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[DownGrader]

Few years ago, when LucasArts was interested in maintaining this point'n'click adventure franchise, there was a plenty of fan sites like World of Monkey Island and Monkey Island Wiki (based on MediaWiki, not on Wikia). LucasArts adventures sites like LucasArts Fan Network were thriving in general.

Today, all sites mentioned, as well as many others, are not even barren or abandoned - they are dead. Offline. Server not found. The only one left is International House of Mojo, but it was never was strictly LucasArts fan site. Official sites for Tales of Monkey Island and two Monkey Island SEs barely work. Even the wave of LucasArts remasters (Grim Fandango, DoTT and upcoming Full Throttle) seems to leave Monkey Island behind.

I mean, all of you proclaiming that F-Zero, Metroid or whatever else is dead, or saying how niche your favourite JRPG is, but, man, they are not as dead or niche as "there's literally no place for fans of these games to talk." And we are talking about a long-running series with five installations since 1990, as well as bunch of remakes... so it's not like Monkey Island is some single obscure old game.

 

[Sloane]

Even the wave of LucasArts remasters (Grim Fandango, DoTT and upcoming Full Throttle) seems to leave Monkey Island behind.

Because they've already been remastered...?

Franchise will be revived once Ron is allowed to make MI3.

 

[reptilescorpio]

Tales killed a lot of my enthusiasm for the franchise tbh. Curse is still my GOAT.

Disney obviously can't think of a way to derive a ton of profit from it right now.

 

[dude]

The franchise is dead and after seeing the new installments and the remakes I think that's for the better. Not to disrespect Telltale's hard work, but the game is simply not the same without Ron Gilbert. I think the franchise started on a very gradual downward slope after the second game and never really recovered. At this point, besides a re-release of Curse, I'm content to let the series rest. Not every game franchise has to be run into the ground and milked dry.

As for the community, I was never big on that...

 

[AndrewPL]

It's not like there will be another monkey island or movie.

I love the art style in 3 but 1 & 2 were the high point in the series.

Ron Gilbert did blog about it when it had an anniversary and scumm bar is still around but there isn't any news to report on.

I do a yearly play through of the first 3. 4 & 5 aren't really worth going back too.

 

[spindoctor]

I would kill for another Guybrush Threepwood adventure.

 

[vareon]

I'm waiting Curse and Escape (yes, Escape too) to be available on digital platform but what else should we do? There are things that are not a long-running franchise and I just feel Monkey Island was part of them,the same way I remember my childhood cartoons.

 

[DryvBy]

All I wish is I could at least buy Curse (mainly this) and Escape digitally. Steam, PS4/XB1. Whatever.

 

[gossi]

Most fansites die. Fans move on. If you pick any TV show fandom from a few years ago where the show has ended, almost all the fansites have closed.

 

[Sloane]

Tales killed a lot of my enthusiasm for the franchise tbh. Curse is still my GOAT.

Disney obviously can't think of a way to derive a ton of profit from it right now.

True, no point in creating another Tales -- it will be either the real deal or nothing but, sadly, I don't see Disney putting any money into this (or allowing someone else to do it).

 

[DownGrader]

Because they've already been remastered...?

There's still Curse of Monkey Island.

 

[lucebuce12]

I usually hate point and click games, mostly due to the arbitrary puzzle and level design, but I absolutely loved the Monkey Island series.

I'd love a new one by some of the original creators. Tales of Monkey Island was surprisingly good but it dragged on a bit too long for my taste.

 

[EastOfEden]

I hope we get a new game soon... they had the biggest, coolest twist in Chapter 4 of ToMI

Spoiler

only to go "jokes" in Chapter 5... but then the stinger left it a bit ambiguous so idek.

Hopefully the next game will actually explore that properly, cuz it blew my mind.

 

[Sloane]

There's still Curse of Monkey Island.

I guess. The new remasters seem to be mostly a DoubleFine thing though and Schafer didn't work much on CMI as far as I know.

