Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts in 1991. Players control the pirate Guybrush Threepwood, who searches for the legendary treasure of Big Whoop and faces the zombie pirate LeChuck.

Like The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), development was led by Ron Gilbert with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. Monkey Island 2 was the sixth LucasArts game to use the SCUMM engine and the first to use the iMUSE sound system.

Monkey Island 2 was a critical success, but a commercial disappointment. It was followed by The Curse of Monkey Island in 1997. A remake was released in 2010, following a similar remake of the first game. In 2022, Gilbert released Return to Monkey Island, set after the cliffhanger of Monkey Island 2.

Gameplay

File:Monkey island 2 prison.png

A scene in Monkey Island 2 shows the protagonist Guybrush Threepwood imprisoned on Phatt Island. Below the scene, the game displays the list of the verb commands and items in the player's inventory in a point-and-click menu.

LeChuck's Revenge plays like most SCUMM-based point-and-click adventure games. Actions and dialogues are depicted on an Animation Window which covers the top of the screen; verbal commands are listed in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, while Inventory items are shown as icons on the lower right-hand corner. A Sentence Line is located below the Animation Window and serves in describing the actions of the player.<ref name="mi2manual"/>

The game was one of the few adventure games that offered the player a choice in levels of puzzle difficulty. In some versions, before starting the game, the player is prompted to choose between regular version and "Monkey 2 Lite", a relatively stripped-down experience that bypasses many puzzles entirely. On the back of the game's packaging it is jokingly stated that this mode is intended for video-game reviewers.

Plot

Several months after the events of The Secret of Monkey Island,<ref name="mi2manual"/> Guybrush Threepwood is on Scabb Island searching for the legendary treasure of "Big Whoop".<ref name="MIL"/> He is robbed by Largo LaGrande, former first mate of the pirate LeChuck whose ghost Guybrush defeated in the previous game. Largo has imposed an embargo on the island, preventing anyone from leaving. Visiting the International House of Mojo in the island's swamp, Guybrush receives guidance from the Voodoo Lady who assisted him in his first adventure. Through actions involving laundry collection and grave-robbing, Guybrush collects the necessary materials for her to make a voodoo doll of Largo, which Guybrush uses against him. However, Guybrush makes the mistake of showing Largo LeChuck's still-living beard, which Largo steals and uses to resurrect LeChuck as an undead zombie.

From his island fortress, LeChuck swears revenge against Guybrush. The Voodoo Lady reveals that Big Whoop contains the secret to another world which will allow Guybrush to escape LeChuck forever. She gives Guybrush a book which says that the four pirates who discovered the treasure created a map to its location which they divided into four parts. One of the pirates was the grandfather of Guybrush's love interest, Elaine Marley, who has broken up with him. Guybrush charters a ship sailed by Captain Dread, and sets out to find the map pieces.

Guybrush's search takes him back and forth between three islands: Scabb, Phatt, and Booty. On Phatt Island he is imprisoned by order of Governor Phatt, who hopes to claim the bounty LeChuck has placed on him, but Guybrush manages to escape. On Booty Island he encounters Stan, a used ship salesman from the first game who is now selling used coffins. He also reunites with Elaine, who is bitter toward him and says that their relationship was a mistake. Through various quests involving a Mardi Gras party, a spitting competition, a bloodhound, a drinking contest, a glass-bottom boat, a sunken ship's figurehead, rigged gambling, a library catalog, and temporarily resurrecting the dead, Guybrush manages to collect the map pieces. He takes them to diminutive cartographer Wally, who determines that Big Whoop is on Dinky Island. Wally and the map are soon kidnapped by LeChuck. Guybrush infiltrates LeChuck's fortress but is captured, and LeChuck places him and Wally in an elaborate death-trap. They manage to escape, but Guybrush accidentally sets off an explosion which propels him to Dinky Island. There he encounters castaway Herman Toothrot, who he previously met on Monkey Island.

Navigating a mazelike jungle with the help of a talking parrot, Guybrush locates the site where Big Whoop is supposedly buried. He digs until he hits concrete, and uses dynamite to blast through it. Elaine hears the explosion from Booty Island and sets out to investigate, finding Guybrush dangling over a deep hole which he then falls down, winding up in an underground facility. LeChuck arrives, claims that he is Guybrush's brother, and proceeds to torture him using a voodoo doll. In the tunnels, Guybrush discovers an E ticket, a first aid station, a "lost parents" area with the skeletal remains of his parents, and an elevator leading to Mêlée Island, which he previously visited in The Secret of Monkey Island. He creates a voodoo doll of LeChuck, and dismembers his foe by tearing its leg off.

LeChuck begs Guybrush to remove his mask, revealing that he is actually Guybrush's creepy brother, Chuckie. Their reunion is interrupted by a workman, who says that "you kids" should not be there. The two brothers, now appearing as children, exit the tunnels together and meet their parents above-ground in the "Big Whoop" amusement park. Guybrush is confused, and Chuckie's eyes glow with evil energy. Back on Dinky Island, Elaine wonders if LeChuck has cast a spell over Guybrush.

Development

Origin

The idea of a sequel to The Secret of Monkey Island came about during its planning by the game's director, Lucasfilm Games employee Ron Gilbert. Gilbert envisioned The Secret of Monkey Island as the first of a trilogy of adventure games, although without fully developing their overarching narrative direction yet.<ref name=retronauts>Template:Cite web</ref> The possibility of a second Monkey Island game was alluded to by Gilbert in a late 1990 interview with in-company newsletter The Adventurer,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and he told Retro Gamer in 2006 that "I knew there was going to be a sequel" before he completed work on The Secret of Monkey Island.<ref name="devlookback">Template:Cite journal</ref> He proceeded to conceive ideas specifically for Monkey Island 2 before Lucasfilm Games set about publishing Secret.<ref name="PCPP">Template:Cite journal</ref> Gilbert remarked that his opportunity to develop the sequel came in part from the company's contemporary project management practices which he likened to the narrative setting of Lord of the Flies, as the staff was free to "[run] around and do whatever we wanted".<ref name=retronauts/> Further motivation for Monkey Island 2 stemmed from Lucasfilm Games staff's desire to explore unused ideas from The Secret of Monkey Island.<ref name="devlookback"/> Gilbert explained that, although the earlier game's team had omitted several of its design decisions to complete it within deadline, "it didn't matter [...] because I could just save the work out and come back to it in the sequel".<ref name="PCGUKInt">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

The reason Monkey Island 2 began, according to Gilbert, was his personal interest in expanding his work in the original game rather than commercially oriented suggestions from Lucasfilm Games' management.<ref name="ewoks">Template:Cite web</ref> Gilbert commented that the game's origin would have been improbable in the latter case, as the company was unable to assess the viability of a potential sequel due to its then limited knowledge of the first title's sales performance.<ref name="ewoks"/> The initial uncertainty of the first game's commercial success also encouraged Gilbert to start the Monkey Island 2 project without express approval of the wider company.<ref name="monkey25">Template:Cite news</ref> He wanted to avoid a scenario where Lucasfilm Games' discontent with the first game's sales would prompt the company to forfeit any new Monkey Island titles in favor of ventures with greater consumer appeal such as Star Wars licensed games.<ref name="monkey25"/> Gilbert eventually convinced Lucasfilm Games to commit to the creation of the sequel regardless of its profitability, a decision which Gilbert attributed to the "simpler days" of that period of his involvement with the company.<ref name="PCPP"/>

In 1990, around the time that the development of Monkey Island 2 was sanctioned, Lucasfilm Games and other Lucasfilm subsidiaries were reorganized into integrated divisions of the newly formed LucasArts Entertainment Company.<ref name="rogueleaders">Template:Cite book</ref> Monkey Island 2 thus became the first adventure game by the company produced under the LucasArts brand name.<ref name="lucastrivia">Template:Cite journal</ref> Development of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge began shortly after The Secret of Monkey IslandTemplate:'s release in October 1990.<ref name="monkey25"/><ref name="20th">Template:Cite web</ref> As with most of their contemporary releases,<ref name="ewoks"/> LucasArts both developed the sequel and self-published the game's original release.<ref name="hg101">Template:Cite web</ref>

