The Secret of Monkey Island
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| The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island box art
| |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | LucasArts |
| Designer(s) | Ron Gilbert |
| Programmer(s) | Ron Gilbert Dave Grossman Tim Schafer |
| Engine | SCUMM |
| Release date(s) | 1990 |
| Platform(s) | PC (16 and 256 colors versions), Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, Sega Mega CD, FM Towns |
| Media | Floppy and CD-ROM |
| System requirements | According to Monkey Island Bounty Pack
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| Input | Mouse and Keyboard |
| Preceded by | none |
| Followed by | Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge |
- More on the titular Secret in: The Secret
The Secret of Monkey Island is the first game in the Monkey Island series of adventure games. It was a collaborative work between Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. It was released originally in 1990 on Floppy Disk but has consequently seen releases on several platforms with an upgraded CD-ROM version as well.
The game introduces the protagonist Guybrush Threepwood and many other recurring characters and covers the first chapter in the Monkey Island series, including Guybrush's first fateful journey to the titular island. The game is devided in to four Parts (similar to chapters of a written fiction).
- Part 1: The Three Trials - Guybrush must complete the three trials to officially become a pirate.
- Part 2: The journey - Guybrush must risk the journey to Monkey Island.
- Part 3: Under Monkey Island - On Monkey Island Guybrush must find LeChuck's ship, deep beneath the island.
- Part 4: Guybrush Kicks Butt - Guybrush returns to Mêlée Island for the final showdown with LeChuck.
The soundtrack was composed by series-regular Michael Land in MIDI format. It included many of the recognizable tunes heard later in the series such as the popular Theme Song, Guybrush and Elaine's Love Song and LeChuck's theme.
Contents |
Excerpt from memoirs
Excerpted from "The Memoirs of Guybrush Threepwood: The Monkey Island Years"
"I cursed my luck again as I slid down the monkey's throat. Have my dreams of guzzling grog and plundering galleons been reduced to this. "Three small trials and you're a pirate like us." Fair enough. If only I could stomach the foul brew these scurvy seadogs swilled, the rest would be easy. How could I have known I'd meet a powerful and beautiful woman with a jealous suitor too stupid to realize he'd been dead for years? And how can I crawl through this great stone monkey to find a man who walks three inches above the ground and sets fire to his beard every morning?"
Plot
Part 1: The Three Trials
Guybrush Threepwood is a young man who wishes to become a pirate. He makes his way to Mêlée Island and the Scumm Bar, where he meets the Pirate Leaders. They agree to let him become a pirate, as numbers are lowdue to Ghost Pirate LeChuck's doing. LeChuck had fallen madly in love with the Governor of Mêlée Island, Elaine Marley, and had sailed to Monkey Island to impress her. But his ship sank, and he was reincarnated as a ghost. Now he sails the seas, a fearsome ghostly presence.
The Pirate Leaders set Guybrush three tasks to complete before he can become a pirate. He must become skilled in the arts of swordfighting, treasure hunting, and thievery. To complete the first task Guybrush is trained by Captain Smirk, who teaches him the art of Insult Swordfighting. Growing quickly skilled, Guybrush challenges the strongest fighter on the island, Carla, and defeats her. To complete the second task, Guybrush purchases a map from The Citizen of Melee and digs up the Legendary Lost Treasure of Mêlée Island. And to complete the third, he sneaks into the Governor's Mansion and steals the Idol of Many Hands. There he meets Elaine, and instantly falls in love with her. She is willing to let him go, but Sheriff Fester Shinetop has been following Guybrush, and places him under arrest. After revealing to Guybrush that he has a sinister plan for Elaine, Fester ties him down and throws him into the sea.
Guybrush escapes, and when he climbs ashore he sees Elaine, who has come to rescue him. It turns out Elaine has fallen in love with Guybrush. She tells him to come visit her at the mansion, when he has completed the three trials.
