Monkey Mechanics

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Just some thoughts on adventure game (Tales of Monkey Island Episode 1) controls, actions and hint systems.

Adventure games make my head explode from time to time, most of the time because there as so many possible ways to go, and usually only one way to solve a specific puzzle. I like hint systems that are not thrown in my face. How can the game designer help the player on hirs path to completion? The branching dialogue system can work as a hint-system when the “extracurricular dialogue options” (as in not relevant for completing the game) disappears from the choice menu in conversations already had, while those deemed important can be re-chosen. This is a way of pointing out the direction for the game’s puzzles, but also to remind people of what to actually accomplish. As a reminder it would seem unnecessary in a game as short as the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island.

This type of hint mechanic but applied to “cleared” areas is something I would like to see in other adventure games, where you for example cannot travel to areas which has nothing of importance left to explore, or hints divided into categories pertaining to the meaning of “got all items”, “got all dialogue”, etc. Non-linear games and puzzle solving make this type of hint system difficult to execute though. But if the game in itself is non-linear, why only make puzzles with one specific solution to it? Make more! Reward different ways of thinking!

Another way of lessening the possible options for a player in an adventure game designer is to simply not highlight them, even if the items requiring pixel hunting often are just as important as the others! At least you as a player know that if you can pick up an item, it is to be used within the game—except for when the item picked up is a red herring! But why are we left with some items after having used them, while other disappear? In Tales of Monkey Island this could be used for continuity effects—that we bring the items with us to the second part—but in other games I fail to see the reason most of the time. The items you have with you until the end could have thematic purposes and tell us something about the character or the nature of something, or it could simply be for funsies such as the gown in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but most of the time it’s just seems random. Sometimes a specific puzzle in the end-game would be to easy to solve if you as a player had not at least some options to think through, of course.

One thing Tell-Tale Games have been doing with their adventure games is changing the traditional control system, mainly taking away most of the verbs/directives and replacing them with “interact”, situated on the left mouse button. This is in order to not scare away potential customers (casual gamers) I reckon, but it is interesting nonetheless and once again relates to management of the number of possible actions. Does this decision of removing the nuances of the interact-schematics make for an easier game? Definitely. Does it make for a better game? Depends, I guess. We have ask ourselves: how many actions that lead to nothing at all do we want in a puzzle game? What are the consequences of different approaches to this? How do these approaches stimulate imagination and lateral thinking?

A quick note on general controls: The “camera angle” differs from earlier Monkey Island games (especially those made in 2D) probably because Telltale wanted a more dynamic and movie-like camera, which often lets you in closer onto the action even during gameplay, but fails giving you an overview of the environment and thus the different options available. The game makes me feel trapped in a way, in its own prototypical treasure hunting/stereotypical characterization and the lens through which we as players perceive the world. The claustrophobic feeling is not helped by the fact that the most intuitive controls (the mouse) are horrible, or very smart (probably just horrible though). Tales of Monkey Island actually tries to reinvent the navigation wheel; the controls must have come to exist through some kind of monkey wrench, they must have! But it would be way more cool if the controls were a thematic element put in to make the player aware that the curse of LeChuck is pumping through the very mouse you are controlling. Maybe a comment on the relation of author as player, and player as author? Yeah, probably not.

And by the three headed monkey of monkeys, I just NOW realized that the second episode is out! :O

Evil pastimes

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Wouldn’t you say that Guybrushs’ attempts at being frightening, evil and piratey are misguided? I mean, ze isn’t evil, is ze? Really, isn’t ze simply... a coward who wishes to overcome ze’s own insecurities? But being an inherently good-willed guy while being (or trying to be) a pirate isn’t easy, unless there are excuses for why you are perceived as evil (misinterpretation), the evil deeds done by the good guy are mistakes (motive), or, if the good guy basically is misguided (humour, forgiveness). There are also the internet-roaming kind of pirates who may be written off as evil (misinterpretation) by media but nonetheless seems harmless by most of the people, an issue that Telltale for me has failed to incorporate or allude to in their first revamp of Monkey Island—possibly due to the fact that they’ve dealt with similar issues already in Sam & Max’s “Reality 2.0” and not because Monkey Island would be the wrong place for anachronistic or non-dietetic real-world humour; a U-Tube just seems like to much of a coincidence.

