《猴岛的秘密》设计手法编辑本段回目录
LucasArts重新在Xbox Live上发布《猴岛的秘密》（The Secret of Monkey Island）令我感到异常兴奋。当然，我马上将其买了下来并开始体验这款游戏。我注意到，即便以今天的标准来看，这款游戏也设计得很棒。因而，我决定解析该游戏来学习它的设计。之前我只是将此当作个人行为而已，但我在完成之后决定在此处分享我的观点。请注意，这篇文章并非游戏评论，而是旨在从优秀游戏设计中吸取经验。
Ron Gilbert也发表了些许他对这款游戏设计的想法。他是这款游戏的设计师，因而他的想法当然比我的要有价值得多。我经常看他的文章，因而在下文中我提到“据Ron Gilbert所述”之类的字眼时，我引用的是他博客中的内容。
Monkey Island SE logo(from casualgamedesign.com)
重玩游戏的想法
我首次玩这款游戏应该是15年之前。我不记得我之前是否重新玩过这款游戏，但我想我应该有这么做过，因为我也玩过EGA和VGA版本。尽管上次玩这款游戏已经是15年前的事情了，但令人惊奇的是，我仍然还能记得其中的谜题。当然，这也使得今日的重玩更快且有不同的体验。
对特别版本的想法
重制游戏的想法固然很棒，但开发者似乎在特别版本中并未像原版那样注重细节。感觉团队是在严格的时间限制内完成特别版本的制作，这导致他们不得不砍掉某些细节。但是，这次的新版本拥有更为完整的体验，尤其是对那些没有玩过之前游戏的人而言。
如果你更为喜欢原版的游戏，只需按个键就可以切换。事实上，原版并不完全准确，因为“特别版本”中包含的是VGA版本而并非原EAG版本，但是玩起来仍然很带劲。
介绍
introduction(from apprecon.net)
Guybrush在游戏中的介绍简单明了。在以下一句话中，Guybrush就介绍了自己及其整体目标（游戏邦注：即“我想成为一名海盗”）。玩家很清晰地了解到下一步自己该前往的是Scumm Bar。
玩家引导
简介之后，Guybrush自动走下楼梯。接下来，我们看到他径直走下悬崖。当你可以控制Guybrush时，你就只能继续往他已经选择的那个方向行走，一直把你带到Scumm Bar。
游戏以这种方式很自然地将玩家引导到正确的行动路径上。如果你在简介结束后就可以控制Guybrush，或者如果你未曾看到他走下悬崖，你可能在游戏开始时选择错误的方向。
三个测试
因为这三个测试是同时出现的，因而你可以同时解决这些问题。如果要这么做的话，游戏玩起来可就没那么简单了。
许多游戏都采用系列任务的模式，尤其是RPG游戏。大量系列任务的问题在于，玩家会觉得他们只是在为其他人打杂而已。幸运的是，《Monkey Island》中只有一个此类的任务。
进入厨房
在厨师没有注意到的情况下进入厨房，这是个很直接的设计方式。当你进入厨房后厨师就不会再出现了，这也是个很棒的设计决策。现在，玩家可以尽情探索这个属于自己的厨房。
抓鱼
我记得自己首次玩这款游戏时，从Scumm Bar厨房中抓鱼花费了我很长时间。这次重玩游戏，我在这个任务上还是遇到了障碍。究其原因，我认为真正的难点在于宽松的木板并未显示在行动线上。如果有的话，这个难题可能会更容易得到解决，但我仍然认为设计师如此设计确实不错。
购买藏宝图
Citizen_of_melee(from wikicheats.gametrailers.com)
你首次遇见Citizen of Mêlée时，没有足够的金钱来购买藏宝图。这将你引向另一个可以努力的次级目标。
一旦你获得了地图，Citizen of Mêlée就不会再过来与你交谈，这让你清晰地明白你无需再与之交谈了。当然，设计师本可以将其完全从街道上移除，但他们并没有这么做。
Men of Low Moral Fiber
如果你未曾同Men of Low Moral Fiber交谈过，也可以完成整个游戏。然而，他们的存在确有其目的，而且这是个很微妙的做法。
你在Fettucini Brothers处赚取某些金钱之前，有大量的谜题线索被锁定。从理论上来说，你可以马上着手处理这个问题。但是Mêlée Island的布局决定了你需要在村庄中花上某些事件才能探索岛屿的其他部分。
Men of Low Moral Fiber会给你2个西班牙古币，你可以购买一卷呼吸薄荷糖，这样你就可以同Otis交谈了。这使得你有可能获得Idol of Many Hands。换句话说，Men of Low Moral Fiber可以算是某种捷径。
应该注意到的是，你只需要花费1个西班牙古币来购买呼吸薄荷糖。你会得到2个古币的原因在于你可以用1个在Stan处购买grog machine。
巫女
巫女是游戏中一个很棒的角色，她的巫术和对事件的语言定义了《Monkey Island》的大部分情绪。但是，她也并非完全必要的角色，你不同巫女交谈也可以把游戏打通。
以我的观点来看，这款游戏中的巫女体现出所添加的内容并不一定会让最终产品获得很大的提升（游戏邦注：同《回到未来》中的Johnny B. Goode-scene一样）。