Production

LucasArts sought to commit its projects to a new, more structured production template, to which Monkey Island 2 was one of the company' first games to conform, along with Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.<ref name="cgwpreview">Template:Cite magazine</ref> This meant that a dedicated schedule was set for the development of the sequel, under which process further "rough due-dates" were decided and a fully recruited team was allotted to Monkey Island 2.<ref name="cgwpreview"/>

The principal staff members from the original game reprised their duties for the creation of its sequel.<ref name="rgschaferint">Template:Cite journal</ref> Gilbert reassumed the role of project leader,<ref name="usgtentacle">Template:Cite web</ref> and The Secret of Monkey Island co-designers, programmers and writers Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman also returned to work on Monkey Island 2 in their respective capacities.<ref name="gamasutra">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="level">Template:Cite journal</ref> Grossman briefly disengaged from the game's production when LucasArts requested him to assist The DigTemplate:'s then-director Noah Falstein in the early development of that title.<ref name="GrossmanInt">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="gspothistory">Template:Cite web</ref> After concluding this assignment, Grossman resumed his work on Monkey Island 2 until its completion.<ref name="gspothistory"/> Staff returning from The Secret of Monkey Island also included lead artist and cover illustrator Steve Purcell;<ref name="RGPurcell">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="rgschaferint"/> animator Sean Turner;<ref name="adventurerart">Template:Cite journal</ref> composer Michael Land;<ref name="gamasutra"/> LucasArts playtesting supervisor Judith Lucero, who also authored the instruction manual for the game;<ref name="ggobit">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="mi2manual">Template:Cite book</ref> and game tester James Hampton.<ref name="arcadeattack">Template:Cite web</ref> At the same time, Monkey Island 2 was supplemented with newly hired personnel such as artists Peter Chan and Larry Ahern as well as a scripter-programmer.<ref name="rogueleaders"/><ref name="ftguide">Template:Cite book</ref> Shelley Day, formerly of Electronic Arts,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> was appointed to produce Monkey Island 2 at LucasArts alongside Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.<ref name="mi2manual"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Engine and interface

Monkey Island 2 uses the fifth revision of LucasArts' proprietary game engine, SCUMM.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The company added a dedicated interpreter for the scripting language (internally dubbed SPUTUM), and background programs that managed the location of objects and characters and simulated character activities.<ref name="cgwpreview"/><ref name="cuamiga">Template:Cite journal</ref> This included FLEM, the code for object states and walking area boundaries,<ref name="scummdiary"/> and BILE, a "cel-based animation emulator" that allowed artists to animate individual body parts.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The variety of subset programs allowed the engine to execute multiple script functions for an entity, such as those handling the rendition of its audiovisual data.<ref name="scummdiary">Template:Cite web</ref> Though the engine was designed as cross-platform,<ref name="Gamestm">Template:Cite journal</ref> Monkey Island 2 was developed for IBM PC compatibles with the MS-DOS operating system, as with LucasArts' other games at the time.<ref name="dfgamechat">Template:Cite AV media Full transcript Template:Webarchive.</ref>

Also revised was the graphical user interface, which employed verb-based commands as player inputs.<ref name="Gamestm"/> For increased accessibility, the team enlarged the point-and-click command list menu and removed the "turn on" and "turn off" options.<ref name="Gamestm"/> They also updated the player inventory, which replaced the text-only descriptions with icons.<ref name="Gamestm"/>

The revised engine offered programmers shortcut commands for the coding of the objects within the game.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> At the same time, according to Johnny L. Wilson of Computer Gaming World, a LucasArts programmer admitted that even with this technique, they contributed around nine man-months to finalize the object-oriented programming in Monkey Island 2.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> However, in 1992 Rik Haynes of CU Amiga commented that SCUMM's capacity as a high-level programming language helped the creative staff members "to focus on being creative rather than worrying about technical mumbo jumbo".<ref name="cuamiga"/> Similarly, in 2013 Ron Gilbert recalled that the underlying functionalities of the SCUMM system enabled the staff to incorporate new ideas into the game's interactive environment directly after suggestion, which thus introduced an aspect of iterative design in the production.<ref name="retronauts"/>

Logistics

A woman performs a puppet show by manipulating puppets that are situated on a stage, stylized as a wooden playhouse.

The designers fashioned the presentation of Monkey Island 2 after that of a puppet show (example pictured above) to help minimize the game's production costs.

The overlap between the development assets for the first two Monkey Island games, Gilbert remarked in 2006, meant that both projects occurred continuously, as a singular creative process.<ref name="devlookback"/> As such, the staff carried over into the sequel the majority of their previously unrealized ideas that had been developed for the first game.<ref name="devlookback"/> Gilbert's assessment was later echoed by Grossman, who further noted that Monkey Island 2 underwent a smooth development cycle because of how cheaply games in its genre could be made.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> Specifically, he likened a typical adventure title of that period to a puppet theatre performance as opposed to a cinematic work with film-like qualities, and believed that the adoption of the former approach allowed LucasArts to build the sequel's plotline and gameplay without excessive resources.<ref name="rogueleaders"/>

Along with technological solutions streamlining the development, the company also decided on a "tight" way of distributing its staff members who were assigned to Monkey Island 2.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> As a result, the creative personnel were allotted to small groups that worked across a series of planning sessions to establish the sequel's narrative and gameplay features.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> During development, the artistic staff were situated on a different floor of LucasArts' headquarters building from the location of the designers; the latter were thus required to pay frequent visits to the office of the graphics specialists to review their works-in-progress.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> Although intended from the very beginning to exceed the scope of its predecessor, Rob Smith estimated that Monkey Island 2 ultimately involved around the same number of development staff as The Secret of Monkey Island.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> In retrospect, Gilbert recalled the number of personnel that worked on the sequel to be larger than that of his previous game, albeit "small enough that we all talked every day and everyone had a good understanding of the whole game being made".<ref name="mixnmojo">Template:Cite web</ref> He added that the creation of Monkey Island 2 was devoid of disagreements within the team, and that they were able to resolve situational production concerns in the ordinary course of the development.<ref name="mixnmojo"/>

Three phases

Three production phases, known as "passes" within the company, divided Monkey Island 2Template:'s development, as with LucasArts' other contemporary adventure games.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> As part of its streamlining of in-house development practices, LucasArts employed image scanning and digitization methods to generate assets for Monkey Island 2.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> In the first "pass", artists originally created hand-drawn images of environments that were set to feature in the game, termed "rooms", in the form of pencil sketches.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The outline drawings were processed through a Sharp color scanner and the resulting digitized graphics were submitted to a group of programmers to be input to the technological framework for the game.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The latter task involved the setting of boundaries for the interactive space of a "room", its integration of the materialTemplate:Incomprehensible inline with the encoded algorithms for the game's dialogue tree mechanics, and the programming for the objects within the modeled scene.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The emphasis of the first "pass" was to program everything as fast as possible.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The first phase produced an early build of Monkey Island 2 which featured monochrome scenes navigated by placeholder characters from a number of other then in-development LucasArts games.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> After this version was delivered LucasArts held an internal "pizza orgy" to commemorate the occasion, during which personnel from the wider company were involved in the initial playtesting of the game and were engaged to offer design input.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The early build informed the work of LucasArts' marketing department on the artwork for the packaging materials for Monkey Island 2, in particular that of the cover.<ref name="cgwpreview"/>

