Monkey Island
Monkey Island is a series of adventure games. The first four games were produced and published by LucasArts, earlier known as Lucasfilm Games. The fifth was developed by Telltale Games with LucasArts, while the sixth was developed by Terrible Toybox with Lucasfilm Games and Devolver Digital.
The games follow the adventures of the hapless Guybrush Threepwood as he struggles to become the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean, defeat the plans of the evil undead pirate LeChuck and win the heart of Governor Elaine Marley. The plots often involve the mysterious Monkey Island and its secrets.
Monkey Island was created by Ron Gilbert. Gilbert worked on the first two games before leaving LucasArts. Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer, co-writers of the first two games, had success on other games before they both left LucasArts. The rights to Monkey Island remained with LucasArts, and the third and fourth games were created without direct involvement from the original writing staff. Grossman was a creative director on the fifth game in the series, which Gilbert was a consultant on the early stages of. Gilbert returned to the series with the sixth game, Return to Monkey Island, which he co-wrote and co-designed with Grossman.
Background
's two main inspirations for the story were Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride and Tim Powers' book On Stranger Tides. The book was the inspiration for the story and characters, while the ride was the inspiration for the ambiance. Gilbert said in an interview that:keeps you moving through the adventure but I've always wished I could get off and wander around, learn more about the characters, and find a way onto those pirate ships. So with The Secret of Monkey Island I wanted to create a game that had the same flavor, but where you could step off the boat and enter that whole storybook world.
Media
Games
''The Secret of Monkey Island''
The series debuted in 1990 with The Secret of Monkey Island on the Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari ST and Macintosh platforms; the game was later ported to FM Towns and Mega-CD. A remake version with updated graphics and new voiceovers was released for PlayStation Network, PC Windows, Xbox Live Arcade and OS X. An iPhone version was also released on July 23, 2009.The game starts off with the main character Guybrush Threepwood stating "I want to be a pirate!" To do so, he must prove himself to three old pirate captains. During the perilous pirate trials, he meets the beautiful governor Elaine Marley, with whom he falls in love, unaware that the ghost pirate LeChuck also has his eyes on her. When Elaine is kidnapped, Guybrush procures crew and ship to track LeChuck down, defeat him and rescue his love.
''Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge''
The second game, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge from 1991, was available for fewer platforms; it was only released for PC MS-DOS, Amiga, Macintosh, and later for FM Towns. A Special Edition version, in a similar style as The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, was released in July 2010 for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.As Guybrush, with a treasure chest in hand, and Elaine hang onto ropes in a void, he tells her the story of the game. He has decided to find the greatest of all treasures, that of Big Whoop. Unwittingly he helps revive LeChuck, who is now in zombie form. Guybrush is eventually captured by his nemesis, but escapes with help from Wally and finds the treasure only to find himself dangling from a rope, as depicted at the beginning of the game. As Guybrush concludes his story, his rope breaks and he finds himself facing LeChuck, whom he finally defeats using voodoo. The surrealistic ending is open to a number of interpretations. In the manual of The Curse of Monkey Island, it is stated that Guybrush falls victim to a hex implemented by LeChuck.
''The Curse of Monkey Island''
The Curse of Monkey Island, the third in the series, was released exclusively for Microsoft Windows on PC in 1997, after a 6-year hiatus. The Curse of Monkey Island was released at the height of some of the biggest technological advancements in the gaming industry—digital audio, CD-ROM technology, and improved graphics.Monkey Island I and II were originally released on floppy disks with text dialogue only. Entire conversations between characters would appear as written text, or as captions above their heads.
The visuals of the third installment were also an improvement over the original game, using a more modern cel animation style. The Curse of Monkey Island is the only game in the series to feature this style of animation; subsequent games used three-dimensional polygon animation.
Threepwood, unwittingly, turns Elaine into a gold statue with a cursed ring, and she is subsequently stolen by pirates. He tracks her down before searching for another ring that can lift the curse. LeChuck appears in a fiery demon form, and is hot on Threepwood’s heels until a stand-off on LeChuck's amusement park ride, Monkey Mountain.
''Escape from Monkey Island''
Escape from Monkey Island, the fourth installment, was released in 2000 for PC Windows, and in 2001 for Macintosh and PlayStation 2.When Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley return from their honeymoon, they find that Elaine has been declared officially dead, her mansion is under a destruction order, and her position as governor is up for election. Guybrush investigates and unearths a conspiracy by LeChuck and evil real estate developer Ozzie Mandrill to use a voodoo talisman, "The Ultimate Insult", to make all pirates docile in order to turn the Caribbean into a center of tourism.
