CGA-2025-12 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Secret of Monkey Island
Introduction
Deep in the Caribbean, the pirate haven of Mêlée Island is home to the deadliest brood of ne'er-do-wells what ever sailed the seven seas: the infamous scurvy seadog Meathook; the buccaneer Sword Master whose name is feared in every corner of the isle; and most horrifically, the spectral ghost pirate LeChuck. Onto these disreputable shores late one night arrives the hapless, clueless, and utterly guileless flooring inspector Guybrush Threepwood, with nothing to his name but the dream of somehow becoming a real pirate himself.
Discover a thrilling world of swordplay, thievery, and, er, treasure huntery in The Secret of Monkey Island. Insult your enemies, fire the cannons, find true love, concoct mysterious voodoo brews, poison guards, evade cannibals, traverse hellish catacombs, raise a pint of grog, and (maybe) discover the Secret for yourself!
The Secret of Monkey Island
Happy December! This month we're playing the legendary 1990 Lucasfilm Games point-and-click adventure from the minds of Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman.
You see, one of my favorite rides in Disneyland is Pirates of the Caribbean. You get on a little boat and it takes you through a pirate adventure… Your boat keeps you moving through the adventure, but I’ve always wished I could get off and wander around, learn more about the characters, and find a way onto those pirate ships.
- Ron Gilbert, from the Lucasfilm Adventurer, Fall 1990
I was sorting through some boxes today and I came across my copy of Tim Power's On Stranger Tides, which I read in the late 80's and was the inspiration for Monkey Island. Some people believe the inspiration for Monkey Island came from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride — probably because I said it several times during interviews — but that was really just for the ambiance. If you read this book you can really see where Guybrush and LeChuck were
plagiarizedderived from, plus the heavy influence of voodoo in the game.
- Ron Gilbert, from Grumpy Gamer, 2004
The Secret of Monkey Island is renowned for its zany humor, great (and mostly fair) puzzle design, gorgeous pixel graphics, and memorable soundtrack. Unlike other adventure games of the era, SMI invites you to try anything and everything without worry — you can't die. It's chock full of goofy swashbuckling anachronisms and hilarious good times. Maybe a little frustration too. Hey, you can just look up the answers when you get stuck. We couldn't do that in the '90s. Respect the grind.
The game originally released for DOS, Amiga, Macintosh, Atari ST, FM Towns, and Sega CD. Those versions are no longer available for purchase in the usual places (you might try eBay but save up your pieces o' eight if you go that route). All the original versions are playable in ScummVM if you lack the necessary hardware. If you find yourself needing access to a Dial-A-Pirate wheel, the original has been helpfully digitized here for your convenience.
Different releases of the original game have different audio and graphics. Some people have opinions about which version is best. These are all valid. I prefer the version I grew up with, but no shade on the others. They all have their own charms.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is a 2009 remaster that is the official recommended way to play today. It includes fully recreated high-resolution graphics, music, and voiced dialogue, with a modernized UI. It includes a quick toggle between classic and remastered modes, which is a nice touch. The Windows version is currently on sale for 50% off from GOG (DRM-free), and also available from Steam. It is reportedly playable on Steam Deck.
Side tangent about voice acting in the Special Edition...
This interview with Dominic Armato hints at one of my favorite real-world stories related to Monkey Island. This aspiring voice actor was a huge fan of the first two games in the series, which were originally unvoiced. He was in the right place at the right time to land the role of Guybrush in the third installment, which was the first to have voiced characters. It's a good but not great game, and very different from the first two due to being helmed by an entirely different team. All other things aside, Armato NAILED it. He is Guybrush. He returned to voice the fourth game and then... was brought back to reprise his role in the Special Editions of SMI and MI2. It was a dream come true for him, but amazing for fans of the series too; finally the original games have full voiced dialogue and the main character is played by the guy who was born to do it.
The rest of the voice cast is great too. This aspect of the Special Edition really rounds out the game nicely and I consider it an essential part of the experience now. That said, personally I find the SE visuals and music to be really lackluster, and I prefer the original UI as well. You can toggle the classic mode but this removes the VO too... which is why I will instead be playing the Ultimate Talkie Edition, a fan hack of the DOS release (playable in ScummVM) that adds the SE voice tracks and keeps the original everything else. It can be easily found online but I'll refrain from linking it here since SMI's abandonware status is debatable.
From what I can tell the Special Editions of SMI and its first sequel were also sold as a bundle for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iOS. I can't speak to the current availability of any of those but they're probably all terrible ways to experience it anyway.
Limited Run Games has also issued a few re-releases of the original game in recent years. I don't know much about these, and good luck finding them for sale anywhere.
Genres: Adventure, Point-and-Click
Game Setup
The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:
- Share which version of the game you're playing
- Share what hardware you're playing it on
- Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
- Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
- Ask questions if you need help
Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:
- Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
- What about its system or era?
- What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
- What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
- What are you expecting from this game in particular?
Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:
- Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
- Ask for help if you get stuck.
- Offer help to others.
It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.
IMPORTANT: Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.
IMPORTANT: Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.
<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>
Spoiler text goes here.
</details>
FAQ
What is CGA?
Colossal Game Adventure (CGA) is Tildes' retro video game club.
Each month we will play a different retro game/games, discuss our thoughts, and bask in the glorious digital experiences of yesteryear!
Colossal Game Adventure is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure. It's one of the most influential games of all time, one of the first text-based interactive games, and one of the first games to be shared online.
What do we want to do with this group? Play influential games; interact with each other through text; and share the love for retro games online!