In the second phase of production, output from the initial stage was revised, as the artists and programmers reiterated on and refined their earlier work.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The sketch-based monochrome graphics were processed through the Photoshop graphics editing software on a Macintosh II computer, being reworked into more detailed chromatic images of the game's background scenery.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> The basic graphics and animations of the game's cast of characters were created with DeluxePaint Animation and later implemented along with the modified environmental visuals into the then current builds of Monkey Island 2.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> On average, the artists spent up to an entire day revising graphics for an in-game scene; by contrast, they required a roughly an hour to create the placeholder visuals.<ref name="cgwpreview"/>

The resultant graphics materials were submitted to LucasArts' marketing department to shape the game's promotion. LucasArts gave to publications such as Computer Gaming World the latest builds of Monkey Island 2 and gameplay screenshots for press coverage.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> Also around this time LucasArts completed the packaging solution for Monkey Island 2: the marketers put still images of the game's provisional art into the design of the backside of the retail box.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> Concurrently the company organized the exposure of the game at prospective trade shows and the involvement of focus groups in the game's development.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> In June 1991, LucasArts showed Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, then temporarily titled The Secret of Monkey Island II, alongside Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> That month, Paul Presley of The One estimated that the game "is still a long way from completion",<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and later in August, Amaya Lopez of Zero reported that the sequel was to be released for PCs and the Amiga in late 1991.<ref name="zeropreview">Template:Cite journal</ref>

The third and last phase required LucasArts to "put the absolute finishing touches", as put by Johnny L. Wilson, to the entirety of the previously developed material for Monkey Island 2.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> As production continued, personnel began to work overtime to bring the game's assets to completion, a trend which would extend to the company's subsequent games such as Day of the Tentacle.<ref name="edgeint">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Schafer told Edge in 2009 that at the time, the staff members disregarded the risk of personal strain from crunch time practices because most of them had shared similar past experiences during higher education, as an outgrowth of the necessity to reside in dormitories and study at underground facilities on campus territory.<ref name="edgeint"/>

Summarizing his overview of Monkey Island 2Template:'s development, Wilson suggested that LucasArts' three-part process proved to be "a mixed blessing": although intended to provide momentum to the overall production, the procedure only simplified the programmers' workload in the first phase, offset by "trade-offs" to the performance of the remaining staff members.<ref name="cgwpreview"/> However, Rob Smith retroactively indicated that the team maintained a "straightforward" pace of development, in part due to familiarity with SCUMM's nuances grown from their past work.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> He specifically noted that the SCUMM engine's capabilities allowed them to introduce concepts, dialogues, and interactive scenes within Monkey Island 2 at all possible phases of the game's development, even directly ahead of its release.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> According to Smith, the convenience of the team's situation enabled them to conclude work on the sequel within one year from its start.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> Gilbert asserted that the development staff did not encounter corporate pressure during their work on the game,<ref name="PCGUKInt"/> and reported that the sequel's creation provided him with satisfaction, although "perhaps not as much as the first one".<ref name="gspotpresents">Template:Cite web</ref>

Release and format

A photo of the reverse side of a Sony-branded 3.5" floppy disk.

LucasArts’ choice to distribute Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge on the floppy disk medium led to the omission of certain narrative sequences from the final product.

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was originally released on floppy disks for IBM PCs as well as for MS-DOS and Mac OS in December 1991.<ref name="20th"/> Gilbert later remarked that LucasArts' choice of the release medium for the game, which was distributed on six floppy disks, led him to excise five planned scenes from Monkey Island 2 to fit it in the allotted size limitations.<ref name="level"/> By the month of its initial release, the sequel's launch for the Amiga was delayed to early 1992,<ref name="attractions">Template:Cite journal</ref> and U.S. Gold, LucasArts' product distributor in Europe,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> had assumed the position of the game's publisher in the relevant territories.<ref name="attractions"/> The Amiga version was ultimately released in Summer 1992; the development house in charge of the conversion divided Monkey Island 2 into four sequential playable sections that were distributed across eleven floppy disks to adapt the game to the platform's memory constraints.<ref name="cuamiga"/>

Although CD-ROM releases of adventure games had become widespread by the time of Monkey Island 2Template:'s publication, Gilbert was unwilling to develop such a version of the game.<ref name="level"/> His rationale was that the intricacies of the compact disc medium, such as a slower data transfer rate than that of contemporary high-end PCs' internal hard drives, would prove to be ill-suited to the developing standards of the adventure genre.<ref name="level"/> LucasArts later carried over the revised SCUMM-based interface from Monkey Island 2 into the CD-ROM updated version of The Secret of Monkey Island, released in 1992 for IBM PCs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

That year, Gilbert left LucasArts alongside Shelley Day to co-found Humongous Entertainment, a developer of edutainment games for younger audiences.<ref name="level"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After likewise departing from the former company in 1994,<ref name="level"/> Grossman moved to join Gilbert in his new venture,<ref name="GrossmanInt"/> and Schafer remained at LucasArts as a designer until 2000 when he and several other staff members left to establish Double Fine.<ref name="level"/><ref name="rgschaferint"/>

Design and writing

Overall principles

According to Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer, their chief idea for Monkey Island 2 was to expand on The Secret of Monkey IslandTemplate:'s narrative scope and gameplay elements.<ref name="level"/><ref name="edgeint"/> Gilbert wanted a more open-ended adventure game than the first game, where one navigates confined isolated areas.<ref name="level"/> Consequently, he decided on exploration of multiple islands as the overarching feature of Monkey Island 2Template:'s gameplay.<ref name="level"/> In August 1991, Gilbert described the sequel as the most nonlinear game being produced at LucasArts at the time.<ref name="zeropreview"/>

Competing games in the genre such as Sierra On-Line's King's Quest IV served as a reference point for Gilbert: he intended the sequel to forgo those titles' tendency to kill the protagonist for player mistakes in favor of a more forgiving model.<ref name="cuamiga"/> This approach coincided with his earlier concept that had been applied in The Secret of Monkey Island, whose design excluded events leading to the player character's death so as to emphasize the narrative and puzzle-solving aspects.<ref name="rglegacy">Template:Cite journal</ref> In the game, this is realized by the story being told as a flashback by Guybrush to his love interest Elaine Marley; whenever a decision would lead to Guybrush's death (such as not escaping LeChuck's deathtrap), Elaine will interject that this contradicts Guybrush being alive in front of her, allowing the player to retry.<ref name="MI2">Template:Cite video game </ref> One of Gilbert's other ideas was that the average challenge level in contemporary adventure games was too low and harmed their play value, and he thus sought to make Monkey Island 2 tougher overall.<ref name="level"/>

Two difficulty modes

A brown haired man in a green plaid shirt looks into the camera while sitting on a ladder step.

Director Ron Gilbert (2013 photograph) supervised design areas of Monkey Island 2 such as its difficulty and puzzle structure, and conceived the game's storyline.

Ensuring the accessibility of the sequel's gameplay to the widest variety of players regardless of their skill was a related concern of the team, as expressed by both Gilbert and Dave Grossman.<ref name="level"/><ref name="cuamiga"/> To this end, Gilbert decided to introduce alternative difficulty levels in Monkey Island 2: the game would adapt the composition and complexity of its playable sections according to a preferred gameplay mode chosen from a prompt at the start of the game.<ref name="zeropreview"/><ref name="kitchensink">Template:Cite journal</ref> He initially wanted the sequel to offer three escalating grades of difficulty, a feature which was in the originally revealed build of Monkey Island 2.<ref name="zeropreview"/> Only two options of gameplay were ultimately implemented, specifically the streamlined and abridged mode, "Monkey Lite", and the mainline complex one, "Monkey Classic".<ref name="hg101"/>

