RetroAhoy: The Secret of Monkey Island

[Music] what makes a game a classic is it the number of copies sold or the review scores it receives maybe is something not quantifiable something special something magic whatever it is I think The Secret of Monkey Island qualifies it's a definitive point of click adventure game and it remains a touchstone and video game culture so how did this new breed of graphic adventure develop what made LucasArts adventure games so memorable and what is the secret of monkey eye early videogames are not often noted for their storytelling arcade action of the early 80s rested on paper-thin premise shooting aliens eating dots and scoring points those games that did focus on narrative were far less glamorous the humble text adventure has never sold itself through screenshots still they have been around for a while the genre started on mainframe machines like the pdp-10 with Colossal Cave adventure in 1976 in turn this inspired a group from MIT to create dork in 1977 found infocomm in 1979 and release games commercially for the emerging 8-bit home market Zork went on to sell over a million copies across all platforms and infocomm became a prolific publisher of adventure games however for all their narrative richness text adventures are not without flaw they required patience and a certain knowledge of how to play the text parsers were notoriously fussy requiring just the right verb noun wording to perform a desired action as computers became more powerful and games even more graphics focused text adventures started to suffer from a poor reputation they needed to evolve else risk extinction [Music] the first logical improvement was the addition of graphics with key locations Illustrated to better set the scene a welcome addition but not a fundamental shift some attempted to address gameplay frustrations improvements to text parsing such as using a larger vocabulary and attempting to understand natural language one of the key innovators of the adventure genre was online systems later known as Sierra online founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams their first game mystery house is regarded as the first true graphical adventure game it plays in much the same way as a text adventure you still have to type everything but there's a greater emphasis on the graphics particularly when it comes to interactive elements every scene is rendered doors and cupboards open at your command and looking sometimes brings closer details interview it was an innovative approach and an evolutionary step towards the modern graphic adventure however the series that really cemented Sierra's reputation was King's Quest some called it an animated text adventure which is a pretty good description set in the fairy tale Kingdom of Daventry and illustrated in 16-color graphics you take control of sir Graham direct control in fact to travel between locations you no longer type north south west or east instead you walk to the edge of the screen or through a door or up a ladder the scenery was no longer just decoration it was an interactive part of the world by contemporary standards the game looks primitive but in the age of text adventures there was nothing else that came close [Music] ciara were crowned kings of the adventure genre and they certainly weren't shy of sequels with the success of the king's quest formula but a good use over the next few years Space Quest followed in 1986 and police quest Leisure Suit Larry the following year thematic shifts of the fantasy formula however the games were not without flaw with residual influence from earlier text adventures interaction was still text driven some puzzles were obtuse and it wasn't always clear what had to be done next perhaps most notably it was very easy to die sometimes it's justified I mean what good is drama without danger but when even the most benign looking thing that can end your gala properly it can leave or straighten it verges on bad game design harming both exploration and experimentation two very important factors in building an interactive world [Music] Ciara's games had a sizable fanbase but they had their fair share of critics too the poor reputation of adventure games lingered like a bad odor worst of all Sierra had a new rifle one with particularly deep pockets Star Wars was kind of a big deal the original trilogy was profoundly successful and Lucasfilm were in an envier bull position they had the budgets necessary to attract the best talent and to keep ahead of the technological curve it was clear that CGI would become an increasingly major part of film but for the time being it was too primitive so to prepare themselves for the future Lucasfilm set up a games division in order to enter the market they struck a deal with Atari in 1982 this was before the crash back when Atari were very much in charge of the video gaming market and things were more optimistic the Lucasfilm Atari Dell managed to whether the industry turmoil and by 1984 the first games were ready for release two titles ball blazer and rescue on fractal as' ball blazer was a futuristic sports game football with hover cars basically released first for the atari 8-bit systems for hardware it was a very good-looking game twin viewport 3d graphics that have dated at 20 frames a second beam with rudimentary anti-aliasing rescue on fact Ellis was similarly impressive with graphics and scope that tested the limits of 8-bit home computers your ship launches from space and descends into a 3d fractal landscape you must carefully navigate through valleys in search of downed pilots once located on the scanners landing nearby will make the pilot run towards your ship and knock on your airlock for entry let them in to rescue them but take care later levels feature aliens posing as stricken pilots a second wave of games followed shortly after repurposing the fractal landscape technology Coronis rift in which you drive a rover tank in search of hulks to loot for upgrades and the idle on a steampunk adventure there has you exploring caves in search of the Guardian dragon these early offerings from Lucasfilm fit the sci-fi expectations of the studio they gave us star wars but any times to the film universe were strictly forbidden video games were uncertain ground and experiences like the Star Wars Holiday Special lets you very tight franchise control so these first games were just a prelude a chance to do something interesting prove themselves in the market and to push the boundaries of what was possible on early 8-bit machines so fractal landscapes were cool but having found their feet it was time for a new adventure and for the first time ever Lucasfilm games were to produce a movie tie-in game it wasn't Star Wars a Jim Henson's labyrinth the game starts off as a text adventure albeit with a novel word we all system it exposes acceptable verbs and nouns they trip to the movies buy a ticket sit down and then the graphics begin your character is determined by questions asked to the start of the game name sex and favorite color which decides what you wear control is direct via the joystick and along with the scrolling is surprisingly smooth a fusion of both adventure and arcade gameplay a not entirely successful one but certainly more interesting than your typical movie tie-in of the error and as lucasfilm's first adventure game a sign of what was to come by the mid-1980s the hardware market was changing the Atari 8-bit machines were fading in relevancy with the Commodore 64 dominant and a new wave of 16-bit machines were waiting in the wings the internet loomed on the horizon prompting Lucasfilm to dabble with MMORPGs the surprisingly innovative habitat which was probably too far ahead of its time to ever be a success still Lucasfilm weren't shy of hiring technical