What makes a game a classic?
Is it the number of copies sold, or the review scores it receives?
Maybe it's something not quantifiable - something special,
something magic.
Whatever it is, I think The Secret of Monkey Island qualifies.
It's a definitive point and click adventure game and it remains a touchstone of 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 Island?
Early video games 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 Zork in 1977, found Infocom 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 Infocom 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.
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 On-Line Systems - later known as
Sierra On-Line.
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 into view.
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 fairytale kingdom of Daventry, and illustrated in 16-colour 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.
Sierra were crowned kings of the adventure genre - and they certainly weren't shy of
sequels, with the success of the King's Quest formula put to good use over the next few
years.
Space Quest followed in 1986, and Police Quest and 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 can end your game abruptly, it can be frustrating.
It verges on bad game design, harming both exploration and experimentation - two very
important factors in building an interactive world.
Sierra's games had a sizeable fanbase - but they had their fair share of critics, too.
The poor reputation of adventure games lingered like a bad odour.
Worst of all, Sierra had a new rival - one with particularly deep pockets.
Star Wars was kind of a big deal.
The original trilogy was profoundly successful, and Lucasfilm were in an enviable 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 deal managed to weather the industry turmoil - and by 1984, the first
games were ready for release - two titles: Ballblazer; and Rescue on Fractalus!
Ballblazer was a futuristic sports game - football with hovercars, basically: released first
for the Atari 8-bit systems.
For the hardware, it was a very good-looking game: twin-viewport 3D graphics that updated
at 20 frames per second - even with rudimentary antialiasing.
Rescue on Fractalus!
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:
Koronis Rift, in which you drive a rover tank in search of hulks to loot for upgrades;
and The Eidolon, a steampunk adventure that has you exploring caves in search of the guardian
dragon.
These early offerings from LucasFilm fit the sci-fi expectations for the studio that gave
us Star Wars - but any tie-ins to the film universe were strictly forbidden.
Video games were uncertain ground - and experiences like the Star Wars Holiday Special led to
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 - but Jim Henson's Labyrinth.
The game starts off as a text adventure, albeit with a novel 'word wheel' system that exposes
acceptable verbs and nouns.
A trip to the movies - buy a ticket, sit down: and then the graphics begin.
Your character is determined by questions asked at the start of the game - name, sex
and favourite colour (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 era: and as LucasFilm's first adventure
game, a sign of what was to come.
By the mid-80s, 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
one such hire was Ron Gilbert, brought on to port Koronis Rift and The Eidolon to the
Commodore 64.
After that, he was left at a loose end - and invited to 'come up with a hit'.
His first proposal: 'I Was a Teenage 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 humour) 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 zany cast.
The game features seven playable characters, of which you assemble a team of three.
Each of the '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 co-operate in real time.
It was a surprisingly complex game, but its humour 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 bona-fide adventure with no instructions to type!
It was built with a scripting language, called the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion
- or SCUMM, if you prefer.
It was a way to abstract the technical aspect of game development: distilling the boring
minutia, like pathfinding for moving characters on screen into simpler stage directions.
Essentially, the game could be written like an interactive film script - allowing the
designers to focus on the puzzles and 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 SCUMM.
Without this proof, LucasFilm might not have persevered.
But persevere they did, with a second SCUMM game, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders,
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 a humorous manner, and - in what would become a LucasFilm tradition - there's
host of in-jokes and references to previous games.
Self-indulgent, perhaps - but also rewarding for the burgeoning fanbase of LucasFilm adventure
games.
Reusing SCUMM 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 were starting to look long in the tooth.
As 16-bit machines became more afforable, stark colours gave way to far more nuanced
shades, and blips and beeps were replaced by digitised 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 Déjà Vu.
Soon the Amiga, the Atari ST, and IBM PC would all be sold with mice - but the potential
of these 16-bit machines brought more change than a mere peripheral.
'Cinematicism' 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 that graphics don't matter - but they've sold a few systems in their time.
By now, the Star Wars money had started to dry up - and so the culture at LucasFilm changed.
After some disappointments at the box office (and a costly divorce settlement), cash flow
was a much greater concern.
So, within the games division any more fanciful ideas were put on hold for the forthcoming
release of the third Indiana Jones film.
The timescale was tight - just six months.