Monkey Lite was set to give players a brief overview of the game's basics, as a sample of the content in the full version, as Noah Falstein explained in The AdventurerTemplate:'s summer 1992 issue.<ref name="kitchensink"/> He described the creation of the dual difficulty system to be troublesome for the team, in that they were required to avoid repetition in the two variations and to differentiate the identity of each solution to the gameplay.<ref name="kitchensink"/> Falstein concluded that Monkey Island 2Template:'s capacity as a twofold interactive experience served to make the sequel appealing both to newcomers to the Monkey Island franchise and to skilled players who expected a challenging sequel.<ref name="kitchensink"/> Similarly, Gilbert later stated his belief of the feature's continued relevance for modern adventure game design, as he perceived a growth of casual gamers who appreciated gameplay avenues suited for their decreasing free time.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The team's design practices were unaffected by the mode division, Gilbert remarked in 2015, as they had decided against developing the basis of Monkey Island 2 by incrementally building on the game's simplified model.<ref name="retronauts"/> Instead, they did the inverse: the development staff originally implemented the hard mode as the core template of the game and then restructured this into an abbreviated counterpart.<ref name="retronauts"/> To that end, they gradually reviewed the planned layout of mandatory playable situations, reconsidering the solutions to each of the mainline game's puzzles.<ref name="retronauts"/> Gilbert gave this example: if the team discovered a puzzle that required players to obtain a key to a locked in-game doorway after their progress through many in-between events, the team would render the passage readily open to hasten the resolution of that part of the game.<ref name="retronauts"/> To accomplish a "presolved" adaptation of the game in its easy mode, they identified chains of puzzles within the design of Monkey Island 2 and then excised or modified those sequences' elements.<ref name="retronauts"/> Rather than to substantially reimagine the sequel's story and gameplay for its shorter variant, the designers' focus was merely to determine which sections of Monkey Island 2 could be easily revised so as to retain satisfactory overall pacing.<ref name="retronauts"/> Gilbert recalled that the game's underlying technology allowed LucasArts to alter and adjust elements of the title on an impromptu basis.<ref name="retronauts"/> Gilbert found this practice to exhibit his preference to base his games on broadly defined plans, as opposed to precise design documents, and admitted that he would struggle to direct a similar work to Monkey Island 2 in the face of formalized development procedures.<ref name="retronauts"/>

Puzzles

The design of Monkey Island 2 was a more collaborative process compared to The Secret of Monkey IslandTemplate:'s, where the team had built on Gilbert's own concepts and outlines developed before production.<ref name="rglegacy"/> The creation of the sequel's puzzles involved the game's principal writers and programmers, whose output Rik Haynes described as "funny and bizarre".<ref name="cuamiga"/> For example, Schafer was responsible for an in-game contest about spitting the furthest, which players are engaged to win – a challenge he believed to be unique in adventure games at the time.<ref name="gspotqa">Template:Cite web</ref> Artists were also encouraged to submit opinions during planning.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Grossman recalled that the staff held the corresponding meetings in a confined working space, and "those sessions often became hilarious enough to be dangerous, with me asthmatically coughing up my own brain from laughing too much".<ref name="rogueleaders"/>

Gilbert managed design: he mapped out what he called "Puzzle Dependecy Charts", schematic diagrams depicting the puzzle arrangements, which he generated with the MicroPlanner X-Pert software on a Macintosh computer.<ref name="rglegacy"/><ref name="ggcharts">Template:Cite web</ref> With these he planned structural branches of the puzzle solutions, as models of overarching and situational milestones that players were to advance through in his games.<ref name="rglegacy"/><ref name="ggcharts"/> As part of this technique, Gilbert also laid out chains of successive puzzles, which were designed in reverse: the premises of the first and intermediary puzzles were recursively inferred from the solution of the final one.<ref name="ggcharts"/> These puzzle sequences were then aligned as singular entities into nonlinear flowchart-like representations, wherein the solution of the initial part segued into unrelated branches for player progress, before culminating at a common in-game destination.<ref name="ggcharts"/> From that convergence point, a further diagram of the same type would be spun off into subsequent, similarly ordered schemes; the reiteration of those patterns formed the overall puzzle framework in Gilbert's projects at LucasArts, including Monkey Island 2.<ref name="ggcharts"/>

In the design of specific puzzles, the team mimicked a player's approach to solving them, Grossman remarked in retrospect.<ref name="devlookback"/> In a 2006 interview with Retro Gamer, he illustrated the general planning method with a puzzle involving Monkey Island 2 character Captain Kate.<ref name="devlookback"/> From this mindset, the team began by setting an in-game objective of stealing an item from the character.<ref name="devlookback"/> They proceeded to identify every realistic solution to the situation – which included the player covertly embezzling the item or coercing Captain Kate into yielding it – and gradually forwent banal solution possibilites until the exhaustion of such ideas.<ref name="devlookback"/> Having discarded those options entirely, the team moved to devise an unorthodox resolution to the puzzle: requiring players to cause the arrest of Captain Kate in order for the character's belongings to become accessible.<ref name="devlookback"/> The designers' consequent goal was to develop the logic of events within which this could come to pass. As outlined by Grossman, those criteria guided the team's entire work on the development of puzzles for Monkey Island 2.<ref name="devlookback"/>

Gameplay segments were arranged around the game's multiple settings, Gilbert recalled, and he described the result as "a complicated web of puzzles [...] [that] kind of jumbled all around", in contrast to The Secret of Monkey IslandTemplate:'s more linear approach.<ref name="metroint">Template:Cite web</ref> He also noted that the puzzle structure in the sequel was distinguished by its greater reliance on "dialogue puzzles",<ref name="mixnmojo"/> a term for nonlinear scenarios of player-driven conversations with the game's characters which feature alternative response options.<ref>Archived at GhostarchiveTemplate:Cbignore and the Wayback MachineTemplate:Cbignore: Template:Cite episodeTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

The team's co-authorship of the design for the game contributed to the increased complexity of its puzzles, including their emergence in consecutive successions in Monkey Island 2.<ref name="rglegacy"/> Although Gilbert remarked that the sequel epitomized his accrued experience and practices in attempting to create a comprehensive template of an adventure game,<ref name="gspotqa"/> he had also stated that certain puzzles and scenes in the game qualified as redundant in retrospect.<ref name="PCGUKInt"/> Specifically, Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman cited concerns with the puzzle wherein players were meant to use an earlier-captured monkey as an improvised wrench to open a passageway to a new location, punning on the English language term "monkey wrench".<ref name="bild">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="usgtentacle"/><ref name="gspotqa"/> Grossman explained that, whereas the intended wordplay was understood by the game's domestic audience due to the phrase's predominance in the United States, it was unknown outside the North American market and thus was difficult to translate into the overseas versions of the game.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Gilbert later described this as his least accomplished design of a puzzle<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and apologized to players for its addition to the game.<ref name="bild"/> The experience led him to realize that the prospect of his games' distribution beyond the American market would necessitate cultural adaptation of their contextual elements, an aspect Gilbert has attempted to account for in his subsequent works.<ref name="bild"/> Gilbert nevertheless stated his belief that he was able to materialize the vast majority of his plans for Monkey Island 2 in the released version.<ref name="mixnmojo"/> However, previously, after the game's release, Gilbert had stated that he "[was] still trying to figure out how to get everything I want into an adventure game".<ref name="cuamiga"/>

Story

As with the game's predecessor, the puzzles in Monkey Island 2 were created prior to its storyline;<ref name="edgeint"/> the vast majority of the plot's details were unestablished when the project started.<ref name="dfgamechat"/> Gilbert's puzzle charts supplied the general layout of the game's narrative, and the team then "made [the storyline] up as we went".<ref name="dfgamechat"/>

Gilbert believed that the theme of revenge served as a universally resonant narrative premise, and the story was thus based around LeChuck seeking vengeance against Guybrush Threepwood for defeating the former in the previous game.<ref name="cuamiga"/> As with the previous game, Gilbert distributed the writing duties for discrete sections of the game between Schafer and Grossman, and assigned each of them to individual scenes and characters in accordance with the designers' comic sensibilities.<ref name="mixnmojo"/>