It also abbreviates to CGA (because we love chunky pixel art), and its name communicates the Colossal amount of fun and excitement that we have with retro video Games in our shared Adventure of playing them together.
Do I have to sign up?
No. Participation is open to all.
There is a Notification List that will get pinged each time a new topic goes up. If you would like to join that list, please PM u/kfwyre.
Are there restrictions on what/how to play?
Each month will have a focus game or games that will guide our discussions. Beyond that, there are no restrictions. The philosophy of CGA is to play in a way that works for you!
This means:
- Choose whichever version of the game you want.
- You can use cheats, save states, mods, etc.
- You can watch a streamer or longplay instead of playing it.
If you have already played a game and want a different experience:
- Try a randomizer or challenge run.
- Play a different version of it.
- Play a related game (sequel, spiritual successor, something inspired by it, etc.)
There is no wrong way to participate in CGA, and every different way someone participates will make for more interesting discussions.
What is the schedule?
Each month the Insert Cartidge topic will be posted on the 1st, while the Remove Cartridge topic will be posted on the 20th.
Nomination and voting topics will happen in March and September (every 6 months).
Schedules are also posted then.
All CGA topics are available using the colossal game adventure tag.
What do Insert and Remove Cartridge mean?
Inserting and removing cartridges are our retro metaphor for starting and stopping a given game or games.
The Insert Cartridge topic happens at the beginning of the month and is primarily about getting the game up and running.
The Remove Cartridge topic happens toward the end of the month and is primarily about people reflecting on the game now that they've played it.
There are no hard restrictions on what has to go in either topic, and each can be used to discuss the game, post updates, ask questions, etc.
Closing Thoughts
How appropriate, you fight like a cow.
CGA Announcement: We have officially inserted the cartridge for The Secret of Monkey Island. Use this topic to get set up for the month, help other people get set up for the month, and start playing!
If you would like to be added or removed from the Notification List, please PM u/kfwyre.
Notification List
@1338
@Akir
@ali
@arctanh
@AriMaeda
@atomicshoreline
@avirse
@balooga
@BeardyHat
@Boojum
@Bwerf
@CannibalisticApple
@chocobean
@clayh
@datavoid
@Debook
@DistractionRectangle
@dotsforeyes
@dozens
@Dr_Amazing
@granfdad
@Gummy
@hamstergeddon
@IsildursBane
@J-Chiptunator
@JCPhoenix
@Jerutix
@jmpavlec
@joshbuddy
@kaiomai
@Kawa
@kej
@kfwyre
@kingofsnake
@Kirisame
@Lapbunny
@mayonuki
@Mendanbar
@mysterylevel
@PancakeCats
@Pavouk106
@PetitPrince
@Plattypus
@polle
@preposterous
@psi
@rosco
@rubix
@Rudism
@SloMoMonday
@Sodliddesu
@Soggy
@sotix
@Spore_Prince
@SpruceWillis
@squidwiz
@talklittle
@ThatMartinFellow
@tildes-user-101
@Timwi
@tomorrow-never-knows
@Trobador
@Venko
@vili
@Weldawadyathink
@xk3
@zod000
You know how you have a particularly deep connection with certain things because you were there when they were released? As opposed to something that you also love, even consider part of your identity, but which either came out before your time or you for whatever reason discovered only long after everyone else. And how your relationship between the two groups of things is often a little different?
Monkey Island is the earliest example that I can remember of a game series where I had played the first game and was excited about its first sequel coming out. I even vividly remember the very moment that I became aware of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. This spread in a Finnish gaming magazine from March 1992, which I just saw for the first time in over 30 years, seems forever burnt into my visual memory.1 I was ten years old at the time.
The magazine reviewed the game with scores of 91 and 96 out of 100. That's two individual reviewers, one of who was Niko Nirvi, a man whose name every Finnish gamer from the 1980s and 90s is likely familiar with. He's an absolute icon and a big part of my childhood as well.
The list of games reviewed in that issue of the magazine is actually pretty insane. In addition to Monkey Island 2, they have reviews of Civilization, Populous II, Another World, Eye of the Beholder 2, Wing Commander II: Spec Ops 1 and F1 Grand Prix, all of which would deserve a month in the CGA schedule. Now, I think this was the first issue of a new magazine that partly replaced an old Commodore magazine, so I suppose they collected all of the best games from late 1991 to make their first issue as good as possible. But still, that's an insane collection of now classic titles to have come out around the same time.
I now also remember the primary reason why I picked up the issue all those years ago: it included walkthroughs for the first three King's Quest games, and I was quite stuck in King's Quest II. It was fun to read their solve now.
Anyway, that's a pretty long and rambling way to start a post about The Secret of Monkey Island without mentioning the game itself. And the funny thing is, while I vividly remember my reaction to the magazine's review of Monkey 2 being "oh my god, there is a sequel to his game that I really liked", I don't actually remember my first encounter with Monkey 1. Now, based on my reaction to the review, I must not only have played the first Monkey Island before the magazine came out, but I must also have quite liked it. And yet, I remember absolutely nothing of when or where or how I may have first played The Secret of Monkey Island.
I very much remember playing Monkey Island 2, though. First in the summer of 1992 with my friend on his computer, and the next year again on my own new PC. An English-Finnish-English pocket dictionary in one hand and no access to walkthroughs or online help in the other, we somehow managed to get through the game. Monkey 2 was the first in the series that introduced an easy mode, described as a welcome addition by the Finnish reviewers as it allowed access also for "beginners, game reviewers and wussies". But if you want a real challenge, try playing these games without speaking the language.
