The Secret of Monkey Island

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Secret of Monkey Island
Thesecretofmonkeyisland-logo.svg
Studio Lucasfilm Games
Publisher world Lucasfilm Games soft gold
GermanyGermany
Senior Developer Ron Gilbert
composer Michael Land
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 October 15, 1990
platform Atari ST , Commodore Amiga , FM Towns , iOS , Mac OS , DOS , Sega Mega-CD , PlayStation 3 , Windows , Xbox 360
genre Adventure
Game mode Single player
control Mouse , keyboard
medium Floppy disk , CD-ROM , DVD-ROM , download
language German, English, French, Italian, Spanish
(voice output only English)
copy protection Enclosure referencing
Age rating
USK released from 12
PEGI recommended for ages 12 and up

The Secret of Monkey Iceland (English for " The Secret of Monkey Island is") the first of the Monkey Iceland - graphic adventure series, the LucasArts (formerly Lucasfilm Games) famous as a game developer and thereby temporarily to the largest competitor of Sierra Entertainment made in this sector .

The game is considered a classic and a milestone in the history of computer games and, in particular, adventure games.

action

The game begins with the inexperienced Guybrush Threepwood introducing himself to the blind scout of Mêlée Island, an island in the Caribbean , and telling him that he would like to become a pirate .

Guybrush sends Guybrush to the SCUMM bar, where he meets the pirate leader, who gives him three tasks in which he has to prove his skills as a pirate. He is supposed to defeat the island's sword master in insult fencing, steal a valuable artifact from the governor's house and find buried treasure. In fulfilling these tasks, he meets various characters, including the voodoo lady, who proves to be a helpful key figure in the game, the sword master Carla, the showman Meathook, a petty criminal named Otis, the allegedly famous Fettucini Brothers and the beautiful governor Elaine Marley , with whom he promptly falls in love.

However, Guybrush has a serious rival in his efforts to win the governor's heart (which he does faster than he hoped). The ghost pirate LeChuck has been in love with Elaine since his lifetime. In order to win her heart, he dared to search for the island of Monkey Island to find out its legendary secret, but he never returned from there as a living person. While Guybrush is busy with the fulfillment of his duties, she is kidnapped by LeChuck, who has disguised himself and crept under the name Fester Shinetop as the new sheriff , and his crew and kidnapped them to Monkey Island. Guybrush puts together a rescue team, steals a ship and sets off to find the mysterious island and free Elaine.

When Guybrush finally reaches Monkey Island, he explores the island and meets a cannibal tribe who, luckily, are currently taking a vegetarian break, as well as the shipwrecked Herman Toothrot, who is at odds with the cannibals. After he helps the aborigines to get a lost voodoo ingredient stolen by LeChuck, they brew an ancient recipe to thank him for a potion that can be used to destroy spirits. But when Guybrush sets off to LeChuck's hiding place to face him there, he only meets a ghost pirate from his crew who has been left behind and tells him that LeChuck has left for Mêlée Island to marry Elaine.

Guybrush returns to Mêlée Island to storm into church and prevent the wedding. Once there, he sees a figure in a wedding dress and LeChuck in front of the altar and notices too late that Elaine has already forged her own escape plan and was never in serious danger. It comes to the final fight with LeChuck, in which Guybrush destroys him with malt beer. LeChuck explodes in a spectacular fireworks display, which Guybrush and Elaine watch together as new lovers.

Game principle and technology

The point-and-click adventure The Secret of Monkey Iceland was the fifth game from LucasArts with the SCUMM - Engine developed. It was also the first adventure ever to scale its sprite figures so that the game figure can be smaller or larger depending on the distance from the virtual eye of the viewer.

The user interface of the original version provides twelve verbs from which the player can choose to carry out actions, some of which are used little or alternatively in the game, such as "switch on" and "switch off". In the CD version, the interface only has the nine verbs that are also used in Monkey Island 2 .

Production notes

The game was mainly developed by Ron Gilbert , who relied on the help of Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman . The trio also designed the sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, before Gilbert left LucasArts. Schafers later work was u. a. Full throttle and Grim Fandango , while Grossmann helped develop Day of the Tentacle . The soundtrack for the game was composed by Michael Land and was included in the original version in MIDI format.

Ron Gilbert's sources of inspiration for Monkey Island were the Disneyland attraction Pirates of the Caribbean and Tim Power's book In Stranger Tides . The book inspired the story and characters, while the Disney attraction defined the ambience. Alongside the main developers, author Orson Scott Card was the one who wrote the insults part for insult fencing.

The Secret of Monkey Island was originally published on diskette for Atari ST and PC systems in 1990 (with EGA graphics). A few months later the VGA version for the PC was released. The Amiga version was published shortly afterwards, for this version the PC-EGA game figures with 16 colors were used together with the PC-VGA room backgrounds reduced to 32 colors each. The soundtrack was implemented by Chris Hülsbeck . In the first quarter of 1992 the Macintosh version came, in which the user interface of the second part (graphical inventory and three action verbs were omitted) was used.

