A tale of Monkey Island Comments by Robert Purchese

Ooh, 7th July nice. I hope this turns out good!

Oh EG I think something is broken on Eurogamers Wii wanted list...

"Add REVOLUTION version to Most Wanted List"

What year is this? Who is the president?!

Indy.

Apart from the fact that Guybrush looks pants all i want to know is will Murray be in this? If not, no sale!

Tip-top interview there. Cheers for that!

7th July seems soooooo long away...

loom \o/

How appropriate. You fight like a cow.

It is exciting to see that Guybrush and Lechuck is coming back.

But what is it with the rendering? The characters look worse than the previous versions.

Escape from Monkey Island

They've really messed up the art direction; what the hell are they doing, why not make it more interesting, like TF2 or Wind Waker? I'd even prefer some hybrid 2D/ 3D with a nod back to Monkey Island 1 & 2 over this homogenised 3D blandness...

I really don't like the style of the characters, either. It doesn't look like an artistic reduction, it just looks like really old tech.

"Eurogamer: Do you like the new Indiana Jones film?

Dave Grossman: I would put it at number three in the set of four."

Ugh. That is just wrong.

Guybrush looks weird. I'm just not sold on the art-style at all.
I enjoyed Sam and Max though, so it should be well worth playing.

Sorry, but the graphical style is utter pants.

Was on the fence pre-ordering it and hoped for some solid preview.
However after that interview I just jumped and ordered.
US money is not worth much these days anyways. ;)

Dave Grossman: Sure. It's set a couple of years after Escape from Monkey Island. Guybrush is oming in to save the day, thwart Le Chuck's plans and rescue Elaine.

You might want to fix the spelling that is in bold

I wish this game was not 3D.

Don't like the art direction (all their games look the same), don't like the fact that the original creators were so far removed from it (legal mumbo jumbo should be tossed aside for something like this), and also the fact that he described it as 'not the old monkey island' doesn't bode too well. We need a Mega Man 9 kinda thing, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

don't like the fact that the original creators were so far removed from it

Dave Grossman is one of them.

Dave Grossman sounds a bit uninterested in all this. "Yeah, we bought the license... Sure, maybe there's some pressure from the fans, I dunno... Yep, Ron popped by and did something I guess."

You guys do realise that these screenshots are unfinished, don't you? Most of them were released at E3 and given the way Telltale work they polish the game's visuals right up to the release date. A lot of these scenes still have lighting and shaders to be added to make the colour balance much less weird and the textures pop a bit more.

I'm not just guessing - I've been told this by people on the team. But even then, anyone who thinks Escape from Monkey Island looks better is really just lying to themselves.

Consider me one of the 'haters' of the art style.

The new 'escape from monkey island' on the other hand looks lush.

I am not bothered about the art style, my main worry is that you are not going to get much choice in where you go. No expansive areas such as the 3 islands on monkey island 2. But both the Sam and Max series where great and were really well written so i am hoping this can live up to expectations.

"also the fact that he described it as 'not the old monkey island' doesn't bode too well."

He said that in reference to one of the episodes, and he was just talking about structural stuff, really, if you read that whole thing. It's easy to nitpick when you take quotes out of context; I could show you dozens more quotes from the team that suggest this really is the Monkey Island we know and love.

I think perhaps my greatest concern based on the screenshots is that it really does look like a Monkey Island reskin of the standard Telltale formula, which is getting a little stale by now to be honest. To the best of my knowledge, they've never made anything approaching the quality of the original Escape From Monkey Island in terms of writing, puzzles or scale.

Brave of them to have a go though, I await the results with interest.

I quite like the graphical style, he's instantly recognisable as Guybrush. The only problem I see is that the shots look a little "washed out" at the moment.

Can't wait.

Waiting to see on this one, I got a little bored with Sam and Max in season two as it all became more of the same.

I'm pretty sure a monkey is behind the art direction. Could this game look any worse?

I'd kill for another MI game but wow... this is just pants.

Looking at the designs for Guybrush and LeChuck, they look like they have been taken straight from MI2 (Guy has the dress and even the beard, while LeChuck seems to have returned to zombie mode). I wonder why they did that. Maybe they recognize the fact that many found the second game to be the best one... but still, does it make sense for these two charas to return to their old designs?

Malek86 -

You're not far off, but actually what has been said is that they were aiming for a style that fell somewhere between Monkey Island 2 and CMI, which I think describes the new Guybrush rather well.

Also, there really is no pleasing some people is there? A new monkey island game for the first time in nearly 10 years and all they can do is pick away at some in development screenshots.

There's one other thing that I think is worth mentioning, something I was told by someone on the team, that they think the screens and video released so far have not really shown off just how good the character acting is in the full game and how good the whole thing will look in motion. Given that we're dealing with a very limited number of unfinished screens and footage (let alone having heard none of Michael Land's new music which is so central to MI's over all aesthetic appeal) I really would like to see people reserve judgement because I've got a feeling most people will end up pleasantly surprised.

It's definitely lost a lot of it's charm with the switch to this 3D style. Monkey Island was one of those games that managed to fit a lot of character into every single pixel on-screen.
Still, fingers crossed it's good.

will it have a map screen? i love map screens... do any of the new sam and max games have a map screen?

I really look forward to this. Having cliffhangers in each episode is awesome to make you thirsty for more.

