The Big LucasArts Playthrough

[SecretAsianMan]

Yeah I think they would have designed Mega Monkey mode first, and simply cut out stuff (in a judicious, intelligent way) to make Regular mode.

 

That's the impression I have as well.  For example, it makes much more sense to have the card hidden inside the uneaten chicken rather than just having a "lost" card sitting out in the open.

[Ben X]

Unfortunately, I made the stupid mistake of playing regular first. Mega Monkey then offers no replay value because you can reverse engineer the reinstated first steps to the puzzles from having solved their end steps already. I'm not sure if MI2's Lite version works any better.

[Udvarnoky]

I think both Monkey Island 2 and Monkey Island 3 are pretty clever about the way they simplify certain puzzle solutions.  It wasn't as simple as just dropping puzzles out - they had to identify certain puzzles to pre-solve, and in ways that actually made sense and protected the design from dead-ends or other unexpected surprises.  The effort involved is probably why there are no other examples of LEC implementing this feature - effectively you design the game twice.  I think this what a lot of people don't realize when they cry out for difficulty modes in adventure games.  The resources that are required to do so intelligently might not be vast but they are not negligible and should just as soon be used building game content that everyone will see. 

 

I know in Monkey Island 2, the Lite version actually has a unique inventory item (fresh laundry on Largo's bed) to replace the more involved puzzle to obtain the bra.  In CMI, an interesting example that springs to mind is the

 

Madame Xima puzzle.  In Mega Monkey mode, you have to make her draw five death cards by manually initiating a conversation until she cuts you off and you have the full hand.  In Regular mode, Guybrush automatically keeps badgering her, so the possibility of the player not realizing they have to keep doing something the fortune teller doesn't want is prevented.

[syntheticgerbil]

I played Mega and Lite simultaneously when originally playing Monkey Island 2. I got stuck at some point in Part 2 on Mega, switched to lite, finished Part 2, then had an idea of what to do in Mega mode and just kind of did that over and over from there. Probably not the best way to do it, but I still have fond memories discovering the alternate easier puzzles.

 

I don't think I played Lite on Curse until much later.

[Ben X]

I guess the issue is that COMI should have stuck with the "Lite" label, thereby reflecting that puzzles are taken out for that, not added for Mega.

[Zeusthecat]

So I'm still stuck. There must be something obscure that I am missing somewhere but so far nothing sticks out. I've tried patching the hole in the Danjer Cove boat. I've tried to find a way to grind my half eaten biscuit into crumbs so I could lure the feral chickens back to the coop. I've tried messing around with the stage lights but it seems I am still missing instructions on how to use them. And I've spent some time messing around with that suspicious fountain in the middle of town.

Since the island I'm on isn't too expansive I'm thinking of just going through every area and testing every single combination of items. But I think I'm gonna toil for just a little bit longer first.

[dium]

What have you tried to plug the boat with?

 

Unrelated, vague hint that I don't suspect you'll actually read:

Is somebody on the island already enjoying what Blondbeard is craving?

[Zeusthecat]

Still stuck. And I've tried plugging the boat with everything I have but I am obviously still missing something. The gum I have seems like the most likely candidate for plugging the hole but according to Guybrush I don't have enough. He also commented that the half eaten biscuit and the biscuit cutter were the right shape for the hole but couldn't be used to plug it for whatever reason. I've also tried using the gum with everything else in my inventory, thinking that maybe I would need to put the gum on something as an adhesive to make it suitable for plugging the hole.

 

So right now I am inclined to think that there is something I am missing in either the beach area with the feral chickens or Danjer Cove. Those are the only two areas where nothing really substantial has happened yet and there are still items in the environment that haven't come into play. Unfortunately I've already gone through almost every possible item combination (I guess I haven't tried using all of my items with the sign or banner in this area) in each of those areas and nothing has happened so I'm still completely stumped on what I could possibly do. Maybe I just need to do some pixel hunting. 

[mikemariano]

Still stuck. And I've tried plugging the boat with everything I have but I am obviously still missing something. The gum I have seems like the most likely candidate for plugging the hole but according to Guybrush I don't have enough. He also commented that the half eaten biscuit and the biscuit cutter were the right shape for the hole but couldn't be used to plug it for whatever reason. I've also tried using the gum with everything else in my inventory, thinking that maybe I would need to put the gum on something as an adhesive to make it suitable for plugging the hole. 