Monkey Island 2 was "a little bit dark" intrinsically yet simultaneously conducive to comedic writing, Gilbert acknowledged in 2014;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> earlier he had remarked that he regarded the game as an avenue to realize the unexplored humorous material intended for its predecessor.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Several months after the game's release, Schafer described Monkey Island 2 as a parodic game which employed ironic subversion of its own archetypical traits and those of other contemporary computer games.<ref name="advtentacle">Template:Cite journal</ref> He explained that "every time that you expected a payoff, [the game] would do something that was kind of a non-payoff" and that "[the game's] taste of humor [was] not for everybody".<ref name="advtentacle"/>

From the conceptualized story foundation, the team developed the game's characters.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Gilbert noted that certain returning characters from the previous game were carried over due to their popularity among the staff, and others, such as the Voodoo Lady, were included to reinforce particular motifs in the story.<ref name="dfgamechat"/> Rik Haynes commented that, aside from the conversations with the characters that were added solely for atmosphere, specific dialogues were written to telegraph suggestions to players for advancing through the game.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Among references to non-interactive media in the game, LucasArts added a tribute to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction - which provided the stylistic inspiration for the first game - as well as numerous nods to the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises,<ref name="rglegacy"/><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and an allusion to the James Bond films.<ref name="dfgamechat"/>

Reconciling the planned puzzles for the game with its narrative was a major point of focus for the designers of Monkey Island 2.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Rik Haynes reported that Gilbert "was so absorbed by the process, in fact, that he even solved tricky problems in his sleep".<ref name="cuamiga"/>

Playtesting

Contiguous suggestions addressing the game's playability came from LucasArts game testers as they reviewed various development builds of Monkey Island 2.<ref name="ggobit"/> Gilbert recalled an instance during development when Judith Lucero and members of her team e-mailed him an extensive overhaul proposal for Monkey Island 2Template:'s then current version.<ref name="ggobit"/> James Hampton stated that this document, internally dubbed the "Giant "D" ("D" for "Design") Bug", was collaboratively developed by him and the game's other testers and offered "our ideas and reactions to the earliest builds of the game".<ref name="arcadeattack"/> They recommended in particular additions to the game's length and difficulty, and specified edits to its storyline and puzzles.<ref name="ggobit"/> Discussing Gilbert's response, Hampton noted that he encouraged agency among the development staff over the course of the creative process and thus approved of the testers' considerations.<ref name="arcadeattack"/>

A number of their concepts were therefore implemented in the finished game, such as "screwball" cutscenes depicting between-island travels of the player character in the game's overworld map, as a pastiche of analogous scenes in the Indiana Jones films.<ref name="arcadeattack"/> Also carried over from the proposal was a library location with a multitude of references to the game's events and easter eggs from the team, via an interactive card catalog.<ref name="arcadeattack"/> Reminiscing on the game testers' contributions, Gilbert said that they "have a unique perspective on the game and poke not only at the bugs but also the design and the thought process of playing a game" and "are a critical gear in the machinery that makes up making a game".<ref name="ggobit"/>

Ending

A smiling light-skinned elder man in a suit.

Ron Gilbert's favorite film Blazing Saddles, directed by Mel Brooks (2010 photograph), served as a source of inspiration for the ending of Monkey Island 2.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Planning the game's ending was another problem wherein Gilbert sought input from LucasArts staff beyond the principal creative team.<ref name="arcadeattack"/> He had struggled to conceive a satisfactory finale for the sequel, and postponed the issue repeatedly during the game's production.<ref name="retronauts"/> As such, by the time LucasArts moved to finalize Monkey Island 2, Gilbert's concern with developing the conclusion was renewed.<ref name="retronauts"/>

James Hampton claimed that a meeting was held to establish the game's climax with LucasArts game testers, during which his suggestion for an ending akin to the St. Elsewhere finale - which revealed the events of that show to exist in a dream-like fictional universe - provided the basis for the closing scenes of the game.<ref name="arcadeattack"/> Gilbert stated the idea for the game's denouement came from his ongoing anxiety over the lack of a suitable concept as development neared completion.<ref name="retronauts"/> He explained that he came up with the used ending spontaneously, when "one day, literally laying in bed on a Saturday morning, it just kind of hit me [...] how [the game had] to end".<ref name="retronauts"/>

He later indicated that the ending was intended to convey a metaphor rather than to be subject to a literal interpretation.<ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref> Schafer regarded the finale of Monkey Island 2 as an outgrowth of the game's subversive brand of humor, and admitted that the climax was contrary to popular expectations.<ref name="advtentacle"/> Gilbert acknowledged that the sequel's conclusion was controversial among players since its release, and that he had planned the ending to invoke conflicted sentiments "from day one".<ref name="retronauts"/> He explained that he made the ending purposely provocative to elicit differing public perceptions of it, a reaction which he believed to be evidence of creative accomplishment.<ref name="retronauts"/> Although Gilbert said in 2015 that the finale provided "perfect" closure for the game's storyline,<ref name="retronauts"/> he had conceded after his departure from LucasArts that the ending's ambiguousness complicated any plans of a direct continuation.<ref name="PCGUKInt"/> Specifically, he expressed his belief that the development team for the next installment, The Curse of Monkey Island, "would mention that I had made their life hell".<ref name="PCGUKInt"/> Gilbert nevertheless asserted that the completion of the Monkey Island 2 project marked his discovery of a hypothetical plot device with which he could build on the sequel's narrative and finish the overarching story arc of his planned adventure game trilogy.<ref name="gspotpresents"/>

Visual design

New technology

A bespectacled man, wearing an orange shirt, a gray t-shirt and a fedora, smiles at the camera.

Lead artist Steve Purcell (2008 photograph) was responsible for several principal facets of the graphics design for Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, including the sequel's cover artwork, and attempted to ensure visual continuity between the game and its predecessor.

The company's then-ongoing push into modernizing its graphics production pipeline was exemplified by the creation of Monkey Island 2Template:'s visuals, LucasArts art department supervisor Collette Michaud suggested shortly before release.<ref name="adventurerart"/> The company allotted a larger number of artists than in its past projects to Monkey Island 2, divided into two groups: background artists and animation specialists.<ref name="adventurerart"/> This staff layout came from LucasArts's wider decision to increase the total art resources of its planned titles, mandated by the evolving technological demands of the computer game industry.<ref name="adventurerart"/> Specifically, the VGA visual interface had become the graphics standard for high-end personal computers and the latter's hard drive components had dropped in price when Monkey Island 2Template:'s completion drew close.<ref name="adventurerart"/>

Peter Chan, who debuted in video game development with this title, remarked that LucasArts productions lacked the position of an art director at the time, in keeping with the company's small-scale distribution of its staff resources.<ref name="usgart">Template:Cite web</ref> The duties of lead artists were assigned to both him and Steve Purcell, designations that Chan said to be perfunctory, as "for us, I think because it was so new, lead artist just meant the guy who was stuck doing most of the art".<ref name="usgart"/> Purcell mentioned that, whereas the mainline EGA-compatible version of the previous game had a limited 16 color palette, the company's adoption of the VGA format's 256-color scheme for Monkey Island 2 meant that "we had all the colors we needed".<ref name="rogueleaders"/> As the only returning staff member among Monkey Island 2Template:'s head artists, Purcell sought to ensure the overall visual consistency between the game and its predecessor.<ref name="adventurerart"/> A series of lengthy planning discussions guided the creation of the game's audiovisuals, which were fashioned to complement the game's plotline.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Overall, Rik Haynes estimated the resulting graphics assets to comprise around 6.4 million pixels of on-screen visual information.<ref name="cuamiga"/>

Haynes reported that the art team's concern with enhancing the graphical quality of Monkey Island 2 led them to consider atypical devices for realizing the game's static visuals.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Around that time, competing companies Sierra On-Line and Dynamix had released several titles whose graphics were generated from scanned images and digitized live-action footage.<ref name="cuamiga"/> The success of those titles prompted LucasArts to incorporate a scanning-based method into the production of their game's visuals.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Reminiscing on that development, Purcell explained the artists' capability to initially model the in-game locations on paper and then to implement the images digitally lent them "a greater range".<ref name="spudv1">Template:Cite web</ref>

