Results tagged “lucasarts” from geero.net

Ever since I first read Jorrin Quest's article, Monkey Island: The Revelation, I've been fascinated by piecing together a coherent explanation of what's going on behind the scenes of Ron Gilbert's two great masterpieces: The Secret of Monkey Island, and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. The article presents a conspiracy theory that suggests that the whole world these games take place in is actually a themepark, and that Guybrush is really a lost little boy with an over-active imagination.

There are three main problems with this theory:

• There is strong counter evidence - which some dismiss as just being attempts to throw us off the scent - such as the fact that Elaine seems to continue to exist in some sense "outside" of Guybrush's fantasy. She suggests that LeChuck has put some kind of spell on Guybrush.
• It ignores many other clues about Guybrush's family history. At best, it can only be a partial explanation of the facts.
• Ultimately, many people find it deeply unsatisfying - it seems to take the essence out of this world that they have derived so much enjoyment from.

In response to the feedback that I received from my last video - The TRUE Secret of Monkey Island - I have put together a sequel which attempts to do justice to ALL the facts. Behold: The OTHER Secret of Monkey Island (direct YouTube link here).

One of the key writers on Ron Gilbert's Monkey Island games was Tim Schafer, who alongside Dave Grossman wrote a substantial portion of the dialogue for the games. Whilst it's not generally believed that he knows the full details of Ron's master plan, he must have been given a certain amount of information in order to be able to do his job. It provides a fascinating perspective on the world of Monkey Island to examine one of Schafer's own games: Psychonauts.

In Psychonauts, the player meets various disturbed individuals. The hero, Raz, is able to "enter" their subconscious minds, and each level of the game is then a physical manifestation of the various neuroses and traumas of those characters. Take, for example, the asylum warden haunted by his poor performance at war strategy games despite his descent from the line of Napoleon. His mind then takes the form of one giant strategy game that must be won in order to free him from the tyranny of his failure.

Although it's generally accepted that Psychonauts was inspired by a scrapped scene from Schafer's Full Throttle game, it's not impossible that there could also have been some cross pollination from Ron's games. At the very least, it provides a fascinating lens through which to view the world of Monkey Island.

Could it in fact be a representation of Guybrush's mental baggage? Might he be haunted by some past trauma that took place whist visiting a themepark?

LeChuck then truly does represent his mean older brother, Chuckie, with his "evil eyes" at the end of the second game indicating some kind of temporary triumph of this inner demon over Guybrush's sanity.

Could the Voodoo Lady's guiding presence represent some kind of psychiatrist helping Guybrush search out the suppressed secrets of his past and destroy his mental cobwebs?

Guybrush's Traumatic Past

In a notorious interview on IRC, Ron Gilbert made the following comment about Guybrush's relationship to LeChuck:

<Ron-G> In one sense, yes they are brothers, in another way, they are not. If you get what I mean.

Superficially, the evidence within the game backs up LeChuck's claim: how else would Guybrush be able to use his own father's bone to make the Voodoo doll that defeats LeChuck? Except that we only know he calls this man "Dad" - we have no proof that he is a blood relation of Guybrush. It's interesting that Guybrush always chooses his Dad's bone - is it possible that had he chosen his Mom's bone, the doll would not have worked?

I believe so: Guybrush and LeChuck are step brothers. When you purchase the (otherwise useless) feather pen from the antique shop on Booty Island, Guybrush exclaims that it is "just like the feather pen from Mom and Dad's wedding". In other words: his parents married within his lifetime. We know that LeChuck is "Dad"'s son, meaning that Guybrush's mother must have married LeChuck's father.

What's more, when hanging above the acid pit in his dungeon, LeChuck claims that Guybrush was an orphan, meaning he must have been adopted by his Mom at some point before she (re-?)married.

In my view, frequently overlooked is the fact that Guybrush's parents now appear to be dead. They turn into skeletons during his dream, and it's their skeletons that you find in the Lost and Found at the end. Guybrush lives with the belief that they abandoned him, a claim that they strenuously deny. I'm now far into the realm of speculation, but given their warnings at the end about the presence of "murderers and white slavers" at themeparks, could it be possible that they were in fact MURDERED? Their sudden disappearance might appear to Guybrush as though they had abandoned him. It is, after all, curious that they should be found in a "Lost Parents" area - more naturally they are for "Lost Children".

Such a traumatic event taking place whilst visiting a themepark would inevitably leave it's mark on a young boy growing up. Who could blame Guybrush for having to do battle with the demons of his past in the arena of the Big Whoop amusement park?

But Who Is Elaine?

I'll be honest that for me the big unresolved question is the identity of Elaine. Also in the IRC interview, Ron Gilbert says this about her:

<Ron-G> Elain never really liked GB and thought of him as more of a little brother.

