The Secret of Monkey Island

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The Secret of Monkey Island (SMI) or simply Monkey Island, is a legendary adventure game that spawned a series of famous and classic comedy adventure games, known as the Monkey Island series.

Story

The game introduces Guybrush Threepwood, a youth who desires to become a pirate. At the beginning of the game, he washes up on the Caribbean island of Mêlée.

Guybrush meets the Pirate Leaders who set him three challenges to prove himself a pirate: defeat the island's swordmaster in insult swordfighting, steal a statue from the Governor's mansion, and find buried treasure. Along the way he meets several interesting characters, including Carla, Meathook, Otis and, most significantly, the gorgeous Governor Elaine Marley.

The ghost pirate LeChuck, however, has been in love with Elaine since his living days. While Guybrush is busy, LeChuck's ghost crew abduct her, taking her to Monkey Island. Guybrush gathers a crew (Carla, Meathook, and Otis), buys a boat, and sets out to find the mysterious island and free Elaine.

When Guybrush finally reaches Monkey Island, he explores it and discovers a band of cannibals. After he helps them recover a lost voodoo ingredient, they provide him with a recipe that can destroy ghosts.

Details and release history

The Secret of Monkey Island is the fifth game to use the SCUMM engine. The project leader was Ron Gilbert, and the game was designed by Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. Another notable contributor was author Orson Scott Card, who wrote the insults for the "insult swordfighting" section.

The game was originally released on floppy disk in 1990 for Atari ST, Macintosh and PC systems (using EGA graphics); it is also the first adventure game to use character scaling that showed Guybrush shrink or enlarge according to his position on screen.

Several months later, the PC version was re-released with VGA graphics; the Amiga version, released shortly after this, used the PC EGA version's 16-color character graphics along with the PC VGA version's room backgrounds (reduced to 32 unique colors per room).

In June 1992, a CD-ROM version of the game was released (including a Sega CD version), featuring vastly improved music as well as graphical verb and inventory icons (as seen in Monkey Island 2). In the fall of 1992, the CD-ROM version was ported to the FM Towns. The fact that the Sega CD could only display 64 on-screen colors at once (compared to the then standard 256 colors on screen of a computer) gave the Sega CD version a slightly washed-out look, that was (as was the case with the Sega CD edition of Rise of the Dragon) preferred by some fans.

The Sega CD version was noted for having an odd password feature that did not seem to save the various items the character had acquired in the game, but always saved the items needed. The low commercial success of the game on that system prompted LucasArts to cancel plans to release Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and for the Sega CD.

Trivia

• According to a survey of movie stars done by PC Gamer magazine, The Secret of Monkey Island is Elijah Wood's favorite videogame.
• The bar in The Secret of Monkey Island (the SCUMM Bar) contains a character from LOOM, wearing a pirate hat and a button reading "Ask me about LOOM". (If asked, he indeed describes the game with much enthusiasm.) The game also includes a seagull from LOOM.
• Pressing the key combination Ctrl + W in the first two games "wins" the game instantly. This feature possibly gets SMI the award for the fastest completion available in a videogame. (Note that this "winning" is intentionally jokey, and is not the same as completing the game; the Ctrl + W keypress simply displays the text "You Win!" with the epilogue music and ends the game. If the player completes the game the "normal" way, this text is never displayed.) This function has been kept in the later games.
• One infamous joke, which many players assumed was a technical error, involved a stump in a forest. When examining the stump, Guybrush proclaims that a hole in it leads to a maze of caverns. If Guybrush tries to climb down into the stump, the game prompts the player to successively insert "disk #23," "disk #47" and "disk #98." (The game was actually distributed on 4 or 8 floppy disks.) The endgame credits also have an entry for "art and animation for disk #23." Many people didn't get the joke, and LucasArts tech support received quite a large number of calls for help with the missing disk. The joke was removed from the CD version of the game. It was, however, mentioned in MI2: Guybrush can call the LucasArts hint line from a phone and ask, "Who thought up that dumb stump joke?", and the annoyed operator answers, "I'm tired of hearing about that damn stump. Do you have any idea how many calls I get a DAY about that?" In CMI, Guybrush briefly sticks his head into an opening, which leads to the very same tree stump rendered in EGA-style graphics.
• The interface of the original version uses 12 verbs from which the player can select to perform actions, including ones that are rarely and optionally used in the game such as "Turn on" and "Turn off". In the CD version, the interface is changed to use only 9 verbs.
• An Easter egg allows Guybrush to die during the course of the first chapter. Guybrush claims to be able to hold his breath for ten minutes. At a certain point in the game, he becomes trapped underwater. If the player waits for ten minutes, Guybrush suffocates, and the game is over. It is one, if not the only, way to die. Guybrush makes a joke about how it is always the same time in video games, and after drowning the time of death is ten minutes later. This is the only time a change in the displayed time occurs. In Curse of Monkey Island, if the player keeps telling Guybrush to go into a river, he eventually agrees to do so. Once underwater, he walks into this scene in Secret of Monkey Island, and remarks, "I'd hate to be that guy right now."
• Guybrush can accidentally fall off a path atop a tall mountain. A dialog box appears offering the choices "Reload, Restart, or Quit" (appearing suspiciously similar to those in Sierra's adventure games of the time); seconds later, however, Guybrush bounces back into view and lands safely on the path. He offers the concise explanation, "Rubber tree." The game continues as normal.
• Since the game was released for Sega CD it is the first Monkey Island game to see a console release (the second being Escape from Monkey Island).
• After being launched out of the cannon in the circus tent, one of the dialogue options is "I'm Bobbin, are you my mother?" This is a reference to the LucasArts game LOOM.

Monkey Island: The play

On the 21st and 29th of May 2005 a live stage version of "The Secret of Monkey Island" was performed at Hammond High School in Columbia, Maryland. The play was a faithful adaptation of the original game by a fan of the series and student, Chris Heady. Heady worked alongside LucasArts to obtain the rights in the publishing of this play in the fall of 2004. Although originally a cult following, thanks to the help of internet sites such as Google videos and YouTube popularity of the play has soared.

In July 2006, GameSpot featured a Designer Thread Interview with Monkey Island creator, Ron Gilbert who mentioned the play during the first few moments of the interview. The play was also mentioned by British gaming magazine PLAY and "The Baltimore Sun." .

For more info see http://www.worldofmi.com/features/miplay/

External links

• [Online comic versions] of the game, made by fans
• [The Secret of Monkey Island] at MobyGames

 

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