During one of his (seemingly frequent) ScummVM-related dives into The Secret of Monkey Island, Erik Torbjorn made an interesting discovery: A set of dialogue lines were, because of a bug, never triggered when Guybrush enters the Sea Monkey’s hull. After some ScummVM hacking, he was able to insert the lines again to see what it would look like.
We did a quick dig into the Special Edition and, as tends to be the case, the lines were recorded but, again, never used. This is all a roundabout way to say: We took the screenshots from Erik Torbjorn, ripped the audio, and created this video.
That we in 2025 are still finding new stuff in The Secret of Monkey Island truly is sad fascinating. Good job, Erik Torbjorn!
A Few Updates (Apr 8th): First, Torbjorn posted the video of his actual playthrough, so check it out for the real deal.
He has also gotten some feedback from people who claim to have seen the lines within the game, probably right after Spiffy’s closeup.
And, Ron weighed in, saying there never was a coding error, but rather just a few cut lines.
This is, indeed, getting sweaty.
Huz
"And let all the grog get warm?" is used if you try to "turn off" Stan's grog machine.
That makes more sense than putting grog in the kettle in the SCUMM bar kitchen.
Pop quiz: list all the things you can turn on/turn off in Monkey Island (even if the result is a custom reply)
I came across a few others during translating that I don't remember coming across in the game(s) when playing. They might be other hidden/removed lines, or I am just not as thorough in my playing.
Like "Just give me the goddamned ship."
Or "And let all the grog get warm? No way." (EGA/VGA disk only)
There's also a few different verbs with Meathook's parrot that are dropped from the CD version onwards (probably as Turn on and Turn off were dropped):
Fondle, Finger and Annoy
Same for the drowning verbs, which includes Decompose in the EGA version.
Some dialog was longer in the EGA/VGA disk version, like the shopkeeper:
"You sneaky, light-fingered little weasel...almost had me going there for a second."
Or Lemonhead:
"Oooh, that's nice.
Simple. Just like one of mine.
And little. Like mine."
Again Lemonhead:
" If you had some sort of offering for us...
...something that we could pass on to the Great Monkey...
...we might be persuaded to let you leave here uncooked."
And of course there are the odd typo corrections between the EGA and VGA and CD versions.
"I've heard you are/were a contemptible sneak."
You know, important stuff.
Rum Rogers
Oh I see what Ron meant now, basically switching the if guard on purpose to cut the lines. I thought that maybe he read very quickly and didn't notice, as it's a pretty common overlook that also catches me off guard in my daily job sometimes.
Thanks for clarifying TP, I'm now convinced that was a quick dirty way to cut the line :D
So good to see, anyway, I agree!
Yeah, I think so, but I think it's the insert of "break-here". Basically adding a "return" before the dialogue line was executed in such a way that it could be added again if they changed their mind. Otherwise there's no need for a "break-here" to exist at all in that block of code.
ThunderPeel2001
Rum Rogers
To me, this looks like a genuine overlook?
This code suggests the said-hot-monkey-line is set to false initially, and the if guard is switched (should check for !said-hot-monkey-line).
Otherwise there wouldn't be a need to explicitly set it to true once entering the branch.
I get what you mean, but I trust Ron's interpretation of the code. I suspect it was common practice to cut lines in this (weird) way. Also, the lines deserved to be cut, for sure.
Oh I see what Ron meant now, basically switching the if guard on purpose to cut the lines. I thought that maybe he read very quickly and didn't notice, as it's a pretty common overlook that also catches me off guard in my daily job sometimes.
Thanks for clarifying TP, I'm now convinced that was a quick dirty way to cut the line :D
So good to see, anyway, I agree!
Rum Rogers
To me, this looks like a genuine overlook?
This code suggests the said-hot-monkey-line is set to false initially, and the if guard is switched (should check for !said-hot-monkey-line).
Otherwise there wouldn't be a need to explicitly set it to true once entering the branch.
I get what you mean, but I trust Ron's interpretation of the code. I suspect it was common practice to cut lines in this (weird) way. Also, the lines deserved to be cut, for sure.
This code suggests the said-hot-monkey-line is set to false initially, and the if guard is switched (should check for !said-hot-monkey-line).
Otherwise there wouldn't be a need to explicitly set it to true once entering the branch.