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The Secret of Monkey Island was a project led by Ron Gilbert and designed by Gilbert with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. Gilbert originally intended to work on the title in 1988, after his work on Maniac Mansion, but the project was put on hold for the production of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure.[1][2]
The game was conceived from Gilbert's interest in pirates, and a desire to avoid traditional fantasy themes.[3][4] In interviews conducted at the time of the game's release, he stated that the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride at Disneyland inspired him to create an explorable world populated by swashbuckling pirates.[2] Later, he explained that while the ride informed the game's ambience, inspiration for the characters and voodoo themes came from Tim Powers' 1988 book On Stranger Tides.[3][4]
Gilbert developed his ideas through a series of short stories, which he shared with colleagues.[5] One of these stories introduced ghosts, a theme that would become central to the game. Once an initial story draft was written and the budget and schedule were approved, Schafer and Grossman began programming.[2] The pair, who also contributed about two thirds of the dialogue, took three months to put together a rough, working version of the game.[2] The team then used this early version, with place-holder art and no animation, to significantly tweak the game's content and pacing. Some sections of gameplay were removed altogether, and new characters and puzzles were added.[5]
Emphasis was put on making the game enjoyable and accessible to all players. The player character cannot die (except if the player encounters a certain easter egg) or trigger a game over and no puzzle ever becomes impossible to solve. Certain objectives are non-linear; for example, Guybrush must defeat a swordmaster, steal a statue, and find buried treasure at the beginning of the game. These three tasks may be accomplished in any order.[5]
Art for the game was created by Steve Purcell and Mark Ferrari.[2] The game's soundtrack was primarily composed by Michael Land in MIDI format. Another notable contributor was Orson Scott Card, acclaimed author of Ender's Game, who wrote the insults for the "insult swordfighting" section.[6]
As the release date approached, the game was behind schedule, and so members of the development team and other LucasFilm employees were asked to help assemble game boxes for the initial shipment.[7] In an interview at the time, Gilbert was quoted as saying, "I'm glad it's done. It's been two and a half years and a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun, too. We hope everyone has a great time playing it."[2]
System Requirements
o OS: Windows XP
or Windows Vista
o Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3GHz or AMD Athlon 64 3000+
o Memory: 256 MB RAM, 512 MB for Vista
o Graphics: 128 MB with Shader Model 2.0 capability
o DirectX: 9.0c (March 2009)
o Hard Drive: 2.5GB free hard drive space
o Sound: DirectX 9.0c compliant sound card
o Controller support: Xbox 360 controller
The game was conceived from Gilbert's interest in pirates, and a desire to avoid traditional fantasy themes.[3][4] In interviews conducted at the time of the game's release, he stated that the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride at Disneyland inspired him to create an explorable world populated by swashbuckling pirates.[2] Later, he explained that while the ride informed the game's ambience, inspiration for the characters and voodoo themes came from Tim Powers' 1988 book On Stranger Tides.[3][4]
Gilbert developed his ideas through a series of short stories, which he shared with colleagues.[5] One of these stories introduced ghosts, a theme that would become central to the game. Once an initial story draft was written and the budget and schedule were approved, Schafer and Grossman began programming.[2] The pair, who also contributed about two thirds of the dialogue, took three months to put together a rough, working version of the game.[2] The team then used this early version, with place-holder art and no animation, to significantly tweak the game's content and pacing. Some sections of gameplay were removed altogether, and new characters and puzzles were added.[5]
Emphasis was put on making the game enjoyable and accessible to all players. The player character cannot die (except if the player encounters a certain easter egg) or trigger a game over and no puzzle ever becomes impossible to solve. Certain objectives are non-linear; for example, Guybrush must defeat a swordmaster, steal a statue, and find buried treasure at the beginning of the game. These three tasks may be accomplished in any order.[5]
Art for the game was created by Steve Purcell and Mark Ferrari.[2] The game's soundtrack was primarily composed by Michael Land in MIDI format. Another notable contributor was Orson Scott Card, acclaimed author of Ender's Game, who wrote the insults for the "insult swordfighting" section.[6]
As the release date approached, the game was behind schedule, and so members of the development team and other LucasFilm employees were asked to help assemble game boxes for the initial shipment.[7] In an interview at the time, Gilbert was quoted as saying, "I'm glad it's done. It's been two and a half years and a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun, too. We hope everyone has a great time playing it."[2]
System Requirements
o OS: Windows XP
or Windows Vistao Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3GHz or AMD Athlon 64 3000+
o Memory: 256 MB RAM, 512 MB for Vista
o Graphics: 128 MB with Shader Model 2.0 capability
o DirectX
: 9.0c (March 2009)o Hard Drive: 2.5GB free hard drive space
o Sound: DirectX
9.0c compliant sound cardo Controller support: Xbox 360 controller