DADHAT: The Sam and Max episodes do not have map screens but I am reliably informed that they're back for Tales of Monkey Island.

maybe that means sword fighting will return.

cracking stuff. can't wait!

damn it, why did i go and sell my PC last year!?!?

Somehow it sounds like they're going to get this horribly wrong :(

Inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean films? Ugh. Guy had better not be 'Jack Sparrow' quirky.

@capa26

No, no, no. The original Monkey Island game was partially inspired by the Pirates of the Carribean RIDE at Disney, which has been around for years.

I'm looking forward to this, sounds great. I've been a big Monkey Island fan ever since I played the first game on the Amiga many, many years ago. It's one of the funniest games ever.

I've bought both Sam & Max and Wallace & Gromit from XBLA and although they're great games, they don't exactly endear themselves to the Xbox 360 controller and the conversions have nasty framerate issues and hitches. I think I'm definitely going to buy future Telltale Games adventures on my PC, IMO the mouse and keyboard are far more suited to these kind of games than a controller.

I don't understand the criticisms about the art style of Tales of Monkey Island, I think it looks great myself, very cartoony. Guybrush Threepwood is very reminiscent of the tall, thin caricature used in the third game, Curse of Monkey Island, so I'm cool with it. Guybrush has had a different design in every game he's appeared in anyway although the basic look has remained the same.

@Insofox

Which is fine up to the point where Monkey Island was inspired by the ride. But, that isn't what Grossman is talking about... he's saying that elements of the film series have seeped into their subconscious during the production of this new retooled Monkey Island. I just hope the Johnny Depp-isms of the films haven't influenced any changes to Guybrush's character... or anyone else for that matter.

Capa26: I wouldn't read too much into that; all he is saying is that, when you think about, Guybrush does some pretty nasty stuff, like the monocle stealing (among many other items), nailing Stan into a coffin, etc. etc - there's definitely that carefree amoral side to him, as well as the naive wanderlust. I haven't seen anything to suggest a big change in the established characters.

2D please.

Insofox: Agreed.

What will draw most people back to Monkey Island (much like with Sam and Max) is maintaining the same character traits. While I understand people's concerns with the art direction I'm personally more focused on hoping they nail the idiosyncrasies of the characters. For me this will stand or fall on the comedy rather than the gameplay or anything else.

@InsoFox "You guys do realise that these screenshots are unfinished, don't you?"

You're either mocking everybody here or if you're so naive to believe the huge pile of what you just said... man, the art style is exactly the same as in the other Telltale episodes, what makes you think they'll go around and give it a huge remake between today and the launch date? I would even go and say the first episode is quite finished too.

Because Telltale has so many games published now and all of them without delays, it means they rigorously follow a series of steps, and you should know that the first or among the first ones is establishing the art style. They'll never "finish the screenshots" any more as you say.

It looks crap and I wish it was either very polished 3D like Street Fighter 4 is, or good old cartoon fun like the Monkey Island remake will be (but with a bit more polish :D).

@the_mtfr

As it happens, I know a few members of telltale casually, and I've heard them talking off the record about it on several occasions, so it's not as if I'm just plucking this information out of my arse.

But even if I hadn't spoken to them about it, do you seriously believe that the game when finally released will have one shot that looks like this: http://files.telltalegames.com/monkeyisl... and the next that looks like this: http://files.telltalegames.com/monkeyisl... ?

It's pretty obvious that the screenshots so far released show scenes in various levels of completeness, especially because in the first shot the lighting colour balance and textures look miles better than in the second shot.

I was told, very specifically, that the goal for the final release was to have the game look one more layer of polish better than that first screenshot throughout. Maybe you don't believe that, and that's up to you, but don't talk to me as if I have no idea what I'm talking about.

For those that are worried about how Telltale will handle it, I'd recommend checking out their Sam & Max games, which was also a beloved point and click franchise that they took over, and they handled that brilliantly. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the art direction either, but it does resemble the artwork for the games, so I can at least see what they were going for, and I have faith the games will be just as funny and fun to play as the original three (I'm aware that there's four).

I also like that they went back to Guybrush's design from the second game, it never made much sense to me that he lost his captain coat and his beard for the later ones, I always thought he looked much cooler with them.

artwork = epic fail

the original MI2 looks better than this

2D please.

@InsoFox, it doesn't matter if they'll go back and do some tweaking. You can't convince me that 2 weeks before launch they'll do an art rehaul, including changing the art style.

I've heard "the screenshots are not representative of the final game quality" many times before, so... whatever. I guess you're too naive, and I'm too pessimistic, let's see when the game comes out.

@the_mtfr

And when the hell did I say that the graphics would be a complete change in style? Of course they won't be. But I and a lot of other people don't happen to think that the style is bad at all - apart from being in 3D, it's kinda similar in architecture/style to the 3rd game's graphics.

Anyway, here is a direct quote from Mike Stemmle, one of the lead designers:

"One of the blessings and curses of the Telltale “Insanely Rapid Production Process” (that’s IRPP™) is the fact that we’re constantly tweaking the visuals until the very last moment. For example, the little bits of the season prologue that we leaked at E3, as cool as they were, now look approximately 9500x cooler a mere three weeks later. I mean, they’re freaking gorgeous."

In other words, WAIT.