After experimenting with various art media in the creation of the environmental paintings, LucasArts developed a process that involved an amalgam of graphical techniques.<ref name="adventurerart"/> Initially, the artists used colored pen markers to draw a rough representation of a scene – an approach originated by Chan – whose details they then augmented and reinforced by applying paint.<ref name="adventurerart"/> Thereby they finalized the overlaid drawing with colored pencils, utilized to eliminate "soft edges".<ref name="adventurerart"/> Upon the digitization of those visualizations, LucasArts added further adjustments and effects "not easily achieved with traditional painting methods" to the resulting pictures with proprietary graphics software.<ref name="cuamiga"/>

The background artwork was primarily developed by Chan and partly created by Purcell,<ref name="adventurerart"/> who was responsible for locations such as the interior of Wally B. Feed's cabin in Woodtick.<ref name="spudv1"/> Sean Turner also painted the visual designs for certain scenes in the game.<ref name="adventurerart"/> Purcell sought to impart depth to the background graphics by adding elements that suggested the presence of a foreground visual dimension in the on-screen depiction of settings such as the Bloody Lip Bar, a location which the player character visits in Woodtick.<ref name="spudv2">Template:Cite web</ref> Citing that same scene, Purcell remarked that he attempted to provide the environmental visuals with humorous imagery, which, with respect to Purcell's example, meant details "like the spitoon with overshot loogies all over the doorframe".<ref name="spudv2"/> He was also inclined to introduce anachronistic visual elements in the background artwork, although one of those elements, a "50's era jukebox" that was planned to feature in the Bloody Lip Bar, was omitted from the final game.<ref name="spudv2"/>

Animation

For the animated graphics in Monkey Island 2, Ron Gilbert sought to ensure that the movements of the game's characters were rendered in a "simple and cartoony" style, in keeping with the previous game.<ref name="adventurerart"/> The team of artists that worked on that aspect of the game was led by Turner, a former employee of Lucasfilm subsidiary Industrial Light & Magic, and was also composed of Michaud, Larry Ahern, Mike McLaughlin and Steve Purcell.<ref name="adventurerart"/> Turner's primary responsibility concerned shaping the aesthetics and stylistic direction of the dynamic visuals in the game.<ref name="adventurerart"/>

An experienced specialist in traditional animation, he wanted his work with 2D digital visuals to exceed the limitations of the computer graphics medium.<ref name="adventurerart"/> Turner utilized two distinct procedures to develop his output: the artwork was alternately built with software tools in DeluxePaint Animation and scanned from sequences of hand-drawn cel images.<ref name="adventurerart"/> The second algorithm was primarily employed to produce animations that contained large objects; Michaud explained that the artists found their efforts to be streamlined when such assets were originally depicted on paper and then imported into a suitable form for digital manipulation.<ref name="adventurerart"/> LucasArts still used the software-based solution to generate the majority of the characters' animations, whose creation the art staff believed to be expedited when realized under a computer interface.<ref name="adventurerart"/> Michaud stated that Turner's professional background and humorous sensibilities inspired the individual contributions of his team, "allowing them to open up and have some fun with the animations".<ref name="adventurerart"/>

Larry Ahern also remarked that Gilbert instructed the animators by providing them with lists describing the game's entities that were required to move in a specific scene.<ref name="usgart"/> Ahern recalled that, in the initial period of his engagement with Monkey Island 2, he was unable to discern the in-game context for his work on a particular event in the title due to Gilbert's abstract directions.<ref name="usgart"/> According to Ahern, he "tried asking questions about it, and [Gilbert] said, 'Just do this, this, this, and this, laundry list, check it off', and I got real frustrated with that".<ref name="usgart"/> He then enquired with Schafer and Grossman about the purpose of the character actions that he was tasked to choreograph.<ref name="usgart"/> Ahern explained that the co-designers proceeded to describe to him the intended effect of the respective scenes, and "I'd say, 'Oh, well, wouldn't it be more fun if I did it this way', and they'd go, 'Yeah, that'd be even better. Go do that'".<ref name="usgart"/> As a result, Ahern asked Schafer and Grossman to negotiate Gilbert's approval for his proposal, a concern which the two agreed to address.<ref name="usgart"/>

Cover

A young man seated on the cross trees of a pirate ship presses against its mast while pointing pistols at an approaching assailant, who brandishes a dagger behind his back.

The cover image for Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge reminded Retro GamerTemplate:'s staff of the works (pictured above) of N.C. Wyeth.

Aside from his immediate role in the graphics production for Monkey Island 2, Steve Purcell was responsible the game's cover artwork. The preparation of the game's packaging involved Collette Michaud, Purcell's then-girlfriend and future wife.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> Although at the time that the game's branding was devised, the majority of the packaging solutions for planned LucasArts products were conceived by the company's executive officers, Purcell stated that the project leaders for those titles were strongly inclined to promote their own vision for the styling of the games' covers.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> Purcell specified that for Monkey Island 2, Gilbert requested a cover illustration resembling that of a classic book.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> Purcell recalled that his capacity as an artist on the first two Monkey Island games enabled him to readily identify the prospective cover's core visual elements.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> Continuing a trend from The Secret of Monkey Island, Purcell painted sketches that displayed his concepts for the cover's presentation to establish the basic design of the artwork.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> Purcell noted that those pictures were intended to convey general ideas that he wanted to bring to completion, rather than to comprise fully formed illustrations.<ref name="spudv3">Template:Cite web</ref> After Purcell delivered the paintings, LucasArts selected a satisfactory cover archetype and tasked him to "transfer the sketch to the board".<ref name="RGPurcell"/>

The finished template image for the game's cover was an oil painting by Purcell drawn on a linen canvas.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> With respect to the scale of the painting, Purcell decided to "do it big – two by three feet", and he spent a month developing the resultant artwork.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> Michaud posed in costume as a model for the cover's depictions of Guybrush Threepwood and LeChuck to provide Purcell with a reference point for the light distribution in the artwork.<ref name="RGPurcell"/> According to Purcell, the cover's visuals were meant to reveal to players lifesized representations of the game's characters and setting, portrayed without the graphical limitations of the title's underlying technology.<ref name="rglegacy"/>

Described by Retro Gamer as reminiscent of an N.C. Wyeth book illustration,<ref name="rglegacy"/> Monkey Island 2Template:'s cover art has garnered a positive public reception since the game's release, which Purcell stated "makes all the effort worthwhile".<ref name="RGPurcell"/> Purcell still possesses the original painting of the cover, which is currently placed in his office.<ref name="RGPurcell"/>

Art direction

The game's artists and animators - as well as its composers - collaborated with LucasArts programmers to shape an engaging realization of the game's scenario, stylized to utilize cinematic techniques such as scrolling panoramas of the title's environments and proportional character scaling.<ref name="cuamiga"/> Less than a year after the launch of the game, Dave Grossman described aspects of its presentation with the term "interactive cartoon", in that the title was conducive to "crazy and cartoony" interactive sequences.<ref name="advtentacle"/> He cited the example of the game's sequence wherein Largo LaGrande extorted money and valuables from Guybrush Threepwood on the bridge leading to Woodtick, an event which Grossman said to prompt players "[to save] the game at that point so they could go back and watch it a few times".<ref name="advtentacle"/> Peter Chan said that the artistic direction of Monkey Island 2 was already decided when he joined its team, which focused his efforts on attempting to mimic existing visual references, although the corporate culture of LucasArts at the time allowed him opportunities to introduce unplanned graphical elements in the game.<ref name="usgart"/>

In contrast, Ahern retrospectively voiced his discontent with some of the game's animation, which he said was uneven because of the animators' capability to add stylistically disparate graphics assets to the title without immediate supervision.<ref name="usgart"/> He explained that "there was nobody officially art directing [the game] and coming in and saying, 'No, that character's off-model, or that needs to look more like this'".<ref name="usgart"/> Ahern was frustrated with this situation, which he believed to be the source of a major stylistic dissonance between the game's individual animated scenes.<ref name="usgart"/> As a result of this experience, when Ahern was appointed to serve as an animator for Day of the Tentacle,<ref name="usgart"/> he requested LucasArts for the authority to institute uniform design criteria for that title's art team, so as to facilitate a cohesive artistic process.<ref name="usgart"/> Conversely, Grossman later indicated that Monkey Island 2Template:'s artwork – along with its music – imparted "a terrific sense of place" and a "tremendously cinematic" ambiance to the game.<ref name="gspotqa"/>

Music

A bald man wearing a black t-shirt looks at the camera while sitting against a dark background.

