was just sort of take, I mean, it was done so well that it was taken for granted. I definitely noticed. Like, I would kind of walk in and out of buildings just to hear that transition. People might have noticed, but they might not have realized how much work that took. But I also studied music when I was younger

So maybe that's why I had more of an ear for it People probably thought Oh the little men inside my computer That played music Played it better this time need They didn't think about Michael land Building an engine

That would organically transition Between songs Like I feel like Now we are more Now everyone knows more about tech I feel like we can appreciate it more Something else the special edition did That I wasn't fond of

Was putting a bunch of background noise In there Yes Yeah If you walk to a scumb bar It sounds like there's 50 people in there when there's only like, I don't know, like, five or six, yeah.

It just felt unnecessary. I was like, I want to hear the music more, pipe down. So before we go, we're talking about the special edition briefly. I do want to touch upon the voice acting. So, of course, in the special edition, the 2009 edition, Dominic Armato returns as Guy Bruch's Threepwood, and he does a very good job. He's great.

He is Guy Brish. He really is Guy Brush. And I feel like a lot of the lines in one and two, again, because Guy Bruch is so up to the player's decision, what kind of character he will be, it is weird to hear all of those lines voice acted and sometimes there's an intentionality behind them that the actor does

that I didn't read initially. Yeah, I think the voice acting is fine in these special editions of the first two games but I like playing, I prefer playing it without them because I've played the games a billion times before the special edition came out so I had my versions of the voices

and the way the lines were delivered in my head and when they didn't match up with the voice acting it was just too jarring for me Yeah and the lines are all great and funny but not necessarily written to be read by an actor and while I was playing with the voice acting on I noticed the actors making different choices like well I'm going to omit this word

or I'm going to add this word so I feel like in the booth maybe the director and the actors were like well it would sound better if I changed Ann to butt or something like that Yeah you know what So Cam Clark played Meat Hook and Cam Clark is a veteran voice actor

I feel like he voice acted it too much when he played Meathook Oh, really? Yeah, he just added way too much to his voice acting Like lots of laughing In between lines There's one part where Meathook just goes

Oh, you, Captain, ha ha ha ha And there's only four ha's in the line But Cam Clark just keeps laughing forever That is true He lasts for like 10 seconds So I just wanted to keep playing the game I was like, you can grab the top I mean it's up to the actor's interpretation

what ha ha ha ha means, I guess, when you're voice acting. I felt like maybe the director of thought was like, well, we can't cut this out because he's doing such a good job. But I was just getting impatient. You pay Cam Clark to ham it up. Liquid Snake himself, Leonardo. Like, he is a very hammy, fun voice actor.

Yeah, and Meathook doesn't have that many lines, so maybe he just wanted to make the most of it. Yeah, I can see that. But still, yeah, I just couldn't get used to the voice acting. One nice thing I will say about the voice acting, though, is I love how during the insult sword fighting if Guy Britch gave the wrong answer, he would deliver it in a different way. So when you got the right comeback, he says it with confidence.

If he chose a wrong comeback, he would say with a lot of uncertainty. I thought that was cool how they took the time to do two different takes for each insult comeback. That is cool, yeah. And it also lets the player know up front immediately, like, you got it wrong. Instead of having to wait to find out you got it wrong, like just hearing Guy Bruch deliver it less confidently tells you like, okay, that was the wrong choice. Yeah, so I appreciated that bit of effort they put in there. So anything else you want to cover, I mean, we talked plenty about this game. I will say, again, Special Edition has its problems, but it is the only legal way to play the game now.

And you can obviously play it in its original form by pressing F10 on your keyboard and just switching back to the original graphics. And it still holds up. It's still very good. There's a hint system now in case you are new to adventure games. This is a very good place to start. If you are new, you can see what you've been missing out on. And, of course, like me, you can go back in time and play all of the entire catalog. and I believe those are all readily available

although there is no special edition of Sam and Max yet it is available to play on good old games I really want a special edition version of that me too yeah you could do it as well as they did the special edition data tentacle I'd be happy yeah yeah and full throttle I feel like because Sam and Max is owned by Steve Purcell it is more of a hoop to jump through and now there are no hoops the hoops have been dismantled

for any of these projects SemmaX is often referenced in LucasArts games, including this one. Yes, but not in the special edition graphics. It's the tentacle instead. Well, they keep, it's still there in the classic mode, but they change it to the tentacle. Yeah. Special edition graphics for some reason. I feel like they would need a sign-off and they didn't have time or just they wanted to play it safe.