 

Have you used the biscuit cutter for anything yet?

[Zeusthecat]

Have you used the biscuit cutter for anything yet?

 

I've used that thing all over the place but I probably haven't been quite exhaustive yet. I will now ponder this all day, thank you!

[Zeusthecat]

Okay, I've been running this over in my head for the last several hours and ruining my productivity at work but I think I have almost all of the pieces in place.

 

First, based on Guybrush's comment about the biscuit cutter shape matching the shape of the hole in the boat, I clearly need to use the biscuit cutter on some object in the environment (pretty sure I already tried it with everything in my inventory) to stamp out a block of wood or something that I can use to plug the hole. As part of this process I think I will probably also need to use my chewed gum or glue as an adhesive. Once the boat is repaired, I think I will need to use it to get to the nearby pirate ship where I will hopefully find some chicken or some other food since Blondebeard had previously delivered food to this location (I also expect there to be monkeys on the ship based on the handprints back on the beach where Elaine was stolen). Once I get the food I think I will need to dump it in the fryer to make it crispy and then give it to Blondebeard. At this point, I expect that he will either lose his gold tooth biting down on something too hard or he will want the gum when he is finished and lose his tooth that way. Since I am able to pan for gold in the mud outside I expect that through the process of losing his tooth, it will somehow end up in the mud and I will have to use the pie pan to get it out. Then I will give the gold tooth to the third barber so he will join my crew. At this point I'm hoping that some new options will open up that will lead me to obtaining a ship or I will be able to take the ship from Danjer Cove since it is manned by monkeys.

 

I could be totally off on all of this but I am very confident that I am at least on the right track with the biscuit cutter. I just need to find some tree or wooden object somewhere that I can use it with which might be tough because I've already used it just about everywhere I can think of.

[syntheticgerbil]

Oh yeah, that biscuit cutter. Now I remember how you solve it. I think that one stumped me for a while as well.

[miffy495]

What around would make a good patch for a boat?

 

OBLIQUE SPOILER:

It's not like those things grow on trees...

[Zeusthecat]

After thinking about that biscuit cutter for so long, I was finally able to push through that puzzle pretty quickly. Somehow I had never previously tried using it on that second rubber tree in the caber toss area and after obtaining a chunk of wood from doing so, I was able to throw some glue on my new plug and patch the hole in the boat. From here I jumped in the boat and went out to the pirate ship where some tweaked out dude and a bunch of monkeys made me walk the plank. It was clear that this sequence would repeat until I did something and I saw that I could interact with the plank and one of the ship windows from my boat, so I ended up using my serrated knife to cut the end of the plank off. Then I climbed onto the ship again and was tarred and feathered for my insolence. Then they sent me on my way and I had to stop playing before I could get any further.

 

Now that I look like a chicken I'm thinking I'll either need to use my new disguise to capture one of the feral chickens from the beach or I'll need to use it to trick Blondebeard into thinking I'm that devil chicken that he's so scared of. I'm planning to dedicate a couple nights to playing this this week since I finally got past that roadblock so hopefully I'm close to the end of this chapter so I can start delving into the next area of the game.

[Zeusthecat]

I got a little further last night. First, I ended up going back into the restaurant with my chicken disguise and scared the shit out of Blondebeard. This landed me in a giant pot back in the kitchen area of LeChimp's ship. I spent some time trying to interact with all the food and vases nearby and eventually found that I could use the ventriloquist book to trick the dopey guy into taking all his pirate monkeys and abandoning the ship. One this had happened, I found that I had some chicken grease and a map to Elaine's location in my inventory.

 

After looking at the map, I immediately assumed that it had to be the instructions for the stage lights. So I went straight for the theater, turned the lights on, and pressed all the buttons in the sequence indicated on the map. After completing the sequence, the lights were projecting an 'X' right near the tombstone on the stage and Guybrush indicated that that was where I needed to dig to find Elaine. I tried to go on the stage at this point but I was immediately forced to exit since Slappy Cromwell was still doing his juggling act. I poked around a bit more and noticed that the trunk in the backstage area was now open and there were a bunch of cannon balls that Cromwell was going to juggle as part of his act. Since Guybrush had commented a few times that he hoped Cromwell would fuck up, it seemed obvious that I somehow needed to try to sabotage his act to get him off the stage. So after unsuccessfully trying a few items on the cannon balls, I found that the chicken grease was the solution. As expected, once Cromwell started juggling the cannon balls, they slipped out of his hands and the show abruptly ended which finally gave me the opportunity to dig Elaine up and take her back to LeChimp's my ship.

