Ron Gilbert's Return to Monkey Island

Denzil Quixode · Mon 04/04/2022 16:23:56

https://returntomonkeyisland.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sahskKAxSCY

Babar · Mon 04/04/2022 17:38:09

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Aaa....I'm not a fan of the art style. I don't see Mark Ferrari's name anywhere.

(and it's not even a heart-ripping April 1st update!)

stu · Mon 04/04/2022 18:29:25

edit:

Interesting it's been called a follow up to LeChuck's Revenge yet still includes Murray. Is Ron taking all the bits he liked from CMI, then ignoring its existence?

I know CMI isn't a RG game, but I still feel it earned a place in the "proper" line-up. Escape from MI and Tales of MI I don't include in that.

Retro Wolf · Mon 04/04/2022 18:46:59

Awesome!

Danvzare · Mon 04/04/2022 20:21:35

I honestly can't believe it's finally happening.
Is it going to be the next game in the overall series, or is it a game that takes place between the 2nd and 3rd game, or is it a partial reboot like some of those Halloween moves (particularly Halloween H20)?
Whatever the case, it should be in good hands with Devolver Digital.

Quote from: stu on Mon 04/04/2022 18:29:25
I know CMI isn't a RG game, but I still feel it earned a place in the "proper" line-up. Escape from MI and Tales of MI I don't include in that.

Tales of Monkey Island was pretty decent! Sure it was simple in terms of puzzles. And the constantly reused character models was tiresome. But it was a fun game with a fun story. Definitely leagues better than Escape from Monkey Island.
Buuuuuuuuuuut if we're going to remove EMI from from the "proper" line-up, then of course you also have to remove TMI in the process, simply because it's a direct sequel to it.
CMI is an absolutely brilliant game though, and easily my favourite in the series, with MI2 taking a close second. (Sorry Ron.)

stu · Tue 05/04/2022 06:37:26

CMI is not out of canon apparently, which is nice.

https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/1511022135191384067

WiseFrog · Tue 05/04/2022 06:52:43

This is so cool I feel like a child again hahaha

I read that the Guybrush's voice will be the same as CMI, that's cool because I liked the voice

Quote from: Babar on Mon 04/04/2022 17:38:09

Aaa....I'm not a fan of the art style. I don't see Mark Ferrari's name anywhere.

(and it's not even a heart-ripping April 1st update!)

Well I saw that David Fox and Dave Grossman are working on this so it's cool

ukz530 · Tue 05/04/2022 07:29:10

Cool! I thought I couldn't play the New Monkey Island series for the rest of my life.

still can't believe this!

eri0o · Wed 06/04/2022 14:48:10

Hey, does anyone knows what software people use to make these smooth animations like in this trailer? I am curious if there's something that is kinda engine agnostic... Just for research purposes at the moment.

WHAM · Wed 06/04/2022 16:04:56

I feel pretty conflicted. The art style seems weird to me, and appears to take the style of the MI remakes and then exaggerate it even further. The fact the game is stated to also pick up in between the existing games, potentially retconning or just cutting out some of the old story (which may not have been perfect, but I still have warm memories of it, dammit!) strikes me as odd, too.

Still, always curious to see what happens when the old guard steps back up to pick up where they left off. So far I can't recall a single case where this has succeeded so far... (Phoenix Point, Star Citizen, Peter Molyneux's entire existence, Double Fine for an alarmingly long time)

Let's hope this one breaks the mould! Would be nice to see the three-headed monkey again.

Danvzare · Wed 06/04/2022 20:33:21

Quote from: WHAM on Wed 06/04/2022 16:04:56
I feel pretty conflicted. The art style seems weird to me, and appears to take the style of the MI remakes and then exaggerate it even further.

Meh, as long as they don't draw the games in the CalArts style, I'm fine with however they decide to make it look. But maybe that's just me. As long as it's got a good story and good gameplay, it doesn't matter what it looks like to me.

Quote from: WHAM on Wed 06/04/2022 16:04:56
Still, always curious to see what happens when the old guard steps back up to pick up where they left off. So far I can't recall a single case where this has succeeded so far... (Phoenix Point, Star Citizen, Peter Molyneux's entire existence, Double Fine for an alarmingly long time)

Well I mean, Thimbleweed Park was pretty decent, so there you go. A single case where that's succeeded.

And if you want a better case, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night only ever got praise.
If I sat here and thought about it long enough, I could probably come up with many more examples, especially if I included TV shows and movies.

Overall though, I think we need to keep things in perspective. This game isn't going to be as good as the Monkey Island games in our heads. It'll only be as good as the actual Monkey Island games. Because let's face it, we've probably all got rose-tinted glasses on over here.

WHAM · Thu 07/04/2022 10:46:44

Good point, and I really need to finally get to playing Thimbleweed Park. Heck, I might even make that my next stream game after I finish Tunic. Bloodstained I gave up on after a few hours, as it just got kind of boring.

