Another Monday, another Return to Monkey Island clip for us all to pore over.
The latest clip from creator Ron Gilbert shows the game’s new streamlined UI, with prompts appearing on-screen as hero Guybrush Threepwood explores the Scumm Bar on Melee Island.
When the cursor moves across the screen in this clip, messages such as “Time to talk to the pirate leaders” and “Smells good in there” pop up. The interactions shown do not appear intrusive, and seem to offer a clever way of keeping the story moving along.
Another notable inclusion in this brief snippet is the dynamic way the scene’s music changes as Guybrush moves around.
You can see it all for yourself below.
Gilbert previously discussed the inclusion of a new hint system though, while useful, publisher Devolver has told Eurogamer these new UI hints are not it. At this time, the Monkey Island creator stated, “[one thing] that people really want in games today are built-in hint systems,” retconning his previous desires to shun any such mechanic.
Here, Gilbert and his collaborator Dave Grossman assured fans that the inclusion of this new hint system would not detract from the gameplay. Rather, it would make sense “in the fantasy” of the game and provide users with “more than just a walkthrough”.
In addition to this new clip, Return to Monkey Island is also making a showing at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live tomorrow. On this, publisher Devolver Digital has promised some “big Return to Monkey Island news”. I am thinking we may - at long last - get a release date…
Elsewhere, it has transpired that the original Monkey Island game saw 25 percent of its dialogue cut ahead of its release. This was due to technological constraints of the time.