SCUMM was shaping up to be a versatile platform for adventure games, and given the deadline
- it was the only viable choice.
With the shooting script providing the story, the game came together quickly - although
it missed the movie's release, it came out while it was still playing in theatres.
Despite the rush, the game still boasts some innovation: it's the first SCUMM title to
feature dialogue choices, and the first one in which you can 'Look' at environmental objects.
The (mostly optional) action sequences demonstrate the engine's flexibility, too - 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 game
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 beardier pursuit.
In any case, the Indy license was out of the way - and the teams at LucasFilm Games were
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 favour 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 and Dragons was probably to blame, but the
last thing Gilbert wanted to make was a Tolkien-fuelled trudge through an elf-filled forest.
It's odd, because Adventure films were far more diverse: featuring all sorts of swashbuckling
action - typified 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 Carribean ride, The Princess Bride - and Tim Power's
'On Stranger Tides'.
From these, a concept crystallised: a pirate adventure, initially called 'Mutiny on Monkey
Island'.
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 swordfighting.
Originally, the protagonist was a pirate fallen from grace, 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 P.G.
Wodehouse character.
The first name was trickier: for a while, they just called him 'guy' - and the story
goes that their art package - Deluxe Paint II - saved his sprites with a .brush extension
- leading to a file named guy.brush.
And so it was.
Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate!
As the concept solidified, and a scope and budget were defined, production could begin.
SCUMM 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 Indy 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, too - 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 audiovisual 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-colour VGA displays.
The IBM-compatible EGA release had graphics limited to a fixed 16-colour palette, but
the judicious use of dithering gave the illusion of more colours - particularly when viewed
on a CRT display.
The later Amiga and VGA releases saw improvements to the character and background art - with
32 and 256 colour graphics respectively.
In these, gradients became smoother, colours 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, to a new wave of digital soundcards and fully-fledged
MIDI synthesisers such as the Roland MT-32.
Audio has never been the strongest suit of the adventure genre.
Previous LucasFilm games were often criticised 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 flavour: apt and expressive
despite the various hardware limitations.
It was brilliant; memorable; and still resonant today.
The game starts slowly: a few tentative notes
over chord as the LucasFilm logo rolls by.
In the middle of the Caribbean: an island named Mêlée.
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 protagonist, their name - and their prime
motivation.
'Hi!
My name's Guybrush Threepwood, and I want to be a pirate!'
Ostensibly, Guybrush 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
the lookout introduces dialogue options, and tells you exactly what to do next in no uncertain
terms.
The next scene teaches basic movement: click anywhere, and Guybrush will 'walk to' it.
Follow the path, and you arrive at the SCUMM 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, LeChuck).
It's a very gentle introduction - almost insultingly so.
But the ignorance of players knows no limit, and if you want to appeal to an audience that
has 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 free license to say whatever they want: use items however
they please; and threaten even the bloodthirstiest pirate.
It's unrealistic - but players wouldn't have half the fun experimenting with dialogue or
puzzles if the world were more hostile.
There's a joke at a competitors' expense later in the game: wander too close to a cliff edge
and you'll plummet to your doom, with a Sierra-style dialogue that prompts a reload.
Seconds later, Guybrush 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 Guybrush's ability to hold his breath for ten 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 a 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 almost worth the ten-minute wait.
Games are remembered for all sorts of different reasons - but it's rare that the copy protection
evokes fond memories.
Codewheels were nothing new - the DRM of its day - and most games took some measures to
protect themselves from software piracy, but something about the the mix-n-match heads
on the Dial-A-Pirate was charming.
Monkey Island's humour permeates every aspect of the game - the story, the dialogue, the
setting and 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.
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.
On the other hand he has a cynical streak: moments in which lampshades hang - and dialogue
options which reveal that Guybrush knows more than he lets on.
The irony hangs so thick in the air that I'm not convinced there is a fourth wall - and
it feels like most of the game's cast are in on the joke, too.
One of my favourite wall-breaking examples has to be the infamous 'stump joke' - looking
at a particularly nondescript stump deep in the forest prompts Guybrush to describe an
elaborate system of catacombs that lie beyond a hole.
A sequence of increasingly improbable disk change requests follow - Disk 22, Disk 36,
Disk 114!
Requests impossible to fulfil, as most versions only had a few disks.
Realising the impossible, Guybrush exclaims, 'I'll just have to skip that part of the game'.