talent to face these new challenges and once a tyre was Ron Gilbert brought onto port Coronis rift and the idle on to the Commodore 64 after that was done he was left at a loose end and invited to come up with the hit [Music] his first proposal I was a teenager Lobot a science-fiction role playing strategy adventure game an ambitious idea with randomly generated faces an interactive world featuring puzzles with multiple solutions and a certain b-movie charm it was never made however its technical considerations and style of humor would certainly influence Gilbert's next game maniac mansion first came out for the Commodore 64 in 1987 a schlocky sci-fi romp set in a sprawling mansion populated with a samey cast the game features seven playable characters of which you assemble a team of three each of these so-called kids has a different skill set and depending on who you choose only certain endings will be possible each character is controlled independently and you can switch between them freely some puzzles require two or more characters to cooperate in real-time it was a surprisingly complex game but its humor made experimentation fun through exploring and solving puzzles the mansion would slowly reveal its secrets it's not perfect there's a lot of backtracking obtuse puzzles and the occasional dead end but it was a bonafide adventure with no instructions too tight it was built with a scripting language called the script creation utility the maniac mansion oh scum if you prefer it was a way to abstract the technical aspects of game development distilling the boring minutiae like pathfinding for moving characters on screen into simplest stage directions essentially the game could be written like an interactive film script allowing the designers to focus on the puzzles and the story maniac mansion had good reviews and sold well enough it wasn't a record-breaker instead a slow burner shifting copies years after its release on a variety of platforms even spawning a television series most importantly though it demonstrated the commercial viability of a new type of adventure game and the potential of scum without this proof Lucasfilm might not have persevered but persevere they did with a second sculpting game Zack McCracken and the alien mind Bendis following in 1988 set in a world of tabloid conspiracies it was a less claustrophobic adventure that saw you jetting all over the globe to unravel an alien plot it's all told in humorous manner and in what would become a Lucasfilm tradition there's a host of in jokes and references to previous games self-indulgent perhaps but also rewarding with a burgeoning fanbase of Lucasfilm adventure games reusing scum meant that any maniac mansion specific hacks had to be ironed out which was a good thing a necessary refinement for future use by now the likes of the Commodore 64 we're starting to look long in the tooth as 16-bit machines became more affordable stock colors gave way to far more nuanced shades and blips and beeps replaced by digitized sound ram now ranged in the hundreds of kilobytes and relatively fast loading floppy disks were now the norm the Apple Macintosh first released in 1984 came with a mouse as standard and probably did more than most to introduce the control method for the general population it's on this platform where we find the first games that could be considered a point-and-click such as enchanted scepters and deja vu soon the Atari ST the Amiga and IBM PC would all be sold with mice but the potential of these 16-bit machines brought more change than a mere peripheral cinematic ISM was the buzzword of the era video games were the future and the future of video games was interactive movies a wave of games whose principal goal was to impress some of them were successful a huge step up from earlier 8-bit titles in what might be the biggest generational leap we'll ever see of course all these fancy graphics came at a cost long load times and often poor gameplay but that didn't stop games like defender of the crown in 1986 heralding the new generation they say a graphics don't matter but they've sold a few systems in their time [Music] by now the star wars money had started to dry up and so the culture at Lucasfilm changed after some disappointments in the box office and a costly divorce settlement cash flow was a much greater concern so within the games division and he wore fanciful ideas were put on hold for the forthcoming release of the third Indiana Jones film the time scale was tight just six months skum was shaping up to be a versatile platform for adventure games and given the deadlines it was the only viable choice with the shooting script providing the story the game came together quickly although it missed the movies release it came out while it was still playing in theaters despite the rush the game still boasts some innovation it's the first scum title to feature dialogue choices and the first one in which you can look at environmental objects the mostly optional action sequences demonstrate the engines flexibility - you can dodge puzzles by resorting to fisticuffs or attempt to fly a biplane it sold over a quarter of a million copies and became the best-selling Lucasfilm games to date presumably carried by the license and their reputation for quality reviews were generally positive but not as glowing as you might expect the poor reputation of adventure games still lingered seen as a bear deer pursuit in any case the indie license was out of the way and the teams at Lucasfilm games but once again free to embark on more creative projects in 1989 two teams assembled Brian Moriarty led the fantasy themed loom a magical world that dispelled the usual selection of verbs in favor of musical notes you interact with the world by casting short musical drafts another team led by Ron Gilbert and accompanied by new hires Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer began work on what would become the secret of monkey island Ron Gilbert was quite critical of adventure games in his 1989 article why adventure games suck he laid out a few design principles to help avoid the more frustrating aspects of adventures his criticism wasn't limited to the gameplay either he was no fan of the traditional setting of such games fantasy had been done to death Dungeons & Dragons was probably to blame but the last thing Gilbert wanted was a Tolkien fueled trudge through an elf filled forest it's odd because adventure films were far more diverse featuring all sorts of swashbuckling action simplified by the roles of Errol Flynn the piratical exploits in films like Captain Blood were fused with more contemporary elements such as Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride the Princess Bride and Tim powers on Stranger Tides from these a concept crystallized a pirate adventure initially called mutiny on Monkey Island [Music] the design would evolve some way from this initial proposal governor Marley was intended to be the bad guy before eventually becoming a love interest and the planned ship combat would also be replaced with sword fighting originally the protagonist was a pirate fallen from grace and seeking redemption with the provisional name smear West instead our beloved hero would become a naive FOP at the tender age of 20 frilly shirts and fancy pants fresh to the Caribbean but what of the name something equal parts pretentious and ridiculous the surname Threepwood loaned from a PG Woodhouse character the first name was trickier for a while they just called him guy Anse the story goes that there are packaged deluxe paint to saved his sprites with a dot brush extension leading to a file named guy dot brush and so it was do I brush through put mighty pirate [Music] as the concept solidified and a scope and budget were defined production could