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The Curse of Monkey Island
- HaHaHackerNews 3y ago[flagged]
- hiddencost 3y agoProbably the single most impactful game I played growing up. Some really incredible adventure games came out of that era. Loom and Grim Fandango spring to mind.
- thefaux 3y agoThe concept and feel of Loom were wonderful. I wish it had been longer, but probably my personal favorite of the group.
- wsc981 3y agoOn the Mac it was a quite beautiful game. Later on I tried different (Windows / DOS) versions with ScummVM but they're a disappointment. Same with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I am not sure if the Mac versions are playable in ScummVM.
- aidenn0 3y agoLoom looks way better on a CRT than it does in e.g. dosbox. It is easily the best looking EGA game ever made (if that's not damning it with faint praise).
- duskwuff 3y agoLoom's EGA graphics were, arguably, better than the VGA version. http://www.superrune.com/tutorials/loom_ega.php http://www.superrune.com/tutorials/loom_ega.php
- aidenn0 3y agoI had no idea there was a VGA remake, thanks for sharing. It does point out that the EGA dithering was less harsh on a CRT as well.
- atribecalledqst 3y agoIt was such a shame we didn't get the other 2 Loom games that were planned. (and iirc there's an easter egg that you can find, that directly hints at the content for the next game)
- el_benhameen 3y agoImpactful indeed. I remember a lot of games for being fun, having impressive graphics, etc. But the MI series instilled in me a sense of nostalgia and longing for a time and a place that I’ve never been and that never really existed, and it’s a feeling that I still get when I think about the games or hear the music from them.
- tetrisgm 3y agoReminder that this game, and all the DOS era titles, are neatly documented and ready to play via eXoDOS 6 or eXoSCUMMVM.
- Gormo 3y agoOr just directly available on archive.org.
- billwashere 3y agoNever heard of exoscummvm but https://www.scummvm.org/ https://www.scummvm.org/ is the original site. I spent a lot of time playing Monkey Island the ds version of scummvm.
- criddell 3y agoI wonder if Curse of Monkey Island would translate well to the iPad?
- tetrisgm 3y agoYou can try it for yourself via Scummvm!
- YakBizzarro 3y agoJust a masterpiece. The graphics and musical are just wonderful and inspiring. Enigms are good and the story solid. Plus I played it when I was young, so it's special to me
- pshc 3y ago> It nails that mixture of whimsy, cleverness, and sweetness that has made The Secret of Monkey Island arguably the most beloved point-and-click adventure game of all time. > During the latter 1990s, when most computers games were still made by and for a fairly homogeneous cohort of young men, too much ludic humor tried to get by on transgression rather than wit; this was a time of in-groups punching — usually punching down — on out-groups. I’m happy to say that The Curse of Monkey Island‘s humor is nothing like that. Well said. Game has aged beautifully.
- soneca 3y agoFor such a male-dominated industry creating a game for a largely male audience, it is impressive how well and positively women were portrayed in the MI games. Elaine in particular is brave, smart, skillful, a leader, but also loving, kind. The character is not flattened to a single characteristic or narrative function. Even when she needs to be saved, when you get there, she already saved herself (in MI 1 or 2, I don’t remember).
- turbosepp 3y agoThis is one of the things I really really liked in the original two MIs. The characters ...and especially the relation between tough Elaine and Guybrush ("you're so helpless and cute"). I think they did not get this "right" in the newest part and it's my main problem with it.
- Rinzler89 3y ago>For such a male-dominated industry creating a game for a largely male audience, it is impressive how well and positively women were portrayed in the MI games. Wait a second, why is that surprising? As if to you, something being male dominated must usually mean women being portrayed negatively by men, and if they're not then it's a surprise. Sorry, but your comment just reeks of sexism by assuming mens' default is to not have a positive portrayal on women.
- orwin 3y agoI do think it is more about wide feedback than 'men can't portray women well'. It's easy to overcorrect or make weak characters (not only women) when you're in a monoculture and your feedback come from the same kind of people. My example is Raymond E. Feist. His characters (especially female, but not only) were really weak before he partnered with Wurts (which, in my opinion, gave birth to their best work), and in all his following books all his characters were way better than in his first works.
- soneca 3y agoGreat article for a great game. I loved every Monkey Island game (maybe just “liked” the 4th). I even loved the ending of this last one, that was, again, controversial.
- manbash 3y agoWhat a great game. The "mega monkey" difficulty had me attempting every possible combination with my inventory items.
