Tales of Monkey Island

[syntheticgerbil]

God, what's up with the bump mapping on those bricks? Did someone draw some black lines that looked kind of bricklike with MSPaint and throw them on there?

Yuck, some of EMI is better left without a second look.

[Roderick]

Yeah I have to agree there that EMI looks a lot better in my memory than it does in Real Actuality. Egads. Conversely, Grim never lost its visual charm.

[Erkki]

Exact same thing happened to me. Only time I had to look for hints, and it kinda pissed me off that I'd solved the puzzle and still had to look up the solution.

Hey, me too

[ThunderPeel2001]

Generally speaking TOMI is the most polished game TTG have ever done, in my opinion. It really felt like a major full price title. Just so much attention to detail, and I LOVE the focus blurring. I didn't even notice that the other titles didn't have it, but TOMI feels so incredibly polished.

Saying that, the inventory system WAS an evolutionary step backwards... I understand Jake's decisions, but he was given a bum brief. Yes, it DOES feel like an activity center -- but an inventory system shouldn't (anyone remember Universe?). As someone pointed out, you could teach the user they could combine items in the introduction (as TOMI actually did) and jump the hurdle with ease.

CMI's inventory was the most intuitive and, I have to say, the pinnacle of adventure gaming inventories, thus far It's unfortunate that TOMI's is SO counter-intuitive.

Nevermind, it's was far from ruining my experience!

Edited July 14, 2009 by ThunderPeel2001

[LOPcagney]

A lot of negativity towards EMI on this thread. I'm just in the middle of the first one now (and loving it, of course), so my question going into the series for the first time is: Is the 4th even worth playing? Is everyone talking about frustrating flaws that marred and otherwise good 4-quel or is the whole thing just better left alone?

[Chris]

A lot of negativity towards EMI on this thread. I'm just in the middle of the first one now (and loving it, of course), so my question going into the series for the first time is: Is the 4th even worth playing? Is everyone talking about frustrating flaws that marred and otherwise good 4-quel or is the whole thing just better left alone?

I played it for about an hour, didn't really enjoy it, and never touched it again. I don't even remember anything about it, other than that I think there was a catapult.

[thorn]

Following on from my post last night, I've had a bit more thought about why I actually liked the inventory system and the method for combining objects. In the past, pretty much every adventure game I've played does it as follows:

1. Click object #1
   
2. Click object #2
   
3. A completely new object appears in your inventory
   

There's never any sense of transformation; of the character pulling both objects out of his/her pocket, fiddling with them and producing the combination. Of course, that's a game mechanic we're all used to and it's not necessarily a bad thing. I just liked the way that the ToMI inventory actually gives the sense of the two objects being combined and transformed in a flash of light. Also that when you put incorrect objects in to the combination boxes, it feels like the game is trying to combine them but failing.

As an extra comment: This game really needs a way to skip cut-scenes.

A lot of negativity towards EMI on this thread. I'm just in the middle of the first one now (and loving it, of course), so my question going into the series for the first time is: Is the 4th even worth playing? Is everyone talking about frustrating flaws that marred and otherwise good 4-quel or is the whole thing just better left alone?

If you can deal with some crappy controls and some annoyance with Monkey Kombat (which, if you're good, you can beat pretty quickly) for the sake of good puzzles and great dialogue, yes. Take a look at my earlier post in this thread for my full impressions.

[lobotomy42]

A lot of negativity towards EMI on this thread. I'm just in the middle of the first one now (and loving it, of course), so my question going into the series for the first time is: Is the 4th even worth playing? Is everyone talking about frustrating flaws that marred and otherwise good 4-quel or is the whole thing just better left alone?

It's not so bad as to be unplayable, but it is quite a let down in comparison to the other three. I definitely wouldn't play it unless you get through the first three and think "Man, I absolutely MUST KNOW everything that happens next before Tales of Monkey Island!"

[Thrik]

If nothing else, you should be able to enjoy the music!

[Erkki]

I watched my sister play it. She's a casual gamer, mostly plays Sims, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, Hardwood Hearts etc. She liked Braid and figured out some of its puzzles before I did. Doesn't play many adventure games but liked CMI a lot. She seemed to be enjoying Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, but even near the end of the game, she was trying to combine items by clicking on the first one and then on the second one, even as she had had to combine many items before. Just an observation.

But I think I personally prefer item combination the way it is.

[Horticulture Tycoon]

This is just a random observation, but it occurred to me today that whether it's by design or by complete coincidence, every Monkey Island game has a sequence where Guybrush is trapped in a confined space and has to use puzzlin' to escape. In SoMI it's

when he's tied to the idol beneath the pier

(and also

when he's captured by the cannibals

), in MI2 it's when

LeChuck suspends him and Wally over the Pit O' Doom

, in CMI he

gets stuck in quicksand and then is summarily eaten by a snake

, and in EMI

he gets locked in a bank vault

. It's somehow comforting that ToMI has continued that tradition with the

Jaques the Monkey

sequence, but I can't help but wonder if this is a deliberately constructed tradition on the part of the designers, or if it's something that's common in all adventure games and I never noticed, or if it's pure happenstance, or what. Anyway I felt like sharing my random Monkey Island related thought.

[syntheticgerbil]

This is just a random observation, but it occurred to me today that whether it's by design or by complete coincidence, every Monkey Island game has a sequence where Guybrush is trapped in a confined space and has to use puzzlin' to escape.