begin scum continued to evolve with each new game and Monkey Island added some neat new features including the ability to dynamically scale characters as they traverse paths both loom and indi before did have limited character scaling but the size transition was masked by foreground objects now Guybrush could disappear into the distance in a much more convincing manner perhaps more important were the improvements to the interface the what is verb was removed as now you could simply mouse over interactive objects to reveal them far more intuitive the dialogue trees first seen in Indy were expanded to and with a wealth of funny conversations talking to characters would become its own reward the writing was the backbone of the game's atmosphere but it was the audio-visual aspects that really brought everything together it was a transitional time for PC graphics and Monkey Island would eventually support a wide range of video modes from monochrome monitors to 256 color vga displays the IBM compatible EGA release and graphics limited to a fixed 16 color palette but the judicious use of dithering if the illusion of more colors particularly when viewed on a CRT display a later Amiga and VGA releases so improvements to the character and background art with 32 and 256 color graphics respectively in these gradients became smoother colors more natural and the previously hand-drawn character portraits were replaced with direct scans of artwork the game's audio would cover a similarly wide technical gamut too with support for simple blips and beeps courtesy of the PC speaker - a new wave of digital sound cards and fully fledged MIDI synthesizers such as the roland mt-32 audio has never been the strongest suit of the adventure genre previous Lucasfilm games were often criticized for their sound or lack of it so this time they pulled out all the stops a soundtrack from recent Harvard Graduate Michael land a suite of Calypso infused sound dripping with Caribbean flavor apt an expressive despite the various hardware limitations it was brilliant memorable and still resonant today [Music] the game starts slowly a few tentative notes over court as the Lucasfilm logo rolls by in the middle of the Caribbean an island named Mele the theme kicks in and credits display this is the introduction and it's carefully designed to draw you into its world the first line of dialogue manages to introduce the protagonists their name and their prime motivation I my name is Gabe rush throughput and I want to be a pirate ostensibly the Irish is addressing the lookout but it's really the player he's talking to in fact the first few scenes of the game are a secret tutorial the conversation with a lookout tells you exactly what to do next in no uncertain terms the next scene teaches basic movement click anywhere and guy brush will walk to it follow the path and you arrive at the scum bar the place where you're supposed to be a door hopefully by now the player will have spotted the verbs at the bottom of the screen and have the initiative to click open then on the door itself if all else fails the manual walks players through the process once you're inside there's a panoply of people to talk to some helpful others less so it's a smorgasbord of potential interaction and with the player fully briefed on how to play and what to do the island is yours to explore at least after a cutscene introduces the bad guy The Ghost Pirate Lee Chuck it's a very gentle introduction almost insulting Lee sir but the ignorant supplier's knows no limits and if you want to appeal to an audience that is never played an adventure game before you have to start somewhere as the game picks up pace the puzzles get more devious and the player might even get stuck but the game is never particularly difficult and certainly never unfair it is quite famously nearly impossible to die this essentially gives the player a free license to say whatever they want use items however they please and threaten even the bloodthirstiest pirate it's unrealistic the players wouldn't have half the fun experimenting with dialogue or puzzles if the world were more hostile there's a joke and a competitor's expense later in the game wonder too close to a cliff edge and you'll plummet to your doom with a Sierra style dialogue the prompts are reload seconds later guy brush bounces back on the screen to simply say rubber tree there is truth be told only one way to die in Monkey Island and it's not something you could do accidentally frequent references are made to guide brushes ability to hold his breath for 10 minutes and in one particular sequence you find yourself underwater with a variety of sharp implements just out of reach your escape is a race against time the solution is deceptively simple but if for whatever reason you fail to find it after the promised time elapses Guybrush will eventually drown the death is genuine and you will need to reload or save but even so the game has one last joke the usual verbs at the bottom of the screen are replaced with ones more fitting for a corpse float Bob decompose order hint book it's always worth the 10 minute wait games are remembered for all sorts of different reasons but it's rare that be copy-protection evokes fond memories toad wheels were nothing new the DRM of its day and most games took some measures to protect themselves from software piracy but something about the mix-and-match heads of the tiler pirate was charming Monkey Island humor permeates every aspect of the game the story the dialogue a setting in characters even your inventory has a touch of absurdity what possible use could a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle have comedy is a very difficult thing to get right and it would be easy to overdo things but there's a balance of the zanier elements with a deadpan irony [Music] Guybrush himself is an odd mix on some fronts he's hopelessly naive wet behind the ears completely inept and incapable of talking to girls but on the other hand he has a cynical streak moments in which lampshades hang and dialogue options which reveal that garish knows more than he lets on the irony hangs so thick in the air and I'm not convinced there is a fourth wall and it feels like most of the game's cast are in on the joke - one of my favorite wall breaking examples has to be the infamous stump joke looking at a particularly nondescript stump deep in the forest prompts kibosh to describe an elaborate system of catacombs but lie beyond the hole a sequence of increasingly improbable discs change requests follow disc 22 disc 36 disc 114 requests impossible to fulfill as most versions only had a few discs realizing the impossible guy brush exclaims I'll just have to skip that part of the game some players were left confused prompting telephone calls to Lucasfilm support wine and the eventual removal of the joke in later cd-rom versions sequences like this are memorable and there's no shortage of them from an elaborate action sequence that takes place almost entirely off screen to accidentally stranding yourself on Monkey Island to simply touching a parrot the game really is full of such wonderful moments perhaps one of the most definitive parts of the game is the insult sword fighting in the first act your test with three trials to prove your pirate hood and in one you need to brush up on your swordplay in order to defeat these so called sword master it turns out that the played is the least important thing to hone rather than trading deadly blows you draw from an arsenal of caustic Barb's insults and retorts after your initial training it's a case of learning new insults to extend your repertoire once you have a good complement of comebacks you can start to win these battles of wins the insults themselves were written by Orson Scott Card