Could she be some relation of Guybrush? Before you throw your arms up in the air in disgust at this idea, given her romantic involvement to Guybrush, just remember that Ron Gilbert was heavily influenced by the Star Wars movies - and who could forget that unfortunate kiss between Luke and Leia?

Guybrush does make a passing reference to having a sister in Wally's house - although he could just be blagging in order to cover up his having owned a dolls' house (he also says he has a lot of hairy cousins when you read a particular library book!)

In truth, we shall probably never know. But perhaps all this brings us one step closer to finally answering that great mystery: what IS the Secret of Monkey Island?

If you found this interesting, please watch my other video: Monkey Island meets the Old Testament.

When Games Break Their Implicit Contract

Every game has a context that determines certain expectations about how it's going to behave under certain conditions. Sometimes this context is the genre to which it belongs: for instance, the majority of first person shooters ship with a well established default control scheme that allows regular gamers to start moving around without even having to think. Sometimes this context is an explicit design philosophy set out by the developer: for example, the manual for my copy of Day of the Tentacle set out the basic principles of a LucasArts adventure game, explaining that you couldn't die or get permanently stuck because of failing to pick up an obscure item at just the right moment.

This context, however implicit it might be, forms a loose "contract" between the game and the player: the game is expected to behave roughly consistently with the gamer's prior experience within that context. Sometimes developers can employ this to great dramatic effect by defying those expectations, leaving a lasting impression on the players. On other occasions, a failure to stick to those conventions can leave gamers feeling frustrated and betrayed, ruining their experience of an otherwise great game.

That's what happened in the case of the example puzzle mentioned here from Monkey Island: the user interface of a Point & Click adventure game leads you to believe that no movement is required to solve a puzzle; you assume that you can just stand still whilst you have a think and try different things out, like "use sword with seagull". Also part of the implicit contract the game makes with you is that it will clearly identify points of interaction when you hover the mouse over them. When a puzzle comes along that breaks this contract, by behaving unexpectedly when your character walks over a certain spot (one that you have no obvious reason to visit if you're not explicitly looking for it) then the potential for frustration runs high, and you run the risk that players get stuck for hours like my friend did at this point.

I felt the effects of this big time when playing LucasArt's later game, Full Throttle. For those who don't know it, Full Throttle is the creation of Tim Schafer, someone I greatly admire as a game designer. FT completely defies many established conventions of the Point & Click genre, mostly intentionally. For one thing, you play a character that players might actually want to be: the rock hard biker, Ben Throttle. A consequence of that is that many of the puzzle solutions involve a departure from the purely cerebral, such as the application of brute force, kicking down doors and such like. For me, the set of possible solutions to any given puzzle was established by my experience of prior LucasArts adventures like Monkey Island, so I found myself constantly getting stuck because I wouldn't deign to try certain things - "*that* would never be the answer!" Thankfully I played it through with a friend who had no such qualms, or we'd never have completed it. But it just goes to show what baggage each and every gamer brings with them to every new game that they play, something which thoughtful game designers have to contend with to deliver a truly satisfying experience.

There's a great interview in this month's Edge magazine (August 2009) with Tim Schafer, one of the writer's on Monkey Island and the mastermind of classics like Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. I'm sure there's nothing new here to people who follow these things more closely, but I found the following titbits very interesting as I set about making my Old Testament adventure game:

• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was considered a commercial failure at the time, selling only 25,000 copies (far less than rival King's Quest) - i.e. don't be too optimistic when predicting how many copies you might sell!
• With both Monkey Island games and Day of the Tentacle, they apparently brainstormed the puzzles first before deciding on the details of the story

I'm always fascinated by the little details of the process by which these great games were made, since from my own experience it turns out to be really hard work!!

What Adventure Game makers can learn from LucasArts' classic

Introduction

There's no doubt in my mind that the greatest Point & Click adventure game of all time, leagues ahead of all competition, is Day of the Tentacle, by LucasArts. Released in June 1993, it was rated as the #1 Adventure Game of All Time by the Adventure Gamers website, which described it thus:

Day of the Tentacle is a perfectly flawless adventure, the rarest of rare games, that which did nothing wrong. Nothing. There is no weakness in this game, no sieve. Stop waiting for the "but" because it won't come. This is the perfect adventure game, the one adventure that brought every aspect of great adventures together and created such an enjoyable masterpiece, it almost seems to transcend the level of computer games.

So what is it that makes Day of the Tentacle so fantastic? As I've been working on my own Christian computer game, I've spent many hours pondering this question, studying it and dissecting its puzzles, trying to learn everything I can about the art of writing an adventure game. And here I am, sharing everything I've learnt with you - completely free of charge! It can't get better than that, can it? So let's get on with it - we have much to get through!

