Ron declares he is working on a new Monkey Island

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My two cents on “crappy Flash animation”.

That’s a problem with Spine. Spine allows for smooth tweening and other interesting effects, which have however been seen for the first time… in Flash.

Since it was that easy, lots of crappy Flash games started abusing these effects, like having characters bob up and down to mimic breathing, for so many years that we started associating that kind of animation to shitty production value.

Have you ever seen those free to play crappy mobile game ads where all animations are like that? Extremely smooth, but also bland and uninspiring? Unfortunately, Spine gives off the same vibes if not used properly.

I’m 100% sure this will not be the case for RMI, because if you look at the trailer you can see that there’s a lot more care in how stuff is animated, but I can’t blame people for their initial reaction.

I blame them for their follow-up to that reaction though.

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873

the animation in the trailer looks fantastic, so I’m not worried about that.

In fact, my first reaction was “the character style has been chosen first, because it’s the only one that works well with Spine. And the vectorial background style has been chosen because it’s the only one harmonizes with that character style”

And Spine allows a quantity of animations that can’t be achieved in pixel art. Another reason to be optimistic.

So … almost every tester was “thrown off” at first. In the end they liked it. I guess that’s another relief.

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874

I suggest these translations:

  1. La gente se la tirava sempre con l’arte nella prima ora
  2. L’arte ha sempre AT-tirato la gente per la prima ora
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875

I get that people had their own perfect imagination of what their Ron Monkey 3a would be or look like.
And that it is a let down for them it wont be like that.

But I don’t know if I’m alone with that, but I did never imagine what the game would look like or would be. I just hoped I would see it some day.
And damn, Monkey Island 1&2 and even 3 are my favorite games of all times. By far. Period.
I will always love and replay especially the first two because they shaped the young me and my humor in big parts. I have T-Shirts I still wear today and I regularly buy new ones to show everybody I love it.

The moment I realized what I was reading, just a few minutes after it was announced, my heart was jumping, I got a grin from ear to ear that wouldn’t go away for 2 or 3 hours, I had literally tears of joy in my eyes and screamed that this can’t be true, I was complettly psyched and nearly as happy like when my daughter was born.

I sat there with the video in front of me, ready to click the play button. I did it and it was great. I was like hypnotized from it, I watched it again and again to look for every little detail. I think I watched it 50 times over that day. I called my sister and several friends to tell them.

But not for a second I was bothered about the art style. In any way. I didn’t think about it at all. The only thing I saw and knew was, there will be a new Monkey Island from Ron! Finaly! He will finaly reveal the missing rest of the adventure I was on so many times.

And that’s too why it makes me so sad to read all this negative stuff from people and why I won’t look into all the facebook groups anymore until the games will be released and I played it.

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876

You are not alone - same here. :wink: And I fully agree with what you wrote.

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877

We suffer of the same illness.

Jokes apart, I share your thoughts about how those games were important to me when I was younger. For example, I think that the humor of MI1 and MI2, mostly conveyed by the characters with expressionless faces (due to the lack of details) contributed to build my appreciation for deadpan humor.

Another strong repercussion of Ron’s stories is that I’m clearly obsessed with the freakin’ secret, to the point that I become annoying when I show to other people my fixation for it. :sweat_smile:

Still, regardless of how important those games were for me, I don’t think that my mind will automatically accept anything for the new chapter of the series. The reason is that I have always been strongly influenced by the visuals of any game, in a disproportionate way.

For example, I did play MI4 but I can’t remember if I ever finished it! For me, the graphic style of the characters was very unpleasant. The art style of that game had the power to switch off my interest.

The opposite is also true: Benoit Sokal’s Sinking Island isn’t considered a very well made game. For example, there is a lot of backtracking, especially in the later chapters, but for me the visuals are stunning and wandering around that environment is only a pleasure for me.

Thimbleweed Park is another example: I followed the development of the game since its beginning, but I didn’t back the Kickstarter, because I didn’t like Winnick’s art style. As soon as some examples of Mark Ferrari’s backgrounds were shown, I immediately backed the project, through the official website.

Now, being aware of the weight that I put on the art style of games, I have decided to approach Return to Monkey Island with a pinch of detachment, despite of my three-headed-monkey t-shirt and despite the importance that MI1 and MI2 had for me.

Detachment is the only way for my mind to give this game a chance. Statements like “the art always threw [off] people for the first hour” and my first impressions of the shared screenshots don’t go in a particularly pleasant direction for me, so I have to build a bit of distance from it, in the form of the thought “it’s just another MI game”.

I have accepted the fact that this is not my game and that probably I will have some trouble feeling it as mine, as I felt with MI1 and MI2. It’s the developers’ game, and I respect that.

I would have preferred that the decision to shock people had been made by choosing hip hop as the music style, however. In that case, I could have just turned off the audio. :grin:

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878

I wonder if the people who are most annoyed by the art style are mostly people who put art as a high requirement in how much they’ll enjoy a game.

For me, it’s fairly low down on the list…

  1. puzzles
  2. locations/exploration
  3. humour (or some kind of general vibe/mood if it’s not a comedy)
  4. story/characters
  5. art
  6. music

If the art, music, and story are great, that’s like a bonus for me.

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879

From what I’ve observed, I’m an exception. I think that most people don’t put the visual style at the top of the list.

Still, I think that Ron’s worries are justified if “the art always threw people [off] for the first hour”.

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I don’t need art at all: I enjoy text games very much. But, if present, art becomes crucial: it can completely break my experience if done poorly. It constantly draws you out of the immersion, so to speak.

Paradoxically, I’d have had no problem with RTMI being a purely textual game (still point and click).

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881

I think I need to add, I love pixel Art. I love games that use it. Of course because I love so much games from back then with that appearance. And the fact that this caused a whole movement and Art style called Pixel Art nowadays is stunning to me. Those new games bring back nostalgia when I discover or play them and just a good feeling. I hope a lot more of it will come.

But especially for Monkey Island, it’s just much more than that. I didn’t love it because of it’s look back then. Even when it was the best looking game I knew until then. It’s a part of it, but not all of it. That counts for both 1 & 2.

And I couldn’t get into part 4 as well, I newer finished it. Also Grim Fandango, I didn’t finish it until years later. I didn’t like it’s appearance but much more important, I hated the controls of both. I finished Grim Fandango on the remasterd version when you could use the mouse. If there was a Version of Monkey 4 I’d try that one too.

But for Monkey Island, I’m still overwhelmed that it comes at all and that so many people from back then are involved. That makes me expect to get a fantasstic game, just like back then.

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882

immagine

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883

Isn’t that valid for all Benoit Sokal games?

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immagine

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So the backgrounds aren’t “flat” or simple 2D drawings. Very interesting. I’m getting more curious about the graphics.

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886

Well, parallax was given for granted. The new thing will be dynamic zoom, according to Ron.

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887

That’s what I considered saying. It’s true enough for Syberia 1 & 2 anyway.

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888

Could it be Ron’s adding more effects to the backgrounds due to people’s trolling?

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It’s my impression that Syberia 1 and 2 have been praised by fans and reviewers way more than Sinking Island. I consider them well made adventure games, while I can’t say the same about Sinking Island.

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I think that the game was designed with strong dynamic visual effects in mind from the beginning.

I got that impression when Ron said “a lot more animators than we had on Thimbleweed Park” and “I think people are going to be very happy with the art once they see it and once they see it moving and the animation”.

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891

Yep. My doubt was that he said “the new parallax effect”. I thought graphic-wise the game was completed.