I also remember playing The Curse of Monkey Island some years later. This was together with my sister when I visited her in the late 90s. We debated the new graphical style. She loved it, I didn't. Guybrush looked like he had swallowed a rake. I was very snobby about series creator Ron Gilbert no longer being involved. Neither were Tim Schafer or Dave Grossman. Many of the jokes felt derivative. We also played through Discworld II on that same visit. I liked it more. She had her computer in a basement. It was a great trip.
By the time I got to Escape from Monkey Island, a year or so after its release, I had switched continents a couple of times and now found myself in a new country, a little lost, like a stranger in a strange land. I remember the chair (well, an ottoman, really) that I sat on in the evenings as I stumbled through the game. The controls were a bit odd, the 3D graphics nauseating. I wasn't much into gaming at that point in my life but a new Monkey Island title was still of interest to me, even if this one wasn't a particularly good one. It was most likely the only game that I played that year. Perhaps it reminded me of my childhood. Although, looking back now, I consider that version of vili still to essentially be, if not quite a child, not all that much older either.
I also distinctly remember struggling with Telltale's purchase system later that decade. Something to do with my credit card. I never really got too excited about their episodic Tales of Monkey Island and found it terribly inferior to their Sam & Max games. And so, my focus was instead on the remakes, the first of which came out around the same time as Tales started. Might have been the same week or something?
That said, I didn't care for the Monkey 1 Special Edition graphics or animations. They felt generic and soulless compared to the original pixel art, while the revamped user interface was frankly just stupid. The Monkey 2 remaster was a bit better in every way, although I still preferred the original releases, which by this point I had played through multiple times. Still, I was excited to play the games on my Xbox 360 in the living room, and I continued through Curse and Escape to replay them all. I remember my wife-to-be teasing me as Guybrush's voice actor kept going "Mmmmm.... nope", over and over again, as I tried out everything. We married a couple of years later. It's still a line that she says every now and then at an opportune moment. I'm glad she didn't say it on the wedding day.
That said, I can't for the life of me remember which Monkey game actually has that voice line. Anyone happen to know?
Those Special Edition releases are now almost as old as the originals were at the time the Special Editions came out. Time is weird. And for a while, it seemed like the story of Monkey Island had ended with the remasters. Then, one April Fool's day, Rob Gilbert, who had for almost 20 years declared his blog free of April Fool's nonsense, announced Return to Monkey Island. Some took it as a joke, but those of us who had followed him through the years were instantly celebrating. It was the best April Fool's day ever.
Since it's been just a couple of years, I naturally remember Return very well. I believe it came out on a Monday. A childhood friend and I, living in different countries, exchanged notes every evening that week as we played the game after work. Despite being stuck with a seagull puzzle for quite a while, I finished Return by Friday after dinner. I loved it. I was perhaps a little disappointed that I wouldn't be spending my weekend with it like I had planned, but the game was everything that I had hoped it could be, and more. I know a lot of people had a less positive reaction, but Ron and Dave's take on the legacy of the original story really resonated with me.
I'm tempted to replay Return this month, as it's the only good Monkey game that I have played only once. Could I somehow find the time to go through the whole Ron Gilbert trilogy? I would love to.
Anyway. All this goes to illustrate that I have plenty of great memories connected to my first playthroughs of Monkey Island games. Those memories feature many people that I love, various places that I have visited and lived in, different decades and varying phases of my life.
And yet, I remember absolutely nothing of my first encounter with the series. Funny, that.
Especially as it's probably my favourite of the Monkey games.
I believe I was there. Or I would at least very much like to insist that it is true. But I just can't remember any of it.2
1: This paragraph is almost certainly, while not a lie, at least a carefully worded representation of the past that aims to mislead you for narrative purposes. Yes, I do vividly remember when I first became aware of Monkey Island 2. And yes, that magazine spread is something that I remember all the way back from 1992. However, the two sentences are not directly connected. I am about 90% certain that the first time I learnt about the existence of the game was actually the February 1992 issue of another Finnish computer magazine, and I am equally certain that I remember how that article looked as well. However, as I couldn't find an online copy of that issue, I can't be sure, and for the sake of narrative flow, I decided to word things the way I do above.
2: With footnote 1 and its suggestion of my brain's preferences for slight autofiction in mind, I suppose it is possible that I didn't play Monkey Island 1 until after Monkey Island 2. However, I genuinely think that I did. I just can't remember. I do recall my reaction to the magazine(s) just as I describe them above, which should mean that I was familiar with the first game at the time the second one came out. And I do remember re-playing Monkey 1 before Curse came out, and it specifically not being my first time of playing it. But I also can't always trust my memories. It's been over 30 years of monkeys, after all. They do something to your brain.
After playing the first 2 games, I managed to download a pirated copy of the third, only to discover it was in French. As a Canadian, I knew a little bit of French but not much. I tried to make my brother who was much better at it, sit down and translate for me, but that didn't last very long. I didn't get very far, and it was years before I actually bought a copy and played through it properly.
I didn't participate last month so I forgot that this one was up next! Ended up buying it just now for $2 on Fanatical, and am now installing it to my Steam Deck. I've never played it before, but this should be a fun one!
Looks like the game's currently on sale for about $2 almost everywhere except Steam and GOG.
Ars Technica has just published a new interview with Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert where he talks about the series, adventure games, his new indie action game, and the challenges of being a developer these days. A nice read.
I have fond memories of playing this game with my best friend in second grade. It was my first full-length adventure game and the two of us spent many hours together at the keyboard, trying to solve it.