Are there reasons for Guybrush to commit illegal acts of spite, even? The main story is similar to many prototypic video game series such as Metroid, Castlevania or Zelda where the hero starts from scratch at each new adventure. Sometimes simply because the hero is a different character than in the previous game, but most of the time because it makes sense from a game-mechanic progress and development-perspective. In Tales of Monkey Island you have to prove yourself as a pirate once again and must do so by committing petty crimes. Your other motives are saving Elaine and, stopping LeChuck and doing something about that pesky cursed arm of yours. But let’s focus on the actions you as a player commit, and how evil they really are.

The three missions you have taken up on are stealing in order to start a fight, trick a lunatic to find a treasure, and throw a bomb to become Captain. How are these actions' evilness lessened by the narrative? Sure, the game rewards you for stealing, but it turns out the one Guybrush stole from didn’t mind Guybrush taking ze’s property. The bar-fight is caused by the cursed hand (misinterpretation) which has a will of its’ own and therefore has nothing to do with our hero (forgiveness/motive). The same character from whom Guybrush steals is the one you bomb away, but this person loved the challenge to begin with, taunted you while to tried to commit the atrocity and failed, and also congratulates you afterwards and becomes your first-mate, which lessens the impact of the perceived evil even less. When it comes to tricking Joaquin D’Oro—the person obsessed with dolls—well, ze is happy afterwards, and isn’t that all that matters?

There is also the Town Gazette, spreading all these rumours of you being frightening, and you actively contributing to this by tipping of the only journalist of the crimes you’ve committed. You do this because the journalist knows the locations of Deep Gut whom you must get a hold of. There are all these rumours circulating around Deep Gut, all of which turn out to be wrong. This gives reason to believe that also Guybrush perhaps isn’t evil even if ze is perceived that way—if somebody should have missed that. (I’m interested how the whole LeChuck-goes-human-and-good turns out; is the curse of LeChuck simply that, a curse? What are the implications of evil being seen that way, and what would happen if Elaine suddenly got the curse?)

Why should I give you the Map?!

Is there more to Guybrush’s wanting to become a pirate? There doesn’t seem to be any ideology behind ze’s vigilante identity; an anarchistic laissez-fair ideology where pirates take over the ships of their rich, undeserving rulers and then roam the sea in order to achieve some kind of independence wouldn’t give enough incentive to do much else, except for when the governments demonize pirates as a species in order to be seen as enemies by the public and Guybrush took it on ze to change this. Guybrush aspirers to be a pirate because... I dunno, because we're all supposed to have been small boys growing up, wanting to become pirates? He's cute like that, Guybrush. A kid. Misguided. Just like we were. Not anything like Marquis DeSinge (whose name reminds me of someone special, especially considering Singes’ monkey has masochistic tendencies) is the real evil antagonist, as it turns out after a while. The obvious difference between the two make Guybrush so much less evil, even if both characters are going for some kind of dream; one wanting to become a pirate and the other advocating sacrifice in the name of science. On whose side is the law? Well, technically speaking the law is on vacation in Tales of Monkey Island, but one of the final puzzles is solved with the use of the carvings on the empty prison cells… which has to mean something! Is it justification, or just irony? (For a moment there I thought that it would be cool if that specific puzzle was the one that trapped DeSade, but on the other hand he got his own science-made weapon turned against him, which is neat also.)

Marquis DeSinge is a mad scientist, a man, yes: Tales of Monkey Island is a mans world with only 2/10 characters being female, including Elaine and Guybrush. And while we’re on the subject of representation, it’s interesting that there are so few coloured people in the game, and that LeChuck turns white when he becomes “good”. Will this whiteness or the simple good-will of LeChuck make ze a sympathetic character in the following episodes? Will we learn some kind of moral lesson through all of this? Will our lover Elaine become cursed and evil, LeElaine? Me, I'm hoping the second episode begins with an insult sword fight!