It's pretty standard adventure game fare. It may be almost harder to find a third person adventure that doesn't use the trapped situation at one point.

[miffy495]

Yeah, it usually seems to be a pacing thing. You've usually just done a ton of stuff with the order of execution open to the player and in order to give you a bit of a mental break the designer gives you a puzzle where you have everything you need available to you right in that very room. Also, you forgot about the bit in MI2 where

you get locked up by governor Phatt

. SoMI's sequence on the boat between islands could be considered a similar thing, as could MI2 and 3's endgames. A few rooms with the puzzle completely centered on what you have immediately available to you. Of course, then every telltale endgame could be considered one of these, etc etc etc. As syntheticgerbil said, good luck finding an adventure game that doesn't have something like this somewhere.

[thorn]

For the most part, Monkey Island is fairly open ended allowing players a lot of freedom to explore and solve several puzzle threads at a time, but there are two big choke points where the puzzles become very self contained. The first is on the ship as you're sailing (or trying to sail to) Monkey Island. The second is while you're on the ghost ship. All the solutions to puzzles can be found right where you are. These were done on purpose to give the player a small break and allow them to focus on one area.

From here.

[Horticulture Tycoon]

I'm not neccessarily talking about a self-contained segment of gameplay, obviously all adventure games have that. But the ship(s) in MI1 and the endgame of MI2 are both multi-room areas that need to be explored, whereas I'm talking about the game literally locking the player in a room and thereby making him virually (or sometimes literally) immobile. I can't really think of a similar situation in any other adventure game off the top of my head. In Grim you get locked into a toolshed (or something), but the way out isn't really through solving a puzzle. Also in DOTT a character is stuck in a tree for a while, but the player isn't stuck there with them, so that's not really the same either. Same goes for Maniac Mansion and the dungeon.

Eh whatever, I just thought those sequences I mentioned were charmingly similar is all I'm saying.

[thorn]

In Grim you get locked into a toolshed (or something), but the way out isn't really through solving a puzzle.

In Grim, there's also the bit where you have to save Meche from Domino's vault and end up locking yourself in.

[syntheticgerbil]

I can't really think of a similar situation in any other adventure game off the top of my head.

Not really trying to get at you, but I get the feeling you haven't played too many adventure games. The Broken Sword games (or almost any Revolution game) for instance, are littered with trapped sequences. Maybe not so much in 4 and 5. I have no clue, I never played past Broken Sword 3, which was just atrocious.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Not really trying to get at you, but I get the feeling you haven't played too many adventure games. The Broken Sword games (or almost any Revolution game) for instance, are littered with trapped sequences. Maybe not so much in 4 and 5. I have no clue, I never played past Broken Sword 3, which was just atrocious.

Really? Was it that bad?

[thorn]

I'd like to go against the flow and point out something wierd/irritating that has nothing to do with the UI. Why does the game store the savegames in My Documents\Telltale Games\Launch of the Screaming Narwhal rather than in the directory in which it's installed? My 'My Documents' is cluttered enough as it is.

On a similar note, it would be brilliant if Telltale would let me choose where to put the Start Menu shortcuts, so I can put them with all of my games, rather than demanding an exclusive Telltale zone.

[toblix]

Yes, the My Documents thing is pretty weird. I guess it's because you "can't" really write to the Program Files directory, and if they saved the game in the place Windows wants you to, people wouldn't be able to find their save game files so easily.

[Jake]

I'd like to go against the flow and point out something wierd/irritating that has nothing to do with the UI. Why does the game store the savegames in My Documents\Telltale Games\Launch of the Screaming Narwhal rather than in the directory in which it's installed? My 'My Documents' is cluttered enough as it is.

Because Windows user permissions are fucking rad and totally love it when non-administrator users try to write to directories other than their My Documents folders. Windows loves it so much that it doesn't work for most people, so we started going with the flow and saving where we're allowed. I guess we could do something where if you're an admin it saves to the game directory and if you're a regular user it saves to my documents, but then that creates one more bonus question the tech support people have to ask back and forth when someone writes in saying "I can't save."

[toblix]

If you have UAC enabled and try to write inside the Program Files, Windows treats your application like a retard, faking a magical dream world for it to play in without hurting itself or others. Wouldn't the right place be the one given by Windows when asking it where that place is?

[Sergey]

I need the OST MP3s ASAP.

Michael Land did a great job once again!

[thorn]

Because Windows user permissions are fucking rad and totally love it when non-administrator users try to write to directories other than their My Documents folders. Windows loves it so much that it doesn't work for most people, so we started going with the flow and saving where we're allowed. I guess we could do something where if you're an admin it saves to the game directory and if you're a regular user it saves to my documents, but then that creates one more bonus question the tech support people have to ask back and forth when someone writes in saying "I can't save."

Eeep. I'm guessing that this is something new with Vista? Thank god I never upgraded. I retract my disapprobation and redirect it towards Microsoft.

Also, I fully approve any decision made to simplify things for tech support. Wish the programmers in my last job felt the same way.

But please still think about the Start Menu thing.

[syntheticgerbil]

Really? Was it that bad?

Haha, well some parts of the game are admittedly enjoyable when the puzzles are more based on inventory and investigating rather than pushing blocks around and completing quick time sequences. But maybe the biggest problem is that there's this horrible song called "We Love U" over the end credits that just made the game irredeemable in my eyes..

Edited July 17, 2009 by syntheticgerbil