We played on a Macintosh, probably an LC III if memory serves correctly. I distinctly remember installing it from floppy disks, but I also distinctly remember 256-color graphics and the simplified 9-verb UI. Apparently that's the "enhanced edition" that used MI2-style UI instead of SMI's original clunkier 12-verb UI, which I don't remember at all. But the enhanced edition was, as far as I can tell, only released on CD-ROM, and the LC III didn't have a CD-ROM drive. It's a bit of a mystery to me, and I can't find any info about an enhanced edition that shipped on floppies. Weird. This would have been in '92 or '93. Let me know if you have any insight into what version I was actually playing.
I don't think my friend and I ever managed to beat the whole game together in those pre-internet days, but in the many years since then I've purchased the rest of the main series (except Escape) and thoroughly enjoyed getting lost in the world of Guybrush Threepwood. The thing about adventure games like these is, once you know a puzzle's solution, you don't forget it... so I strongly encourage my fellow CGA friends to avoid spoilers when you get stuck. Spend some quality time chewing on each puzzle. I'm happy to offer hints here, if it helps folks figure things out without just pulling up the whole solution. In my opinion just blasting through the game with a walkthrough will significantly cheapen the experience.
As I mentioned in the main post, I'll be playing the Ultimate Talkie Edition this month because I adore the VGA graphics but I also adore the SE voice acting. Should be the best of both worlds. ScummVM is a godsend.
I have never played the Mac version but I believe it was indeed similar to the enhanced VGA version, with the nine-verb interface and icons for inventory items, rather than just text. Does (potential spoilers in the videos) this look and sound familiar, or this?
If you compare the Mac version in the first video to the PC CD version, I think you can hear the reason why the Mac fit onto disks and the PC version didn't: the Mac has midi music vs the CD version's recorded sound.
I now wonder if they also removed the (potential spoilers in the video) stump joke, which was missing from the PC CD version. Some say it was removed because the game no longer used disks, others insist it caused too many people to call LucasArts asking about disks that they didn't have in their box.
I very much agree. I think the puzzles are pretty fair in this game.
If any of you find yourselves stuck, something like the Universal Hint System is a good resource. It works a bit like a hint book, where you try to find the problem that you are facing and can then get progressively more specific hints to point you into the right direction.
Or, you can also open the official hint book from 1990.
And I think the Special Edition also has a built-in hint system. Not sure how good it is.
(Also, balooga: a great intro!)
Hmm. I think the decades of playing different versions in ScummVM have blurred it all together in my memory. I’m pretty sure that inferior MIDI soundtrack was the one I originally heard, but it sounds wrong to my ears today. Honestly I can’t tell a difference between the graphics in those two videos so I’m not sure. Both have the 9-verb UI and (I think) 256 colors.
Yeah, I’m fairly certain that was cut from the version I played as a kid. I remember feeling very confused when I read about it years later online.
Very nice, thanks for sharing that!! This is a great compromise between the frustration of getting stuck, and just having the whole solution handed to you. Sometimes we just need a little nudge to get unblocked.
Thanks! ❤️
So far, I'm 0 for 3 on the CGA, never finishing any of the games we've played, but I'm hoping this will be the one. I've never been huge on Adventure games, but I've always loved the idea of them; the idea that they hint at a much larger, more intricate world. I think I can count on one hand how many I've actually finished (which I think is 1).
Anyway, my first exposure to Monkey Island was on a PC Gamer demo disk with Curse of Monkey Island. I know it's a bit of step child in the series, but I was absolutely charmed by the art, animations and voice acting when I first tried it. I never did play that one either (though I own it on GoG), but I did buy Secret SE many many years ago when it first dropped on Steam and played a couple of hours of it before dropping it completely.
I'll probably end-up with the Talkie edition, as I find the art and style of the SE version absolutely atrocious. I have no particular affection for the original graphics per se, but the smoothed out, mobile game looking aesthetic of the update is just...hideous. That said, I do love pixel art and will always lean towards it in any given game, so that's a major factor in my choice as well.
As far as what I'll play it on, I'm going to try playing this on my newly purchased Surface Pro 7; I installed Fedora Linux on it just to get away from the Windows bloat on such an old machine with 8Gb of RAM and so far, it's going great and I'm looking forward to using the Surface a little bit more. I'll probably end-up switching to a different laptop or my Steam Deck, however. We'll see how it goes.
Funny aside, when I was first trying to choose how to play the game the other day, I Googled which graphical style people like better. I came across a post on Reddit declaring that they liked the SE style best because it's what they grew-up with. This threw me for a loop, thinking, "Grew up with? It's only a couple years old." and then I went and saw it was released in 2009. Absolutely mind blowing. How am I so old?
Just wanted to come back and mention, I struggled to get the Ultimate Talky Edition patched on Linux. The patcher refused to find the appropriate file in my Steam folder, but in the process of searching for a solution, I managed to turn up a prepatched version on Archive.org. I'm not going to link it here, but suffice to say, it made the process of getting the Talky Edition working on Linux a piece of cake.
This is my first time playing the Talkie edition and I’m really enjoying it so far. This month I’m more supervising the experience with my kiddo in the driver’s seat. They just started playing this afternoon and have already completed Part 1!
Thoughts about the Talkie so far (minor spoilers)…
I thought this edition only added the voiceover audio but I’ve been mostly pleased to hear SFX from the Special Edition as well. The sounds were always a bit lacking in the original game. I noticed that they also added the conversational close-up with the dog in the Scumm Bar, that never existed in the old game. Granted it’s in the SE art style which doesn’t really fit but it gets the job done. I haven’t noticed any weirdness apart from Meathook’s “Aieeeee” scream getting abruptly cut off by the close-up on Guybrush when he touches the murderous winged devil.The first time I ever heard about the Monkey Island series was when my younger self was messing around with my uncle's unattended beige desktop computer in his living room. Among the installed games was Curse of the Monkey Island. But even though it was in my native French, the amount of text was overwhelming for a kid back then.