- sentrysapper 3y agoI loved this game growing up, but never got around to finishing it. I've been going back and playing point & click adventures like Grim Fandango and Broke Age. IMO that genre didn't age well. So many interactions are counterintuitive and I inevitably feel like I have to read a guide in order to proceed with the narrative.
- doublerabbit 3y agoYou had to have the patience. My older brother loved the Myst series, DoTT, Sam & Max and as a younger brother who used to sit and watch him play games, I got bored. His way of shoving me out the room because I would then hear him play GTA and not be allowed back in... It's the same with any of those games. Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max. -- You need that logical and forward thinking mindset and an attention span greater than 3 seconds. It's an niche genre and not for everyone and now it's a genre that's lost with time just because how the world is nowadays. Who has four hours to point and click around a realm? I meanwhile just wanted to frag folk and jump around a CTF map on Quake 3.
- Rinzler89 3y ago>You need that logical and forward thinking mindset and an attention span greater than 3 seconds Not only that but you do need a lot of free time as well. As a kid I had the patience and time to push through point and click games, now as an adult with responsibilities I don't. If I only have 30 minutes per day to spend on gaming it's gonna be too short to invest in those kinds of games but just enough time for a few rounds of Q3 arena or such.
- jerf 3y agoOn the plus side, in the modern era, you can easily find a walkthrough to help you through whatever. Though many are not well-structured to avoid spoilers when you drop into the middle of them. I don't do a ton of adventure gaming, but I have gone through most of the episodic Sam & Max games. I estimate about 1 walkthrough consult per 2 games overall, and about a 50/50 split between "oh crap I should have gotten that myself" and "oh, I was never going to get that" results (with the occasional "oh I was right and I just didn't click on the right thing or notice the tiny little widget" that really makes me glad I just looked). Day of the Tentacle was probably the largest game I've done with 0 consults, though I was probably stuck enough to justify it a couple of times. One of the heights of the genre, there.
- guy4261 3y ago> In more practical terms, however, it steered the burgeoning Monkey Island franchise straight into a cul de sac with no obvious escape. Without getting into (almost any specific) spoilers of the last 10 seconds of the game... this claim is completely untrue. The hint at a sequel is right there in the open, as the ending implies LeChuck is still at large.
- COGlory 3y ago#2, not #3
- mrob 3y agoAt the end of MI2, "Chuckie" looks at the screen and his eyes flash, implying he's still really LeChuck. Additionally, there's scene of Elaine speculating about a voodoo curse. Ron Gilbert never "sequel-proofed" the game; the route that MI3 takes was deliberately left open.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- asicsarecool 3y agoThe greatest adventure game of all time. Larry Ahern is a genius
- forrestthewoods 3y agoSuch an underrated game. I wish they would remaster it in high res. The art style is stunning and holds up. And let's not forget it introduced Murray the Skull to the world!
- account42 3y ago> I wish they would remaster it in high res. But why? Just play with a mild CRT shader in ScummVM and it looks fine. Also considering the art style of the MI1/2 remasters as well as whatever the art in Return is supposed to be I really don't want to find out how they would butcher MI3.
- wkat4242 3y agoI was always a, huge fan of this one. It's my favourite in the series. Monkey Island 1 was also good. But 2 was too complicated and the puzzles too contrived. And it was soooo slow on Amiga. But 3, wow. I love the art style, the way the characters are drawn, the jokes etc. The goodsoup family. It was a really great game. In contrast, 4 was really ugly with its primitive 3D graphics, stupid Starbucks jokes etc.
- 77pt77 3y ago> And it was soooo slow on Amiga Wasn't that the one with 10 floppy disks or something?
- egypturnash 3y agowalk into bar "please swap disc" load load load Largo comes in, talks for a bit, swishes spit in his mouth, leans back "please swap disc" load load load A closeup of a big green gobbet of spit flying across the screen "please swap disc" load load load And at that moment I knew I needed to get a hard drive.
- snvzz 3y agomi2 was 11 floppies (plus another to hold saves). On the basic 68000 based models it was kinda slow. And without a hard disk nor over 1mb memory, it was a lot of floppy swapping. I still played through it to the end, and enjoyed it.
- wkat4242 3y agoI never really made it off the first island. It was just sooooo tedious. I couldn't afford a HDD.
- zizee 3y agoMonkey wrench anyone?
- thaumasiotes 3y ago> The danger of increased resolution and color count was always that the finished results could veer into a sort of photo-realism, losing the ramshackle charm that had always been such a big part of Monkey Island's appeal. This is a weird perspective; The Secret of Monkey Island already uses photorealistic graphics. Curse is much cartoonier.