Not all of these "old master returns to beloved franchise" projects are bad, but there are enough bad examples that I tend toward scepticism rather than optimism. Funny thing is I just recently played through MI1 and MI2 with a friend of mine. A lot still holds up nicely, though especially to non-native english speakers some of the puzzles can seem a bit confusing.

Danvzare · Thu 07/04/2022 20:08:25

Quote from: WHAM on Thu 07/04/2022 10:46:44
Not all of these "old master returns to beloved franchise" projects are bad, but there are enough bad examples that I tend toward scepticism rather than optimism. Funny thing is I just recently played through MI1 and MI2 with a friend of mine. A lot still holds up nicely, though especially to non-native english speakers some of the puzzles can seem a bit confusing.

That skepticism is definitely well earned. I can think of many more bad examples than good ones. But I suppose I'm an optimist.

Also agreed, MI1 and MI2 do still hold up. I mean, I should know. I may have played CoMI back when it first came out, but I didn't get to play MI1 and MI2 until around 2008.
To think, there used to be a time when you couldn't play the games you wanted unless you were fortunate enough to find a store that stocked them. Such a privileged time we live in now.

(It didn't help that I didn't know an MI1 and MI2 even existed back when I played CoMI.

)

LimpingFish · Fri 08/04/2022 00:41:17

Yeah, Thimbleweed Park was decent enough, The Cave and Deathspank less so. But I'm old and cynical, so I'm probably not the best person to comment. Whenever I see an original creator return to a series and say that they're going to ignore certain entries, most likely because they didn't work on them, it kind of rubs me the wrong way; kind of like Kojima poking fun at every Metal Gear he wasn't involved in (see Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes).

But...we shall see.

Ali · Fri 15/04/2022 17:36:03

Quote from: eri0o on Wed 06/04/2022 14:48:10
Hey, does anyone knows what software people use to make these smooth animations like in this trailer? I am curious if there's something that is kinda engine agnostic... Just for research purposes at the moment.

There's a range of skeleton-based animation software. Spine and the open source Dragonbones both plug into Unity (or similar). For pre-rendered skeleton animation, there's Moho, Adobe Animator, probably Toonboom and (increasingly) Blender. You might well be able to export 2D animations from Blender to your game engine of choice, I just don't know.

I'm a little frustrated by the RMI screenshots, the scenes are full of nice details but the overall effect is very... unrelaxing. It does feel pretty faithful to MI1... but I never particularly cared for the Melee Island art. That said, having seen some of the art director's other work, they are obviously talented. So I'll wait to see how it works in-game. I don't want to be a doomsayer or a fanboy.

eri0o · Mon 18/04/2022 13:58:38

More screenshots here: https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/ron-gilbert-dave-grossman-return-to-monkey-island

Babar · Wed 20/04/2022 14:21:10

I'm slightly assuaged by those screenshots that it isn't going the special editions' route, but while it is hard to make such a judgement from still images, I'm not really getting a Monkey Island vibe from screenshots like this:

ThatDude · Wed 20/04/2022 18:33:03

Not a fan of the "cubist" style honestly but as long as the story's good, I don't mind (I mean, I played MI on an amber Hercules). I'm mildly hyped, let's see how it pans out.

AndreasBlack · Wed 20/04/2022 19:02:15

If you can't get the game you want, you try to make it yourself with AGS (hint, it's me!).

The joke i said to an IRL friend some days ago apply here. Lucasarts did the same mistake in the late 90's. Didn't those guys learn anything? 3D graphics and point & click it was an failed experiment at best. Yes, Grim Fandango were so praised in magazines and bla bla, i never knew anybody personally that liked that game's graphics, or the game itself, neither Monkey Island 4 with their clunky keyboard movement controlling. Destroyed the genre. Since Ron Gilbert liked Monkey Island 3 i only wished he would have continued that art style for the new game, since it was fantastic! Imagine that handdrawn style! But with highresolution and no limitations as they still had back then! Well well....Back to uninspired "3D graphics" done by an Evil Tron Machine 3000 AI, i guess

.

To be fair i had the same feelings about Streets Of Rage 4's graphics but i ended up liking the game anyway, it's "just graphics".....
As for the gameplay itself i hope it will be a decent game, but Thimbleweed Park or something along the line of Day Of The Tentacle is where they should have stuck their guns imo totally 100% expert not at all humble opinion

.

But whatever floats Guybrush Boat, i guess.

Danvzare · Wed 20/04/2022 19:15:02

While I'm not a huge fan of the graphics myself, I do feel as though people are being a bit too judgmental on them.
They're just graphics, and hey, they're not THAT bad. Just as long as we don't get creepy Guybrush like in the first special edition game, or bean shaped heads like every modern cartoon, then we should be fine.