The Macintosh version then became the template for the Enhanced CD-Audio Edition (MS-DOS, VGA, 256 colors) that appeared in summer 1992 . The soundtrack came from the CD as audio tracks of high quality , making it independent of the sound card , and was expanded compared to the VGA disc version. The sound samples / noises also benefited in scope and quality from the newer SCUMM engine, which now supports the Sound Blaster and compatible in addition to the standard AdLib . A Sega Mega CD version appeared parallel to the DOS Enhanced CD Audio Edition , but its graphics looked washed out because the Sega Mega CD could only display 64 colors at a time. In addition, the Sega Mega CD version had a bug that prevented the various items the character had appropriated in the game from being saved, but the missing items. This version also suffered from slow loading times due to the simple speed of the CD-ROM drive. The little commercial success of this variant led LucasArts to withdraw its plans to release Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Monkey Island 2 for the Sega mega-CD and only re-release Star Wars: Rebel Assault on the Sega mega-CD. The FM Towns version of the game, which was also released in 1992, was not released in Europe and also has the expanded SCUMM menu, expanded sound effects and audio CD music.

As a copy protection , “a little history quiz” took place before the game, which asked the question “When was this pirate pegged in [different place names]?” For a pirate portrait. This question was resolved with the help of a key called Dial-a-Pirate . Dial-a-Pirate consisted of two cardboard disks placed one on top of the other, which could be rotated coaxially . As a result, the pirate face visible on the screen was composed of an upper (lower cardboard disk) and a lower (upper cardboard disk) half, with a year assigned to a location being read for each position through labeled holes. The place names mentioned are Antigua , Barbados , Jamaica , Montserrat , Nebraska , St. Kitts and Tortuga . As a US state - and also a landlocked state - Nebraska is the only exception to this list of Caribbean islands.

Boris Schneider was responsible for the German translation of the game . The translation has been praised by fans and the press (the games magazine Power Play , for which Schneider worked as an editor, even described it as “flawless” in a test report in issue 1/91).

An animated film based on the Monkey Island material by director Steven Spielberg was planned, but did not get beyond the pre-production stage.

Logo of The Secret of Monkey Island - Special Edition

In July 2009 the Enhanced Remake The Secret of Monkey Island - Special Edition was released . The game has been completely redesigned and provided with new hand-painted graphics in Full HD (1920 × 1080 pixels), a new soundtrack, continuous English voice output and new controls. The Special Edition was available for download for PC on GOG.com and Steam and for Xbox 360 on Xbox Live Arcade . In addition, a version for iPhone and iPod touch was published in the App Store in July 2009 . The revised version was offered on the Playstation Network in summer 2010. In addition, the revised version of Aspyr for Mac OS X is available in the Mac App Store. In 2015, the iOS version was removed from Apple's App Store because it was not compatible with the newly released iOS 9 operating system version .

The international version contains the classic translation by Boris Schneider as subtitles. The classic version, which can be activated by pressing a button, is only available in English.

reception

reviews
publication Rating
Amiga DOS MCD
ASM 11/12 11/12
Amiga joker 93%
JeuxVideo 19/20
PC Games 85%
Play time 92%
Power play 92%
Video games 78%

The first part of the game series was largely well received by the critics. The magazine Power Play describes the plot of the game as funny and extensive, but due to the size of the game, changing disks is a bit annoying for players without a hard disk. The technical innovations were also praised, the background music was appropriate and atmospheric, the graphics were described by ASM editor Eva Hoogh as "fantastic". On the occasion of the 15th birthday of the game series, Christian Schiffer emphasized that the puzzles and characters of the game would enjoy unbroken popularity to this day, and that the game is still considered by some to be the best game of all time. Retrospectively, the magazine Retro Gamer evaluates the game as a “combination of weird humor, Caribbean setting, pretty graphics, successful puzzles and innovative speech-fencing duels”.

exhibition

The Secret of Monkey Island was selected in 2011 as one of five representative games for an exhibition on the evolution of the art form of the video game, The Art of Video Games , at the Smithsonian American Art Museum .

Play

On May 21 and 29, 2005, a stage version of The Secret of Monkey Island was performed live at Hammond High School in Columbia, Maryland . The play was a conscientious re-enactment of the original game, the idea for it came from Chris Heady, a student and fan of the series. Heady worked on the side at LucasArts to obtain the rights to publish the piece in the fall of 2004. The spread of video recordings of the play on YouTube has increased its popularity, although it only followed one cult. This stage adaptation was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as a "first graphic adventure to become a stage play".

In July 2006, GameSpot interviewed the developer of Monkey Island, Ron Gilbert, who mentioned the piece in the first moments of the interview. The play was also of the British game magazine Play and in the Baltimore Sun noted.

