With a new Monkey Island game coming next week, we decided to get a couple of Guybrush superfans together to talk about this magical, evocative, and hilarious series.
Chris Donlan: Years ago when I was at school, a friend of mine had Monkey Island on the family PC. I remember the PC was kept in the hallway, and we used to play for hours and hours into the evening. My memories of Melee Island at night are sort of mingled with the night of my friend’s house as we used to play this thing. I wonder: what are your early memories of Monkey Island? When did you realise it was the thing for you?
Victoria Kennedy: It was also a friend for me, or at least one of my brother’s friends. My first memories of Monkey Island are not actually playing it, but seeing other people playing it. I can clearly recall being so entranced by the music (something that to this day still gives me a delighted rush of Dopamine whenever I hear it), and also the colours. To put it simply, it really made me happy.
I then went on to play it for myself, and being quite small at the time, it gave me the really great feeling of an epic adventure that I had not ever experienced before. Being older (and perhaps wiser) now, I think another thing that small me enjoyed was that, while it certainly had that sense of adventure to it, there was never the feeling of any real ‘threat’. I could amble along on the island of Melee at a fairly docile pace without feeling any anxiety that something was about to go horribly, horribly wrong. I hope this makes sense! What is it about this series that you think makes it so endearing, and enduring?
Chris: I think you nailed it – the colours and atmosphere are such a huge part of why this game feels so transporting. Back in the early 1990s, it seemed incredible that a game could be so rich and evocative and also so funny. I remember the moments where the game broke the fourth wall, and it was always a real shock: games could do this? They could make jokes about being games?