Q&A With the Team

[Guybrush_Threepwood]

Originally Posted by seanvanaman

Cheer up, buttercup. You'll never even notice.

But Guybrush's sleeves are 8-sided prisms! We've already noticed, too late!
Sorry, off topic, sorry!!!

[Leak]

Originally Posted by Guybrush_Threepwood

But Guybrush's sleeves are 8-sided prisms! We've already noticed, too late!

Too bad geometry shaders for tesselation are only being added in DirectX 11; otherwise it should be easy to turn that 8 sided prism into a 64-sided one on the graphics card...

Still - my urge to buy a Wii then throw it off a cliff or something for hampering PC games is rising steadily...

Oh wait - where's the next volcano?

np: The Wooden Birds - The Other One (Magnolia)

[RockNRoll]

How do the puzzles compare with the old games, or are they more in line with your Sam & Max puzzles? Do you have an overarching philosophy on the challenge and gameplay aspect of TMI? Any new types of puzzling?

I personally really hope you are putting a lot of effort into nice, challenging open-ended puzzles that stand up to the old style and not making it really easy and hand-holding for the lowest common audience.

[taoa]

Originally Posted by freerad22

Would it be at all possible to have a higher rez option in the PC version?

Aaaah... Fans are always eager to give games makers twice as much work.

Bumping on the subject of the rendering abilities of Telltale's engine, most of the games I've seen from you guys (from Bones to Sam & Max and screenshots/artworks of this new Monkey Island game) seem to just rely on rendering coloured polygons, with the occasional texture here and there.
By no means would I demean the artistic direction of your games, and I think this cartoonish simplicity fits them quite well actually, but I'm certain during your tests, fooling around with the games engine, you tried a cell-shading-style rendering.
Would you mind telling us why you didn't kept it in the end? Is it because you wanted to make sure those games could run on even the most humble PCs (you know, those with dreadfully incapable but cheap Integrated Graphics Chips, which immediately overheat if next to them you put a piece of paper with the word 'shader' written on it)? I know (for having worked on a project for it) that the Wii is more than able to handle a cell-shading-style rendering. Or is it purely an artistic decision? Those games being very cartoonish, I'd have thought such a rendering style would suit them just fine.

Thanks!
(and sorry if the question has already been asked over and over again elsewhere on the forums I must admit I didn't read them all)

[fatjoem]

Originally Posted by Erwin

The only thing I'm wondering at the moment is how on earth you managed to keep this quiet for so long.

I second that, I was wondering this also. For how long has the game been in development now?

[MystMonkey]

I'm still kinda on cloud 9 so questions aren't coming as easy as praise and excitement but here are a few anyway

1) It was mentioned that the Lucasarts Secret of Monkey Island remake was getting not just the sound of Michael Land, but a full orchestra too? Is Tales also getting that orchestra treatment? I know you have Mr. Land helping you but will you also get a full (perhaps monkey filled) orchestra?

2) This is kind of a subjective question and general feeling - I happened to think Curse of Monkey Island had the most random/absurdist humor which I LOVED. While SoMI was my favorite of the series overall, CoMI was the most funny to me. MI2 was a bit darker to me, in both theme and humor. In terms of humor, which game would you say ToMI is closer to? Again, subjective and I don't really expect a real answer as much as opinions from the staff.

3) Will we ever find what rhymes with 'orange' so that the crew from CoMI can continue their singing?

[GuyMontague]

Originally Posted by der_ketzer

That makes two of us then.
I loved the monkey combat.

*Over-the-Internet high five*

[GuyMontague]

Originally Posted by MystMonkey

Will we ever find what rhymes with 'orange' so that the crew from CoMI can continue their singing?

<===

I applaud the Curse team for coming up with door-hinge. I know it doesn't technically rhyme, but it's pretty darn good:

The cap'n burst in, lookin' like he'd kick down the door-hinge
"We'll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an or-inge!"

[Seg]

Hello! Your friendly build engineer checking in!

Originally Posted by freerad22

Would it be at all possible to have a higher rez option in the PC version?

Short Answer:
Doesn't matter on Windows; Your computer's hardware is the limit.

Seg's Long Answer™:
The way things work is that we have one core set of data of the highest quality the art/sound personal makes. When it gets to my desk, it's up to the packaging process to take that data and deal with it working on the target platforms.

For the Wii, the compression dials are turned up quite a bit due to the limitations of WiiWare itself (40mb max) and of the limited power of the graphics. There's also a point where a certain amount of texture data makes no difference. Even in component and widescreen, the Wii is still at a very low display resolution.

On the Windows side of things, the dials are very low if not at zero; Enough to take the edge off. The quality at that point is all on your computer's specifications and your screen/speakers.

I should note that we've changed how audio is done since and including Strong Bad. Before the audio was pre-compressed and fixed for all builds/platforms. Now the sound is re-compressed at build time with each platform having different compression ratios. While this increased the time it takes to make a build, we're in a lot more control of how little or much sound is compressed.

For WiiWare, we turn the dials a little high to fit the 40mb cap. Within the production cycle, we start with a blanket compression, then start tweaking by character and then individual lines. On Windows, it's a blanket small amount of compression to take the edge off, but usually leave it be; It's just that good.

If you didn't like the sound quality in Sam & Max Season 1 and 2, it's gotten a lot better!

[shaark]

Are you going to release a soundtrack CD for Tales of Monkey Island?