 

[DownGrader]

I guess. The new remasters seem to be mostly a DoubleFine thing though and Schafer didn't work much on CMI as far as I know.

Huh. That makes sense.

 

[eXistor]

A real Monkey Island sequel is one of my dream games, it's Escape and that terrible Telltale game that killed it.

 

[DownGrader]

Oh shit... I've done some research, and things seem way more complicated than I thought:

Telltale does still make games with smaller, indie characters though. Its last Sam & Max game was in 2013, after the success of The Walking Dead. Plus, Kevin Bruner stated that there will be a new Sam & Max game in the future.

With Monkey Island, it's definitely a rights issue. Note that it's not just Lucasfilm and Disney that are involved in the rights, there's also Sony, as Sony went after the rights for all the LucasArts adventure games.

So, in order for anyone to make a Monkey Island game (or any other game based on a LucasArts adventure property, except for Sam & Max, as Steve Purcell own the rights to those characters), they'd have to make the deal through Disney, Lucasfilm, and Sony. Sony would make them make it PlayStation exclusive on consoles (as they did for Double Fine's Grim Fandango Remastered and Day of the Tentacle Remastered), and that goes against Telltale's game design philosophy (as they strive to have their games on as many platforms as possible).

https://www.telltalegames.com/community/discussion/comment/2459703/#Comment_2459703

I didn't know Sony actually has the rights for all LucasArts adventures.

Also, stop breaking my heart - Tales of Monkey Island was great

 

[Auto-Reply]

I'm a massive fan of Monkey Island 1-3... even liked 4, didn't love it though.

I have yet to play the "tales of Monkey Island" games, I've bought them, but never started playing.

A lot of my love for these games comes from nostalgia, not that they have lost all their merits over the years or that I couldn't appreciate a funny poin't & click adventure anymore. I guess I didn't like that they tried to mass produce content in the Monkey Island universe and the artstyle didn't really grab me.

 

[playXray]

Few years ago, when LucasArts was interested in maintaining this point'n'click adventure franchise, there was a plenty of fan sites like World of Monkey Island and Monkey Island Wiki (based on MediaWiki, not on Wikia). LucasArts adventures sites like LucasArts Fan Network were thriving in general.

Today, all sites mentioned, as well as many others, are not even barren or abandoned - they are dead. Offline. Server not found. The only one left is International House of Mojo, but it was never was strictly LucasArts fan site. Official sites for Tales of Monkey Island and two Monkey Island SEs barely work. Even the wave of LucasArts remasters (Grim Fandango, DoTT and upcoming Full Throttle) seems to leave Monkey Island behind.

I mean, all of you proclaiming that F-Zero, Metroid or whatever else is dead, or saying how niche your favourite JRPG is, but, man, they are not as dead or niche as "there's literally no place for fans of these games to talk." And we are talking about a long-running series with five installations since 1990, as well as bunch of remakes... so it's not like Monkey Island is some single obscure old game.

It's really sad to see all these sites have gone down. I would happily create a MI fan site to try and archive some of this stuff - just need to get some spare time to get it set up.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Because they've already been remastered...?

Franchise will be revived once Ron is allowed to make MI3.

The remastered editions failed to match the aesthetic and creative bar set by the editions they were remastering. The presentation was higher resolution, new backgrounds, and some added detail, but it looked flatter (campfire lighting at the beginning is shockingly worse than the original... The fire light is not even animated) and more static (facial animation oversimplified or missing... see when Guybrush meets Largo at the bridge...). It did not give me the feel of "this is what they would have done if the original creators made the game today..." at all.

 

[Kasper]

I'm a big fan of the first three games, but Escape wasn't very good, and then we waited and waited for ages, we finally got Tales... and it was so terrible it made me suddenly look back at Escape more fondly than I used to and killed any interest I had in the franchise ever returning.