- doublerabbit 3y agoThis song, and that you could choose the lyrics. Ingenious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XUtvLzUSB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XUtvLzUSB0
- runeb 3y agoAn excellent write up on this great game! One particularly striking element of Curse to me is the soundtrack. Michael Lands compositions for the series is absolutely perfect in this high fidelity form. The familiar themes from the earlier games take on a whole new dimension and the music has its own narrative which perfectly complements the visuals and gameplay. A masterpiece in its own right. I still find myself loading it up on YouTube and playing it in the background while working or doing house chores.
- FpUser 3y agoMusic from The Secret of Monkey Island is in my favorites
- jl6 3y agoA great retrospective. I have nothing but praise for this game. It’s a standout example of how great art transcends its medium. Despite the technical limitations of the mid-90s, it’s still a beautifully drawn, beautifully scored joyful experience. A Pirate I Was Meant To Be is on our family playlist for long car journeys with the kids. Also, I’m not sure if this can ever be proven, but I’m convinced the chain of influence from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Ride to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Movie goes at least partly via Monkey Island.
- egypturnash 3y agoTim Powers' pirate fantasy book On Stranger Tides is a very important link in this chain. Gilbert's said it was a major influence, and the first Pirates movie had a lot of Tides' vibes. Pirates 4 was a straight-up adaptation of the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Stranger_Tides#Influence_on_other_works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Stranger_Tides#Influence_on...
- atombender 3y ago...An adaptation which kept nearly nothing about the book, sadly. It's a great novel (if you excuse some minor flaws, like the protagonist's lightning-fast mastering of sailing after he becomes a pirate) which deserves a proper adaptation, but now that Disney owns the rights, that will likely never happen.
- Tarsul 3y agoI replayed 3 and 4 a few years ago. And I have to say that the jokes in 4 were better. Who is with me? ;)
- nidnogg 3y agoI dunno, I recently came off of a couple of Monkey Island 1 - 2 playthroughs and after starting this one, I couldn't help but feel that it was very laborious to talk to a few NPCs - some conversations would last way longer than I remember. It's funny because this is what I treasured the most about the previous games. I ended up shelving it for the time being. Maybe it takes off after a while? Could always give another shot.
- legitster 3y agoI'm really surprised a Monkey Island movie hasn't been made yet. Yes, the Pirates of the Caribbean movie originally started as a Monkey Island screenplay. But that franchise is basically dead now, and with the popularity of sassy, fourth-wall breaking sendup movies I think it would do gangbusters. The lore and the humor and the characters are already there - it's a shame they are locked to this increasingly small audience of people who have patience for point and click adventure games.
- xandrius 3y agoGiven the streak videogame movies have, I'd rather not: I'm still recovering from the latest MI game...
- Agingcoder 3y agoI love that game, along with Fate of Atlantis and Day of the Tentacle - but this has to be my favorite one. For some reason I never quite understood, it wasn’t that well received when it came out. My stance on this one hasn’t changed in 27 years and I firmly believe it is the pinnacle of the genre : incredible art, hilarious, crazy but somehow logical puzzles, great music, and above all extraordinarily well written. Very very few games had me laugh in front of my computer. And don’t forget the brilliant voice acting. I’ve just bought the latest title in the series but haven’t played it yet - I somehow fear it won’t be able to match COMI. I will also be introducing my kids to this incredible work of art - they will never hear about this from their friends at school, and I feel this is typically the kind of thing I can and probably should share as a parent. Lucas folks, thanks for making this game.
- probably_wrong 3y agoI think the reason CoMI wasn't well received was a combination of adventure games being on the way out (so not a great sale for casual gamers) and Ron Gilbert not being involved in it (so not a great pitch for fans either). But I have to agree that some of my favorite Monkey Island jokes came from this game, and I appreciate their attempt at "straightening" the ending of MI2. As for the latest MI... it is my hot take that I would have been better off not playing it. It's competently made and has some good innovations for the point-and-click genre, but not even the characters seem like they want to be there. Then again, it has good ratings so other opinions exist.
- endgame 3y agoCoMI felt to me like a game made by Monkey Island fans, rather than coming from an original place. I don't mean that it's a fangame, but that SoMI 1 and 2 had been out long enough that people had played them, gone into the industry, and worked on CoMI with an idea of "what a Monkey Island game 'should' be like". When I played it I felt there were a lot of structural similarities to previous games (let's do insult swordfighting again) and obligatory call-outs (like Stan).
