DOS

The Secret of Monkey Island

Trivia

The back cover of some versions of the game has a screenshot with a close-up of Spiffy the Dog. The image is however not available in the original game. It was cut to save space on the floppy disks, but the marketing team had already chosen it for the artwork. The image of the close-up was added in the 2009 game The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.

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Secret of Monkey Island was named #19 overall among the “150 Best Games of All Time” by Computer Gaming World Magazine (15th Anniversary Issue--November 1996).

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Though he's long been on the record regarding Monkey Island's inspiration from the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride (the ride, having earned its own movies, effectively nullifying any chance of a Monkey Island movie once in development), Ron Gilbert has come clean regarding another primary source of inspiration, a recently-back-in-print book by Tim Power entitled On Stranger Tides, ensuring a heavy injection of voodoo into the Monkey Island mythos.

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The SCUMM bar early in the game is obviously a reference to the SCUMM game engine (which stands for "Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion"), created by Ron Gilbert of Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts, and which has been used in several other adventure titles including The Secret of Monkey Island.

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The Sega CD version did have the exact track listing of the PC-CDROM version … almost.

There is a mastering error for the background sound effects. Specifically, the night time forest sound effect on track 24 is only two seconds long, and this track continues on to the next three tracks, also cut off in seconds. Also, because of this error, there is no jungle background sound effect that should be present in track 25. Indeed, it’s curious to hear night time ambiance heard at Melee Island during the daytime when Guybrush is in the jungle on Monkey Island.

A fix to this problem can be done by taking the last two audio tracks from the PC-CDROM version (tracks 24 and 25) and, usually through an extraction of the data and individual audio tracks of the Sega CD disc (except tracks 24, 25, 26, and 27) and a creation of a proper cuesheet (complete with the 2 second pregap for all audio tracks) for burning through CDRWin, restore the correct sound effects playback for the game at the points affected for the Sega CD version. - Reinhart

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The "FUNCTION AND COMMAND KEYS" section of the enclosed reference documentation listed a somewhat peculiar option after the more conventional game interface options:

- Reposition Instantly (CTRL+R)
- Quit Game (CTRL+C or ALT+X)
- Win the Game (CTRL+W).

Enthusiastic game-players who jumped in before fully reading the manual might never have encountered that little easter egg. When the key combination was entered, the game would prompt the player: "Are you sure you want to win? (Y/N)" If the player responded Y, the screen would blank, then triumphantly flash"You Win! You scored 800 out of 800 points", regardless of how much (if any) of the game had been completed, all the while tootling the goofily festive music from the Fettucini Bros. circus tent. The regular closing credits (with more than a few joke titles there also) would follow, the entire interactive remainder of the game having been neatly bypassed. Truly here was proof that the playing of the game is far more satisfying than the mere winning of it.

Apparently some permutation of this easter egg is revisited in distant sequel Escape From Monkey Island.

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According to a G4 interview with Tim Schaffer because Lucasarts was so small at the time and the first shipment of Monkey Island was larger than normal, Lucasarts asked the staff to go help stuff the boxes for the first shipment. So you might own a copy packed by the creators themselves!

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The Secret of Monkey Island was ranked # 49 in the 50 Best Games of All Time list published by PC Gamer Magazine in its April 2005 issue.

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"Monkey Island" is a colloquial term used to describe the area on the roof of the bridge on a modern cargo ship. It is mainly used by the crews of the large cargo ships operating in the East Indies, South East Asia and the South Pacific.

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Lucasarts makes a stab at Sierra adventure games when Guybrush walks off the ledge of the outcrop containg the projectile device on Monkey Island. A standard Sierra adventure death dialogue box emerges saying that your character (Guybrush) has died and you can now choose to Restore, Restart or Quit the game.

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Keep escaping and returning from the cannibal village and the prison door will change its shape to a more modern door.

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Just like other games from LucasArts, this has also a reference to Sam & Max. Just look at the idols neat the big monkey head.

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In the SCUMM bar, one of the pirates is wearing a button with the word LOOM written on it. All he says is "Aye," but if you ask him about LOOM, he will give you a full and lengthy advertisment to LOOM ( another game by Lucasarts ) - the Idea was re-used again in Monkey Island 3 with Manny Calavera ( from Grim Fandango )

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The German translation of Monkey Island was done by Boris "Doc Bobo" Schneider. In the early 90's, Schneider was one of Germany's most popular gaming mag editors (for Power Play magazine) and later editor-in-chief of PC Player. He currently works as lead PR manager for Microsoft Germany.