 

[Chev]

Oh shit... I've done some research, and things seem way more complicated than I thought:



https://www.telltalegames.com/community/discussion/comment/2459703/#Comment_2459703

I didn't know Sony actually has the rights for all LucasArts adventures.(

Actually, if you follow the whole link chain, you'll discover no one actually knows if they got the rights to anything but Grim Fandango.

 

[Coulis]

I hope that one day Steve Purcell, now a big wig at Pixar, will convince a guy at Disney to release the rights from the Vault and let Gilbert do the real MI 3.

A man can dream.

 

[tomakasatnav]

There's very little for the dedicated sites to really post about unfortunately.

Monkey Island fan games never really got anywhere even. It's easier than ever to make an adventure game but comedy adventure games are hard!

Massive Monkey Island fan, so I'm ready. I'd take someone competent doing a CMI remake with art by Bill Tiller, but his own adventure games haven't been too great.

 

[Mockerre]

More like, grew up and got old

 

[sammyCYBORG]

I hoped when Telltale brought it back that would revitalise the franchise but it did the opposite.

I do like Tales but it's obviously the weakest in the series.

If it ever does come back it kinda needs a reboot of sorts. The story and characters have all got a little bit convoluted and there was a lot of uneccesary fan service in Tales.

All I need is Guybrush, LeChuck and Elaine.

 

[Munti]

since disney owns Lucasarts, i pray for a monkey island world in KH

 

[vocab]

Die off? I mean there's no games to look forward to. Tales was fun (ya I liked it more than others), but there's just other adventure games to play.

 

[JaseC]

Oh shit... I've done some research, and things seem way more complicated than I thought:



https://www.telltalegames.com/community/discussion/comment/2459703/#Comment_2459703

I didn't know Sony actually has the rights for all LucasArts adventures.

Also, stop breaking my heart - Tales of Monkey Island was great

That's just someone putting two and two together and coming up with five. Much like the commonly-accepted "The PS2 Final Fantasy games aren't on non-PlayStation platforms because they were co-developed/published by Sony" rumour that was finally put to bed after the Steam Helpdesk leak.

 

[Lucreto]

I hope for a Curse of Monkey Island HD as the art style holds up will even today.

It's my favourite game of the series. The first 2 are good but the third is better.

Also Murray the Disembodied Skull is GOAT.

 

[ZeroX03]

There's still Curse of Monkey Island.

Curse doesn't need to be remastered, it still holds up visually. Just needs to be fixed up for modern systems - last I checked SCUMM runs it fine - and sold on all the usual platforms.

 

[DarkStream]

We are waiting, in the shadows, for

Spoiler

Guybrush Threepwood

.
Absolutely adore Monkey Island 1 - 3.
Controversially, I think 3 is my favourite! (Murray!)
Watch out, Look behind you, a Three-Headed Monkey!
Also, I’m selling these fine leather jackets. Any takers?

 

[DownGrader]

Curse doesn't need to be remastered, it still holds up visually. Just needs to be fixed up for modern systems - last I checked SCUMM runs it fine - and sold on all the usual platforms.

I'd like to see backgrounds being adapted to 32-bit colour at least. Colourful dots all over the art are nostalgic but annoying.

 

[Saoshyant]

Wow, I wasn't aware that Tales had been received so badly around here. I liked it for what it was: a low budget 3D take on MI with decent writing. While it didn't beat the original trilogy, I don't think anyone expected it to do so.

 

[so1337]

I hope we get a new game soon... they had the biggest, coolest twist in Chapter 4 of ToMI

Spoiler

only to go "jokes" in Chapter 5... but then the stinger left it a bit ambiguous so idek.

Hopefully the next game will actually explore that properly, cuz it blew my mind.

I don't remember any of that. Can you elaborate?

Honestly I'd rather not have another game by Telltale because Telltale is Telltale and Telltale is the worst.

 

[RoyalFool]

Nah, we're alive and kicking. I still adore the games, but after seeing what Telltale Games did with it I've learnt to keep my mouth shut and stop asking for new titles.

I've got half decent remakes I can toggle back to original mode via hotkey, I've got Scumm VM with QOL improvements that runs on every device mankind has ever constructed. I'm content.