of Ender's Game Fame with two parts insult and response so an opening like you fight like a dairy farmer might be met with how appropriate you fight like a cow upon challenging the sword master you realize that she has a whole deck of alternate insults insults unfamiliar to the rest of the island cleverly though this set of insults meshed elegantly with the stand that retorts so with a quiver of comebacks and a bit of creativity even the sword master could be bested been there done that got the t-shirt the trials are just the first hurdle and serve to introduce the main story arc just as you ascend into pirate the ghost pirate lechuck kidnaps sky brushes love interest elaine marley taking her to his lair and so with motivation clear the plucky guy brush must acquire a ship hire a crew and make the impossible voyage to Monkey Island along the way they'll make new friends explore a brightly lit paradise and descend into hell ultimately discovering how to defeat their Chuck before the final confrontation the ending sees a return to the start as all good stories do except this time garish is more experienced Savia and packing a magic root potion the fourth act garish cakes but marks the end of the real puzzles instead it's just a matter of tying off some loose ends and sailing to a satisfying conclusion the music plays fireworks light the sky 5995 plus tax well spent every facet of Monkey Island glimmers the sound graphics setting writing humor everything comes together into a fantastic whole what's most impressive is how quickly it was done just 15 months after in d3 and with a small team became first release for eg APCs on the 15th of October 1990 the 256-color VGA version or LED in December just in time for Christmas Commodore Amiga and Atari ST users had to wait a little longer with airports following in early 1991 reviews were universally positive with the average score confidently above that vital 90% threshold comparisons to earlier Lucas film adventures were inevitable but generally Monkey Island was regarded as better in every way Lord it is hilarious with excellent writing the setting was welcomed as was the art and animation the soundtrack and well polished gameplay it was both fun and easy to play negative points were minor too much disk swapping for those playing from floppies and maybe a little too easy for seasoned adventurous overall it was universally recommended this is what graphic adventures should always have been like but of course normal people don't buy adventure games initial sales were slow even slower than loom hit the top ten then drifted down the charts for months afterwards it was another slow burner someone at Lucasfilm must have seen potential however after all it was a game to be proud off against a fertile backdrop buoyed by the positive critical reception a sequel was greenlit surely after Monkey Islands release Lucasfilm underwent some reorganization the games division was bundled with Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound into the newly formed LucasArts Monkey Island sequel would be the first game to bear this new name along with a new logo known as the gold guy no matter the name LucasArts were poised to enter a golden age of pointer click adventure games over the next few years while their rivals were passed their peak infocomm were effectively dead after ping a quiet and subsequently shut down by Activision and Sierra while still dominating the PC market in terms of sales for putting our games a very variable quality Sierra had grown incredibly quickly on the success of their earlier games and the company culture shifted away from the humbler adventures pioneered by Ken and Roberta Williams LucasArts always managed to stay small and I think that's part of the reason their games have a persistent charm so while the Secret of Monkey Island was still in the charts work began on monkey island to the chucks revenge [Music] unlike the first game the sequel would be first and foremost designed with VGA graphics in mind with a full palette of 256 colors from the outset this meant that the digitally drawn backdrops can now be scanned straight from original artwork illustrated with marker pens as this was quicker easier and responsible for the wonderful hand-drawn aesthetic [Music] the music system within scum had a major overhaul - previously it was difficult synchronized game events with musical cues and so composer Michael land and Peter McConnell devised a system called amuse it stands for interactive music streaming engine and it allowed for a far more reactive system that can seamlessly segue between different pieces for instance in the starting settlement of woodtick it's demonstrated very well there are a variety of somethings for each of the locations which blend together perfectly as you move around [Music] it's done so well it's almost invisible you might think it's a single piece of music but it's multiple perfectly stitched and tailored to your progress [Music] these audio visual enhancements did rather increase the size of the game the Amiga version came on eleven disks which made for a slightly miserable experience for those without hard drives a small price to pay though it was bigger better and more piratey than ever it's rare that a sequel surpasses the original but in Monkey Island twos case it was a triumph all of the experience all of the iterative improvements to the underlying technology everything came together to make a truly excellent game rave reviews praised it at every turn an improvement on the first in every way flawless execution the best adventure ever scores at a rarified tier so did it sell not really kinda eventually the tragic thing about LucasArts is that their original games were normally met with lukewarm commercial success they weren't gonna go bankrupt but there must have been some envious eyes cast in the direction of Sierra shortly after Monkey Island 2 had shipped Ron Gilbert decided to leave LucasArts he felt it was time to start his own company and so found it humongous entertainment here he would go on to make adventure games for a younger market including the Freddy fish and pajama Sam series children's games aren't particularly glamorous the humungous would enjoy quite some success their catalog collectively selling 50 million copies which is far more than Monkey Island ever sold however with the creator of both Monkey Island and scum divorced from the games rights monkeytoes enigmatic ending would be left unresolved and we might never discover the true secret of Monkey Island this wasn't the end for LucasArts however in fact quite a few classic adventures followed in Monkey Islands wake Indiana Jones saw a revisit in the fate of Atlantis designed by LucasArts veteran Noah falstein and screenwriter Hal Barwood lavishly Illustrated and with a full talkie cd-rom version it was a definite upgrade when compared to the Last Crusade and without an Associated movie free of any deadline or script constraints [Music] samih max hit the road was the brainchild of Steve Purcell based on his comic book characters a dog and rabbit eating duo who together tackle crime it's a colorful tour of Americana with a zany streak and mile-wide a very good fit for the LucasArts mold the verb heavy interface of previous games was streamlined to grant more space for the graphics replaced with icons as part of the inventory screen these simplifications worked well enough for most interactions less so for dialogue the later games would continue to tweak the interface without the full bank of verbs meanwhile Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman both remained at LucasArts and together they led a sequel to maniac mansion day of the tentacle was very different to its predecessor there were a few familiar faces and the