Some players were left confused, prompting telephone calls to LucasFilm's support line
- and the eventual removal of the joke in later CD-ROM versions.
Sequences like this are memorable - and there's no shortage of 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 Swordfighting.
In the first act you're tasked with three trials to prove your piratehood - and in one
you need to brush up on your swordplay in order to defeat the so-called SwordMaster.
It turns out that the blade is least important thing to hone: rather than trading deadly
blows, you draw from an arsenal of caustic barbs: 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 wits.
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 SwordMaster, you realise 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 standard retorts, so with
a quiver of comebacks, and a bit of creativity - even the SwordMaster 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 piratehood, the ghost pirate LeChuck kidnaps Guybrush's love interest,
Elaine Marley, taking her to his lair.
And so with motivation clear, the plucky Guybrush must acquire a ship, hire a crew and make
the impossible voyage to Monkey Island(TM).
Along the way he'll make new friends: explore a brightly lit paradise - and descend into
hell; ultimately discovering how to defeat LeChuck before the final confrontation.
The ending sees a return to the start, as all good stories do - except this time Guybrush
is more experienced, savvier - and packing a magic root potion.
The fourth act, 'Guybrush Kicks Butt', 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: $59.95 (plus tax) well spent.
Every facet of Monkey Island glimmers - the sound, graphics, setting, writing, humour
- everything comes together into a fantastic whole.
What's most impressive is how quickly it was done - just 15 months after Indy 3, and with
a small team.
The game first released for EGA PCs on the 15th of October, 1990 - the 256-colour VGA
version followed in December, just in time for Christmas.
Commodore Amiga and Atari ST users had to wait a little longer, with their ports following
in early 1991.
Reviews were universally positive, with the average score confidently above that vital
90 percent threshold.
Comparisons to earlier LucasFilm adventures were inevitable - but generally Monkey Island
was regarded as better in every way.
Lauded as 'hilarious' with 'excellent writing', the setting was welcomed - as was the art
and animation, the soundtrack and the 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 adventurers.
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.
It hit the top 10, 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
of against a fertile backdrop.
Buoyed by the positive critical reception, a sequel was greenlit.
Shortly after Monkey Island's release, LucasFilm underwent some reorganisation: the games division
were bundled with Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound into the newly-formed
'LucasArts'.
Monkey Island's 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 point 'n click adventure
games over the next few years, while their rivals were past their peak:
Infocom were effectively dead after being acquired and subsequently shut down by Activision;
And Sierra, while still dominating the PC market in terms of sales, were putting out
games of 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 & 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 2: LeChuck's Revenge'.
Unlike the first game, the sequel would be first and foremost designed with VGA graphics
in mind - with a full palette of 256 colours from the outset!
This meant that the digitally drawn backdrops could now be scanned straight from original
artwork, illustrated with marker pens - as this was quicker, easier - and responsible
for the wonderful hand-drawn aesthetic.
The music system within SCUMM had a major overhaul, too - previously, it was difficult
to synchronise game events with musical cues, and so composer Michael Land (and Peter McConnell)
devised a system called iMUSE.
It stands for Interactive Music Streaming Engine, and it allowed for a far more reactive
system that could seamlessly segue between different pieces.
For instance, in the starting settlement of Woodtick it's demonstrated very well - there
are a variety of sub-themes for each of the locations which blend together perfectly as
you move around.
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.
These audiovisual enhancements did rather increase the size of the game - the Amiga
version came on 11 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 pirate-y than ever.
It's rare than a sequel surpasses the original, but in Monkey Island 2's 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 hit a rarefied 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 going to 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 founded Humongous Entertainment.
Here, he would go on to make adventure games for a younger market: including the Freddi
Fish and Pajama Sam series.
Children's games aren't particularly glamorous, but Humongous would enjoy quite some success
- their catalogue collectively selling 15 million copies, which is far more than Monkey
Island ever sold.
However, with the creator of both Monkey Island and SCUMM divorced from the game's rights:
Monkey 2's 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 Island's 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.
Sam and Max Hit the Road was the brainchild of Steve Purcell, based on his comic book
characters: A dog and rabbity-thing duo who together tackle crime.
It's a colourful tour of Americana with a zany streak a mile wide, a very good fit for
the LucasArts mould.