Schneider's translation is arguably a fine one, staying true to Monkey Island's peculiar kind of humor and even adding a few new jokes.

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One of the first scribbles for Monkey Island that were used for the different story-branches hang in the bathroom of George 'The Fat Man' Sanger's studio in Austin/Texas... and I touched it!!! ;)

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The CD version of the game featured CD music and new sound effects - not seen in the disk version.

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.There is a hidden "bug" on the cd rom version:if you try to load the game with "e" parameter, you won't see the inventory because it is 256 colors only.

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When wandering in the forest, if you examine a certain tree stump very closely, Guybrush sees something in there and tries to crawl in. The game then asks you for disks you don't have, and Guybrush says something like "Oh well, I guess I don't fit".

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The CD version of the game was distributed by Software Toolworks at one point - with one of their computer map programs.

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Did you know there IS a real Monkey Island in the Caribbean Sea? Well, it's real name is Mono Island, but the word "mono" means "monkey" in Spanish :)

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Ron Gilbert was going to make the part where you get Meathook to join your crew longer, but the idea was axed.

Did you know you can make Meathook make his tattoo talk? Ask him at his hut!!!

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No speech version was created. There has been talk of a speech version to be created, but is just an idea at the moment.

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The CD version (or at least Monkey Island Madness) of this game and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, has a few lines cut out of the game for the games to fit.

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The original version came with a code-wheel copy protection, in which you had to mix and match several pirate's faces and assemble their names. Tough it was just as annoying as any copy protection, it was still an interesting gimmick and sadly it is only present in the original release.

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Secret of Monkey Island saw a Sega CD version in 1992, soon after the system was released on the U.S. The Sega CD version is based on the 256-color VGA version of SOMI...even the layout of the CD Audio is exactly the same as the PC version!

Unfortunately, the Sega CD version was a horrible port.

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At one point, they actually deleted a whole bunch of the games because it didn't flow well with the story.

In the demo of the games, when you went to the fortune tellers place, you could touch the chalice...and you would turn into Indiana Jones.

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The character of Herman Toothrot was added because the script was running a little slow once you got to Monkey Island...the player needed someone to talk to.

THE Secret of Monkey Island has never actually been revealed by Ron Gilbert, but some peopple believe that it has to do with the anachronisms in the games.

Ron Gilbert said that he wanted to make a pirate game for a long time, because when he was little he loved the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland but wanted to "get out" and explore the ships.

Stan is reportedly Ron Gilbert's favorite character in all of the Monkey Island games.

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This game is a member of Computer Gaming World's Hall of Fame.

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The troll on the toll bridge saying 'none shall pass' was inspired by 'Monty python and the holy grail'.

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On monkey island, when you got to the top of the mountain where all the rocks are, try walking off the edge into the jungle. You're in for a surprise!

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Originally, there used to be a ship combat sequence in Monkey Island 1. While this scene didn't make it into the final cut, the idea was re-used in Monkey Island 3.

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The name of Guybrush's archnemesis LeChuck was born after Steve Arnold, the General Manager at Lucasfilm Games in 1989, had been telling Ron Gilbert (the series creator) how he really liked the name "Chuck" and would like some character in one of their games to be called "Chuck".

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A complete version of The Secret of Monkey Island is available on Classic Games Collection CD featured in the July 2000 issue of PC Gamer Magazine.

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Guybrush got his name from the fact that in DPaint, the art software being used at the time, you saved palettes and other art particulars in files called "brushes", and the one for the guy who was the hero was called the "guybrush". "Threepwood" was decided by a company contest.

The original closeup of Elaine in MI (where Guybrush is speechless) was supposedly based on Avril Harrison, an artist who was working for Lucas Games at the time (she also worked on the original Prince of Persia, among other things).

Carla, the Swordmaster, was a likeness of Carla Green who was at that time in charge of Lucas Games Product Support.

The guy who was in the Troll suit on the bridge was meant to look like George Lucas.

Did you know that you CAN kill Guybrush? Just stay under water for more than 10 minutes.

(Source: The SCUMM Bar)

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There are three different versions of the game: 16-color EGA disk version, 256-color VGA disk version, and 256-color VGA CD-ROM version. CD-ROM version adds CD audio soundtrack, and a furnished interface with graphical inventory items.

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