For real! As we revealed at E3, Telltale's latest episodic series is Tales of Monkey Island, a five-episode saga featuring mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood and his motley crew. Tales of Monkey Island pulls the legendary franchise thundering and plundering into the modern era with an epic storyline conceived by some of the same team that dreamed up the original games. So polish up your swashbuckles and start practicing your Aaaarrrrr!, because this brand new Monkey Island adventure is available now!
Allow us to introduce ourselves. We're Telltale, a company founded five years ago by former LucasArts employees Dan Connors and Kevin Bruner. Dan and Kevin dreamed of bringing the kind of story games LucasArts made famous—you know, games like The Secret of Monkey Island—back into the limelight in a digitally-distributed, episodic format. That dream became a reality as Telltale released series after series of high quality, critically-acclaimed episodic series, including two award-winning seasons of Sam & Max… maybe you've heard of those guys?
Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island team includes a lot of people who worked on the original games. For example, our design director Dave Grossman was one of the main writers/designers on The Secret of Monkey Island and its sequel. Oh, we also have Monkey Island composer Michael Land doing the music, and the excellent Dominic Armato reprises his role as the voice of Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™. Still not convinced? Check out who else is working on the game on our Tales of Monkey Island team page, and prepare to wet yourself.
Ron doesn't work at Telltale (he's busy making his own game with Hothead), but he's friends with a lot of Telltale folks from back in the day at LucasArts. And when he found out what we were up to with Tales of Monkey Island, he was pretty excited. In fact, early in the project he came down to our office for a few days to brainstorm ideas with our team. You can see what Ron has to say about the new series over at his Grumpy Gamer blog.
Of course they do! (Monkey Island is a LucasArts property, after all.) We licensed the Monkey Island rights from LucasArts, the same way we've licensed other franchises from their owners—like Sam & Max from Steve Purcell, Strong Bad from the Brothers Chaps, and Wallace & Gromit from Aardman—and now we're working closely with them to bring you this new chapter in Guybrush's adventures.
You're thinking of The Secret of Monkey Island®: Special Edition, which is the game our friends at LucasArts have recently released. This is the faithfully re-imagined version of the original The Secret of Monkey Island, presented in all new HD detail. You can find more details about The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition here.
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. Join Guybrush for a 5-episode adventure filled with intrigue, betrayal, suspense, and a rich, gooey helping of piratey goodness. Not to mention the second biggest… oh wait, you've heard that one before?
Guybrush, LeChuck, Elaine, and the Voodoo Lady, for sure. Plus there's a whole new cast, new islands to explore, new voodoo curses to recite… okay, that's all you're getting out of us!
The games will be released as monthly downloads for PC, right here at www.telltalegames.com. You can also find them on Steam, Direct2Drive, and Amazon.com Game Downloads. The WiiWare versions will be released through the Wii Shop Channel on a similar schedule. We've already released some of the episodes, so check them out now!
You won't find it on store shelves (yet), but here's a guide to purchasing a game through your Wii Console.
You're in luck! As we do with all of our episodic series, we'll put Tales of Monkey Island on a disc after all five episodes have been distributed digitally. This Collector's DVD will be available to season customers for just the cost of shipping. So you get the best of both worlds: instant access to each monthly episode as it releases AND a physical copy to hold onto for posterity.
On PC, the five-episode bundle costs $34.95.
The WiiWare price will be 1000 points per episode.
We've got a playable demo right here!
Not at all! Of course, the series will be full of jokes that longtime Monkey Island fans can appreciate, but if you're a newbie, Tales of Monkey Island is a fine place to start.
Yes! In our online store, we accommodate nearly every country in the whole wide world. During checkout you'll be presented with a long list of countries to choose from. If yours isn't there, email support@telltalegames.com and we'll look into it. But that almost never happens. (Oh, and if you're in the UK, it's listed as Great Britain. Don't ask us why. Ask the United States Post Office.)
That depends. If your mother tongue is English, then you're in luck! If it's not English, well, you won't be able to yet. We do hope to localize Tales of Monkey Island in the future, but initially the episodes will be English only.
The Tales of Monkey Island Collector's DVD will be available in 2010, after all of the episodes have been released. When the free DVD is available for ordering we'll send an email to all Tales of Monkey Island customers letting you know it's time to come back and get it. You will enter your shipping address and pay for shipping at that time.
That depends where you live. For a shipping estimate, you can add another of our Collector's DVDs to your cart and start the checkout process. After you enter your shipping address, you'll see a drop-down list of shipping options and prices. The shipping options for the Tales of Monkey Island DVD will be similar. (No worries, you don't have to complete checkout in order to see the shipping options!)
You mean, other than the fact that it's a brand new installment of the most revered adventure game series of all time?
For one thing, it's episodic. Tales of Monkey Island is made up of five monthly episodes that tell a progressive story. More so than any of our previous series, Tales of Monkey Island is an ongoing saga, with the story building across all five episodes and a huge surprise ending.
Another plus is that Tales of Monkey Island is more streamlined than the adventure games you may remember from the 1990s, with more accessible, less frustrating gameplay that stays out of the way so you can enjoy the story. Telltale's taken everything that made the original Monkey Island games great—creative storylines, charming characters, hilarious dialogue—and we're putting them in a format today's gamers can appreciate. Short attention span? No problem, our games are designed to be finished up over a weekend or in a few evening sessions, so you'll get that sense of satisfaction in completing what you've started. No long, frustrating stretches of being stuck, either. In our games, the characters increase their power of suggestion if they detect you're stuck. Yep, they really are that smart.
Is this a trick question? We know fans have been imagining their own versions of a new Monkey Island game for a decade now, but we're not trying to make that sequel you dreamed up… we're making something completely new. And Tales of Monkey Island will be just like you remember in the ways that really count. Funny characters? Check! Goofball humor? Check! Ridiculous storyline that lovingly spoofs pirate legend and lore? Check!
And let's face it, the elements we're not carrying over from the previous Monkey Island games, like copy protection code, went out with Milli Vanilli. Tales of Monkey Island isn't your father's older brother's you-from-ten-years-ago's Monkey Island game. It's brand new. It's exciting. It's built by the same people who built the originals, with 10+ years of additional experience making great games. It's YOUR Monkey Island game. And it's available now.
That's right, a brand new, 5-part series of Monkey Island games. And you never thought you'd see the day.