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 - but
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) - but much
had changed since 1987: SCUMM had matured, as had player expectation.
The graphics were nicer, the animation better, and the music too - the whole scale of production
shifted ever upwards as VGA-capable, soundblaster-equipped PCs became the standard.
Earlier 16-bit machines like the Atari ST and Amiga were 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 that CDs afforded came
at a 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 the space of just a year or two after Monkey Island's 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 that shaped SCUMM are apparent, too - both through use 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 - Escher-esque locations that
don't entirely work geometrically, but 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 there were 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 7th 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 audiovisual treat - extravagant 3D animation, video clips and
music.
Of course, this meant that the gameplay itself took a back seat, 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 Myst.
A scenic romp through a prerendered 3D world with some particularly devilish puzzles - and
told, for the most part, without language.
With no time limit, or failure state it seems to take heed of Monkey Island's lessons in
adventure design - but its approach is almost entirely different, relying on cold logic
rather than humour.
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 6 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-led 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 at 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 Gone Jackals, and plenty of FMV cutscenes.
With a 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 overtly adult.
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 - 320x200 had been the standard game
resolution for a while, but as PC hardware improved there was a graduation towards 640x480
(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 Guybrush, along with voice acting provided by Dominic Armato.
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.
Despite this, it's hard to dislike - while detached from the originals in terms of style,
it still has the wit and charm.
For latecomers to the series it was an introduction to the world of Monkey Island, but it also
marked the last ever 2D SCUMM 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, SCUMM 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 influence, a colourful
cast of calaca led by Manny Calavera.
It ran on something called the Grim Engine, or GrimE - based the existing Sith engine
which powered Dark Forces II.
The characters are rendered as 3D objects on top of a static background - the polygon
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 was 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 that started our brief obsession.
Using the same engine as Grim Fandango, it took us back to Mêlée Island, 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 the least favoured of the Monkey Island series.
Despite the awkward 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 Sam & Max, but these were cancelled mid-development.
A statement put out by LucasArts euphemistically described their doom:
"After careful evaluation of current market place realities and underlying economic considerations,
we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the
PC."
Adventure games were dead.
It's not that PC 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's adventure era had come to an end.
As the death knell tolled, the prequels began.
All that remained was Star Wars.
With an evaporation of financial viability, graphic adventures were certainly thin on
the ground - but not yet extinct.
Most such games from this era hail from European developers - a market traditionally rooted
in computers over consoles, and one less susceptible to American market factors.
Monkey Island's influence is particularly clear in games like Gilbert Goodmate and the
Mushroom of Phungoria: a Swedish love letter to LucasArts, and an attempt to capture the
magic of the mid-90s.
A few others around this time kept up the genre's faint pulse:
French developer/publisher Microids released Syberia in 2002;
Revolution Software - the English studio behind Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel
Sky - released the third in the Broken Sword series in 2003.
And we also saw the first stirrings of a resurgent indie game scene: Samorost was an atmospheric
point & 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 ever year that passed, more and more people would discover games from LucasArts'
back catalogue - 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 rerecorded 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 Island 2 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 point and click games - but they do help to keep the games relevant, certainly
for those not familiar with ScummVM.
So while pure point n' click adventure games are a rare sight, they still made an impression
on other genres - with adventure elements fused into hybrids such as the 'Action Adventure'.
These games were far more suited to console controls, and gave players the faster-paced
action and 3D graphics they craved - but certain aspects attempted to emulate the appeal of
narrative-led games:
Cutscenes, first implemented (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 in even the most action-focused game.
This sort of hybridization remains common in mainstream games - with mechanics like
crafting, levelling, 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 & click - and Tim Schafer
knew it.
He had both Full Throttle and Grim Fandango 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 platform 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 2004 the deal fell through and the game was picked up by Majesco instead.
Despite critical success, Psychonauts was a commercial failure: taking four and a half
years to make with a budget of eleven and a half million dollars - selling fewer than
100,000 copies in the US by 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 Vivendi 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 protoypes - a couple of
which would see later fruition.
Both Costume Quest and Stacking stem 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.
Yet another cult classic!
So maybe the traditional publisher model wasn't ideal for Double Fine: but a world without
Tim Schafer games would be a poorer one.
His fans know this, and with the emergence of Kickstarter, crowdfunding seemed like the
logical solution for a studio like Double Fine.