But it still exists in the original version, and it says in the credits, Sam-Max appear courtesy of C of Purcell, so it's cool. I guess Steve Purcell is too busy being successful at Pixar. I'm sure he'd be okay with it. it, but maybe the producers were like, we don't want a Disney guy suing us, not knowing that he'd be perfectly fine with it. I'm sure he'd be fine with it. Yeah, I encourage everyone to play. I think everyone should play at least once. Oh, I want to plug a YouTube video I really like put up by Retro Ahoy. Okay. They just talked for like nearly two hours about how good the game design is in this first game. So I recommend checking that out. Yes, I purposely didn't

watch it before this because I didn't want to accidentally steal any opinions or ideas. But I I did watch part of it, and it is very good. But I'll go back now after this recording and watch it all and see... A bit too much Lechukchuk's Revenge bashing in there for my taste. Oh, no. They have valid points. So watch that. Cool.

Well, I mean, yeah, so the Monkey Island series, we're going to cover all of it throughout the course of this informal miniseries. It won't be every Friday episode I do. It'll happen, you know, on and off. It's whenever I can get good guests. And, you know, obviously is a very good guest for this game. But, yeah, the Monkey Island series... Even more to say it, but the second game.

Ooh, excellent. So I might get you for that one, too. But yeah, the series would continue, like, on and off for about 20 years. It's been MIA since the 20th anniversary, because in 2009, there was obviously the first remake that we just talked about, but also Tales of Monkey Island, which is a very good collection of telltale RIP adventure games that were overseen by Ron Gilbert. Those are all very good. And I really want to replay those and talk about those.

But everything we've talked about is. available and there is no shortage of ways to check out Monkey Island stuff in general. So Nina, you're a special guest for this episode. Thank you so much for giving us your time or giving me your time. I speak in the Royal. I speak in the Royal We know. I feel like I'm that self-important. But you do a lot of stuff. You've got books out. You've got your own website where you sell merch. You make merch for fan gamer. Please plug everything that you do here and I wholeheartedly support it all. Thank you. Well, you can find me on Twitter at Space Coyoro. That's Space Coyote with an L at the end instead of an E.

You can go to spacecoyote.com to see all my stuff. You can go to shop.spacoyote.com if you want to buy my prints and pins. And if you want to see my video game merchandise, go to fangamer.com, collection, sort by artists, and click on Space Coyote. And I also did an award-winning comic called Sparks, published by Spocklastic, written by my friend Ian Boothby, which is about two cats who dress as a dog to save people. And I just drafted up work on the second book, which will be more details about that will be coming soon. But yeah. Ooh, I can't wait. Yeah.

Sparks is great. Please check out Nina's stuff. But as for us, if you want to support Retronauts and get every episode of this show one week ahead of time and at free, please go to patreon.com slash Retronaut. And for the low price of $3 a month, you can get just that and support the show. This show is entirely fan-supported. And it's because of all you listeners out there that we are able to do what we do. You guys pay for our hosting spaces. You pay for our travel, our lodging, our equipment, and so, so many more things that go into hosting and producing a podcast. We appreciate it. If you want to help out the show, once again,

that is patreon.com slash retronauts. So I have been your host for this one, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I have other podcasts, by the way, that are not related to video games, but they're still related to old things. Those are Talking Simpsons. That's a chronological exploration of the Simpsons.

And what a cartoon where we look at a different episode from a different cartoon every week. And Nina has been on several episodes of both of those. So if you like Nina on this podcast, please check out our appearances on that one. She did a very good job talking about things. like Clone High and the Frasier episode of the Simpsons and other things. So Nina will be back on those shows as well.

But if you want to support those shows, we have a ton of bonus podcast at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Lots of miniseries are behind the $5 paywall, including things like Talking Futurama, Talking Critic and Talk King of the Hill. And we have a new miniseries coming up this fall for $5 patrons. If you want to check that stuff out, that is at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

That's all for us this week. you on Monday for a brand new episode. Thanks for listening. Thank you.