multi character gameplay remained albeit with a time-travel twist that much had changed since 1987 scum had matured as had player expectation the graphics were nicer the animation better and the music to the whole scale of production shifted ever upwards as vga capable sound blaster equipped pcs became the standard earlier 16-bit machines like the Atari ST and Amiga we left behind and thanks to cd-rom the constraints of the floppy disk were a thing of the past as great as this was for the adventure genre the colossal space the CDs afforded Emily cost of ballooning budgets an ever-increasing payload of artwork CD quality music and now voice actors after day of the tentacle was complete Dave Grossman left LucasArts to pursue a freelance career where he would spend some time working with Ron Gilbert at humongous now of the three designers that worked on Monkey Island only tim schafer remained the golden era of LucasArts adventures started with monkey island and endured for a few years afterwards but they didn't have a monopoly on this style of game plenty of other developers took notes and shaped their adventures to mirror those pioneered by LucasArts in the space of just a year or two after Monkey Islands release there's a clear shift away from the Sierra style approach to a newer paradigm for instance the point-and-click interface the indirect character control and the approach to verbs and dialogue were all codified as a standard the cinematic influences the shapes come are apparent to both reuse of cutscenes as established in maniac mansion and the composition of scenery such as the use of foreground elements to give a sense of greater three-dimensional depth this was often coupled with a slightly warped perspective asterisk locations that don't entirely work geometrically a fit a 2d plane for the purposes of point-and-click and of course the principal hallmark an absence of death or puzzle dead ends at least was generally expected most graphic adventures stuck to this sort of formula but the worst some that bucked the trend mostly in response to new technology by now cd-rom drives had become an essential multimedia accessory for every new PC and while most games would eventually take advantage of this space some really embraced it and made copious use of full motion video the seventh guest was one such game a creepy puzzle adventure and one of the first games released exclusively on CD for the time it was an audio-visual treat extravagant 3d animation video clips and music of course this meant that the gameplay itself took a backseat so it wasn't a particularly good game but it did demonstrate the potential of this new technology very well indeed another adventure from this multimedia era was missed a scenic romp through a pre-rendered 3d world with some particularly devilish puzzles untold for the most part without language with no time limit or failure state it seems to take heed of Monkey Island lessons and adventure design but its approach is almost entirely different relying on cold logic rather than humor it was a great game but also one on the right format at the right time anyone buying a new cd-rom drive was surely in need of something to test it with it managed to sell six million copies a colossal amount and it became the best-selling PC game ever at least until the Sims came out in a few short years the PC market had changed dramatically driven by a multimedia revolution the release of Windows 95 and games like doom it was a great time to be a PC gamer but these changes would prove challenging for the adventure market by 1995 after a year's absence of adventures LucasArts were ready to release Tim Schafer's first solo lead game full-throttle was a rock and roll tale of biker gangs in a dystopian near future the fate of the last motorcycle manufacturer in the balance its animation was done on a much larger scale than previous games with frequent use of close-ups and cinematic camera angles it confidently filled a cd-rom with full voice a licensed CD audio soundtrack provided by the dog jackals and plenty of FMV cutscenes with the budget ten times the size of the Secret of Monkey Island it was expensive but ultimately worth it full throttle sold over a million copies the same year we finally saw the release of a much vaunted Spielberg collaboration the dig a game that had been in development since 1989 an ambitious stab at some serious science fiction that starts off akin to Armageddon but soon whisks the player off to a fantastic alien world it had a different feel to most LucasArts adventures the fun or zany element was missing and while there was still occasional humour the overall tone was avert Leah dolt the orchestral score probably helped set the mood and it was refreshing selling pretty well but many didn't quite know what to make of it one major criticism was the low resolution graphics 320 by 240 C hardware improved there was a graduation towards 640 by 480 and Beyond in 1997 the third Monkey Island game would benefit from this bump in detail the curse of Monkey Island obviously things look a little different with quadruple the pixels an entirely new comic book appearance for guy brush along with voice acting provided by Dominic Amato considering the absence of the original creator and designers of Monkey Island it was always going to be difficult to make a game that matched expectations [Music] despite this it's hard to dislike while detached from the originals in terms of style it still has the wit and charm for late comers to the series it was an introduction to the world of Monkey Island but it also marked the last ever 2d scum adventure from LucasArts towards the end of the decade came an increasing demand for 3d games and the rising ubiquity of graphics cards with 3d acceleration unfortunately scum wasn't designed for 3d games nor would it make the transition instead a new engine for a new game Grim Fandango was the first LucasArts adventure to make that difficult transition to 3d a tragic journey through the land of the dead heavy with film noir influenced a colorful cast of Calaca led by Manny Calavera they ran on something called the grim engine or grime based on the existing set engine which powered dark forces - the characters are rendered as 3d objects on top of a static background the polygons pushing ability of PCs at the time wasn't quite up to such ornate scenes so the camera angles are fixed and you navigate with tank-like controls in a bold step for the point-and-click genre the mouse took a back seat it wasn't ideal but this is perhaps the only blemish on a brilliant game a unique setting with a cool aesthetic backed with a truly heartfelt story one last hurrah for the adventure genre but it was clear the end was close LucasArts gave us one final adventure game and I suppose it's fitting that it was a return to Monkey Island as it was the original first started how brief obsession using the same engine as grim fandago it took us back to Mele Islands although things look much different in 3d the music and voice acting were on point and the game bristles with references to previous games and yet Escape is by far a least favored of the Monkey Island series despite the orchid controls and difficult transition to 3d it was a perfectly good adventure I suppose but it felt counterfeit long divorced from its origin LucasArts planned a sequel to both full throttle and summer max but these were cancelled mid development a statement put on by LucasArts euphemistically described their doom after careful evaluation of current marketplace realities and underlying economic considerations we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC [Music] you adventure games were dead see gaming wasn't growing it's that the consoles were growing faster adventure games had failed