Perhaps that's why the campaign for Broken Age broke records, raising nearly 3 and a
half million dollars.
I suppose fans of the point & click genre haven't had much else to spend their money
on - but it demonstrates the viability of such a model, and opened the door for other
projects to follow suit.
Following Disney's acquisition of LucasFilm and its IP, Double Fine were able to secure
the rights to remaster some of LucasArt's 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 treatment - and most recently in 2017,
Full Throttle.
So clearly adventure games still had a fanbase - a fact borne out by crowdfunding success,
and Psychonauts 2 on the horizon.
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 to have a resurgence, some innovation was in order.
LucasArts weren't the only publishers worrying about escalating budgets - even success stories
like Valve felt the pinch too.
So around 2004, when the digital marketplace was first becoming a reality, the solution
seemed to be episodic games.
The trouble is, as Valve 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 were working on the cancelled Sam & Max
title formed a new studio:
A studio called Telltale Games.
Their first game was just a test - Telltale Texas Hold 'Em.
Proof of concept 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: Out From Boneville isn't Telltale's finest work - but
it is a starting point.
From here, they managed to snare the license for Sam and 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 had 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 Strongbad, Wallace and Gromit - and
Monkey Island.
Tales of Monkey Island was a 5-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
Guybrushes' glorious return.
So while it doesn't necessarily compare to the originals it 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 - even Minecraft.
There have been some signs that Telltale might be running into trouble - reports of 'toxic
management', poor working conditions - and a failure to innovate -
but over the last decade they have 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 amortise 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 5-part adventure in 2015, complete
with corny episode names.
Perhaps the most successful is Dontnod's 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, there has emerged a new style of storytelling, shedding
the vulgarities of so-called 'gameplay' in favour 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.
Paring 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: Gone Home; The Stanley Parable; Firewatch.
Games with stories to tell - and I suppose it is a change of pace.
No substitute for action, but 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, SCUMM, Maniac Mansion - and their creator.
But it's fair to say Ron Gilbert's later career is a little chequered.
Humongous Entertainment found quite some success, as did sister label Cavedog Entertainment
(which produced Total Annihilation).
However, Humongous were purchased in 1996 by GT Interactive, of whom Infogrames 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 Hulabee Entertainment in 2001 - with the intent
of producing children's games and distributing them digitally: a bold, forward-looking move
for the time.
Sadly, things went sour when the other cofounder was jailed for fraud - and by 2005, Ron was
independent.
He spent some time working with Hothead games - assisting with the episodic Penny Arcade
Adventures.
Following that, he was also key designer on Deathspank, and its sequel - Thongs of Virtue:
an action RPG that's part Diablo, part Monkey Island.
After that in 2010, Ron joined Tim Schafer at Double Fine to work on an idea that dates
to even before Maniac Mansion.
That game was The Cave, released in 2013.
In it, you select a team of 3 characters out of a possible 7, each with unique abilities:
and with them, you negotiate the puzzles and platforms of the aforementioned Cave.
Most recently, along with the co-designer of Maniac Mansion, Gary Winnick, he's been
behind the crowdfunded classic point and click, Thimbleweed Park.
First revealed in late 2014 with a Kickstarter campaign, it met its goal of $375,000 - eventually
raising about $600,000.
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 colours, subtler shading,
smoother movement - but otherwise it's pretty authentic.
Five distinct characters, wonderful background art - and all the humour and cultural references
you'd expect.
As for what Ron will do next?
Who can say.
With the purchase of LucasArts 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?
Only 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 there'll be the resolution of a true Monkey
Island 3(a).
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 that 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 - why are there anachronistic elements
scattered throughout the game, such as the grog vending machines?
Is the ending to the second game supposed to be taken literally?
Or did Guybrush just bang his head in the fall and dream everything?
It wouldn't be the first time.
Is the fourth wall breaking relevant?
Do the NPCs know it's just a game?
Does Guybrush know?
Is he only pretending for our sake?
Is everyone, including the player, suspending disbelief?
We're firmly in fan theory territory here - but hear me out.
Guybrush's 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 if his entire trip was arranged?
What if 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 SCUMM - and it would explain why Guybrush
can't die.
It would explain his success despite his ineptitude.
It 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, Guybrush 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 kickstarted a golden era that 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 thirty 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.