 

I played for awhile longer after finding Elaine but haven't made any further progress. I had hoped that I could somehow tell the third barber about golden Elaine or bring him to the ship so he could see her but neither of those was an option and it looks like that gold tooth is most likely the only thing that will suffice as 'treasure' to get him to join my crew. I spent a ton of time on the ship in the hopes that I could somehow pick up some of the food or use it with one of my items to end up with something crunchy but it doesn't look like any interactions will work with anything on the ship. I'm still fairly convinced that one of the objects on the ship will help me progress since I've been through all the other areas countless times and the only new item left in my inventory is the map to Elaine's location, but so far I'm completely stumped. This game is kind of hard and it's taking me much longer to get through this segment of the game than I expected.

[SecretAsianMan]

You are mostly on the right track with the third barber.  The step towards recruiting the barber that you are currently on is also Mega Monkey specific.  Some increasingly less vague hints

 

What kind of thing is Blondbeard craving?

Who might have this kind of thing?

Have you tried interacting with this person?

Maybe physically interacting with them?

[Zeusthecat]

Mega Monkey mode is no joke. But despite the fact that I keep getting stuck I don't feel like any of the puzzles have really been that unfair, I think it's more that I have so many items that it's getting increasingly hard to pinpoint exactly what I need to be focusing on. The puzzle design itself is pretty damn solid so far.

[bkbroiler]

It is blasphemous to say that Curse is my favorite Monkey Island game? I think the puzzles and environments are top notch, and the voice acting and writing is great. Reading you going through it really makes me want to go back and play it again.

[SecretAsianMan]

Not at all man, it's my favorite too.

[Zeusthecat]

Yeah, I think several people around here mentioned it being their favorite so no worries there. My opinion so far is that Secret of Monkey Island is the best of the three because of how amazingly well the humor worked in that game but I have thoroughly been enjoying all of them and they are all great games.

[bkbroiler]

Yeah, I always liked one and three a bunch. Two I thought was too hard, but I haven't played it in year's so maybe that's changed. It has a bit of a different tone too that weirds me out. But I know a lot of people like that one the best.

[dium]

Three was my favorite for a long time, because it was the first one I played (and the first "real" PC game I played). I loved it so much that I think it defined my young sense of humor more than any book or movie. Nowadays (because I still replay these games every couple years) my opinion is in favor of two. You're right about the tone being weird, but I think that's precisely why I like it. I think it's the best looking one too, despite its age.

 

Also, I enjoy how we've started talking about the Monkey Island games just by their numbers. I think there was an Idle Thumbs episode where the adventure game devs in the room caught themselves doing that.

[Udvarnoky]

Monkey Island 3 and Grim Fandango definitely represent the production value zenith of LucasArts adventures.  It's pretty telling that Blizzard was intimdated enough by Curse to cancel a game they felt was shaping up to be an inferior competitor.

 

CMI has aged as well as any computer game I know from a technical standpoint.  Literally, the resolution and sound compression are the only things that give away that it came out in the 90s.

[Zeusthecat]

Still nothing and I've already logged 15 hours in this game. Right now I have two possible solutions running through my head. The first involves me somehow luring a feral chicken back to the chicken coop so I can murder and fry its remains, thus getting the crunchy chicken Blondebeard craves. I've tried using the biscuit in the hopes that I could lure them with the crumbs and I've tried getting the corn on the cob since chickens love corn but I haven't gotten anywhere despite my efforts. The second idea involves me finding something that I can lay across the broken bridge so I can get to the fort and aim the cannon at Blondebeard's restaurant. Maybe then I need to load it with a feral chicken and fire it through Blondebeard's open window. I'm pretty sure that's the dumbest idea ever but everything else has been a dead end so far.

[Trip Hazard]

Oy, always with the chickens, this one