[glo_kidd]

Originally Posted by taoa

-snipped-
3) Will we have a bit of 320x200, 16 colours, full 2D moment in one of the episodes of the game? For old times sake?
Or more simply, in this bit in The Curse Of Monkey Island, when Guybrush looks through a hole in the ceiling of a cave (or similar, fading memories you see...) and says "Whoa, you should see that, full realistic 3D". Now, in one of the new 3D episodes, we could see the 2D head of an old-style guybrush popping out of the ground saying that same thing again. A little wink to the old fan(rt)s.

Cheers!

Say like a room with a stunningly rendered group of 3d Jaguars? and a CMI Guybrush head peeking through a crack...

[Jake]

Originally Posted by RockNRoll

How do the puzzles compare with the old games, or are they more in line with your Sam & Max puzzles? Do you have an overarching philosophy on the challenge and gameplay aspect of TMI? Any new types of puzzling?

I personally really hope you are putting a lot of effort into nice, challenging open-ended puzzles that stand up to the old style and not making it really easy and hand-holding for the lowest common audience.

The puzzles will be more brain bendy than Sam & Max, but I can comfortably say you won't be using a monkey as a wrench to turn off a waterfall. Inventory combination is in, and you can go deep-diving in dialog trees to your heart's content. I don't know how it will end up comparing to the old Monkey games, but we are over the course of the series definitely pushing the tone of the puzzles a bit further back into the classic realm of hurting you a bit before they reveal their secrets than people who know us might expect.

Of course, the Telltale hint system is also there as it is in all of our games, so if you decide that in your old age you'd rather be entertained by a Monkey Island game without it crushing your very soul in the process, you can turn the hint frequency up. (Alternatively, you can turn hints off, too, of course.)

[Guybrush_Threepwood]

WiiWare files are limited to 40MB, I read...
The question is, is it likely that the pc episodes will be sized like that? Honestly, it seems a little weird to me, since the S&M episodes were often sized over 100 MB! (no, the "!" sign is not a factorial, it's just a "!").
It would sound like a little step back.

[Jake]

The PC and WiiWare releases will be based on the same original high quality master data set, and then we'll be wrestling it to the ground and stuffing it in a 40 meg box to put on WiiWare. We've done a few tests and it's already running and looking pretty nice. I think Wii customers will be confused/surprised by what jumps out of that box.

[Seg]

Originally Posted by Guybrush_Threepwood

WiiWare files are limited to 40MB, I read...
The question is, is it likely that the pc episodes will be sized like that? Honestly, it seems a little weird to me, since the S&M episodes were often sized over 100 MB! (no, the "!" sign is not a factorial, it's just a "!").
It would sound like a little step back.

The PC versions of Strong Bad were around 70mb - 110mb per episode. Strong Bad wasn't texture heavy as Sam & Max is.

[GuyMontague]

Originally Posted by Seg

The PC versions of Strong Bad were around 70mb - 110mb per episode. Strong Bad wasn't texture heavy as Sam & Max is.

I'll be very interesting to see how you get MI down to 40 Megs. I imagine piratical settings—wood, palm trees, sand—would be hard to render well without a lot of different textures.

Looking forward to seeing it!

[seanvanaman]

Science!

[Shanksworthy]

Originally Posted by MarkDarin

You hit the nail on the head! Right from the begining we decided we wanted to shoot for a look that fell somewhere between MI2 & CMI. These are generally most people's favorites (Often depending on which one they actually played first.) We wanted to keep a bit of the lankiness that kind of defined Guybrush in CMI, and couple it with that Iconic coat & beard we saw in MI2 (That is if you squinted enough).

Yeah, this works for me too. I was going to say that I preferred the look of Guybrush from MI 1, but on second thought, that kind of look wouldn't suit him anymore especially in a wacky 'tooned out 3D game world.

BTW have I mentioned that the new Guybrush reminds me of Conan O'Brien, if he had a goatee and ponytail?

[mithrandiryod]

You guys rule....seriously....I never thought this series would again see the light of day, and as such MI5 has been my most craved piece of vapor ware ever...and here it is about to release in a month.....today rules! I just hope for the love of everything holy (or unholy as LC would have it) that this game gets so much support that Lucasarts realizes what fools they were for waiting so long for this. Hopefully enough that they keep this thing going further.

As for questions.....I really didn't have any (I want to be surprised)...I just wanted to be a complete brown nose and tell you you've made my day/month/year this is the best news I've had in gaming in forever.

Thanks again,
-mith

[RockNRoll]

Originally Posted by Jake

The puzzles will be more brain bendy than Sam & Max, but I can comfortably say you won't be using a monkey as a wrench to turn off a waterfall. Inventory combination is in, and you can go deep-diving in dialog trees to your heart's content. I don't know how it will end up comparing to the old Monkey games, but we are over the course of the series definitely pushing the tone of the puzzles a bit further back into the classic realm of hurting you a bit before they reveal their secrets than people who know us might expect.

Of course, the Telltale hint system is also there as it is in all of our games, so if you decide that in your old age you'd rather be entertained by a Monkey Island game without it crushing your very soul in the process, you can turn the hint frequency up. (Alternatively, you can turn hints off, too, of course.)

Sounds pretty good. I like brain bendy. I hope the hint system gives you guys the confidence to then push the challenge! I like really having to figure out what to do and how to do it, rather than have my mission given and just fetch the items or have them basically fall in my lap in order. I was recently thinking back to how the originals were designed puzzle-wise, and it's just so much more clever and elegant than things are these days. It can't be an easy thing to design! Thanks for answering.