遇见Fester Shinetop
在你同他一起前往长官府邸之前向你介绍Fester Shinetop也是个很棒的剧情。这次会面并非强迫你接受的剧情。你被吸引到小巷之中，并未打破游戏的流程。
找寻铸剑大师
找寻铸剑大师是个很棒的谜题。跟随商店店员的脚步是个很符合逻辑的步骤。这个谜题还带来额外的好处，它向玩家展示小岛上不只有村庄。这一点往往为众多游戏设计师所忽略。
喂养小狗
将肉片丢向小狗让他们沉睡确实是件很合理的事情，但这个谜题中有两个小问题让我感到很困惑。首先，如果你喂养小狗的是未经过处理的肉，小狗吃掉这些肉后Guybrush什么都不说。我觉得这里的反馈还有待改善。
第二个问题是，你无法知道花朵的效果，直至你解开这个谜题。Otis提到了黄色的花朵，但是并没有说出它的作用。从本质上来说，玩家只能反复试验才知道在肉中添加花朵能有如此的效果。
明朝的花瓶
我不是很确定在长官官邸中拿到的明朝花瓶的作用，但我猜想设计师似乎是想教导你grog在容器中的作用。当你前往Scumm Bar厨房然后将grog倒入花瓶中时，Guybrush会告诉你这样处理过的grog味道更好，这算是grog谜题的线索之一。
获得神像
Ron Gilbert阐述了长官府邸场景的大量历史背景。我记得我首次玩这款游戏时，对发生的事情感到很茫然。事实上，我的英语能力根本不足以让我理解显示在动作条上的所有词汇。
逃离洪水
这个时刻很棒，你可以拿到所有的切割工具，捡起神像显然是当时能想到的解决方案。最让我感到受打击的是，当你解决谜题后，你会觉得真得很简单。但在遇到问题时，却完全想不出来怎么做。如果将神像系在Guybrush腿上会让其沉没的话，那么Guybrush把神像捡起来也会是同样的结果。
溺水
如果Guybrush溺水的话，你就必须重新载入已保存游戏。在这款游戏中并没有其他相似的死亡场景，因而我觉得感觉很奇怪。或许读取的最好应该是Shinetop将Guybrush抛入水中的那一刻。
更为古怪的是，在新版本游戏中，Guybrush并未像他在原版中那样改变颜色。
给巨怪喂食
巨怪谜题时常让我感觉像是多余的，尽管它确实引导出另一个谜题，但并没有很强的目的性。当然，游戏中还有很多谜题存在的目的是为了导出另一个谜题，但这是唯一一个让我感觉有点偏离游戏目标的谜题。
英语并非我的母语，我13岁首次玩这款游戏时，根本不理解游戏对这个谜题的描述，因而谜题对我来说极为困难，很难得出解决方案。
许多年之前，我有个朋友在玩《The Curse of Monkey Island》时碰到了同样的问题。他抱怨说他在这个谜题上花了很长时间，因为他根本不理解“吐根树”的含义。他觉得设计师不应该用上这种不为人熟悉的词汇，因为他让外国玩家觉得很纳闷。
尽管我能够理解他所产生的挫败感，但是我觉得设计师也无法再进一步改善。因为你根本不知道哪个词语玩家能理解，哪个词语不能。我猜想，这是英语非母语的玩家必须要接受的难题。唯一的解决方案是将整个游戏本地化。
Meathook
对我来说，Meathook角色感觉开发并不完全。我赞同Ron Gilbert的观点，他认为鹦鹉谜题很差劲，因为那甚至根本不能算作是个谜题。你首次与Meathook的谈话带有某些喜剧价值，但除此之外别无其他用处，Meathook从未参与到某个谜题中。正如Ron Gilbert所提到的那样，如果Meathook的纹身换成Jolly Roger旗帜，他或许还有存在在游戏中的意义。
拔剑战斗
sword fighting(from bit-tech.net)
尽管Ron Gilbert觉得拔剑战斗这个设计很乏味单调，但我觉得是个不错的设计。这是个在冒险游戏中添加动作机制的完美方式。当你首次玩游戏时，你会觉得画面确实很有趣且新颖，并不介意一遍遍地看下去。
然而，我也能理解Ron的观点。当你重玩《Monkey Island》时，拔剑战斗已成为你已经见过的把戏，因而你或许就不会有足够的耐心来看这些过程。
运送grog
grog谜题并不简单，但我很喜欢。谜题最难的部分并不在于运送grog，因为经过数次失败尝试后就可以找出解决方案。真正的问题在于发现grog的运送目的地。
Ron Gilbert提到他近期也被grog难倒，需要上网搜索解决方案。他说道：“这确实是个很棒的谜题。”他是否是真正因为这个问题难倒他而觉得谜题很棒呢？通常情况下，我并不喜欢毫无头绪的感觉。
顺便提下，新版本游戏中，这个谜题的角色控制很不方便。我推荐在这个部分采用原版的控制方法。即便没有鼠标，原版的界面也显得更为清晰。
获得赊购权
我喜欢这项设计，只有你同Stan交谈过，才可以让店员允许你赊购。也就是说，你可以在对话树中看到这个选项，会去思考以后会有何用处。当然，如果设计师将游戏中所有内容都以这种方法来锁定，便有可能让游戏显得过于线性化。
对于我来说，这种设计的负面影响是会导致我在店中转悠很长时间。对于这种提前呈现后期才能解决的问题，我对自己的感觉说不清楚。如果这种设计过多，会让玩家感到很有挫败感。但如果完全没有此类设计，游戏又显得过于简单。