 

[Miletius]

Agree with most of the posters above. I don't really want a new game in the series, especially after Tales. TTG is good at some things, but Monkey Island they ain't good at, and I can't really see anybody else doing it at all (unless Ron Gilbert actually somehow gets to do it by some miracle).

I just want curse release on Steam/GoG/whatever, and that's about it. I'd be ok with an Escape release too.. but mostly only for curiosities' sake.

 

[Bio]

If you go too long without making a thing the fans will indeed move on, making it hard to revive a thing unless it was insanely popular.

I feel like that's what happened to JRPGs, rising production costs made it harder to make them so even though JRPGs were doing very well throughout the PS1 and PS2 era they massssssively slowed down in the PS3 era and beyond, this caused a lot of fans who were growing up anyway to move on from the genre which now makes it really hard to even think about there being another jrpg renaissance. Some will still do good, no doubt FFXV and Persona 5 will sell millions, but gone are the days having your pick of the litter of jrpgs

 

[DOBERMAN INC]

I never stopped caring about it, I just realised that the people who own the IP did.

 

[itxaka]

Would be nice to have a MI4 in the style of 3, with the humor of 1 and 2.

 

[Maxwood]

Nah, we're alive and kicking. I still adore the games, but after seeing what Telltale Games did with it I've learnt to keep my mouth shut and stop asking for new titles.

I've got half decent remakes I can toggle back to original mode via hotkey, I've got Scumm VM with QOL improvements that runs on every device mankind has ever constructed. I'm content.

I feel the same way. I just want a re-release of CoMI. There's currently no way to buy that game legally and that's a shame.

Oh, and a Secret Of remaster with decent artwork. That would be nice.

Tales of was a strong case of "be carefull what you wish for", atleast it was for me. Voice-acting was strong, though. I love Dominic Armato. He doesn't have to act, he is Guybrush.

 

[CackleAndHide]

I would love a HD version of Curse. One of my favourite games from my youth.

They're older games and the newer ones didn't really gain very many new fans. older fans maybe having less time to maintain the sites?

 

[Dandy Lyin]

I love the series, and would love to see more games in it... but only if Ron Gilbert was the lead. I didn't hate Tales... but it wasn't very good either.

 

[BocoDragon]

I was that hardcore Monkey Island fan.

It has been 15+ years since the series was really kicking, though... can you really be surprised by the lack of enthusiasm in the fanbase?

Any good Facebook groups for it? Seems like that would be a way to keep love of MI alive.

 

[Hooks]

Now I really want to play Curse, Too bad I can't because I lost my copy >.<. Steam release would be nice

 

[gelf]

I would be there day one if we got another good quality Monkey Island. I still play PnC adventures but MI trumps all of them. Another game with art style similar to Curse would a dream.

 

[PaulloDEC]

I'm still dreaming of the day when we get an authentic HD remaster of Curse using the original artwork re-scanned at high resolution. Not sure how likely it is to ever happen.

Anyway, this is pretty much what happens when a franchise stays dormant for long enough. Seen any good Zork fansites recently? Nope, me either.

 

[witchedwiz]

for me, the serie topped itself with the third chapter..
the fourth was really meh..
fifth was decent i guess, but a facry from the original trilogy...
telltale might be able to revive the game, but the "vein" of the original trilogy is outside the "scope" that telltale usually manage to deliver, imho

 

[danmaku]

I don't feel like MI needs more sequels. We had 3 fantastic games and that's enough. I'd like to play another game with the same writing style, but it doesn't need to be MI.

 

[BocoDragon]

Now I really want to play Curse, Too bad I can't because I lost my copy >.<. Steam release would be nice

It's almost mind-blowing that it isn't on Steam. It's such a spectacular, fully-voiced cartoon game that hasn't aged a day.

It doesn't need an HD remaster and making it 4:3 would surely just mean chopping the top and bottom off.

Somebody call Disney.