The Story

It can't go without mention that Day of the Tentacle's story is absolutely insane. Strictly, it's a sequel to one of LucasArt's earliest adventure games: Maniac Mansion. Doctor Fred, your classic mad scientist stereotype, has been pouring toxic waste into a local river. This causes one of his creations, Purple Tentacle, to mutate into an insanely evil genius, intent on world domination. Bernard Bernoulli, a loveable geek, and his two college room mates, Hoagie and Laverne, are sent one day back in time by Doctor Fred, so that they can turn off the Sludge-O-Matic before the toxic mutagen has a chance to contaminate the river, preventing it all from happening. Trouble is, as is always the case with these things, the time machine malfunctions - sending Hoagie 200 years in the past, Laverne 200 years in the future, and returning Bernard to exactly where he came from in the present day. Spanning history, the three of them must work together to repair the time machine and carry out the original plan before Purple Tentacle destroys civilisation as we know it and enslaves all humanity.

That hopefully gives you a feel for kind of bizarre sense of humour that makes Day of the Tentacle so enjoyable. It has one of the longer introductions in LucasArts' history, but also one of the most entertaining by far. One of the factors that gives the game such terrific replayability, in my opinion, is the sheer fun of the story, which means that even once you know how to solve all of the puzzles, playing through the game is just like watching a favourite movie - this is not the tacked-on second rate story you find in a FPS like Doom! It seems like a first rate story is absolutely essential for a great adventure game experience.

High Production Values

The other thing that really stands out when playing Day of the Tentacle is the incredible quality of every aspect of the game. The quirky Chuck Jones-style artwork, the music, the stand-out script with gag after gag that never fail to make me laugh no matter how many times I've heard them, and the incredible voice acting which suits the characters so perfectly - everything about this game is done well, and it all comes together to make a truly magical experience. It's a daunting standard for an amateur like me, trying to make an adventure game just in the scraps of spare time I can manage to claw out of my schedule, but the message is clear: strive for excellence in every aspect of your game.

The Characters

The characters in Day of the Tentacle are fabulously conceived, all of them a real joy to talk to. From the post-counselling Weird Ed ("peace be with you!") to the founding fathers ("Whoa! You're, like, George Washington!" "Very much like him, according to my wife, Mrs. Washington."), there's never a sense that you're just going through the motions of chatting to these people in order to obtain some vital piece of information that you need to solve a puzzle. I've played other games where you just can't skip through the dialogue quickly enough - so tedious does it all seem. I think the lesson is to pick some key character trait and push it to the extreme - George Washington's arrogance, Weird Ed's... er... weirdness, Ned and Jed's cappuccino-drinking artiness, Hoagie's general slovenliness. You can't help but love them all!

The Puzzles

But of course, an adventure game wouldn't be an adventure game without puzzles - and my, what puzzles there are in Day of the Tentacle! More than any other aspect, I've pored over these puzzles, analysing them in minute detail, trying to figure out what on earth their process could have been for coming up with each one, how you'd go about writing such ingenious situations. So many of them are comedy gold, their solutions both intellectually satisfying and rib-ticklingly funny. They make such perfect sense once you know the solutions, and they make excellent use of the time travel scenario - with the actions of characters in the past having a knock on effect for other characters in a later time period.

Tim Schafer, one of the two lead designers on the game, brings a very distinctive style to the puzzles, which can be seen in his later game, Grim Fandango. First he sets up a simple, unremarkable scenario: a cat is playing with a squeaky mouse toy, hissing and clawing at anybody who tries to get too close. Then he teaches you a few simple rules about how "the system" works: you can draw away the cat's attention by sitting on a nearby squeaky mattress. But there's a catch! The mattress is too close, and the cat still manages to get back to his precious squeaky mouse toy before you get a chance to grab it. You can try sitting on the other bed at the back of the room, but that one thuds rather than squeaking, so doesn't have the desired effect. The solution to the puzzle then involves a seemingly simple but yet very clever tweak to the situation, as you manipulate the system just enough to achieve your goal. The answer? Swap the mattresses round so that the squeaky one is at the back of the room, meaning that the cat can't get back in time to stop you taking the mouse toy.

The same simple formula comes up again and again throughout the game, and it makes for a very satisfying experience as you attempt to figure out the system and how you can tweak it to your advantage. The temptation when writing your own puzzles is to stop at stage one: I might have thought of the idea of sitting on a squeaky mattress to divert the cat's attention, but I probably would have stopped there. Adding the extra stage, though, makes all the difference in the world to the player's experience.

Buy Your Copy Today!

With all seriousness, if you haven't already played Day of the Tentacle, do yourself a favour and buy it today - you won't regret it! A quick eBay search suggests there are still plenty of copies out there, and with the excellent ScummVM application you can play it on a wide variety of modern devices - both desktop PCs or Macs and handheld phones of all kinds.