What stuck with me was the art style. The pirate-themed visuals looked more like an interactive cartoon than a typical 16-bit game, and it even had voice acting! Because of that, I assumed its sequel, Escape from Monkey Island, was just a 3D remake of the same game.
Years later, a bit of Googling proved me wrong. I found out that The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge were originally sprite-based and silent. That wouldn't have stopped my younger self though; I grew up on cartridge Nintendo games and those classic Humongous Entertainment titles that came in cereal boxes, like Freddi Fish 3 and Pajama Sam 3.
That was my introduction to the Monkey Island series. Outside of seeing the PS2 port of Escape from Monkey Island at my local movie and game rental store, I never came across the earlier games. My general aversion to PC gaming after the early 2000s didn't help either. It wasn't until much later, over a decade and a half, that I finally grabbed a discounted Steam bundle.
For this month's CGA, I'm planning to give The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition a proper try on my Windows 11 desktop. There's not much to say about setup; it runs smoothly right out of the gate on my modestly powerful machine.
I've been playing a lot today and I've made it through Act 1.
I biggest change from my memory of the game is how slow it feels. Maybe I used to be more patient but I'm begging for some sort of fast travel here. Getting from the map screen to the shop keeper area feels like it's taking ages.
It might also be that my memory of the game was stronger than I expected. The only thing I really got stuck on was how to pick up the herring. So the thrill of exploring is taking some of the fun out of traveling.
I think this is something worth reflecting on when playing old games. How their pacing was a product of a world that functioned with a rhythm slightly different from ours. What have we gained and what have we lost with that change?
For me, a big part of the charm of adventure games is the world building, the sense of being there. If I could just jump from one place to another, I fear that feeling might be lost. It certainly happens to me in many modern games that allow fast travel or split their world into seemingly unconnected areas separated by loading screens. With some of these older games, what you lose in terms of your time, you gain in terms of your sense of space. Whether it is a fair transaction of course depends on your preferences.
That said, if you are playing in ScummVM, you can press Ctrl + F to toggle fast mode. Or if you are running the original version in DosBox, you can enter debug codes. Not sure if the Special Edition has something like this.
That's a good point.
But I'm on the island now and every time I had to run back to the beach, get in the row boat, sail over to the other beach, go to the jungle, then walk to my destination, I couldn't help thinking i really shouldn't have to do this more than once.
Super minor spoilers, but the game does lampshade this a bit later on with its "A long walk, a brief row, and a short hike later..." interstitial screen. So even the devs were aware of how tedious that was, as they were making it.
I came across a cool write up comparing the different versions of the game: (CGA, EGA, VGA Floppy, VGA CD, Amiga, Sega CD, and Special Edition).
I also came across an amazing comparison of the EGA and VGA editions of Loom. Unfortunately the author mentions a comparison for the Secret of Monkey Island is coming soon, and their website appears abandoned. I tried emailing them in October, but I didn't receive a response.
I'll be playing the VGA version on ScummVM with a CRT filter with the Ultimate Talky Edition patch applied. I haven't played a game since The Last Express followed up quickly by Half-Life, and I'm really looking forward to this one!
Been looking forward to this one.
Back when the 3rd game came out, PC Gamer magazine came with a the full game on a demo disk. Definitely had to use the internet to get through it. I haven't played the first game since then. I have a vague memory of some of the puzzles, but I think I'll definitely will need to figure some things out again.
My wife always references this, as does Yahtzee Crowshaw in his weekly a-hole reviews.
I've always been curious about how this overlaps with Kings Quest/Goblins' Quest and Sid Meier's Pirates which I'm at least sort of familiar with. Looking forward to giving it a whirl on Scumm
If it helps, part of its design was famously done as a counterpoint to the King's Quest games.
Wow, interesting. Though charming in its own janky way, Kings Quest was most frustrating experience when it came to progressing from event to event.
How was I supposed to know that the ant colony wanted to see my royal scepter?
Like @Boojum mentioned above, this sort of stuff was pretty much what Ron Gilbert was trying to change with The Secret of Monkey Island. Around the time they were working on the game, he wrote an article that laid down what was wrong with adventure games at the time and what rules of thumb should be followed going forward. A lot of it sounds very obvious these days, but we have come to take much of these for granted only because game design has changed for the better.
This is a cool article. It made me dig up this old bit from a PC Gamer article when Monkey Island 3 was in development, where they talk about avoiding certain types of puzzles.
I hadn’t seen that article before! It’s a really well-organized piece, I agree with all of his points. It’s interesting that he does make a case for letting the player die in adventure games, yet eliminated that entirely from the Monkey Island games.
I do wonder how some egregious puzzles slipped through the cracks. The monkey wrench puzzle in MI2 is especially notable. What was Gilbert thinking when he designed that one?!
Incidentally, I really like how he chose she/her pronouns for the proverbial “player” in this article. That was not a common choice in the ‘80s.
People always point to this one, but in my opinion it's not that bad. It never gave me that much trouble because at some point I just tried a bunch of different items. I wasn't really thinking "monkey wrench". Just that maybe the monkey could do it for me.
The real sticking points for me are always when I miss a small clickable space, or when I need to use an action I don't usually use. Like an object where "use" is different from "open" or a thing where you specifically "pull" it and not just "use" it.
Those were my main issues playing through Secret of Monkey Island. I had a guide open for if I hit roadblocks, and there were multiple incidences where I'd learn I overlooked some interactable object/place.
