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Ron Says It Louder For Those In The Back 02 May, 2022 / 12 comments

Ron "zo" Gilbert took his website, GrumpyGamer down the other week (I'm not going to find out exactly when, what do you take me for, a journalist?) prompting many in the community to speculate that it was due to a vocal minority of disgruntled 'fans' unhappy with what they've seen of Return to Monkey Island so far and not afraid to swear at the developers about it.

It turns out there might be a nugget of truth to those speculations, because the site is now back with an article called When I Made Another Monkey Island, in reference to that other one. He seems keen to make a few things clear.

For example, he'd like you to know that whatever his idea for MI3 was way back when, it was a nothing. There wasn't enough of a vision in the first place for it to become ruined.

The totality of that idea was "Guybrush chases the demon pirate LeChuck to hell and Stan is there." That's it. That's all it was.

There you have it. The plan for Monkey Island 3, in its entirety.

He goes on to give what I think is a spirited defense of the art style they chose for the game in the context of the history of Monkey Island, expresses disappointment with some of the fan response so far, and finishes with a plea to fans to join them in this ride. I don't think I can entirely do it justice in quotes so you'll just have to read it. I will leave you with one tantalising tidbit about the music, though:

The music Michael, Peter, and Clint are doing is equally amazing. It's not AdLib, Sound Blaster, or even Roland MT-32 music. Its stunning, interactive, and recorded live.

I'm giving you permission to get excited about Return to Monkey Island, people. I know you have it in you. Or as Ron puts it:

Return to Monkey Island is an incredible rollercoaster. Get on and have some fun or stomp out of the amusement park because it's not exactly the rollercoaster you wanted.

Source: GrumpyGamer

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12 Comments

  • Avatar
    Rum Rogers on 03 May, 2022, 13:31…
    No edit button? Well sorry for the typos, was typing from my smartphone.
  • Avatar
    Rum Rogers on 03 May, 2022, 13:25…

    OzzieMonkey

    Woooah really?! Where'd you hear that? That's seriously exciting, I was kinda resigning myself to them not having anything like that in this game since it'sno longer MIDI.


    Well RMI is using the Delores engine, which has full support for FMOD.
    Then again, KestrelPi has a good point, don't expect EXACTLY the level if interactivity they offered with iMuse. FMOD can do that, but it doesn't mean it will for this game.
    Although, knowing the Land, McConnell and Bajakian, I expect something extraordinary anyway!
  • Avatar
    Kroms on 03 May, 2022, 12:48…
    Sad that he had to do this—I take it people in a state of emotional adolescence had opinions?—but I can't wait for the game and to play it on its own terms. It looks good!
  • Avatar
    ThunderPeel2001 on 03 May, 2022, 11:35…
    Even LucasArts reduced how involved iMuse was in later games. I seriously doubt they'd go to the insane levels of luxurious detail that MI2 had. It will be more likely how it was handled with later digital audio games, if at all. (I can't remember if Thimbleweed Park had any dynamic music?)
  • Avatar
    KestrelPi on 03 May, 2022, 10:51…

    OzzieMonkey

    Rum Rogers

    AlfredJ

    The music being interactive is interesting. Could they be going for some iMuse-like system?



    Yeah, they're using FMOD, so definitely an iMuse-like approach.



    Woooah really?! Where'd you hear that? That's seriously exciting, I was kinda resigning myself to them not having anything like that in this game since it'sno longer MIDI.



    Well, let's not get carried away. The quote from the article says the music is interactive, so we can definitely expect soem sort of responsiveness to what's going on on the screen. I wouldn't be surprised for example if we saw some blending between different mixes of music and so forth, depending on where Guybrush is in a town.

    I'd be a bit surprised though if it's the level of detail that we saw in MI2 because that's just really difficult to do without Midi, especially when making a soundtrack with live instruments, because you'd have to record so many different transitions and endings and edit them to be able to blend seamlessly.

    fmod and tools like it are useful middleware for hooking music and other elements up to a game, but lots of games use it that don't have any significant interactivity in the soundtrack at all, so we can't infer JUST from the use of fmod that the soundtrack is going to be highly iMUSE like.