to make the transition and PC gamers were increasingly drawn to fast-paced 3d accelerated action the adventure market withered while the budgets bloated and it was a shame to admit but they had long passed the point of profitability and so LucasArts adventure era had come to an end as the death-knell told the prequels began all that remained the Star Wars with an evaporation of financial viability graphic adventures were certainly thin on the ground but not yet extinct most games from this era hailed from European developers a market traditionally rooted in computers / consoles and one less susceptible to American market factors Monkey Islands influence is particularly clear in games like Gilbert good mate and the mushroom of Fangoria a Swedish love letter to Luke assaults and an attempt to capture the magic of the mid-90s a few others around this time kept up the genres faint pulse French developer publisher Mike Rhodes released Siberia in 2002 revolution software the English studio behind lore of the temptress and beneath the steel sky released the third in the Broken Sword series in 2003 and we also saw the first stirrings of a resurgent indie game seen Samorost was an atmospheric point-and-click puzzle game made in flash and distributed via the web it wasn't the most vibrant time for adventure games but they were still going and with every year the past more and more people would discover games from lucasarts back catalog and their popularity would snowball in 2009 the original Secret of Monkey Island was remastered a special edition with all new hand-drawn graphics voice acting and re-recorded music I was never completely sold on the new look but the ability to seamlessly switch between classic graphics was a neat touch and support for newer platforms like the Xbox 360 ps3 and iPad meant more people could play the game for the first time monkey Oland two had a similar treatment in 2010 completing the classic pair these special editions weren't likely to trigger another golden era the industry had long moved on from points and click games but they do help to keep the games relevant certainly for those not familiar with scummvm so while pure point-and-click adventure games are now a rare sight they still made an impression on others on ruse with adventure elements fused into hybrids such as the action-adventure these games were far more suited to console controls it gave players the faster paced action and 3d graphics they craved the certain aspects attempted to emulate the appeal of narrative led games cutscenes first implement it and named as such by maniac mansion were now an essential part of game storytelling voice acted dialogue was now an important tool for conveying information to the player and in many ways monkey island had demonstrated that games could be funny the concept of an inventory was now well established and you could also expect some lightweight puzzles to turn up and even the most action focused game this sort of hybridization remains common in mainstream games with mechanics like crafting leveling skill points driving flying shooting fused together into a novel Gestalt genre this was the way the wind was blowing after the age of the point-and-click and Tim Schafer knew it he had both full-throttle and grim fandago under his belt two of the finest graphic adventures ever made his time at LucasArts had ended but he wasn't about to quit now in June 2000 at the height of the dot-com boom he founded his own company Double Fine productions their first game would be Psychonauts a 3d platformer adventure set in a weird world of psychic powers its development was particularly troubled it was originally supposed to be published by Microsoft but in 2011 the game was picked up by Majesco instead despite critical success Psychonauts was a commercial failure taking 4 and a half years to make with a budget of 11 and a half million dollars selling fewer than a hundred thousand copies in the u.s. at the end of 2005 the numbers didn't add up Majesco pulled out of big-budget video games and Double Fine were lumbered with a reputation for being expensive and late Vivendi took a chance on Double Fine for their next game however a rock and roll action-adventure titled brutal legend predictably development was troubled Activision purchased with indie games in 2008 and brutal legend was lost somewhere in the transition while in limbo Double Fine looked for a new publisher during this rather uncertain time they worked on a number of game prototypes a couple of which would see later fruition both Costume Quest and stacking stemmed from these experimental days and the smaller nature of their scope suited Xbox Live Arcade and PSN well so they nestled neatly amongst the rise of indie games eventually EA picked up the rights to brutal legend and it was released in 2009 a positive critical reception with underwhelming sales it was yet another cult classic [Music] so maybe the traditional publisher model wasn't ideal for double fine but a world without tim schafer games would be a poorer one these fans know this scent with the emergence of Kickstarter crowdfunding seemed like the logical solution for a studio like Double Fine as well as a return to adventure games perhaps that's why the campaign for broken age broke records raising nearly three and a half million dollars the supposed fans of the point-and-click genre haven't had much else to spend their money on but it demonstrated the viability of such a model and opened the door for other projects to follow suit [Music] following Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm and its IP that will find were able to secure the rights to remaster some of LucasArts classic adventures in 2015 Grim Fandango was given a coat of paint improved textures and lighting and released on modern systems the year after day of the tentacle was given similar treatments and most recently in 2017 full throttle so clearly adventure games still had a fanbase a fact borne out by crowdfunding success perhaps they weren't dead after all just sleeping but then even text adventures never truly died there remains an interest in interactive fiction point-and-click adventures certainly didn't kill them off they just stole the limelight and I think the classic formula will always have its fans the Deponia games are testament to that but if adventure games were ever to have a resurgence some innovation was in order LucasArts weren't the only publishers worrying about escalating budgets even success stories like valve build the pinch to so around 2004 when the digital marketplace was first becoming a reality the solution seemed to be episodic games the trouble is as well discovered with the half-life 2 episodes is that scaling down the scope of production doesn't necessarily scale down audience expectation in fact episodic gaming has largely been a failure but there is one success story in July 2004 a group of ex LucasArts employees who are working on the cancelled summer max title from the new studio a studio called telltale games their first game was just a test telltale Texas Hold'em proof of concepts for their new engine and the viability of digital distribution in 2005 they were joined by Dave Grossman just in time for their first adventure based on the Jeff Smith comic bone now from boneville isn't Telltale's finest work but it is a starting point from here they managed to snare the license for salmon Max and make a game that filled the void left by the one LucasArts cancelled it was released episodically with the first appearing in late 2006 and the series stretching to mid 2007 it was pretty good not spectacular but they had done something special they'd found a way to make adventure games viable again and they had brought back a much-loved LucasArts franchise a second