购买船只
毫无疑问，Stan确实是个很棒的角色。对于购买船只这个谜题，我唯一不喜欢的是削减附加的设备。船只上的附加设备过多。在削减了3个之后，我觉得自己才解决了这个谜题。
部分
严格说来，标志新部分故事开始的场景并非必需品。但是，我喜欢这些场景，因为它们让游戏有种过渡感，有点类似一种奖励。
船长日志
第二部分中的船长日志与第一部分中的对话作用相同，告诉你下一步应该做什么。虽然日志有点长，但是确实很有用。
船上的工作
Ron Gilbert告诉我们，船上那部分工作更具线性化，让玩家有些许喘息的时间。这并非不好的决定，但是确实存在些许瑕疵。我记得自己第一次玩游戏时被船上的某些谜题难住了，但我不记得具体是哪个。没有其他可供尝试的谜题，这会很快让玩家觉得极具挫败感。你应该知道，当时的互联网并不发达，因而你可能需要花费数天时间才能解开类似情景的谜题。
大炮
带着满口袋的卡片用来燃烧点燃大炮确实是个很怪异的事情，但我并不在乎。
石头的艺术
如果你是首次玩这款游戏，很有可能把自己的船只弄沉。投射石头确实很有趣。即便只是投射石头也存在一定的风险。
香蕉
对我来说，整个游戏中最具挫败感的谜题是让猴子跟随你。我记得在我首次玩这款游戏时便让这个谜题难住，再次玩这个游戏时依然如此。
这个谜题最让我感到烦恼的不是我无法恰当将其解决，而是我不清楚自己应该做什么。当你把第一个香蕉递给猴子时，它跟了你一小段距离，表示你的这个做法是正确的。然而猴子会忽然转身离开，而你根本不知道究竟出于何种原因，你只会觉得自己浪费了一个香蕉。
经过一番努力之后，你又找到了两个香蕉，觉得这次应该能吸引猴子跟着你。但结果与上次无异。你又获得了更多的香蕉，但你根本不知道猴子到底需要你给他多少个香蕉。最后两个香蕉锁定在岛屿的另一端，因而你根本不知道它们的存在。而且，游戏从未告诉你需要5个香蕉才能吸引猴子跟着你。
Guybrush的反馈如果能更多些，问题就会更容易。你递给猴子1个香蕉后，Guybrush可以说出“我觉得它还要更多香蕉”之类的话。
城堡
城堡很容易为玩家所忽略。近期我重玩游戏时，我知道城堡就在火山边缘，但我仍然找不到它。
领航员的项链和Captain Smirk
Ron对于项链的获得过程评价道：“乞求领航员给予项链是个很不好的谜题。这很容易让玩家觉得他们采取了错误的做法。”我同意这个观点。
更为有趣的是，你在游戏前期中碰到过极为类似的谜题，但那个谜题的解决方案要好得多。当你与Captain Smirk交谈时，你必须说服他你有成为剑士的潜质。通常来说，你需要不断说服他。如果你不这么做，Captain Smirk就会硬邦邦地把门关上，这种反馈显然表明你没有采取正确的措施。而且，当你再次敲门时，对话会从你离开那段继续下去，这使你很清楚接下来要如何改变。
走来走去
游戏中的地图很好地提供了方向感，你可以凭借地图快速地在两个地点间移动。冒险游戏中许多冗长乏味的过程就是在不同的地点间走来走去的过程，地图让这个过程变得更为简单。
最终之战
游戏最终的部分包含有大量的动作，对玩家的要求反倒较少，看起来就像是某种奖赏。尽管如此，特别版的控制方式确实带来了些许麻烦。你在捡起某件道具时，确实需要有较快的动作。有鼠标当然可以做到这一点，但是光标的定位很慢而且很不准确。
其他机制
在引导玩家方面，这款游戏确实做得很不错，尤其是第一部分的内容。这是游戏设计中最出众的部分。
角色名字Guybrush源于何处？Sea Monkey的存在有何目的？
线索是特别版中一个很棒的功能。尽管我觉得设计团队可以将其设计得更好些，但所添加的这项功能却好似很受人喜欢。
我无法以现代标准来判断这款游戏的难度，因为对于上次玩这款游戏的过程我还有印象，即便那是15年前的事情了。
令人惊奇的是，这款游戏的设计居然可以有如此长的寿命。我也重玩过其他老式的游戏，我觉得那些游戏的设计已经严重过时了。
游戏邦注：本文发稿于2009年7月20日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）
Notes on The Secret of Monkey Island
When LucasArts re-released The Secret of Monkey Island on Xbox Live a few days ago, I was thrilled. Of course, I immediately bought and played it. I noticed how well-designed this game is, even by today’s standards. So, I decided to annotate a playthrough of Monkey Island to learn about its design. I did this merely as a personal exercise, but since I went through all this trouble already, I thought I might as well share my notes here. Please, keep in mind that this article isn’t meant as a review, but as a way to learn from great game design.