Composer Peter McConnell (2010 photograph) was critical to the development of the iMUSE interactive music engine, introduced in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.

The score for Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was composed by Michael Land in conjunction with his former college housemate Peter McConnell and high school friend Clint Bajakian, both newly hired by LucasArts to work on the game.<ref name="usgmusic">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="mcconnell">Template:Cite journal</ref> The game's music was developed on a Macintosh II computer using Digital Performer and reformulated into PC-compatible MIDI tracks via a dedicated sound program that McConnell had written as his first job at the company.<ref name="mcconnell"/> The in-game arrangements of the compositions employed recordings of the composers' live performances of the tracks over a MIDI keyboard and a music sequencer.<ref name="mcconnell"/>

Land, McConnell and Bajakian split the scoring responsibilities between themselves in equal measure, and did not allot the title of lead composer to a specific musician.<ref name="usgmusic"/> McConnell likened their collective's working dynamic to that of a professional band: the members were willing to exchange their duties in writing music for the game's individual locations, and created some of the tracks collaboratively.<ref name="usgmusic"/> As with the previous series game, Michael Land coordinated his contributions with Ron Gilbert, who nevertheless was largely disengaged from the music's development.<ref name="retronauts"/> After relating to Land a general request to compose music driven by Calypso-inspired percussion, Gilbert refrained from further involvement, as he gave significant credence to Land's professional capabilities.<ref name="retronauts"/> Describing his area of focus, Land remarked that "from the beginning of the game, I wanted the music to sound like what you'd hear coming out of a radio if you were walking down a street on a Caribbean Island".<ref name="cuamiga"/>

Although the soundtrack of Monkey Island 2 incorporated leitmotifs, their use in the game eschewed an emphasis on character-related tracks that McConnell stated to be typical of film scores.<ref name="usgmusic"/> Instead, he and his colleagues utilized the musical device to convey an invocation of a "pirate reggae" aesthetic across the individual compositions.<ref name="usgmusic"/> The trio thus sought to establish an overriding thematic direction that disassociated the players' perception of the tracks from their attribution to the characters.<ref name="usgmusic"/> The composers only broke away from that paradigm when preparing music that pertained to notable members of the game's cast such as the Voodoo Lady.<ref name="usgmusic"/>

iMUSE

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge served as the first LucasArts game to use Interactive Music Streaming Engine (iMUSE), the company's proprietary adaptive music engine that was co-designed by Land and McConnell.<ref name="rglegacy"/> The technology originated from Land's frustration with the implementation of The Secret of Monkey IslandTemplate:'s music, whose integration with the title's gameplay he believed to be unsatisfactory.<ref name="Sweet 2012">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="rogueleaders"/> By the time that McConnell was recruited by LucasArts, Land had envisioned an audio sequencing system that could construct a flexible progression of a given soundtrack's compositions in an interactive environment.<ref name="mcconnell"/> Land engaged him to collaborate on this concept, and McConnell later commented that "we made a very good design team in realizing and expanding on this vision".<ref name="mcconnell"/> According to McConnell, the composers' reference for the iMUSE system was a speculative image of a pit orchestra in a musical whose conductor closely observed the enactment of the scored material and could "direct virtuoso musicians to make smooth transitions to any place in the music at any time, in a way that is, well, musical".<ref name="mcconnell"/>

The resultant solution allowed the compositions in the game to dynamically alter in response to the playable character's interaction with a specific environment or situation in Monkey Island 2.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> The iMUSE technology enabled the game to feature progressive music arrangements that adapted to the events throughout the course of the game's story, as well as logical transitions from one track to another, and provided for several other sound engineering functionalities.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> Describing the summarized effect of those features when applied in practice, Gilbert commented that "the [score] starts at the beginning and ends at the end of the game, and is just one ever-evolving piece of music".<ref name="rogueleaders"/>

Land and McConnell spent nine months on the creation of the iMUSE system's first incarnation, an integrated framework of audio drivers that governed the engine's various capabilities.<ref name="mcconnell"/> McConnell recalled that LucasArts staff was initially confused as to the classification of the technology, whose subset programs and their associated MIDI track data "took up an entire floppy disk in a five-disk game".<ref name="mcconnell"/> In reaction, McConnell and Land devised an identifiable designation for the system and proceeded to explicate their design to LucasArts personnel, which clarified the issue.<ref name="mcconnell"/> McConnell remarked that, although he and Land were confident in the practicability of the iMUSE system during its inception, the composers found the application of its initial version to be very complicated.<ref name="mcconnell"/> Bajakian cited major difficulties in ensuring that the encoded sound and music data were compatible with the available variety of sound cards on the computer hardware market.<ref name="ftguide"/> McConnell stated that the technology was required to undergo several iterations across five years from the release of Monkey Island 2 to become suitable for widespread use by LucasArts audio programmers.<ref name="mcconnell"/> However, he noted that the core engine managed an average delivery of high-end audio performance during its host titles' gameplay, which helped to obscure the system's underlying complexity from the staff.<ref name="mcconnell"/>

Interviewed by Rob Smith in 2008, LucasArts then general manager Kelly Flock stated that the iMUSE technology marked the introduction of a novel avenue for the designers to mediate the relationship between the players' actions and the background music in a game.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> He noted that, in past adventure titles, the protagonist's appearance in a location within the game triggered a looping composition with a static structure that was divorced from the player-driven events in the scene.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> According to Flock, Land and McConnell's system contrasted this trend by accounting for the frequency of the player character's visits to an area in the game and their subsequent actions therein, in response to which the engine would alter the music to suit the circumstances of current gameplay segment and apply sound effects that were appropriate.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> Flock stated that Land was able to build up suspense in sections of the game with aural manipulations, a concept that the prievous LucasArts products did not incorporate.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> In commercializing the iMUSE system, LucasArts chose not to license its exploitation to competing companies, and instead appropriated the technology by patenting it for internally developed titles, which led the engine to perpetuate as a commonplace feature of SCUMM-based adventure games.<ref name="rogueleaders"/> Flock summarized that Land and McConnell's work was critical to the design of the ambiance in those titles and labeled it as "probably the single most important technology that was developed [at LucasArts]".<ref name="rogueleaders"/>

Special edition

File:Monkey Island 2 Special Edition Comparison.jpg

One of the changes for the Special Edition (bottom) from the original (top) is the updated high-definition graphics.

