The Design Duo Behind Curse Of Monkey Island To Start Work On "New Comedy Adventure"

The Curse of… doesn’t get nearly the credit it deserves. Probably the best time I had with any of them, which is saying a lot. Larry Ahern’s art is always phenomenal.

This is already a classic and they haven’t even started making it yet.

@Zuljaras Getting the tattooed treasure map is probably my favourite point and click puzzle of all time.

@MontyMole "doesn't get the credit it deserves."

Bubbalah, please. Curse is pretty much the "Thousand-Year Door" of Monkey Island - the game in the series almost everyone loves and no one shuts up about loving(for better and for worse).

@N00BiSH Hey sweet cheeks, that’s the first time I’ve ever been bubbalah’d!

I hear you, but the detractors are a large and vocal bunch too. Just did a quick google for courage and the first thing I came across was a video by some guy sat in his car, literally shouting venomous hatred about the game. 28 years and the wounds are still fresh.

@MontyMole That's also true, but I feel the detraction has lessened a lot in recent years. I've seen more people praise Curse as one of the best in the genre, as many players' introduction to Monkey Island, and as the best Monkey Island game. If anything, a lotta vitriol I've seen has mostly been aimed at Return as of late. A shame, too - I think that one is also great.

@N00BiSH You’re right, I was surprised from my google to find how many people love it too. That certainly hasn’t always been the case.

And yeah, Return gets a lot of unearned criticism. Monkey Island fans are a bit like Star Wars fans on the toxicity scale it seems, which is weird because most of them are middle aged baldies who should have better things to do.

@N00BiSH The art for Return is pretty bad so I'm not surprised. It looks cheap.

@MontyMole Alas those "middle aged baldies" are the ones who are most likely going to buy the game. Funny how that works. 😉

@slider1983 if you don't like it, that's all well and good - people have their preferences(I for one don't care for Curse's style after all), but Return's visuals are certainly not bad enough to justify harassing the people who made it for having the gall to not make it look like the one game people won't shut up about.

@N00BiSH Were people harassing them or criticising them?

@slider1983 it was mostly harassment disguised as "valid criticism," to the point where Ron Gilbert had to shut down comments on his personal blog because so many people were flooding them with impotent rage-fueled threats and attacks.

@N00BiSH I think people were annoyed that Monkey Island was being brought back and it looked cheap. Obviously that's not something he wanted to hear but I don't agree about making personal threats towards him.

@slider1983 You had to be there.

Either way, the responses to the art direction were totally out of proportion. You'd think people would learn after Streets of Rage 4 and Wind Waker and Crash 4 and even Curse of Monkey Island, but apparently not.

Time really is a flat circle.

@N00BiSH Going through some of those comments I don't see a problem. Some positive, some negative. Personal attacks are uncalled for but criticism for an art style is absolutely fine.

I'm also not a fan of the Streets of Rage 4 art style myself although it could have been worse.

@slider1983 There was no real constructive criticism on that blog page - it was mostly just attacks and vitriolic complaints. If you can't understand why going to someone's face to tell them the thing they believe in sucks and that they're a terrible person is a problem, then maybe you should rethink a few things.

There's no way you would "criticize" someone like this:

@slider1983 “ Alas those "middle aged baldies" are the ones who are most likely going to buy the game. Funny how that works”

I’m a middle aged baldy and I did buy the game, which is why I felt emboldened to make the comment. I loved it, even if the ending was a reminder of the fact.

@slider1983

“ The art for Return is pretty bad so I'm not surprised. It looks cheap.”

The art is how Ron Gilbert originally intended the artwork ro be, all those year ago. Obviously it looks so much better now than it would have.

@MontyMole Then why stereotype the audience who would buy it?

@MontyMole So he intended for it to look like a Flash game? Seems we dodged a bullet years ago. Would have aged like milk. 😆

@N00BiSH I saw a lot of praise for the game's graphics so have to disagree there.

Absolutely not. Monkey island predates flash by a few years.

I don’t think Ron Gilbert is stereotyping his audience. He is laying to rest a project that he says has defined him publicly The majority audience is clearly those of us who played it in the 90s.

@MontyMole yeah, people like to think Return was saying "you should stop caring about fiction you loser" which deliberately ignores the ACTUAL point the game was making. Ron was being a lot more charitable with the game and it's ending then people like to believe.