season followed as well as adventures featuring strong bad wallace and gromit and Monkey Island Tales of Monkey Island was a five part return to the franchise in 2009 a 3d adventure as with escape but much more comfortable to play as a Monkey Island fan it was an oasis in the desert most had long given up hope of guy brushes glorious return so while it doesn't necessarily compare to the originals there was something at least more Monkey Island can't be a bad thing right however I think it's fair to say telltale really came into their own by exploiting more contemporary licenses The Walking Dead released from 2012 onwards is their most successful series selling multiple millions of episodes in the wake of that success a slew of other licensed series followed the wolf among us Game of Thrones Batman and even minecraft there have been some signs that telltale might be running into trouble reports of toxic management or working conditions and a failure to innovate but over the last decade they've demonstrated that episodic content can work and beyond that they've proven that there is still a viable market for narrative led games so some have emulated Telltale's episodic approach as a way to amortize the cost and time of development the wonderfully artful Kentucky route zero commenced in 2013 and is still ongoing activision rebooted the King's Quest series with a five-part adventure in 2015 complete with corny episode names but perhaps the most successful is don't knots life is strange a blend of teen drama and time travel in the picturesque Pacific Northwest ironically much more memorable than their first title with the advent of indie games a new style of storytelling has emerged shedding the vulgarities of so-called gameplay in favor of quiet contemplation and environmental exploration a less kind description would be a walking simulator dear Esther started as a mod in 2008 before being redeveloped for commercial release in 2012 it has no puzzles there is nothing to do but explore an island as you do so fragments of the story reveal themselves pairing back the gameplay to an absolute minimum is quite a controversial move but it does shift the focus to the narrative which is certainly different even refreshing perhaps that's why world weary critics took to this sort of game so well a flurry of them followed it on home the Stanley parable Firewatch games with stories to tell and I suppose it is a change of pace no substitute for action there's no harm in an alternative after all the original Monkey Island came out at a time where most preferred the instant gratification of arcade-style games the very idea of going for 10 minutes without shooting something was alien until the precipitation of a new acceptance of adventure games ultimately it's all thanks to Monkey Island scum maniac mansion and their creator but it's fair to say Ron Gilbert's later career is a little checkered humongous entertainment found quite some success as did sister labeled cave dog entertainment which produced Total Annihilation however humongous were purchased in 1996 by GT interactive of home info Graham's took a controlling interest in 1999 their plan for humongous didn't mesh with Ron's he along with the other co-founder set up whole urban entertainment in 2001 with the intent of producing children's games and distributing them digitally a Goldford looking move at the time sadly things went sour when the other co-founder was jailed for fraud and by 2005 ron was independent he spent sometimes working with hothead games assisting with the episodic Penny Arcade Adventures following that he was also key designer on deaths Bank and its sequel thongs of virtue an action RPG that's partly a blow our monkey island after that in 2010 Ron joined Tim Schafer at double fine to work in an idea that dates to even before maniac mansion that game was the cave released in 2013 in its you select a team of three characters out of a possible seven each with the unique abilities and with them in negotiate the Azal 's and platforms of the aforementioned cave most recently along with gary Winnick the co-designer of maniac mansion he's been behind the crowdfunding classic point-and-click then ball we'd park first revealed in late 2014 with a Kickstarter campaign it met its goal of $375,000 eventually raising about six hundred thousand dollars the pitch described it as like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you've never played before it's true there are some niceties that weren't possible back in the day more colors subtler shading smoother movement but otherwise it's pretty authentic five distinct characters wonderful background art and all the humor and cultural references you'd expect as for what Ron will do next who can say with the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney in 2012 the rights to Monkey Island are held by the mouse quite what they'll do with them isn't clear but they already have the Pirates of the Caribbean on their roster so I wouldn't expect anything soon for now all that remains is the big question what is the secret of monkey island any Ron Gilbert really knows and he's not telling perhaps because revealing it would be underwhelming after all this time probably because there's hope that one day will be the resolution of a true Monkey Island three so the secret is well it's a secret and the best we can do is infer you could take the meaning literally perhaps the secret of Monkey Island simply refers to its mysterious location or the Passage to hell what lies beneath but I don't buy this it's too obvious the story is too carefully planned and if there were three games in mind there must have been a greater reveal intended for the final third there are so many loose threads that need tying off wire anachronistic elements scattered throughout the game such as the grog vending machines is the ending to the second game supposed to be taken literally ordered guy brush just bang his head in the fall and drain everything it wouldn't be the first time is the fourth wall breaking relevant to the NPCs no it's just a game does guy Bush know is the only pretending for our sake is everyone including the player suspending disbelief were firmly in fan theory territory air but hear me out guy brushes origin is a bit of a mystery he just turns up in the Caribbean one day how did he get there what's his backstory perhaps he's an heir to a wealthy family and his wish for a pirate adventure is being indulged so what of his entire trip was arranged what of all the pirates were paid off by some benefactor maybe the whole world of Monkey Island is artificial a theme-park of sorts populated by actors with everyone following the same script it mirrors the game's scripted creation using scum and it would explain why guy Bush can't die it would explain his success despite his ineptitude they might even explain the anachronisms the game might not be set in the Golden Age of piracy after all it's Don Quixote with pirates and whether he knows it or not guy brush is tilting at windmills but like I said just a theory we don't know we can't know and it's probably better that way what I can say without reservation is that the secret of Monkey Island is an unmitigated classic it dragged the adventure genre out of its grave by being simply too good to ignore and kick started a golden era but lasted a decade it is a massively influential and important work that manages to be engaging even without action and amusing without excess its sequel was pretty good too some might even say better now nearly thirty years after its release I think it still holds up and in another 30 from now someone else might say the same so maybe nobody bought it but everyone should play it thank you very much for watching and until next time farewell [Music]

