The Monkey Island SCUMM Bar: Latest News

If you’ve ever wanted to peruse the Special Edition animations, well, here’s your chance. Thanks to Benzo – who, aside from still being a TSB’s employee despite what he thinks, you might better know from Quick & Easy Software – we now have all the animations from the reimagined Monkey Islands.

Now, before you get too excited and fire up your meme machine, this is a bit different than your standard GIFs. These are the animations as they appear in the resource files. I.e., some will be properly looped animations, while others will only have one cycle – or simply just one still frame. For example…

You get the point… Run and peruse all 5,192 of them.

• The Secret of Monkey Island SE
• LeChuck’s Revenge SE

File this one under “good news” – Dave Grossman Footnote: A man who presumably doesn’t need an introduction… The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, Return to Monkey Island… has joined the Thimbleweed Park 2 team as a writer. According to the official blog, Dave attended his first dev meeting just a couple of days ago.

Somewhat related, I posted an article to Mojo called “ICYMI: Thimbleweed Park,” which is largely a tinfoil-hat speculation on a shared Maniac Mansion and Thimbleweed Park universe. It’s mostly based on the Bar’s trivia section, but… well… in a Pepe Silvia veneer. Check it out:

And yes, as Grossman was the co-project lead on Day of the Tentacle, the Maniacverse theory marches forward.

Man, that “Summer of Retro” came and went, didn’t it? But never mind, that gives us the chance to kick off “Autumn of Catch-up” – things we missed over the last few weeks mixed with stuff we got lying around and haven’t updated yet. You know. Those kinds of things.

So, first… Retro Gamer sat down with Mike Stemmle and Sean Clark to talk Escape from Monkey Island. The story isn’t stuffed with new information, but is more than worth the $4.29 price of admission. (That’s for the digital version – $16.49 for the print edition might be pushing it.) Grab it from Magazines Direct.

Elsewhere, a dedicated person wrote an article called “The science of Monkey Island: can grog actually dissolve a metal mug that fast?” You can also download a PDF – very scholarly – and to give you an idea of what to expect…

Takes me back to high school, where I barely passed science.

Finally, you probably already know that the official Thimbleweed Park podcast has recommenced. For your convenience, we’ve added it to our equally-ish official TWP2 resource page. That’s just how we roll.

Here we are then – thirty years after Skyfox founded the Bar, and the site is still around. Cockroaches, nuclear blasts, and all that. This would be a good spot to solemnly link to our first news post, but that one is probably mercifully lost to time. (The earliest entry we got is from July 1997. Instead, we put together an article to commemorate this – let’s be honest – unlikely anniversary…

God help us all, but at this point it’s not out of the question that we’ll be around in 2056. We’ll see you again in thirty years.

We’re falling a bit behind on the news as we’re preparing for next week’s thirtieth anniversary bash. Footnote: There won’t be a “bash” as such, but this is a good time to review your last will and testament, etc. And yes, we are turning thirty. Yow. So, to get back to it: The Escape from Monkey Island Fan Remaster is exactly what one would expect it to be. An upscale of everyone’s favorite fourth Monkey Island game. Liam, the person behind it, has this to say:

I'm not really sure how to approach something like this. I've released a Monkey creation 5 years in the making today, so I figured I should probably reach out and let you guys know, in case it's of interest :)

It's a remaster of EMI - all backgrounds, effects, textures, and cutscenes, running directly in the game. Reddit being Reddit has flagged the post for spam, so I'm not sure if it'll ever be visible on there.

Have a look at this video for more:

The aforementioned Reddit thread is, in fact, alive, so read it for instructions – the GOG version of EMI is in all likelihood required. And note the shoutout to our very own Benzo, whose TSB admin account is still active, meaning he is still in servitude. Your service is appreciated. ;-*

So, let’s just start with some merch. Unofficial merch of the art variety, courtesy of one Goran. The delightful little series is themed around retired Monkey Island characters – I picked up the LeChuck one myself…

… and there are five more to pick from.

Elsewhere, if you’re interested in learning the story behind the 30th Anniversary Guybrush figurine, here’s your chance.

Over on the sosh, old SCUMM Bar forumer, Trapezoid, has done some EGA palette hacking for The Secret of Monkey Island.

Finally, the Ronmeister himself sat down with Cressup to chat Thimbleweed Park 2 – he briefly touches upon doing another Monkey Island, though that sounds like it’d be way out in time.

It’s sort of fitting, isn’t it? A site with a 2002 design should host sections dedicated to games with a late-80s/early-90s vibe – in this case, Thimbleweed Park. That is to say, we now have three new sections for the OG Thimbleweed Park, Delores, and, perhaps most importantly, Thimbleweed Park 2. There isn’t a whole lot of content for the latter – yet – but you bet we’ll add it as it comes. Plus, its news aggregator might be helpful. In fact, you’ll see a smaller version of it right in the sidebar (or under Menu if you’re on a smaller screen). Keep track of your Thimbleweed Park 2 happenings from the official Dev blog and Mojo. We treat you so fine.

Speaking of Mojo, this is where I should mention that these sections were supposed to appear on the nascent MojoDB, but, yada yada yada, for the time being, they are reduced to the lowly SCUMM Bar. Realistically, Thimbleweed Park 2 might release before MojoDB’s codebase is where it needs to be.

So, three sections, right here, all about Thimbleweed Park, presented in the Bar’s patented early-aughts veneer.

You heard it here… well, maybe not first, but probably not last: Ron is getting back into the Thimbleweed Park game. As is a chunk of familiar names.

The good news is that we just started production on Thimbleweed Park 2, due out in early 2028.

We will self-publish with the help of a private investor.

Mark Ferrari, Gary Winnick, David Fox, Octavi Navarro, Robert Megone, and others from the original team will be back!

Boom! Stay tuned for more here at the Bar, your Thimbleweed Park just-left-of-central!

Some of you may remember print magazines – publications released on a regular schedule with a set number of pages. Back in ’97 – the year of The Curse of Monkey Island – they were all the rage, and we had a history of transcribing some of them here at the Bar. For those who’ve never done that before, know that it’s a pain.

As this is our thirtieth anniversary, we have, against our better judgment, decided to do it one more time: Behold the July 1997 edition of PC Gamer, which featured The Curse of Monkey Island on the cover.

Want something slightly more modern? Read about Mire Island or check out the O.G. Cogg Island location. We’ve added a bunch of new trivia, too, so check out The Trivia Browser for more.

Claude has one, Gemini has one, so I’ll be damned if The SCUMM Bar shouldn’t have one. Introducing The Monkey Island Side Bar, which is exactly what it sounds like: A browser sidebar for the connoisseur of anything Monkey Island.

I mean, sure, I just threw this together to have a browser-based Monkey Island jukebox, which may or may not benefit you, too. 700+ random tracks, without going to the ’tube or whatever. As a bonus, you’ll also get our latest news, as well as any breaking announcements. (Look forward to Monkey Island 7, sometime around 2031.)

Grab it if you wish: Firefox or Chrome.