Again, this article is full of spoilers. You have been warned.
Ron Gilbert has also published some of his thoughts on the design of Monkey Island. Of course, since he is the original designer of the game, his thoughts are much more valuable than mine. From time to time, I’ll refer to his notes, so when I write something like ‘according to Ron Gilbert’, I’m referring to his blog post.
Thoughts on replaying Monkey Island
The first time I played The Secret of Monkey Island must have been over fifteen years ago. I don’t directly recall replaying the game before, but I know I must have, since I played both the EGA version and the VGA version at some point. Still, I gather that it’s been just about fifteen years ago since I last played this game and it’s amazing how much I still remember about its puzzles. Of course, that made replaying it today a quicker and different experience.
Thoughts on the Special Edition
The make-over is good, but it doesn’t have the attention to detail the original has. It feels like the team that did the remake was on a strict time limit and had to cut a few corners. Still, the rejuvenated version is more than adequate to enjoy the game, especially if you haven’t played the game before.
If you prefer the original experience, it’s available at the press of a button. Actually, original isn’t completely accurate, since the Special Edition includes the VGA version, not the original EGA version, but it still feels authentic.
Introduction
The conversation between the blind look-out and Guybrush is a wonderfully efficient introduction. Guybrush is introduced, his overall goal becomes clear (‘I want to be a pirate’) and the player is clearly told where to start: the Scumm Bar.
Guiding the player
After the introduction, Guybrush automatically walks down the stairs. Next, we see him walking down from the cliff. When you get control of Guybrush, it just makes sense to continue in the direction he was already walking, which will lead you to the Scumm Bar.
In this way, the player is guided very naturally along the correct path. If you had gained control of Guybrush at the look-out point, or if you hadn’t seen him walk down the cliff, you might have started off in the wrong direction.
The three trials
Because the three trials are introduced together, you get the opportunity to solve several puzzles at once. This way, you don’t get stuck so easily.
List quests are often overdone in games, especially RPGs. The problem with throwing a lot of list of quests at the player is that she’ll start to feel like she is doing other people’s groceries. Fortunately, Monkey Island has only one such quest.
Entering the kitchen
Getting into the kitchen when the cook’s not watching, is straight-forward enough. It was a real good decision not to have him return while you’re in there. Now you can explore the kitchen at your own pace.
Getting the fish
I remember that getting the fish from the Scumm Bar kitchen had me stumped for quite a while the first time I played Monkey Island, and this time around, I was baffled again. I think what makes it hard, is that the loose board doesn’t show up on the action line. If it did, the puzzle would probably be very easy to solve, but I still think it’s the better way to go.
Buying the treasure map
The first time you encounter the Citizen of Mêlée, you don’t have money to buy the treasure map. This introduces another sub-goal you can work towards.
Once you have the map, the Citizen of Mêlée doesn’t want to talk to you again, which makes it clear that you don’t need to bother with him anymore. Of course, they could have removed him from the street altogether.
Men of Low Moral Fiber
You can finish the game without ever talking to the Men of Low Moral Fiber. They do serve a purpose, though, and it’s a wonderfully subtle one.
A lot of puzzle threads are locked until you earn some money at the Fettucini Brothers. In theory, you can take care of this issue right away, but with the way Mêlée Island is laid out, it’s likely you’ll spend some time in the village before exploring the rest of the island.
The Men of Low Moral Fiber give you two pieces of eight. This allows you to buy a roll of breath mints, which in turn allows you to talk to Otis. This also makes it possible to obtain the Idol of Many Hands. In other words, the Men of Low Moral Fiber are a shortcut of sorts.
Note that you only need one piece of eight to buy the breath mints. The reason you get two pieces of eight instead of just the one you need, is that you can waste a coin in the grog machine at Stan’s.
The voodoo lady
The voodoo lady is a great character and defines a large part of the mood of Monkey Island with her voodoo tricks and her foreshadowing of events. She is also completely unnecessary plot wise: you can finish the game without ever talking to the voodoo lady.
In my opinion, the voodoo lady is a great example of how adding content that may not strictly be necessary can greatly enhance the end product (much like the Johnny B. Goode-scene in Back to the Future).
Rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle
This must be the most memorable inventory item ever found in a computer game! I also like the short dialog Guybrush and the voodoo lady have about it.
Meeting Fester Shinetop
Introducing Fester Shinetop before you have your run-in with him in the governor’s mansion is good storytelling. This meeting isn’t forced upon you, though. You are lured into the alley, which makes it very likely that you talk to the sheriff, and it doesn’t break the flow of the game.
Finding the sword master
Finding the sword master is a nice puzzle. Following the store keeper is quite a logical step to take. This puzzle also has the added benefit that it shows the player that there is more to the island than just the village; something that can be easily overlooked.
Feeding the dogs
Throwing spiced meat to the dogs to put them to sleep, is quite reasonable, but there are two small things that bother me about this puzzle. First, if you feed the dogs untreated meat, they just eat it and Guybrush says nothing. I would’ve liked a bit more feedback there.
The second problem is that there is no way to know what effect the flower has until you have solved the puzzle. Otis mentions the yellow flower, but never says anything about its effects. Adding the flower to the meat is basically just a matter of trial-and-error.
The Ming vase
I’m not entirely sure about the purpose of the Ming vase that you can pick up in the governor’s mansion, but I think it’s supposed to teach you about the effect grog has on its container. When you go to the Scumm Bar’s kitchen and pour grog into the vase, Guybrush will tell you that the grog eats right through it: a subtle hint for the grog puzzle.
Obtaining the idol
Ron Gilbert gives a bit of history on the scene in the governor’s mansion. I remember that the first time I played this, I was quite confused over what was going on. The fact that my English wasn’t good enough yet to understand all the words that appeared on the action line didn’t help.
Escaping the water
This is a great moment, with all the unreachable cutting tools around you and then the obvious solution of picking up the idol. What strikes me most about this puzzle is that when you solve it, you actually have that feeling of ‘duh, that was obvious’, while in real-life, it makes no sense at all. If the idol sinks Guybrush when it’s tied to his leg, it will also sink Guybrush when he picks it up. Still, it works.
Drowning
If Guybrush drowns, you will have to reload a saved game. In a game that has no death-situations other than this, I’d say that can be quite annoying. It would probably be better to just ‘rewind’ to the moment Shinetop throws Guybrush into the water.
Oddly enough, in the remake, Guybrush doesn’t change color the way he does in the original version.
Feeding the troll
The troll puzzle always feels a bit unnecessary to me; it adds another puzzle, but without a lot of purpose. Of course, there are more puzzles that are there just to have another puzzle, but this is the only one that feels slightly out of place to me. Anyway.
Clearly, this puzzle is based on a play with words: ‘I want something that will attract attention, but has no real importance.’ A red herring. English isn’t my native language, and when I first played this game at the age of thirteen, I had no idea what a red herring was, so the puzzle was quite hard and the solution didn’t make a lot of sense.
Something similar happened to a friend of mine many years later, when he was playing The Curse of Monkey Island. He complained that he had been stuck for quite a while because he didn’t know what ipecac meant. He felt that the designers shouldn’t have used such an uncommon word, because it puts an undue burden on foreigners.
Although I understand his frustration, I don’t think a designer can do much about it. You can’t really know which words people will understand or not, so how much should you dumb your game down? It’s just something players who don’t have English as their mother tongue will have to accept, I guess. The only real solution would be to translate the entire game. Good luck translating the red herring joke, though.
Meathook
The Meathook character feels a bit underdeveloped to me. I agree with Ron Gilbert that the parrot puzzle is a bit lame; it’s not even much of a puzzle. Your first talk with Meathook has some comedy value, but doesn’t add much other than that, and Meathook is never a part of any puzzle. If Meathook’s tattoo had been used instead of the Jolly Roger flag, as mentioned by Ron Gilbert, he would have had a reason for being there.
Insult sword fighting
Insult sword fighting is a stroke of genius, no matter how tedious Ron Gilbert thinks it is. It’s just the perfect way to put some action into an adventure game, without resulting to arcade mechanics. It’s so funny and novel that you don’t mind going through it again and again when you play the game for the first time.
I do understand Ron’s point, though. When you replay Monkey Island, insult sword fighting is a gimmick you’ve already seen, so you might be a little less patient with it. What I think could have helped, is if the insult system had been a little bit more intelligent. Sometimes, you are fighting a lot of pirates and none of them have the answers to your insults and also none of them give you any new insults. If the game picked insults and answers a bit more appropriately, the whole puzzle would be quicker.
Still, that’s nitpicking. Insult sword fighting is just brilliant.
Transporting grog
The grog puzzle is not an easy one, but I quite like it. What’s hardest about the puzzle is not necessarily the transportation of the grog; you find out how that works after a couple of failed attempts. The problem is knowing where to carry the grog to.
Ron Gilbert mentions that he was stumped by the grog puzzle recently and had to look it up on the internet. And then he says: ‘That’s a damn good puzzle.’ Does he really mean that the puzzle is good because it’s so hard he couldn’t solve it? I usually don’t enjoy being completely stuck.
By the way, the controls of the remake are really inconvenient for this puzzle. I recommend switching to the original version for this part. Even without a mouse, the interface of the original version is quicker.
Obtaining credit
I like the fact that you can’t ask the storekeeper for a line of credit unless you have spoken to Stan. This way, you don’t ask for credit just because the option is there in the dialog tree and see what use it is later. Of course, if you do this kind of locking with everything, you run the risk of making the game too linear.
For me, a side effect of all this was that I spent a lot of time twiddling with the safe in the store, long before I could ever open it. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about presenting a puzzle that cannot be solved until later. If you have too many of those, it can become frustrating, but if you have none at all, the game might become too straight-forward.
Buying a ship
Stan is a great character, no doubt about it. The only part I don’t like about buying a ship is declining all the extras. There are just too many. After declining about three of them, I think I’ve shown that I understand the puzzle.
Parts
The screens that mark the start of a new part aren’t strictly necessary. I like them, though, because they give a sense of progression; they are valuable rewards.
Captain’s log
The captain’s log serves the same purpose in part 2 as the conversation with the look-out did in part 1: it tells you what you should be doing. Very useful, even though the log is a bit long.
Stuck on the ship
Ron Gilbert tells us that the part on the ship is more linear on purpose, to give the player a small break. That’s not a bad decision, but it does have a drawback. I remember being stuck on some puzzle on the ship, when I first played Monkey Island (I don’t exactly remember which one). Without any other puzzles to try, this becomes frustrating quite quickly. Remember that this was in the days before the internet, so it could take days before you got out of situations like these.
Cannon
It’s a bit strange that you have to carry around a heap of ever-burning business cards in your pocket to light the cannon, but hey. It’s a good thing that you already did the human cannonball thing in the circus tent: now you know what the cannon is for, and you know you need a helmet.
The art of rocks
If you play Monkey Island for the first time, you will probably sink you own ship. Shooting rocks is quite fun. There is a bit of risk that the player just hurls rocks in every possible direction to see what happens. I’m not a fan of such hit-and-miss gameplay and Monkey Island does its best to steer clear of it whenever it can. In this case, you can see the banana tree from the top of the mountain, and a note by the cannibals mentions a rock nearly hitting the banana tree, so you know what you should be aiming for.
Bananas
The single most frustrating puzzle for me in the entire game is getting the monkey to follow you. I remember having trouble with this the first time I played Monkey Island, and it baffled me again on my recent playthrough.
What bothers me about this puzzle is not that I couldn’t solve it right away, but that it’s so unclear on what you should do. When you give the first banana to the monkey, it follows you for a short while to indicate that you are on the right track. When the monkey suddenly turns back, it’s not really clear why and you’re left feeling that you just wasted a banana.
Then, after some effort, you find two more bananas and you think, surely, now you can get the monkey to follow you. But the result is the same. You’re fresh out of bananas again and you have no idea what more the monkey wants from you. The last two bananas are ‘locked’ on the other side of the island so there is no way you can know that they’re there. Also, you are never told that it takes five bananas to get the monkey to follow you.
The problem could be eased by a little more feedback from Guybrush. After you give the monkey a banana, Guybrush could say something like: ‘I think he wants more.’
Fort
The fort is way too easy to miss. When I replayed Monkey Island recently, I knew the fort was on the edge the volcano and I still couldn’t find it. Fortunately, pixel hunting went out of style many years ago.
The navigator’s necklace and Captain Smirk
Ron makes a good point about obtaining the necklace: ‘Begging for the necklace from the head of the navigator is a bad puzzle. It’s too easy for players to think they’re on the wrong path.’ I agree.
Interestingly enough, you encounter a very similar puzzle earlier in Monkey Island, but there the execution is much better. When you talk to Captain Smirk, you need to convince him that you have what it takes to become a sword fighter. Basically, you need to keep whining. If you don’t, Captain Smirk slams the door shut, which is very clear feedback that you didn’t pick the correct option. Also, when you knock on the door again, the conversation continues where you left off, making it easy to guess what to do next.
Moving around
The maps in Monkey Island are a great way to give the islands a sense of scope, as well as a smart way to allow fast travel. Much of the tedium of adventure games comes from walking between locations, and maps make that more manageable.
For the same reason, I agree with Ron Gilbert that jumping from the ghost ship to the cannibal village and back was the right decision. Not only would travelling have been tedious, it also would have been pointless, since there is nothing else left for you to do on the island. I understand why there was discussion about this, because it does break with the normal flow of the game, but it worked out well.
The final fight
It’s nice that the final part is a lot of action and requires little from the player; it makes it feel like a reward. The controls of the Special Edition do get a bit in the way, though. You do need to be somewhat quick when picking up the root beer. With a mouse, that’s no problem, but positioning the cursor with the thumbstick is slower and less precise.
Some additional notes
The Secret of Monkey Island does a really good job of guiding the player through the game, especially in the first part. It’s what stood out to me most about the game’s design.
Where did the name Guybrush come from?
What’s up with the black chest in the hold of the Sea Monkey? Does it serve any purpose?
The hints are a nice feature of the Special Edition. I think they could be implemented better, but they are a welcome addition.
It’s impossible for me to judge the difficulty of this game by modern standards, since I remember too much from previously playing Monkey Island, even though that was about fifteen years ago.
It’s amazing how well this game’s design has held up over the years. With most older games that I revisit, I discover that the design is severely outdated.
LucasArts has made a lot of people very happy by re-releasing The Secret of Monkey Island. (Source: Casual Game Design)