As with The Secret of Monkey Island, LucasArts released a remake of the sequel with updated audiovisuals titled Monkey Island 2: Special Edition for the PlayStation 3, iPhone, iPod Touch, Microsoft Windows, and Xbox 360 in July 2010. The Mac OS X version has not yet been releasedTemplate:Update inline, while the iOS version was retired in March 2015.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Special Editions of The Secret of Monkey Island and its sequel were later released physically for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC (exclusively in Europe) as Monkey Island Special Edition Collection.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The special edition includes updated graphics, updated high-quality audio engine, new voice-overs, additional content such as concept art, and an in-game hint system. The "lite" mode from the original game ("for game reviewers") has been omitted. Further, the original introductory sequence with the main musical theme has been removed, purportedly because it displayed credits for the original game, now outdated. Players can opt to switch from the updated version into the original at any time during the game, though an option allows players to retain the voice-overs of the remake.<ref name="MISE"/> Players can opt to use the original point-and-click control scheme, or can directly control the movements of Guybrush using a control pad or similar device.<ref name="mtv se"/>

The remake was announced by LucasArts during their annual Game Developers Conference on March 10, 2010, with the previous creators of the adventures, Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman, in attendance.<ref name="MISEG"/> The trio of game designers have recorded a commentary track for the Special Edition that can be brought up in many locations, using silhouettes in the fashion of Mystery Science Theater 3000 overlaid on the graphics.<ref name="mtv se"/><ref name="CCC"/><ref name="CHC"/> Craig Derrick announced on a new interface that was in the vein of The Curse of Monkey IslandTemplate:'s and a return of the original voice cast, including Dominic Armato as Guybrush, Alexandra Boyd as Elaine, Earl Boen in his final performance as LeChuck, and even Neil Ross as Wally. Phil LaMarr was also confirmed as Dread and Tom Kane as additional voices.

Development

Monkey Island 2: Special EditionTemplate:'s production was overseen by Craig Derrick and his team at LucasArts, known internally as "Team 3", which had been responsible for the remake of the first Monkey Island game.<ref name="buttonless">Template:Cite book</ref> Derrick, a devoted enthusiast of the series, had sought an opportunity to participate in the franchise since the start of his employment at LucasArts, who at the time were disinterested in adventure game development.<ref name="buttonless"/> This situation led Derrick to face difficulties in negotiating an approval for his proposal to recreate The Secret of Monkey Island with the company's management due to their uncertainty about the financial feasibility of renewing LucasArts' former association with the genre, whose popularity they assumed to be in decline.<ref name="buttonless"/> After the successful release of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition in 2009, Derrick was able to readily convince LucasArts to pursue the idea for a remake of Monkey Island 2.<ref name="buttonless"/>

By this time that this decision was sanctioned, the majority of staff from the team of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition was already occupied with another project. To compensate, LucasArts augmented the team for Monkey Island 2: Special Edition with staff from the company's foreign departments, and assigned the majority of the production duties to its Singapore division.<ref name="buttonless"/> To match the scope and complexity of the original 1991 title, LucasArts was led to leverage a greater amount of development resources for the renewed counterpart of Monkey Island 2 than for the previous remake.<ref name="kotaku">Template:Cite web</ref>

According to Derrick, the increased workload was mitigated by his colleagues' accumulated experience and access to technological solutions that had been introduced for The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.<ref name="kotaku"/> He explained that those accrued assets enabled LucasArts to materialize an authentic recreation of Monkey Island 2 and supplement it with new functionalities in the same timeframe during which the completed iteration of the first remake was crafted.<ref name="kotaku"/> Those additions included the feature that enabled the playback in the game of the background audio commentary by Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman, recorded for the remake at the 2010 Game Developers Conference.<ref name="kotaku"/> Derrick had planned to procure the designers' engagement in the creation of a similar commentary track for The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, but was unable to proceed with this incentive due to scheduling setbacks on the side of an unidentified party.<ref name="buttonless"/> Derrick attributed the implementation of the feature in the remake of Monkey Island 2 to the distribution of its development between LucasArts' San Francisco and Singapore departments.<ref name="kotaku"/> He mentioned that, although this type of delegated work caused certain difficulties in the teams' collaboration, the Singapore division had been previously involved with certain aspects of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and thus was able to coordinate an efficient approach to those issues.<ref name="kotaku"/>

Derrick commented the result of this distributed process satisfied his expectations.<ref name="kotaku"/> Prior to the game's release, Gilbert reported to have been pleased with the remake's rendition of the gameplay and technical elements of Monkey Island 2, and remarked that Monkey Island 2: Special EditionTemplate:'s capability to allow for the instant transition between the game's new and original audiovisuals "really showed the care, love, and respect that LucasArts has for these games".<ref name="gspotqa"/>

Reception

Sales

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was highly anticipated; Amiga Power called it the most eagerly awaited game of 1992.<ref name="AmiPower"/> According to Ron Gilbert, Monkey Island 2 and its predecessor "sold well, but Sierra Online and King's Quest were still kicking our ass completely!"<ref name=nightdive>Template:Cite web</ref> A writer for Next Generation noted that the games were "relatively minor hit[s]" in the United States, but became blockbusters on the PC and the Amiga throughout Europe.<ref name=monkeyislandsales>Template:Cite web</ref> Conversely, Edge reported that both games "sold very poorly on release". Designer Tim Schafer said that Monkey Island 2 sold about 25,000 copies,<ref name=edgesales>Template:Cite magazine</ref> despite its being released at a time when LucasArts was "really excited if we sold 100,000 copies of a PC graphic adventure".<ref name=playboy>Template:Cite web</ref> Following the underperformance of Monkey Island 2, Schafer recalled that the management came and told them that Monkey was a failure and that they should make something else. He speculated that the Monkey Island series' reputation grew as a result of software piracy. According to Schafer, the pressure to develop a more commercially viable game ultimately led to the creation of Full Throttle, which became the first LucasArts adventure to sell one million units.<ref name=edgesales />

Reviews

Monkey Island 2 received consistently high reviews for all versions, 95% from Amiga Computing for the Amiga version,<ref name="AmiComp"/> 96% from Computer and Video Games for the PC version.<ref name="CVG"/> When Kixx XL rereleased Monkey Island 2 as a budget game, the reviews remained high getting 91% from CU Amiga.<ref name="reRelease"/> The game is still considered very high quality with contemporary reviewers scoring the game highly.<ref name="rglegacy"/> Monkey Island 2 is often considered one of the greatest in the point-and-click genre,<ref name="PHG"/> and it still stands up well against modern adventure game titles.<ref name="ACM"/> The game holds a rating of 90% on the review aggregator site GameRankings.<ref name="MILCRP" />

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was rated highly for several reasons. The game is considered user friendly as it has a "lite" mode.<ref name="AmiComp"/> This allowed beginners to play the game at an easier setting. The overall difficulty of both modes is also considered to be good.<ref name="AmiComp"/> The redesign in controls, such as the fewer verbs and graphical inventory were rated well as increasing the game's ease of use.<ref name="CVG"/> Music in Monkey Island 2 was noted for its use of the iMUSE system. Reviewers noted that for the first time the sound is an integral part of the atmosphere.<ref name="CVG"/> Graphically, the game was considered an improvement over its predecessor, with reviewers very impressed.<ref name="AmiComp"/><ref name="CVG"/> It is also noted by critics that the developers of Monkey Island 2 made using the Amiga version's 11 floppy disks relatively smooth,<ref name="AmiComp"/> but also noted that installing the game on a hard drive is recommended.<ref name="reRelease"/>

In 1992 Computer Gaming World named it the year's best adventure game, praising its "challenging puzzles and wonderful sense of humor, along with a stunning visual presentation".<ref name="cgwgoty199211">Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 1996 the magazine ranked it as the 74th best game of all time.<ref>CGW 148: 150 Best Games of All Time</ref> In 1994, PC Gamer UK named Monkey Island 2 the fourth best computer game of all time. The editors wrote: "Anyone who claims to have an interest in adventuring cannot afford to be without this".<ref name=pcgameruktop50>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 1996, GamesMaster ranked the game 29th on their "Top 100 Games of All Time".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 2011, Adventure Gamers named Monkey Island 2 the eighth-best adventure game ever released.<ref name=top100>Template:Cite web</ref>

In a celebration of the series 30th anniversary, Ron Gilbert shared secrets from its original source code during a video conversation with the Video Games History Foundation. These included early character prototypes, deleted scenes, unused animations and alternative game environments from the first two games.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Special Edition

The Special Edition was given a score of B+ by Gaming Bus; the site stated that there was more music and it was of higher quality, the graphics were improved, there was additional content, and the core game was still intact, though the hints were too helpful and there were some problems with controls.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>