Look Behind You, A Three-Headed Mon... I mean a Let's Play of Secret of Monkey Island

The Secret of Monkey Island is one of THOSE games. It shows up on a lot of lists. Lists for the best PC games, lists for the most influential games, lists for the funniest games, etc., etc. I didn't play the game when it came out in the early 90's, at the time, I was still too heavily invested in Sierra On-line to realize other companies made games for the computer. My first Lucasarts' adventure game was Full Throttle (which everyone SHOULD play) which eventually lead me to Lucasart's back catalog and the Monkey Island games.


I believe I first played this game right before I graduated from High School or shortly after I started College... I don't know if it deserves all the spots on those lists I mentioned up above but I DO know that Secret of Monkey Island and it's sequel are the two most whimsical games I've ever played. They're also some of the most fun I've had playing a computer game.

I'm not going to bore you here with how the game got made and how some of the most famous adventure game developers worked on it... You can find that all here if you want to know more (you probably should...)

Anyway, I'm super excited to share this game with you! I hope you're ready to read all about it!

PS - I was really conflicted as to what to title this thread some of the rejections were:

That's the Second Biggest Let's Play I've Ever Seen!

Never Pay More than $20 bucks for a Let's Play!

I Must have left that QFG4 LP in my other Pants!

and finally,

How Appropriate you Fight Like a Cow!

See you soon

It's Pink - Let's Play blah blah blah.

You didn't consider titling it "A rubber chicken with an LP in the middle"? For shame!

Looking forward to this.

But it's behind you! How can you see it when looking forward?

I guess his eyes are prehensile. Zork lied to him!

I'm not sure, but I think this is itself a reference to Get Smart.

I believe I read somewhere that the quote and reference were intentional

HEY!

Save that kind of interesting factoid for the Let's Play.

But this is the Let's Play! We're just going to sit here and reminisce about the game to one another!

Arr' you ready kids?




Welcome to Melee Island! Where you'll be learning all about the legendary exploits of soon to be pirate, Guybrush Threepwood! Try to imagine a bitchic' Caribbean tune going on while you read this (this one should do)

That really gets you into the mood doesn't it?









(I apologize for the first batch of images, I took them before I dug around in the SCUMMVM options and found a way to remove the filter. Once we get through these the rest will be slightly larger AND look better IMHO)

Yay!

"assorted Cornish dialect here"

And with that Guybrush heads into town...

(music)



Let's talk about the interface a bit for SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) games. The bottom left of the screen shows the various verbs you can use in the game. The bottom right contains inventory objects, but we don't have any right now.
Guybrush interacts with the world when the user clicks, on a verb and then on an object on the screen. For exacmple if I click the "look at" button and then the poster, the sentence 'look at poster' will show up right below the world screen and:



Guybrush will interact with the object/person/etc. Every very has a shortcut key as well so you don't have to always be moving the mouse all around the screen. Okay, well let's explore the island:




Oh look! A friendly pirate! Before we can talk to him:

Ok, well deeper into the town then:



"sorry"

Heading north:



Let's remember there's someone in that alley... We'll check it out later though




I guess that's the end of the road in this direction, where were we supposed to go again? I forgot too. Let's just explore the rest of the island, then? Guybrush heads back up to the lookout and then inland:



Guybrush heads for the large oval of lights that is on the bay on the eastern side of the island, but before he can get there:



It appears he has to cross a bridge. With a troll guarding it.

With nothing to give the troll Guybrush turns around and heads for the clearing east and north of the pirate town:



What will he find? I don't know. I haven't played it yet! Until we do find out why don't you see how many pop cultural references we've seen so far? While you think about that you can ponder this list of stuff we still have to do:

- Go to the SCUMM Bar
- Talk to the Head Pirates
- Get a map
- Explore that alley
- Find a way past those poodles
- find a way past that troll
- Become a Pirate

See you next week

What is this "Melee Island"? It sounds suspiciously similar to M�lée Island.

It is! They could even be the exact same thing! If one takes in to account my laziness in putting accents over letters.

I like the original graphics of this game, but the remastering of this game is pretty Damn awesome, and has some pretty good voice acting too. Glad you're doing this LP. I was a huge fan of these lucasarts adventure games back in the day.

I might end up regretting it =P I forgot how much dialogue there is in this game!

Wow. I told the map guy "No, but I once had a barber named Dominique" the first time because it was funniest, and after his reaction, I thought that's what you had to tell him! Huh.

Also never got the troll to give me a free insult. I guess we'll see later if it counts.

My love for this game is deep and profound but this puzzle is some serious bullshit.

Naaah, it's just a red herring. :3

It also adheres to the adventure game trope of giving food to monsters to make progress.

We last left our wanna-be pirate, Guybrush Threepwood, heading towards a clearing in the ceneter of Melee Island. Let's re-join him now and see what he found:



A circus? Guybrush looks inside but only gets the impression that:



So, with that he heads in!






Before this goes on any longer:



The two colorful fellows waste no time in trying to get Guybrush to join the circus:





These guys seem really excited about their circus trick...

These guys really, really like to talk...




"Is that really ALL there is to it?!"



Ma Threepwood didn't raise no dummy though:




"A helmet? I thought you said it was safe?"




Ok, let's add 'get a helmet' to the to-do list... With nothing else to do at the Circus, Guybrush leaves.

There's only one place on the island Guybrush hasn't been to yet. Well, one accessible place that damn troll...



I wonder what could be there?



I guess we'll have to find out later... With nothing else to do Guybrish returns to the town he started in:



And what do you know! The SCUMM BAR is there! He walked right past it before!



Pirates really know how to have fun! Guybrush tries to talk to some of the pirates:



He tries the next table:



OH GOD! Your FACE!?!








*the_more_you_know.gif*

Guybrush finds another Pirate to talk to:








Well, Guys, I think we can all agree that I should stop playing this game, you should stop reading this LP, and we should ALL go play LOOM!

But, enough of these Pirate Chumps! We need to find and talk to the Head Pirates! But where are they?



Aha! There they are! I wonder what wisdom we can learn from them! I wonder if they'll make Guybrush a pirate? Guess, we'll find out next week!

Things to do:

- Go to the SCUMM Bar
- Talk to the Head Pirates
- Get a map
- Explore that alley
- Find a way past those poodles
- find a way past that troll
- Get a helmet
- Find a way to visit Hook Island
- Become a Pirate

Fun fact: the Loom guy's pitch is the only dialog you can't skip.

After a quick exploration of the Melee island Guybrush finds the head pirates in the back of the SCUMM bar. Guess he should talk to them:




After a few false starts Guybrush get's it right:







"Oooohhhh, Tell me more!"




"Seems easy enough. Master the sword, mastery thievery, and some sort of quest? What kind of quest A King's Quest? A Space Quest?"

"I guess that makes more sense than what I was saying."




These guys really seem to like their grog! Those goals seem pretty vague, Guybrush should follow-up on them: