I have a great admiration for the classics of the point and click adventure genre as many of them have a wonderful charm, sharp humour and interesting puzzles. However, there’s no debate that the heyday of these games has long passed and, while the genre certainly isn’t dead, new point and click adventure games are certainly much more sparse these days than in the past. However, with a new release in the venerable Monkey Island video game series, I thought it might be interesting to provide an overview of the games that make up this franchise.
The Secret of Monkey Island
The first game in the series, The Secret of Monkey Island, was originally released in 1990 and was directed by industry legend Ron Gilbert who also cowrote the game with Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer. It follows Guybrush Threepwood who has just arrived at Mêlée Island in the hopes of becoming a pirate. The games style of humour has been rightly praised but one of the most important innovations that The Secret of Monkey Island contributed to the genre was the lack of death or dead ends. Prior to The Secret of Monkey Island, it was common in point and click adventure games to die due to a mistake or end up running into a dead end due to missing a key item earlier in the story. Ron Gilbert opposed this form of game design, saying “At no point should the player’s journey through the story in a game come to an abrupt end because they did something wrong.“
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
Due to the success of the first game, a second game was quickly developed and released in 1991, titled “Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge”. Key areas to focus on were a further refinement of the UI while also creating a larger world to explore which was achieved by allowing Guybrush to explore multiple islands. Despite gaining enormous praise from critics, the game underperformed upon release and LucasArts, the company that developed and released Monkey Island, turned to other projects such as Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Sam & Max Hit the Road.
The Curse of Monkey Island
The third game in the Monkey Island series, The Curse of Monkey Island, was released in 1997. Ron Gilbert had left LucasArts by this point and the development of technology as well as a new creative team led to an overhaul of the game compared to prior entries. The art style of the game more closely resembled a cartoon, voice acting was included for the first time in the series and gameplay featured pop-up menus rather than taking up the bottom of the screen like in previous games. The game proved to be a financial success and also received positive reviews.
Escape from Monkey Island
The last Monkey Island game developed and released by LucasArts was “Escape from Monkey Island” in 2000. Transitioning to 3D graphics using the same game engine as was used for Grim Fandango, the gameplay was also modified so that it no longer used point and click mechanics. Instead, Guybrush observes objects and people and the player is provided a list from which they can select which to interact with and how using a keyboard or controller. While the game did get positive reviews, sales were mediocre with the PC version selling well in Europe but underperforming in America while the PS2 version sold poorly. While not an outright failure, Escape from Monkey Island marked the end of LucasArts’ adventure games with the company refocusing on creating Star Wars games.
Tales of Monkey Island
In 2009, Telltale Games, a company established by former adventure game developers from LucasArts, released “Tales of Monkey Island”. Working together with LucasArts who still held the IP for Monkey Island, Tales of Monkey Island was released episodically across five episodes and acted as a continuation of the story after the events of Escape from Monkey Island. While featuring 3D graphics similarly to Escape from Monkey Island, the gameplay returned to the point and click format of the original three games. Tales of Monkey Island proved to be very successful but, despite ending on a cliffhanger, Telltale never released a follow up.
Return to Monkey Island
Finally, in 2022, a new Monkey Island game called “Return to Monkey Island” was released. Interestingly, original director Ron Gilbert managed to convince Disney, who now own the rights to the Monkey Island franchise, to let him develop a new entry at his studio, Terrible Toybox. The gameplay continues the point and click adventure style that many of the previous games used although some modifications have been made to streamline it. Despite some controversy surrounding the art style, the game has been well received and seems to be selling well.
The Monkey Island franchise has had a turbulent past when it comes to sales and staying relevant but it’s a series that I’ve found myself enjoying quite a bit and I’m looking forward to playing Return to Monkey Island soon. Let me know your thoughts on this overview of the Monkey Island video game series, which games you’ve played, whether you liked them or disliked them, what you think about the impact that the series has had and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.