Special features in the game (trivia)

  • A notorious joke that many gamers identified as a technical error involves a tree stump in the woods. When the stump is examined, Guybrush says that a hole in it leads into a cave maze. When Guybrush tries to climb into the stump, the game prompts the player to insert disk # 23, # 47 and # 98. The game was actually distributed on 4 or 8 floppy disks. The joke has been removed from the CD version of the game. This joke is alluded to in Monkey Island 2 : Guybrush can call LucasArts from a telephone to help solve the problem and ask: “Who came up with that stupid tree stump joke?” The annoyed operator replies, “I've had enough of this damned stump. Do you have any idea how many calls I get on a TAG about it? ”In Monkey Island 3, Guybrush briefly sticks his head into an opening that leads to the same tree on Monkey Island 1 in the EGA graphic style. Shortly thereafter, he is forced to back out of the hole as he sees a herd of “fantastically rendered rabid jaguars”. The tree stump joke can also be seen in Tim Schafer's Psychonauts , where examining a tree stump leads to a similar answer. In the game Grim Fandango , Manny Calavera repeats the line “Wow! A tunnel that leads into the catacombs, ”says Guybrush when he examines the tree trunk.
  • After Guybrush is shot from a cannon in a big top, one of the dialogue options is: “I'm Bobbin, are you my mother?” This line refers to the LucasArts game Loom .
  • The SCUMM bar at The Secret of Monkey Island features Cobb, a character from Loom wearing a pirate hat with a button that says, “Ask me about Loom”. When asked about it, he describes the game enthusiastically. The game also includes a seagull from Loom and refers to other scenes, e.g. B. on the opening scene of Loom.
  • When solving a puzzle on the ghost ship the leitmotif of sounds Indiana Jones - film music , which regularly in the adventure game Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was used and its later sequels published.
  • When Guybrush on Monkey Island talks to the cannibals in the village about the possibility of finding one's way around the lava labyrinth below the monkey's head, the three ogre-eaters talk to each other in the German translation about "[...] Opfka esdi avigatorne", whereupon the player can answer with “abthi hrio ineea arteka erdi atakombenko?”. This is not a foreign language, but a play on words that can be deciphered by placing the penultimate letter of a word at the beginning and removing the last one. The result is “Head of the Navigator” as the cannibals' statement and “Do you have a map of the catacombs?” As Guybrush's question.
  • Two of the small idol figures in front of the monkey head on Monkey Island look exactly like Sam & Max , the main characters in another adventure from LucasArts. These cameo appearances by the Freelance Police, like Chuck the Plant, appear in almost all LucasArts adventures in which Steve Purcell was involved as a graphic designer. In the graphically improved new edition, however, Sam & Max were removed for copyright reasons and a tentacle from Day of the Tentacle was inserted.
  • The mystery of Monkey Island is only solved (at least partially) in the third part, The Curse of Monkey Island , if you as a prisoner ask LeChuck the right questions.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Christian Schiffer: Playing with charm, wit and ingenuity . In: Telepolis . heise.de. February 1, 2006. Accessed on December 19, 2011: " Birthday of a classic: The adventure game" The secret of Monkey Island "turns 15 "
  2. ↑ Ron Gilbert: On Stranger Tides ( English ) Grumpy Gamer. September 20, 2004. Retrieved April 17, 2006.
  3. ↑ The Secret of Creating Monkey Island - An Interview With Ron Gilbert, excerpt from LucasFilm Adventurer vol. 1, number 1, Fall 1990 ( English ) scummbar.com. June 16, 2004. Retrieved May 22, 2011: " [The POTC Ride] keeps you moving through the adventure, but I've always wished I could get off and wander around, learn more about the characters, and find a way onto those pirate ships. So with The Secret of Monkey Island (TM) I wanted to create a game that had the same flavor, but where you could step off the boat and enter that whole storybook world. "
  4. ^ "Dial-A-Pirate" online
  5. ↑ Adventure-Treff .de: Numerous concepts for the Monkey Island film leaked. Retrieved May 16, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Official website at Lucasarts
  7. ↑ Giga.de: App Store: Many games are disappearing due to compatibility problems. Retrieved August 10, 2020 .
  8. ↑ a b Eva Hoogh: Swords, Treasures and Ghosts . In: ASM . February 1991.
  9. ↑ Test: The Secret of Monkey Island. In: JeuxVideo.com. September 17, 2013, accessed June 23, 2018 .
  10. ^ A b Heinrich Lehnhardt: The Secret of Monkey Island . In: PowerPlay . January 1991, p. 42.
  11. ↑ Play Time, Issue 5/91
  12. ↑ Video Games Test Report, January 1994
  13. ↑ Jörg Langer : Monkey Island 2 . In: Retro Gamer . 2015, No. 3, June 2015, p. 19.
  14. ↑ Carsten Borgmeier: The Secret of Monkey Island . In: Amiga Joker . January 1, 1991. Accessed June 18, 2011: " 93% "
  15. ↑ ASM, issue 5/91
  16. ^ The Art of Video Games. Smithsonian American Art Museum , accessed May 18, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Dana Klosner-Wehner: Pirates and a villain wants to roam the stage ( English ) The Baltimore Sun . April 29, 2005. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  18. ↑ Monkey Island play ( English ) worldofmi.com. 2005. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  19. ↑ First graphic adventure to become a stage play ( English ) In: Guinness World Records . Jim Pattison Group. Retrieved November 16, 2011.