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When I made another Monkey Island

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Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#181

Post by WorldMaker »

technovader wrote: post #173
WorldMaker wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ignore the awful controls and equally awful minigames, I think Escape is still a fun pirate tale with a lot of things to love about it. I think the plot's overall is pretty inspired about the gentrification of the pirate islands, and it's the natural progression from Curse's exploration of the same themes (which in turn those themes going all the back to things like Secret's used boat sales lot). A lot of Esca…

I don't disagree. I actually played through and finished EMI. I think its tonnes of fun and arguable better than CMI. But I won't say the tank controls didn't ruin an otherwise great game

I know Schafer wasn't involved in EMI and so had no direct interest in doing it but with the huge underlying similarities in the engine it would have been nice to get an EMI remaster side-by-side the Grim Fandango remaster with similar controls improvements.

One of these days maybe SCUMMVM will finally get around to gifting us the right controls for EMI to make it truly fun to experience.

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#182

Post by spywaregorilla »

Biganon wrote: post #95
rob74 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was special about the first two Monkey Island games (at least for me) was the atmosphere . I mean, just look at this screenshot: https://www.adventurecorner.de//uploads/images/games/monkey1... Parts 1 and 2 had this effect on me, with part 3 the magic was mostly gone unfortunately. If Return to Monkey Island manages to recapture some of that, I don't care if it's pixel art or whatever else...

I've been thinking about that quite a lot, but with Zelda games. I've come to the conclusion that the old games feel beautiful and mysterious and nostalgic because I played them as a child . I'm no longer a child, life is no longer the same. It's not necessarily worse, it's just fundamentally different. I will never blame Shigeru Miyamoto for that, it would be absurd.

I was thinking about this quite a bit replaying ocarina of time. It's now very apparent to me that a lot of the world is giant sheets of 2d textures, with some scattered doors as 3d objects, like castletown. Then I started to notice some things that were... surprisingly good? My favorite: Link had IK foot placement! His feet would land on individual steps as you went up stairs.

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#183

Post by whywhywhywhy »

GaylordTuring wrote: post #178
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also gotta keep in mind if it’s all CGI he can just sit in a chair in the same studio the whole movie directing it from a monitor. Once you see the behind the scenes you start to see this as one of the main reasons it’s so CGI filled.

I’m still disappointed that Darth Jar Jar didn’t come to fruition. It would have been perfect. In episode VII, Yoda is introduced as this ridiculous character that turned out to be a Jedi master, with the moral of the story being that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Even with this seed planted in the original tribology, everyone saw Jar Jar as this clown who shouldn’t be taken serious. It would have brillian…

Agree 100%, would have taken resolve to push through the criticism and pull that off but it feels like he became too influenced by the criticism then ended up shipping milquetoast rubbish.

Imagine how fun it would have been watching Ep1 and getting annoyed by Jar Jar once you know he ends up super evil.

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#184

Post by Sharlin »

technovader wrote: post #175
Sharlin wrote: post #10

"When you have fans like this, who needs haters?"

He's being a baby here. There's a proper way to take criticism from a passionate fanbase of 20+ years. IMO the criticism is absolutely justified, just from looking at the screenshots and trailer.

His response seems entirely reasonable, and some grumpiness is definitely expected from someone whose domain is literally grumpygamer.com. As a fan of the originals, I also see nothing wrong with the art style of the new game.

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#185

Post by the_af »

technovader wrote: post #172
the_af wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ron you really should not be bashing your oldest most hard core fans. I don't read anything Ron said as "bashing". He explains why he is not interested in making pixel art games. He is also promising you this is the best possible Monkey Island game he can make, one he is proud of.

He's playing the victim and calling them haters. It's a legitimate criticism about the art style. No one is "hating" Unless we're at a point where saying anything negative is "hating"

CTRL+F of "hate" and "hating" gives zero results in that page. This is what Ron actually says about some fans:

> "It's ironic that the people who don't want me to make the game I want to make are some of the hard core Monkey Island fans. And that is what makes me sad about all the comments."

And that's it. He's not "bashing" all fans, not even some fans. He's just explaining his vision and what his goal is for this Monkey Island game, and also expressing disappointment that some fans don't want him to make the game he wants.

I think his points are solid. Monkey Island I & II weren't retrogames, and so it makes sense he won't try to turn this Monkey Island into a retrogame either.

That's it. No "hate". No "hating". No "bashing".

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#186

Post by Razengan »

rob74 wrote: post #28
darkwater wrote: post #12

When you read posts like this, and also the previous, linked one [1], you can clearly see that Ron is a smart and humble guy. I really dislike the fan mob that it's starting the hate because RTMI is not going to be a throwback and retro-game. > Monkey Island 1 and 2 weren't pixel art games. They were games using state-of- the-art tech and art. This is SO true, and as much as I loved those games, as much as I stopped…

What was special about the first two Monkey Island games (at least for me) was the atmosphere . I mean, just look at this screenshot: https://www.adventurecorner.de//uploads/images/games/monkey1... Parts 1 and 2 had this effect on me, with part 3 the magic was mostly gone unfortunately. If Return to Monkey Island manages to recapture some of that, I don't care if it's pixel art or whatever else...