    I think the most likely thing is that they've but something together which is inspired by some of the interactive elements of MI2, with some layers and transitions to it, but not really at the level of complexity we saw in that game. Which is fine - even at the time they said MI2's soundtrack was too much work for too little benefit and as much as I love what they did, I don't expect them to repeat that feat in digital audio (frankly I'm surprised the Special Edition was able to implement woodtick as well as it did)
  • Avatar
    OzzieMonkey on 03 May, 2022, 08:54…

    Rum Rogers

    AlfredJ

    The music being interactive is interesting. Could they be going for some iMuse-like system?



    Yeah, they're using FMOD, so definitely an iMuse-like approach.



    Woooah really?! Where'd you hear that? That's seriously exciting, I was kinda resigning myself to them not having anything like that in this game since it'sno longer MIDI.
  • Avatar
    Rum Rogers on 03 May, 2022, 08:36…

    AlfredJ

    The music being interactive is interesting. Could they be going for some iMuse-like system?



    Yeah, they're using FMOD, so definitely an iMuse-like approach.
  • Avatar
    OzzieMonkey on 03 May, 2022, 02:29…

    St_Eddie

    Vainamoinen

    If they don't release on GOG "because Disney", I'm going to kill myself.



    I hadn't considered that possibility. I know a fair few Disney published games are on GOG but they're older legacy titles (horribly overpriced as well - the bloomin' greedy Mouse). I'm not sure if Disney publishes new releases to GOG. I hope they do, as I really want to support the game but I have a firm anti-DRM policy and if it's Steam or nothing, then I will be left with little recourse but to pirate the game (seems oddly apt, but I really don't want to).



    Considering that in this instance Disney are merely the IP rights holder and Devolver are the publisher, I think there's a higher possibility that it'll end up on GOG. All their recent releases as well as pre-orders for Trek to Yomi are on there. Also, all of Double Fine's Lucasarts remasters were on there from day one.
  • Avatar
    St_Eddie on 02 May, 2022, 23:26…

    Vainamoinen

    If they don't release on GOG "because Disney", I'm going to kill myself.



    I hadn't considered that possibility. I know a fair few Disney published games are on GOG but they're older legacy titles (horribly overpriced as well - the bloomin' greedy Mouse). I'm not sure if Disney publishes new releases to GOG. I hope they do, as I really want to support the game but I have a firm anti-DRM policy and if it's Steam or nothing, then I will be left with little recourse but to pirate the game (seems oddly apt, but I really don't want to).
  • Avatar
    Vainamoinen on 02 May, 2022, 20:35…
    The gaming community has that exact problem. I thought the Monkey Island fans were exempt: After all, we were waiting for a new MI for 13 years and are now getting one with Ron Gilbert at the helm, Dave Grossman to boot, all the composers back on board. Jackpot, all stars aligned, all the dice show sixes, all the monkeys have three heads.

    But nooo. I had a bit of a difficult time with the graphics too, but I always acknowledged that Crowle knows his sh*t inside out and the character designs we've seen were incredible. I guess when people started voicing criticism of the "cheap mobile game" type, I was jumping to the right side immediately.

    I'm looking forward to ReMI like no other game in years. If they don't release on GOG "because Disney", I'm going to kill myself.
  • Avatar
    AlfredJ on 02 May, 2022, 17:21…
    It's sad but predictable a certain segment of the fans had to react so negatively and outraged immediately. But that's just what happens on the internet with any existing franchise trying something new these days (or maybe that was always the case). Hopefully Ron & the team see the very excited responses as well. Knights & Bikes shows how beautiful Rex's art is ingame, and what little we see in that teaser trailer promises a lot of personality and detail in the animation (especially looking at the details in that violin ghost).

    The music being interactive is interesting. Could they be going for some iMuse-like system?
  • Avatar
    LechuckMarley on 02 May, 2022, 13:44…
    I'm sad that he had to write that, but hear hear. So much of fandom - across the board - has this problem. I think it's at least in part because of the access we have to creators now. It's a really doubled edged sword.

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