Ron declares he is working on a new Monkey Island

Yep, I mean, as I said it happens in Tales. BTW I didn’t remember the line about fish tickling his feet - that’s funny

Current status of Ron’s blog:

Hmm… :thinking:

The website is still accessible at this other address.

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That’s good, as it was mostly the same handful of people just going round in circles, working themselves into a frenzy over not liking the art, in the comments.

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I understand all the emotional attachment to the old-school games, but it’s difficult for me to comprehend why, to some people, the distaste of any feature of the new game should deserve critiques so vitriolic.

Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself a huge Monkey Island fan, but I think that after decades have passed since the “golden age” of adventure games, it should be normal to develop a bit of healthy adult detachment.

I mean, it’s “just” a game, we are not talking about a life & death situation. Even if something in the game will make it completely unacceptable to some people, the simplest thing to do would be not purchasing it, not resorting to insults.

At, least, that’s how I see it.

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Probably everybody is expressing their discomfort only once, not realizing that they are not the only ones to have this opinion, and that taken together these complaints are too much. I myself was guilty of that in the first days…

That’s not what I’ve observed. I’ve seen a handful of people expressing their hate of the new art style multiple times, in unpleasant terms.

They keep talking about it, writing several comments. It’s clear that, to them, the topic is so important that their critique needs to be reiterated continuously…

… which triggers the reaction of another small group of people who want to “defend” Ron’s right to do whatever he wants. Then, chaos ensues between the two factions. :stuck_out_tongue:

Some people hate the art style and, to them, its very existence is an insult to the sacred nature of what they felt in their childhood and a betrayal of a holy atmosphere that should not have been changed too much. I find this perception of things a little extreme.

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I wonder if the amount of bashing received by TWP for being pixel art is less or more than the amount received by RTMI for not being pixel art.

By “amount” I mean both in terms of number of complaints, and in terms of damage done.

I remember people called TWP “retro” because of the pixel art and snubbed it. Ron was frustrated by the “retro” and felt this had damaged the game. So he decided to go high-res for the next game; he said this in this forum before knowing he would do RTMI.

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Yeah, people are having very emotional reactions which are pretty far removed from just “do I like this art or not”…
I can understand someone not liking an art style that much, but people are saying stuff like it’s the worse art they’ve ever seen, it’s a joke, etc.

Even if you don’t like the art style, it’s well executed and professional.

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No, but I fear Ron might if people keep complaining. Step 1: disable the blog. Step 2: get off Twitter again Step 3: cancel the game
Which would make me sad and angry (at the complainers)

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I hope, he is reading this forum. :slight_smile:

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That could happen, maybe just temporarily. Maybe it will be a good thing to calm down people.

I think this one won’t happen. The game is almost completed now.

They will raise their voice after the game is released.

If you are a creative these days you could just release a game/art/music and then don’t read the critics. Nowadays a bunch of angry and grumpy people could drive you mad on the internet - and kill every serious and good discussion.

That reminds me of…

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Monkey fact: 22 was a year, not a disk number.

— Ronbrush (@grumpygamer) April 24, 2022

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While I can’t stop laughing at that video, because I am a cretin, I wanted to seriously say that…

I think that Ron would never resort to canceling the game, both because he’s a professional and because he is surrounded by nice people and colleagues who continuously remind him of all the beautiful sides of his new creation.

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Ron does not listen what audience say. If he would, we would not have Maniac Mansion, LeChuck’s Revenge or Thimbleweed Park (ok, for this he needed some outside support).

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I too find a lot of the critical thoughts over in the comments section of Ron’s blog to be extreme. I also find it to be disrespectful and I’m saying that as someone who doesn’t care for the art style and has been vocally critical of it. However, the difference is that I’ve made it clear that I respect Ron’s right to make the game that he wants to make and to choose the art style that he wants to choose.

There’s a gulf of difference between saying “at a first glance, I personally don’t like the art style because X, Y and Z but I support Ron’s right as a creative to go down that path” and entitled brats screaming “I hate the art and you shouldn’t have made the game this way, Ron. You’ve screwed it all up and betrayed me”.

We’re getting a new Monkey Island game from Ron Gilbert and he has creative control. That is a dream scenario and one I will always be eternally grateful for. Yes, I don’t personally care for the art style and I absolutely defend my right to be honest, by sharing my critical thoughts with others but perhaps more importantly, to do so in a respectful and measured manner.

This seems to be a common misconception of the critical response to the art direction of the game; I’ve seen very little (if at all) in the way of people saying that they don’t like the art style because it’s not pixel art. It’s the art style itself that some people don’t personally care for, not the technical aspects of presentation.

There’s zero possibility that the game will be cancelled because Ron’s feelings are hurt. Ron is a professional game developer. He’s not going to risk his entire career and being sued, by breaking his contract with Disney and Devolver and refusing to work on the game any longer. What’s more, he wouldn’t even be able to the cancel the game if he wanted to. Disney own the IP and they, in conjunction with Devolver, own the publishing rights. Quite frankly, it’s not his decision to make.

It’s also a bit silly to suggest that a professional artist would throw his toys out of the pram and want to cancel an entire, near completion game, being made by a team of people, just because some people were critical of the art direction within the game and his feelings got hurt. I think that Ron deserves a little more credit than that.

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I’m a concept designer, a creative (visual and sometimes copy) and a team lead in a big(ish) martech agency. If I have a project, we need to have an insight, we establish our goals, we create a strategy, a concept, tone-of-voice, write the copy based on these, and after all this we create the image style to fit the message. So, although the visuals are important, they come after all other things. Though I don’t really like the shown visuals of RMI, I have to think they serve the concept and the story.

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:frowning:

Ron is always with us…

…in our hearts.

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