Most notable one: I didn't even notice the hatch on the ship until I consulted the guide! It's obvious with the original graphics, but in the new art for the Special Edition, Meathook's head and shoulder partially blocks the stairs. Actually, I only noticed the stairs now when looking up the images. While playing I think I just clicked around until I found the right area to take me to it.
Not obvious to me I'm afraid, even with the original release. I too was stuck with this for more time than I care to admit, and I have played the game at least half a dozen times before. The issue here, I would say, is that the graphic design shows us two directions that you should be able to go but have no reason to (fore and aft), and then not only places the hatch next to another, more prominent exit, but also hides it behind a bunch of characters and a mast. It's just too hidden in the midst of other visual information. Part Two is, in my opinion, already easily the weakest part of the game, and this only adds to the frustration.
Part Three also has its own issues with movement, like @Dr_Amazing pointed out in another comment. The puzzles in that part of the game are better (edit: than in Part Two), but for me at least the island suffers the most from it being too easy to miss things. I think a lot of it could have been better had the island been just one screen, like Mêlée Island.
Actually, a fun (?) question for everyone: which in your imagination is the bigger island, Mêlée or Monkey Island™? For me it's definitely Mêlée, even if it takes less space on screen. It has more happening, there are more locations, and a city. I guess they were going for an exploration feeling for Monkey Island™ but the design doesn't quite do it for me.
The mast can also be climbed, so that added to why I glossed over the hatch's existence. They're next to each other. I feel like most of the time spent in Part 2 would just be spent on trying to figure out where you can go and what you can do...
I agree Mêlée Island feels bigger. Part of it is just that there are five directly connected areas right at the start. Three areas for the town, the cliffside, and then the path to the governor's mansion... And that's not counting the interiors of buildings. I saw all those places before finding the map leading to the rest of the island.
Monkey Island meanwhile has mostly standalone locations mainly accessed from the map. I get that it's an undeveloped island, but I think it would have had more of an exploration feeling if it had more areas that were directly linked.
Even though I remembered almost all the puzzles in Part 1 and very few in parts 2 and 3, I still probably spent about 60-70% of my game time on the first island.
Yeah, I think Part One is the reason why people love the game so much. Certainly it is for me. If the first part was similar in quality to the later parts, I honestly don't think the game would be such a classic.
Spending over half of your time in Part One is, I think, quite normal, even for speedrunners. The current world record spends about 13m 20sec on the first island, and about 11 minutes on the rest.
Speaking of speedruns, it's been three years since it came out, but I remember the mini documentary Secret of Monkey Island Speedrun History being really good. As was the channel's later interview with Ron Gilbert, where they talk about game design and the concept of speedrunning adventure games, which is sort of the exact opposite approach to what these games were designed for. The channel in question, OneShortEye, also has a lot of other adventure game speedrunning documentaries, including on Monkey Island 2. Highly recommended, if the topic interests any of you.
I think it's a great example of a language puzzle which, once you have thought of it yourself, is really difficult to "unsee" to understand how it actually works for other people. So if I had to guess, I suppose they got tangled in that a bit.
While not really answering your question, Gilbert and Grossman were asked in an interview a couple of years back if they had any regrets about puzzles from the first two games and this is what they had to say:
Thanks for digging that up, that’s great. Part of me always wondered if there was some corporate mandate to include X number of unsolvable puzzles, to drive business for the pay-per-minute phone hint line, or to sell guide books. A bit conspiratorial but that was part of the model in those days.
I can't say that I have been looking forward to this one, but maybe my disdain for point and click adventure games has faded. I played quite a few back n the day as they were much more popular then they are today. I've played The Secret of Monkey Island before and got a fair bit through it, and I did like it more than most due to the humor, but I have a feeling I'll not make it through again. Luckily I already own the game (re-bought it to try and get my kids a game they could enjoy). As much as I don't like the genre, a long time friend and I still quote a bunch of the games to this day, so there could be value to playing even for that.
It would be interesting to hear more about your history with the genre. Based on what you wrote, it sounds like there is intriguing tension in there. What adventure games do you remember playing, did you like any of them, and why do you think you had such a negative reaction to the genre?
It is often said that adventure games never really died, their design conventions just morphed into other genres such as action adventures and rpg games. Do you see modern games use old adventure game conventions in a way that you dislike, or like?
Other than The Secret of Monkey Island, I have played a bunch of the King's Quest games, a couple of Police Quest and Space Quest as well. I also played Maniac Mansion (I did finish this one), Day of the Tentacle, and some others I can't really recall the names of. Many were demos, came as in those large cd-rom packs you could buy (I kinda miss those bundles), or were my good friend's games. I know you're thinking, Zod00 you fool, why did you play so many if you didn't enjoy them? Well, my best friend loved them so he was always buying these games and I was a kid with far more time than money, so I ended up playing a lot of the games out of boredom (and his heavy insistence).
As far as what I specifically don't like about them, I'd say it is mostly the format/mechanics of the games. A good example is Myst (forgot to mention that one above and 7th Guest). I absolutely do not get any enjoyment out of those games. I guess I just don't like clicking around for clues trying to derive the narrative, which many of the point and click games do. I have definitely seen some modern games that were inspired by it, but
The "Quest" series of games were popular at the time, but today they're a bit of a primer on everything you should NOT do when making a puzzle game. Puzzles with insane solutions, instant death with no way to see it coming, or even worse, decisions that make it impossible to win but not until hours later.
Myst won't kill you at least, but it doesn't mind letting you wander in circles for hours until you click on the one specific brick that triggers a secret door.
