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The science of Monkey Island: can grog dissolve a metal mug that fast?

143 points · 48 comments · zdw

  1. roschdal · · focus · HN ↗
    Monkey Island is the best adventure game.
    1. adamrezich · · focus · HN ↗
      I hope Ron Gilbert has more stories he wants to tell that aren't meta-reflections on adventure games as a form.

      Thimbleweed Park was fine—not what I was hoping for, but fine. When I saw Return to Monkey Island was more of that—while I appreciate taking that tack as a way to sort of give closure to the second game and also the rest of the series, sort of—I decided it wasn't for me.

      Now a second Thimbleweed Park has been announced, and I expect it to be more of the same sort of thing, which is kind of a bummer? Deconstruction is fun, but it's better when it leads to reconstruction thereafter. I would love to see Gilbert tackle a genuine adventure game again, without all of (or at least, with less of) the navel-gazing postmodernism—just to prove the genre and creator both still have the capacity for genuinely good works that stand on their own. Am I the only one?

      1. WorldMaker · · focus · HN ↗
        I thought Return to Monkey Island did a very good job with it, and it was indeed exactly what MI2 was trying to say and what MI1 even foreshadowed, just refined with the time away from the project. It answered "What was Ron trying to say in the MI3 he wanted to write?" and it ended up doing it without diminishing Curse, Tales, or even Escape, and somewhat including them in the fun. (More Curse and Tales than Escape, it certainly ignored/retconned Escape events, but Escape's appeal has always been smaller.)
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