An idea for future Monkey Island fan games...

[Gremlins]

I noticed that most people who are planning on making fan games are usually shooting for a CMI ish game. I think the reason none of those get finished is because CMI was made by a large team of developers with a large team of artists, and it's just too big a project for a handful of volenteers.

What if instead, we tried to make a simple SMI ish game? I'm talking low res EGA graphics, complete with old style audio and music. I don't know about you guys, but I could pump out a SMI quality EGA background image in under an hour in paint brush. Couple that with the time saved by using one of the pre-made adventure game builders and you're looking at an achievable project...

I was playing the original EGA monkey island the other day and the graphics are really not that bad. I think they have a certain charm that would be harder to reproduce at a higher resolution...

What do you guys think? Would you actually play a fan game that had SMI quality EGA graphics? Or have I been playing video games from the late 80's and early 90's too much?

[tizerist]

nah, i think the lo-res MI1 / MI2 look is best left in the past.

I think the best bet would be to attempt to assist the guys who are making the MI3 / MI4 style fangames that are currently in production, such as offering to help with programming, animation or cutscenes.
These guys need all the help they can. I would suggest joining a current fangame project and pushing these games closer to daylight.

[Thrik]

I don't think there'd be too much of an audience as there's a kind of nostalgic charm attached to MI1 and MI2; that is, it's the nostalgia that allows one to be completely unaffected by the relatively ancient-looking visuals. I don't think a new game, especially one produced by fans, could really hit the right notes.

A number of fan games were actually released many years ago with the old style (and indeed, some of the sprites were simply taken); unfortunately LucasArts' legal department was in full swing at the time and shut them all down, forcing them to use names and universes unrelated to MI (although the sprites were clearly still stolen in places). They're not remembered too fondly, really.

That said, I don't believe in fan games at all personally and to this day I've never, ever seen one I could truly say is "pretty damn good". The problem is usually derived from fans simply not having the writing ability to come up with dialogue and humour that's anywhere near as funny as the real thing, instead either re-using jokes from the game (turning them into poor running gags) or just using outright stinky humour.

[Gremlins]

You guys make a good point, EGA is very much dead. But here's where I got the idea in the first place: I recently picked up a copy of the space quest collection and played a few of the original space quest games all the way through (I had never really played them before, so there was no real nostalgia there). I actually really enjoyed the original EGA games. Once you got used to the graphics, it was lots of fun. I figured that if I could actually enjoy a game with 20 year old graphics, maybe others could as well. It sounds like I'm in the obvious minority...

I would just rather see an old SMI fan game that's completely finished rather than a beautiful CMI fan game that's purpetually %20 finished. Ah well...

[UberSkull]

I agree that it would be better to make a SMI styled graphics game. I mean really...the graphics aren't that important to adventure games like Monkey Island. If you can tell a good story and make it fun and enjoyable the graphics don't really matter. And if you can't get past that...well, I feel sorry for you.

Graphics are important, but they are a lower priority for what makes a great MI game.