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If I Made Another Monkey Island...

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Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#31

Post by aidenn0 »

Reading the linked rules of adventure gaming, it is true that you can have arbitrarily hard puzzles without breaking any of them.

[spoiler for a two puzzles in Monkey Island 2 below]

The example for me is in MI2; there comes a point at which you are suspended over a boiling cauldron with a candle that is burning through the rope holding you up. If you are really clever, you will remember that earlier you got a drink that would thicken your spit (and you can't have not picked it up, since you needed it to solve a puzzle to get to this point). However, you can't spit at the candle, but you can spit at a shield on the wall, causing a ricochet to extinguish the candle.

I was stuck on this for months, finally got bored and played through the game again. The moment I got to the first time you need to spit I just slapped my self in the head.

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#32

Post by gavanwoolery »

I have no less respect for Ron than I did back in the 90s, but I think that sometimes the veterans lose sight of what made their old games great (and this of course, is just my opinion). He wants keep the retro aesthetic, which is good, but then wants to include things like DOF and glows...which can technically be done with a palette, but I don't think this is what he is getting at, and could potentially destroy the rigid palettization that makes pixel art what it is. He wants to use speech instead of text, which is one of the things that I think ruined Monkey Island 3. There are many ways to improve on the old formula while keeping the superficial aspects that fuel our nostalgia - it seems like most remakes these days jump on the very generic looking engines like Unity (yes you can tweak Unity to look any way, but if you use the default shaders, cameras, etc it will look like any other game).

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#34

Post by csl »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #12

Is SCUMM really better than Lua?

It's interesting that Ron Gilbert originally wanted to base SCUMM on Lisp: http://www.pagetable.com/?p=614

Of the few SCUMM script examples I've seen, I can't seem to understand what Gilbert means when he says: "It did things Lua could never dream of." The ability to control a C64 from a UNIX box? That actually sounds a lot like Naughty Dog's GOAL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Oriented_Assembly_Lisp

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#35

Post by danso »

nollidge wrote: post #16

I hope no one minds if I hijack to ask: What are some really good MODERN adventure games, along the lines of MI or the Space Quests? Besides the Two Guys' Kickstarter campaign, I mean...

The Walking Dead game was selected by Polygon as game of the year:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/11/3863618/game-of-the-year-20...

Not a bad accolade given the creative games that have come out (FTL, my personal pick, was Polygon's #6)

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#36

Post by lloeki »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #32

I have no less respect for Ron than I did back in the 90s, but I think that sometimes the veterans lose sight of what made their old games great (and this of course, is just my opinion). He wants keep the retro aesthetic, which is good, but then wants to include things like DOF and glows...which can technically be done with a palette, but I don't think this is what he is getting at, and could potentially destroy the…

> He wants to use speech instead of text

While the no-talkie and partial talkie DotT are great, full-talkie DotT is absolutely awesome.

> He wants keep the retro aesthetic, which is good, but then wants to include things like DOF and glows...which can technically be done with a palette, but I don't think this is what he is getting at, and could potentially destroy the rigid palettization that makes pixel art what it is

I'm not sure pixel art and retro looks is the solution. There was something unique yet common to all those great games that made them memorable enough that we long for them even today.

As an example, while I don't quite like the whacky universe and style that evolved since Rayman 2, Rayman Origins engine and graphics were stunning, and captures part of that essence. Sadly the gameplay is largely forgettable, almost a rhythm-based party game — I long for something like the first Rayman gameplay — but the graphics part is a step in the right direction.

I feel like Orioto [0-3](browse his tumblr blog for more) tries to captures this essence, and I long for games looking like his work. Given the incredible horsepower we have at hand as of yet, I just can't believe it's not possible.

[0]: http://www.redbubble.com/people/orioto/works/8245345-through...

[1]: http://www.redbubble.com/people/orioto/works/8290902-city-bo...

[2]: http://orioto.tumblr.com/post/15721511369/1200p-1080p-print

[3]: http://orioto.tumblr.com/post/15627728854/1200p-1080p-print

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#37

Post by lobster_johnson »

csl wrote: post #34
ComputerGuru wrote: post #12

Is SCUMM really better than Lua?

It's interesting that Ron Gilbert originally wanted to base SCUMM on Lisp: http://www.pagetable.com/?p=614 Of the few SCUMM script examples I've seen, I can't seem to understand what Gilbert means when he says: "It did things Lua could never dream of." The ability to control a C64 from a UNIX box? That actually sounds a lot like Naughty Dog's GOAL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Oriented_Assembly_Lisp

I think you have to interpret that snide remark as tongue-in-cheek; he also says SCUMM beat up Lua for its lunch money. And he is playing that "grumpy old developer" role pretty consistently, which means bashing the new and venerating the old. Still, I think his main point is that SCUMM was a higher-level language than Lua that could express actions in a more game-specific form, and that's why it's more suitable (at least to his way of doing things), and that's why he would like to continue the SCUMM way rather than actually use Lua.

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#38

Post by Narretz »

nollidge wrote: post #16

I hope no one minds if I hijack to ask: What are some really good MODERN adventure games, along the lines of MI or the Space Quests? Besides the Two Guys' Kickstarter campaign, I mean...

I really liked the Chzo Mythos. It is a mystery / horror point and click adventure, quite short. The atmosphere is really great. http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/5days/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chzo_Mythos#7_Days_a_Skeptic

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#39

Post by erdogan »

I love Monkey Island series and other Lucas Arts Adventure games, spent way too many hours playing them. However, I am a bit disappointed in this article because it feels a bit concierge-mvp to nostalgia (feeling the grounds before a full-on Kickstarter campaign), unfortunately without any interesting build upon what those great games offered. Well, consider this as my feedback to the mvp. Grim Fandango was a breakthrough, including its no-interface approach and clever use of camera angles to script the player. I have never seen a game script coming alive so strongly, it was like playing a movie. But Monkey Island re-pixelated? Although I played it on my iPad and switch back and forth between old-new renderings, I would expect these wonderful minds to be more inventive than nostalgic when producing something new.

Re: If I Made Another Monkey Island...

#40

Post by Aloisius »

I may be an odd ball here, but I cheated at Monkey Island 1 and 2. I don't like to be frustrated with a puzzle that relies on either randomly choosing inventory items or seeing some pixels that look like almost every other set of pixels on the screen and trying to pick them up.

For me, what made Monkey Island great was that it was a pretty quirky comedy. I wanted to see what Guybrush would say next.

Further, it shocks me at how bad the graphics are at some of these games after looking at them again after decades. It occurs to me that what I remember it looking like is a heck of a lot better than what it actually looked like. So I'd rather the game not look like the pixely original. I'd rather have it look like I remember.

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