Channel: Ahoy

Views: 847,051

Rating: 4.9680972 out of 5

Keywords: xboxahoy, monkey island, The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2, Lechuck's Revenge, point and click, adventure, adventure game, LucasFilm, LucasArts, Loom, Guybrush Threepwood, melee island, Maniac Mansion, Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman

Id: 9F9ahZQ7oP0

Length: 73min 53sec (4433 seconds)

Published: Fri May 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/plagues138]

Man, it's been a while. Ahoy realy does do top notch work though. Probably some of the most professional gaming content on YouTube

[u/Rebuffering]

Holy shit, i was wondering when the next video was coming, been quite awhile, Ahoy always got the goods.

[u/megaapple]

Wait was worth it, brilliant video.

So glad he mentioned iMuse . It's a fascinating tech that very few games since have used. An "invisible" dynamically changing music. Other Lucasarts games like TIE Fighter, used it as well.
For modern games, Red Dead Redemption used a similar technique.

Here's a part of the video on the subject.

[u/insideman83]

If you weren't there, you really have to understand that LucasArts was once the greatest game developer on the planet. They had their fingers in many different pies but all of it was phenomenal - the core point-and-click adventure games, FPS titles like Dark Forces and Outlaws, action-adventure like Herc's Adventures and a whole host of amazing Star Wars titles. Even games that generated a lukewarm reception from critics like The Dig were beloved fan favourites.

I can't think of any developer that comes close today. Naughty Dog and Rockstar are praised consistently but they don't nearly release the same volume of games. Perhaps we can't have a modern day LucasArts given the pressures and demands of triple A experiences.

[u/hungry_square]

One of my favourite games ever. The story, the humour and swapping over the four floppies constantly on my Amiga.

Still, not as bad as Monkey Island II, which if I remember correctly came on 11 disks!

[u/silentdragoon]

One hour, thirteen minutes and fifty-three seconds. Holy crap, this is the longest Xbox Ahoy video ever, by some margin! Loving it so far.

[u/spin182]

this game was the first real video game i ever played. i begged my mum to get it for me when i was about 5 and it was way over my head. it came with a cardboard wheel you would turn to solve problems in game

it was enough to get me hooked for the rest of my life though & its still an incredible game

[u/omiyage]

When I was a child I was hooked into point & click adventure games. I was in no way equipped to understand the puzzles or even half of the jokes, but it helped that at the time these were the only games translated into my mother language. I was instantly captivated by the settings and humorous characters.

Not only me, but along with my friends, we would take turns saving money/birthday gifts in order to get them and would all get together to play, working along to solve the puzzles, since internet faqs werent a thing, often discussing them during classes and other times.

Sam&Max:Hit the Road, Fullthrottle and the Curse of Monkey Island were our favorites, generating endless quotes and defining a big part of my childhood.

[u/takt1kal]

Oh that music; The memories and nostalgia it brings..

And i played this game for the first time last year.