However, before they can meet again, LeChuck's ghost ship visits the island and he kidnaps Elaine. All the other pirates immediately begin looting the Governor's Mansion, so it is up to Guybrush to rescue her. He recruits three people to serve as his crew: Carla, Meathook and Otis. He purchases a ship from Stan's Previously Owned Vessels, which legend has it was sailed to Monkey Island itself.
Part 2: The journey
Once they are out on the high seas, Guybrush's crew immediately set out deckchairs and announce their disinclination to do any work. Unable to convince them to crew the ship, Guybrush looks through the ship for any clues relating to the location of Monkey Island. He finds a captain's log, written by an unseen character, and a recipe entitled Directions to Monkey Island. He follows the directions and a cloud of powerful fumes knock him and his crew unconscious. As they sleep a powerful voodoo spell guides the ship. When they awake several days later, they are off the coast of Monkey Island.
Part 3: Under Monkey Island
Guybrush's crew are still unwilling to move from their deckchairs, so Guybrush enters Monkey Island alone. There he meets Herman Toothrot, an insane hermit, and learns that LeChuck's ghost ship is in a secret underground cavern underneath a Giant Monkey Head. Later he meets a village full of cannibals, who he first angers and later makes peace with. They offer to make a ghost zapping potion for him using a magical root which LeChuck stole, if he can bring it back. Using a magical Navigator's Head, Guybrush enters the Giant Monkey Head, navigates the underground caverns, and boards LeChuck's ghost ship wearing a necklace that makes him invisible to ghosts. He finds Elaine captive, but the heavy ghost guard around her makes her impossible to rescue. Instead he retrieves the root and returns to the cannibals, who make the ghost zapping potion. It turns out to be very similar to root beer. Guybrush returns to the underground cavern, but LeChuck's ship has already left. From the single ghost left behind, he learns that LeChuck has taken Elaine to Mêlée Island so they can be married. Herman Toothrot shows up, and offers to take him back to Mêlée Island on his ship.
Part 4: Guybrush Kicks Butt
Guybrush rushes to the church, using the ghost zapping potion on any ghost in his way. When he reaches the church he tries to stop the wedding, but even as LeChuck challenges him Elaine abseils down from the ceiling and reveals she escaped from LeChuck's ship long ago. The figure in the wedding dress turns out to be two monkeys with Guybrush's root beer zapper. They scamper off, with Elaine in hot pursuit. LeChuck begins starts punching him all over Mêlée Island. Finally LeChuck punches him into the Grog Machine at Stan's Previously Owned Vessels. A bottle of root beer spills out of the machine and Guybrush manages to zap LeChuck with it. Elaine shows up and they watch LeChuck's body bursting into fireworks all over the night sky.
Main characters
Featured islands
Version differences
The Sega CD release makes it one of two Monkey Island games to ever have an official console-release, the second being Escape from Monkey Island. The innitial versions of the game used 16 colours, but after the release of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge all versions were made with an upgraded 256 colour-palette. Additionally, the original versions of the game had a text-based verb-system, but in later versions the graphic-interface of the second game was used. This omitted the Turn On and Turn Off commands from the game. Also the music is CD audio rather than MT-32 MIDI, featuring some more tracks as well as some extended version. They are not recorded from an MT-32, though.
The Amiga version had its music done as TFMX renditions. Also the Sega CD version did not include save-games, but instead a password-system.
The PC floppies feature a stump joke requesting a fictive disk 22 among others. The help line got many calls from confused customers due to this, so LucasArts decided to remove that joke in later versions. It is not present in non PC versions either.
Endings
There are two variants of the ending and while for the most part the endings are identical there is one aspect that the player can affect. If the player sinks the Sea Monkey while on Monkey Island, Meathook, Carla and Otis are left on Monkey Island and shown to be captured by the Cannibals at the end of the game. If the player didn't sink the ship Herman will be shown standing on a beach wondering if Guybrush remembered to promise to save him.
According the Escape from Monkey Island Guybrush did leave his crew on Monkey Island as mentioned by the characters and Herman who mentions his boat (which is used to escape Monkey Island if the player sinks the Sea Monkey).