''Tales of Monkey Island''
Tales of Monkey Island is the fifth installment within the series, co-developed by Telltale Games and LucasArts, with a simultaneous release both on WiiWare and PC. Unlike other installments, Tales is an episodic adventure consisting of five different episodes. The first episode was released on July 7, with the last one released on December 8, 2009.During a heated battle with his nemesis, the evil pirate LeChuck, Guybrush unwittingly unleashes an insidious pox that rapidly spreads across the Caribbean, turning pirates into zombie-like monsters. The Voodoo Lady sends Guybrush in search of a legendary sea sponge to stem the epidemic, but this seemingly straightforward quest has surprises around every corner.
''Return to Monkey Island''
With the purchase of LucasArts by the Walt Disney Company in 2012, the rights to the franchise are now property of Disney. In the second half of 2010s, Disney Interactive ceased the production on gaming and transitioned to a licensing model. Gilbert wrote on Twitter that he was interested in buying the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion properties. Fans of the series launched an online petition asking Disney to sell the franchise to Gilbert; by December 2021, the petition had gathered about 29,000 signatures.Return to Monkey Island, the sixth Monkey Island installment, was released on September 19, 2022, on the Nintendo Switch and Windows, coming to other formats later. It is a collaboration between Gilbert's Terrible Toybox studio and Lucasfilm Games, and published by Devolver Digital. A frame story in the game serves to explain and continue from the ending of LeChuck's Revenge, while the main narrative takes place after the other games in the series. Ron Gilbert has expressed his desire to tell a simple and focused pirate story in the game, while also redefining the adventure game user interface and deepening the greater lore. In addition to Gilbert, Grossman returns as co-writer, with music from veteran series composers Michael Land, Peter McConnell, and Clint Bajakian, and Dominic Armato, Alexandra Boyd, and Denny Delk reprising their roles as Guybrush, Elaine, and Murray. Jess Harnell replaces the retired Earl Boen as the voice of LeChuck.
Other appearances
Stan's Used Coffins is referred to in one of the levels of the LucasArts game Outlaws. In Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, Guybrush can be accessed as a playable character via a cheat code; in addition, a Monkey Island-themed secret room can be found in the game's final level. Guybrush also appears in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II as a playable skin for Starkiller named "Guybrush Threepkiller".Guybrush is paid homage in the Naughty Dog video game Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, where a pirate with major similarities to Guybrush is featured as one of the twelve pirate captains that founded Libertalia. Although he remains unnamed throughout the game, the resemblance is uncanny and his sigil is represented by a monkey. His portrait can be seen in the Libertalia treasury with the other founders and though his name is partly scratched out, the letters still visible spell out the truncated name "Guy Wood".
Several elements from the Monkey Island series appear in Sea of Thieves as part of its June 2021 "A Pirate's Life" update. Developed in collaboration with Disney and primarily themed after Pirates of the Caribbean, multiple references to the characters and locales from the Monkey Island franchise can be found in journals by Kate Capsize scattered around the wreckage of The Headless Monkey during the update's first Tall Tale, accompanied by an original arrangement of the Monkey Island theme. According to the journals, Guybrush and Elaine Threepwood are celebrating their honeymoon somewhere upon the Sea of Thieves, while Kate perished attempting to get revenge on Guybrush for framing her.
A full Monkey Island-themed expansion for the game, "The Legend of Monkey Island", was released on July 20, 2023 and spread across three monthly episodes. In the story, set between Curse and Escape, Guybrush and Elaine's honeymoon on the Sea of Thieves is interrupted by LeChuck, who traps them in a dream version of Mêlée Island where everyone worships Guybrush as a legendary pirate. To stop LeChuck from restoring the legendary Burning Blade and conquering the Sea of Thieves, the Pirate Lord recruits the now-revived Kate Capsize and the player pirates to enter the dreamworld and rescue Guybrush and Elaine.
In an update to Hitman 3, a new pirate-themed map was added, which featured an Easter Egg referencing Monkey Island in the form of a gravestone in the environment reading "G Threepwood, Mighty Pirate", a clear reference to Guybrush.
In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, while completing the 'Fists of Fury' quest in the Blood and Wine expansion patch, the protagonist Geralt encounters a man named Mancomb, a reference to a character of the same name in the first game of the series.