The Deponia series is I think a really good example of how to do this right. In a lot of ways it feels pretty similar to the Monkey Island games. But the best thing it has, is a button that highlights everything you can click on. It still has some hard puzzles, and one in particular that I'd assume 99% of people would never figure out. But you never get stuck because you didn't realize that some random bit of background was clickable.
Just got back from Thanksgiving travels, so I'm ready to play! Between my younger brother and I, pretty sure we played all of the Monkey Island games, except that one that came out within the last few years. I don't remember how we came across the series. We're Millennials, so it's not like we played these in the 90s as they came out. Think it was in the 2000s that we came across the series, probably via "Tales of" or "Escape from," then we found the rest online on, appropriately, the high seas and played them.
The series wasn't necessarily a part of my childhood (I was probably close to graduating high school or already had when I played them), but collectively with other point & click adventure games that I did play from the mid/late 90s through the 2000s -- Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Leisure Suit Larry (my parents had no clue what we were doing on the computer...), one of the Space Quest games, etc -- it's definitely part of that "canon" for me.
Since this is the first game in our CGA journey that actually has a CGA version, and since I have never played The Secret of Monkey Island in CGA, and since I have been wanting to explore CGA graphics for a while now, I thought I'd be clever and play the game with CGA graphics.
To my great disappointment, it looks like The Secret of Monkey Island's CGA support is very basic. By which I mean, if you remember CGA as being an ugly four-colour palette of black, white, cyan and pink, that's exactly what CGA Monkey is. It's still fairly tastefully done, but it's not particularly interesting.
"Well, duh. What were you expecting?" I hear some of you ask. Well, first of all, rude, and second of all, some clever programmers used colour bleed in the CGA composite mode to produce a fuller range of colours, even when running in a graphics mode that technically only offered four. Earlier adventure games from Lucasfilm Games such as Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders did interesting things in this CGA composite mode, and Sierra was also very good at manipulating the palette. But either I don't know how to get DosBox to properly emulate CGA composite, or Monkey Island's composite mode is just a blurrier version of CGA's default cyan and pink hellscape. Which I suppose makes sense, since by 1990, CGA was pretty much at the end of its lifespan and there was no point putting too much effort into it.
So, I guess I'll upgrade to my favoured EGA version of Monkey Island 1. But if you are interested in learning more about this CGA composite mode, The 8-Bit Guy had a pretty good video about it some years back. And if you want to try out Monkey's CGA mode yourself, note that the currently sold Special Edition doesn't include it (or an EGA mode). You'll need to dig up the original EGA release from somewhere and force it to run in CGA.
You... absolute... monster. I refuse to believe that anyone has ever actually completed the entire game, in CGA. It can't be done.
Well, ya see... ya gotta squint and sorta turn your head and... ooooooooh! It's just SO good!
The Curse of Monkey Island humour, sorry.
I've now played through Part One. My reaction to the game has been pretty similar to what I can remember from my previous playthroughs, the most recent of which was probably about ten years ago. The writing, humour and creativity are on a level few games have come anywhere near since this game was released. And I also have pretty much the exact same main criticisms as always:
Spoilers for Part One: The Three Trials
While the gag where Guybrush auto-adventures himself through various obstacles and challenges behind the wall at Elaine's mansion is one of the highlights of the game, the file puzzle that results from it is not. The issue with it is that, in the EGA version at least, it's entirely abstract and text-based. We never see the reason Guybrush needs the file, we never see the cake that contains the file (and while the idea of prison cakes containing files is understandable, it's not all that clearly established that this will), and we never see the file itself either.
Additionally, if I remember correctly, if you are a 10-year-old player who doesn't speak English and plays the game with a dictionary, you will spend a lot of time walking around trying to do something with the various documents ("files") that you have collected from elsewhere, thinking that those are somehow the solution. All in all, I think it's not a particularly well designed puzzle.
I also very much dislike the haggling puzzle with Stan. It's just tedious, poorly signposted and it's not that funny. Or maybe it's funnier if the player has first hand experience with car dealers or some such. For me, it's just always felt like a gag that's drawn out far too long.
I had forgotten how quiet the game is. I guess the music is so memorable that I remembered it to be everywhere, while in reality there are a lot of rooms that have no background sound. I'm playing the original EGA version, so I have no voice acting either.
I also made something of a major discovery. Well, for me anyway. Elaine Marley, as she is depicted in the EGA version, looks quite a lot like my wife. Whom I married about twenty years after I first played the game. I'm now almost tempted to get a therapist just to hear what they would have to say about this.
I never really liked the red-haired imposter Elaine that appeared in the VGA version's close-ups. Her hair colour doesn't even match the character sprite in either of the first two games.
I actually don't care much for any of the character portraits in the VGA releases. They just feel off to me. But here's a bit of interesting trivia in case you didn't know: the guy who did the VGA portraits is a concept artist who has also worked on Terminator 2, some Star Wars films, Harry Potter films, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Infinity War. Here's an article about him, including comparisons between Monkey's EGA and VGA portraits.
I started pretty late on this one as initially I was frustrated at how long everything was taking. I finally got into it yesterday, and so far it is far more entertaining than I was expecting - have already laughed pretty hard a few times.
I tried several versions before figuring out that ScummVM allows toggling subtitles. In my opinion this is by far the best way to play the game - I am usually done reading each line when the audio is only 25% finished, but having the vocal audio there for flavour / optional listening is a much fuller experience for me. You can skip lines in the game using the period key, so this version allows going through conversations at full reading speed while still getting the complete pirate experience. I can also say that so far the jokes that made me laugh the hardest were all due to the voice actor's inflection and accents... so if you're in this for the comedy but don't need to listen to every line fully, I'd highly recommend using ScummVM.