- xandrius 3y ago
- atombender 3y agoAs someone who grew up with these games, I played through and liked MI3 when it came out it, but the graphics style always felt off to me. The exaggerated art style didn't mesh with that of the first two games. The art style of the first two is of course whimsical, but it's within the realm of photorealism. MI3, however, leans heavily into the Chuck Jones style of cartoons, with huge heads and spindly bodies, against super-exaggerated backgrounds where not a single straight corner can be seen. It's not just that Guybrush looks completely different in MI3 — he's certainly not a tall, lanky fellow in MI1-2 (though in the "remastered" versions LucasArts retconned his look) — he feels like an entirely new and different character. The world also feels like a different universe entirely. It's a different island, sure, but it just doesn't feel like the dark and atmospheric environment of the first two games. There's overall a weird lack of continuity here, and the heritage of Day of the Tentacle is apparent. DotT is of course about as Chunk Jones-y as you can get, with a huge dab of the wacky art style of Ren & Stimpy and Animaniacs. MI3 feels designed by people who wanted to do their own thing. What's really weird and off-putting is the art style of MI6. I don't know what they were thinking. I guess they didn't think Guybrush was thin enough in the previous iterations?
- wzdd 3y agoGoing full wacky-pirate-adventure and changing the graphical style is arguably better, though, than trying more closely to imitate Gilbert and inevitably coming up short.
- atombender 3y agoMI1-2 were already plenty wacky, though. Claiming a sequel that aligned more with the look and feel of the original couldn't have worked is neither here nor there, because it was never attempted, and so it can't be dismissed as the wrong way to go.
- ttepasse 3y agoI remember particularly adoring the art style at the time, possibly because it was so different from the other games at the time. Especially the clouds.
- astlouis44 3y agoAnd not to mention that you can play a demo of it in your browser, thanks to this WebAssembly port! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40092627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40092627 https://personal-1094.web.app/scummvm.html https://personal-1094.web.app/scummvm.html
- deanCommie 3y agoI absolutely adored The Curse of Monkey Island, and still do, having gone back and finished it 3 or 4 times. It was my first encounter with the series and even after the remastered versions I couldn't go back and get into the first 2 because they simply felt less developed, less funny, and less interesting. I know those that have started with them would think that's a travesty, but here we are.
- aidenn0 3y agoThe second is my least favorite. Maybe sour grapes because I was stuck on one puzzle for about 6 months, and when I finally got past it, that ending was a major letdown.
- pentagrama 3y agoThis was the first Monkey Island game I played. I remember getting my first PC at thirteen and have some pirated games on it, Quake 2, Descent Freespace, Moto Racer (Enter your name!), and The Curse of Monkey Island was something different, so wholesome and funny, I was in love with Elaine, it also make me interested on storytelling, I guess because of that game I started to watch more movies and read more books. And this game have the option to hear all the voices on Spanish, it wasn't something common, so me knowing no English at all, it was a new gaming experience and the connection was deeper.
- crtified 3y agoEarl Boen, the late actor who voiced LeChuck in this game, would be recognised by many from his profilic career across the past several decades of television, movies and video games. He was in everything from The Wonder Years and Seinfeld to the Terminator movies. Game-wise, his resume included entries from series like Baldurs Gate, Krondor, Zork, Star Trek, Metal Gear Solid, and as the narrator of World of Warcraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Boen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Boen
- pbj1968 3y agoI liked this one until that stupid puzzle with the gold tooth and the balloon.
- guybrushT 3y agoI waited for this thread for 10 years (check my username) and then didn't log into hacker news on the day it was posted :) I wouldn't shower more praise on this game than folks have already done. Great article. Great HN thread. A happy day.
- ilvez 3y agoIf anyone enjoys dub music & Monkey Island tunes then "Meanwhile Deep Beneath the Island" compilation from Jahtari label could work for you: https://jahtari.bandcamp.com/album/meanwhile-deep-beneath-the-island https://jahtari.bandcamp.com/album/meanwhile-deep-beneath-th... "Nerdcore Dub versions from 'The Secret of Monkey Island I & II' adventure game soundtracks (1990/91), the forgotten Voodoo-Reggae classics from the floppy disc age."
- elorant 3y agoAh those were the days. We’d buy the game, go home, play for hours end, get stuck, then call our friends the next day to exchange information and see if someone has progressed further. It created a form of belonging and exploration that’s long gone.
- rallyforthesun 3y agoI used to work for a company where playing The Curse of Monkey Island was part of the recruitment test.