> What was special about the first two Monkey Island games (at least for me) was the atmosphere.

Same! First of all I LOVED the “eternal night” in some locations.

It was unexplained and unmentioned (though an easy headcanon might be that everything you do there takes place during a single night) but it has a huge effect on the aesthetic feel of the game world.

The other thing that evoked the sense of adventure was the balance between the Civilized and Unexplored parts of its world, a common theme in pirate settings.

> with part 3 the magic was mostly gone unfortunately.

Curse certainly felt a bit “off” to me (I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t made by the same people but I could feel it) but it still had some charm, except for the abrupt final episode.

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#188

Post by kemayo »

WorldMaker wrote: post #163
kemayo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree with you that Disney mismanaged the whole trilogy, and the fault lies with them. They very clearly went into it without any sort of plan or even a particular vision, deferring completely to whatever each director wanted to do. With minimal imposition of a plot outline, the whole thing could have gone much better, even while still leaving the individual directors to mostly decide how they got there. To my m…

> To my mind, letting Abrams double-down on swerving back to his plot in episode 9 was their biggest management sin when it comes to creating a coherent plot arc. Abrams was an Executive Producer on Ep 8 still and was supposedly in the room for all of the plot development. He personally could have avoided most of that swerve had he been paying attention. Admittedly, he thought at the time it was Trevorrow's problem b…

> Admittedly, I thought Ep 8 was the entire wrong genre for Star Wars: it was a Vietnam War movie in a franchise built around World War 2 metaphors/aesthetics.

Ah, but Star Wars has always been a Vietnam metaphor filtered through WW2 aesthetics. Specifically, with the Rebels being the Viet Cong -- they're a small group using asymmetric warfare tactics against a vast military machine that's exerting cultural hegemony over even the territory it doesn't control. Lucas has actually been pretty explicit about this being his intention in interviews.

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#189

Post by babyshake »

rob74 wrote: post #28
darkwater wrote: post #12

When you read posts like this, and also the previous, linked one [1], you can clearly see that Ron is a smart and humble guy. I really dislike the fan mob that it's starting the hate because RTMI is not going to be a throwback and retro-game. > Monkey Island 1 and 2 weren't pixel art games. They were games using state-of- the-art tech and art. This is SO true, and as much as I loved those games, as much as I stopped…

What was special about the first two Monkey Island games (at least for me) was the atmosphere . I mean, just look at this screenshot: https://www.adventurecorner.de//uploads/images/games/monkey1... Parts 1 and 2 had this effect on me, with part 3 the magic was mostly gone unfortunately. If Return to Monkey Island manages to recapture some of that, I don't care if it's pixel art or whatever else...

If you look at the screenshots and art released, they are definitely at least attempting an atmospheric feeling. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. For me the thing I really love most is the MIDI music. Occasionally I'll put on the score from MI2, Loom or another game and it brings me back.

Re: When I made another Monkey Island

#190

Post by WorldMaker »

kemayo wrote: post #188
WorldMaker wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To my mind, letting Abrams double-down on swerving back to his plot in episode 9 was their biggest management sin when it comes to creating a coherent plot arc. Abrams was an Executive Producer on Ep 8 still and was supposedly in the room for all of the plot development. He personally could have avoided most of that swerve had he been paying attention. Admittedly, he thought at the time it was Trevorrow's problem b…

> Admittedly, I thought Ep 8 was the entire wrong genre for Star Wars: it was a Vietnam War movie in a franchise built around World War 2 metaphors/aesthetics. Ah, but Star Wars has always been a Vietnam metaphor filtered through WW2 aesthetics. Specifically, with the Rebels being the Viet Cong -- they're a small group using asymmetric warfare tactics against a vast military machine that's exerting cultural hegemony…

That's a fair point, though in practical terms I think Lucas just took the roundabout way to arrive a metaphor involving the real world Maquis (as opposed to Star Trek's odder counterpart): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquis_(World_War_II)

There's still a lot fewer "shades of grey" in "French rebels versus Nazis" than in all the complicated geopolitics of Viet Cong versus US military. Lucas may have used the idea from the Vietnam War, but he didn't just filter it through a WW2 aesthetic, he entirely embedded it in it.

To my mind Star Wars isn't exactly the franchise for "maybe the Empire are the good guys in the story" shades of grey. (Though admittedly I also find it appalling how many people cosplay the Empire and how much merch there is and seeming adulation the Empire gets. Though it is seemingly great for Disney's bottom line if people don't think of the First Order as a Nazi Regime that exploded entire planets worth of people like the text tells us they are.)

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