Actually so excited for this. Been on my list for a long time. Not sure how I would play it. Only have a Mac and iOS devices with me.
Try looking into ScummVM? I've never used it so I can't give any advice on how to set it up, but it was made with the particular intent of running LucasArts games in mind.
I've used ScummVM on iOS/iPadOS, and it works great. You thankfully don't actually need to "set it up" (i.e. by jailbreaking or sideloading) anymore though since they have an official client on the app store now: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scummvm/id6446184412
cc: @ali
p.s. Relevant docs:
https://docs.scummvm.org/en/latest/other_platforms/ios.html
https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=MacOS
https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/The_Secret_of_Monkey_Island
Thanks, I just messaged someone from the wiki to update the MacOS article since it didn't mention apple silicon compatibility :D
I know nothing about Macs, so unfortunately I can't help you there. :P
Their official release says it supports it :D I think the article just hasn’t been updated since apple produced their own chips
You might be able to run the Special Edition on a Mac with Porting Kit, which allows you to run Windows only games in a compatibility layer, a bit like what Proton does on Linux. For Steam games, you first install Steam as an app (this is what I use), or if you buy the game from GOG, you can just run it directly.
I haven't got all Windows games to run, but the Steam version of The Secret of Monkey Island at least started without issues for me when I tried it on my M1 MacBook Pro.
I will be going on a vacation this week, and when I get back I will be busy working on makeup for school projects, so it’s sadly not likely I’ll be able to participate. This might be a good thing because I feel like my opinions have been pretty negative towards these so far….
To be honest I wasn’t initially looking forward to this one because this game felt like a nostalgia club kind of deal. Lucasarts was around my childhood but it was never a part of it. But I have grown fond of the idea of playing it to see what I have been missing out on.
Have you guys ever come across the claim that the Pirates of the Caribbean movie was pulling from Monkey Island?
https://www.cracked.com/article_19443_7-classic-movies-you-didnt-know-were-rip-offs.html
Apparently the writer Ted Elliot, worked on the script for an animated Monkey Island movie pitch that never for made. There's definitely some similarities.
There is definitely plenty of shared DNA there. I remember Ron Gilbert had fun at the time of the first films' release writing that he's expecting a cheque in the mailbox any day now, but I think he kind of summarised the situation in this interview, saying that "Well, I mean Pirates of the Caribbean is a rip-off of Monkey Island that was a rip-off of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride [at Disneyland], so it's hard for me to get too mad at Disney for ripping Monkey Island off when I just ripped them off initially."
Nowadays, Disney of course also owns both IPs.
I keep forgetting that Monkey Island is a part of their war chest now. I don’t want them to make a movie, but I’m morbidly curious what one would be like. In competent hands it could be great, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for ten minutes about that ever happening.
This video went up 2 days ago (timestamped to the relevant part) and it's a GDC talk by Frank Cifaldi of VGHF who has done some very interesting GDC talks in the past, one of which I have linked on this website before and arguably each one of his talks there has been a sequel to the prior, starting with this one.
Anyway, I bring this up because in the most recent one, that I linked first, starting at 28:09 a story is shared about The Secret of Monkey Island and finding it's source material that I thought folks would appreciate. Of course, if you're into stuff to do with game preservation, emulation, and all that, all 3 of these talks may be interesting albeit lengthy.
That's all from me for now.
FWIW, played Secret of Monkey Island multiple times in my life, it may have been among the first few games I've ever played and more or less taught me reading before I entered kindergarten, but for as much as I love it, I just don't really feel like actually playing it again right now, so while I think I might comment in this thread and the remove cartridge thread, I'm sitting this one out in terms of gameplay.
Thank you for sharing these! Super interesting!
On a personal note, I’m actually at a midlife career crossroads at the moment, dealing with some major burnout and looking for possible new directions to explore. One thing I hadn’t considered yet is digital archival work. I’ve always had a huge appreciation for what these folks do but never considered it as a possible vocation. These GDC talks are really inspiring to me. No idea how one would pivot into something like that (and still be able to pay the bills, let’s be realistic) but I’m going to think on it a bit. I wonder if this is something that would require going back to school to study library science or if my technical background would be enough of an in. 🤔
My kiddo just completed their playthrough this evening and loved it. Now I've played through the original version, the special edition, and the ultimate talkie edition, and talkie is where it's at! It's extremely well done, much more polished than I expected it to be. As I was watching the end credits roll I really appreciated that the talkie team added the full VO credits as well as credits for all the fan volunteers who contributed to the talkie project. I'd been under the impression it was just a quick and dirty hack but it was clearly more than that.
I think there's a talkie for LeChuck's Revenge also, I'm gonna look that one up next. As far as I'm concerned this is the definitive way to play!
One thing I never noticed before is how much useless stuff you carry in your inventory throughout the game. In later games it's pretty standard to clear out your inventory once in a while, or get rid of items as you use them for the final time.
You spend half the game carrying around old maps you don't need, money you can't spend and breath mints with no further purpose. . I kept wondering when the staple remover was going to come in handy, as I had no memory of any puzzle using it.
The staple remover was so confusing to me too! I kept waiting for it to come in handy somehow.
Also the guide I found specifically suggested dumping spare stuff in the pot to clear your inventory. Kinda wish I did that, since I'd know the remaining items would play a role at some point. The amount of stuff I had made me gloss over it since so much was useless, to the point it didn't even occur to me to check them again when I'd get stuck. I assumed multiple times I needed to find some hidden thing, only to learn it was in my inventory all along...