If I Made Another Monkey Island...

I supported Double Fine Adventure on Kickstarter and lot of the last points of the OP refer to how Tim Schafer is managing it.<p>But, in this case, if Ron Gilbert is making a proof of concept with this post, a MVP to check if Monkey Island 3a can be crowdfunded - or even if it is just a critique of Double Fine Adventure campaign, I am on Tim Schafer's side here.<p>Crowdfunding is not about "give me the money and trust me". The crowd is not a substitute for publisher's money or even a maecenas. He wants to win the lotto and create a game, not receive the support of the crowd (and all that come from it).<p>I love the documentary updates, the forums, to understand what happens behind the scenes. This is not about keeping the hype up, this is about sharing the world of creating games with the people that supported it.

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).

"True, I wouldn't raise huge sums of money or break any records . . ."<p>Haha.<p>Come on.<p>I'd wager that MI 3 would far and away be the #1 all time Kickstarter fund raise, starting with my money:<p>"After its release on Steam, the Special Edition remake topped the sales charts for the week ending July 18. On July 20th, the Xbox 360 version had already sold over 38,000 copies" (1)<p>I bought the SE on iPad the day it was released, and still haven't played it - that is how strong the nostalgia is with me . . .<p>(1)<a href="http://www.miwiki.net/The_Secret_of_Monkey_Island:_Special_Edition" rel="nofollow">http://www.miwiki.net/The_Secret_of_Monkey_Island:_Special_E...</a>

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

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

For the people going on and on about Kickstarter and crowd funding, note point #11: <i>"The only way I would or could make another Monkey Island is if I owned the IP"</i><p>This seems more like a post to get the masses exited and perhaps help him get a license for or ownership of the Monkey Island franchise.<p>I hope he's successful, I was a big fan of the first two games (never got to play the 3rd). I'd certainly buy whatever he produced if it inspired the same awe of the prior games.<p>I do like the idea of starting fresh with a new story, ala The Legend of Gorilla Mountain, or something silly like that. After all, it was the wit of the writers and the artists that really sold the game.

Honestly after "The Cave" and "Deathspank" I'm not sure Gilbert is on my HERE TAKE MY MONEY list any more. And him saying "MI3 will be RETRO looking!" isn't making me interested; the Monkey Island games were GORGEOUS for the time, but I don't want to go wallowing in nostalgia for something made now.

FFS, I was secretly hoping for a tiny kickstarter link at the bottom.

This is absolutely brilliant! One on one with the community, speaking from the heart to people that understand you, no marketing BS, just the good old truth. I enjoyed Monkey Island for that same reason. By this point, I think it is pretty obvious Ron is just trying to gauge the readiness of the crowd, which obviously is there and happy to pay up. The one thing that scares me - he'll probably have start buy shelling out a ton of money to buy the IP and that may turn out to be a showstopper...

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.

Reading the linked rules of adventure gaming, it is true that you can have arbitrarily hard puzzles without breaking any of them.<p>[spoiler for a two puzzles in Monkey Island 2 below]<p>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.<p>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.

People have so much respect for the Monkey Island series from yesteryear and for Ron as well. Lets face it, if there was a Kickstarter for a retro-styled Monkey Island game built by Ron and a few of his friends, it would shatter Kickstarter records faster than Usain Bolt. Just tell me where to send the money and I'll send it all, so many would love another Monkey Island game, lets get the IP back into the hands of Ron and let him work the magic.<p>"True, I wouldn't raise huge sums of money or break any records . . ."<p>We all know that isn't true. A remake would seriously break any sales record of any game no doubt.

Is SCUMM really better than Lua?

Point Eleven is awesome!!<p><i>Eleven - The only way I would or could make another Monkey Island is if I owned the IP. I've spent too much of my life creating and making things other people own. Not only would I allow you to make Monkey Island fan games, but I would encourage it. Label them as such, respect the world and the characters and don't claim they are canon. Of course, once the lawyers get ahold of that last sentence it will be seven pages long.</i><p>edit: Thanks!

What was wrong with Tales of Monkey Island? I thought it was good!

Living up to his name, and yet I still want him to TAKE MY MONEY NOW

Ron, please shut up and take my money!

What business model is this? Give gamers blue balls and then wait until they inevitably ram down your door with money trucks?