Ron Gilberts Pirates!
The idea to make a witty game about pirates, was conceived by Ron Gilbert, as early as Maniac Mansion, and in fact, the plan was to start work on that, right after mm`s release. But the pirates had to wait two more years, mainly because of the man with the hat and whip. But in October 1990, the pirates was ready to set sail, and at the same time, become a classic in video game history. The game is the Secret of Monkey Island.
Guybrush Threepwood, the "hero"
Anyone even remotely into video gaming, have heard about the Monkey Island series of adventure games. The first game in the series, The Secret of Monkey Island (subsequently called Somi), was released in October 1990, and it is a classic within its genre, and a piece of video game history. Whenever someone makes a list of the best games of all time, Somi usually is present. It`s the story of a young man, Guybrush Threepwood, who wants to seek his fortune as a pirate. On the way, he falls in love with the beautiful governor , Elaine Marley, who shortly after get kidnapped by the ghost pirate LeChuck. Now Guybrush have to begin a journey to get her back, a journey that you as the player control to some extent.
For instance, there is three trials you have to complete to become a pirate, but these three trials don`t have to be completed in a specific order, thus the games story is not linear. That was not common for adventure games at the time. A lot of the humor in somi is in the dialog with other characters in the game, where you can choose from a list of things to say. This also add to the games non linear feel.
A screenshot, showing both the interface, and the great view
from the top of Monkey Island. IBM-PC EGA
The interface
The game is build upon the game engine Scumm, which originally was made for the game Maniac Mansion
by Ron Gilbert and Aric Wilmunder, in fact the abbreviation stands for Script Creation Utility for
Maniac Mansion. The Scumm engine had previously been used in Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders,
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Loom, and now, the Secret of Monkey Island were the fifth game to utilize it.
Seven more games would come out in the following years, up until The Curse of Monkey Island that came out in 1997.
In the original release of somi, the interface had 12 verbs to choose from, but when the game was re-released on cdrom,
they took 3 verbs out, for a total of 9 verbs. The interface also was given a face lift, now the interface matched
that of Monkey Island 2. The interface included the verbs, to control the character, and also a inventory list.
The box for the original IBM 5.25" release.
Releases
The game was originally released in october 1990 on the IBM (3.5" and 5.25" floppy disks) and Atari ST with EGA graphics.
Some months later the game was released with VGA graphics on the IBM, and also released on the Amiga.
In 1992 the game was released on cdrom for the IBM, with VGA graphics and enhanced interface, and on the Macintosh,
also with the enhanced interface.
Finally, in 2009, a "special edition" was released, with new graphics in HD, and a voice over, previous versions didn`t have voices.
How to buy it
The Secret of Monkey Island is still a protected game, and can only be obtained by buying the game. If you only want to play the game, then the Secret of Monkey Island special edition can be bought as a download. However, if you want the original package with box and inserts, then you should try eBay or amazon. The game itself, if you have the original floppys, and can obtain the data from them, can be run using the excellent emulator ScummVM. Another emulator that works great is DosBox, but that only works with the dos version of somi. ScummVM works with any version.
The beautiful sunset, only seen in the 16-color EGA version, and only at the very start of the game.
Different releases in my collection:
Here you can see some of the different releases and the contents of the boxes:
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