Verb: Look

October 10, 2011 4:57 PM

Hundreds of backgrounds from classic LucasArts adventure games including Maniac Mansion, The Dig, Full Throttle, and Monkey Island. They are displayed in their original resolution.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn (36 comments total)

OMG cool! Now I totally want to hork these to make my own adventure game in Visual Basic!
posted by darkstar at 5:04 PM on October 10, 2011

YOU TUNA HEAD
posted by The Whelk at 5:05 PM on October 10, 2011

Looking at the Indy game backgrounds reminds me just how much I loved that game. Never clear to me why they didn't make a movie out of it.
posted by yerfatma at 5:06 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

I loved Full Throttle. They need to bring that back. Possibly with Sons of Anarchy branding.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:07 PM on October 10, 2011

Nice find.
posted by dortmunder at 5:08 PM on October 10, 2011

*spends the next week with Monkey Island themes running through his head.*
posted by curious nu at 5:10 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Dig was awesome. I think it was also supposed to be a movie but it never happened.
posted by jeremy b at 5:17 PM on October 10, 2011

God remember when the guy in The Dig got his hand stuck between the rocks and then sawed it off with the jaw bone or something?

127 hours was basically that movie, you know, except without the asteroid and space aspect.
posted by Chekhovian at 5:27 PM on October 10, 2011

I just replayed The Dig not too long ago, and I didn't like it very well. It was okay, I guess, but I didn't find it very interesting, and I thought they cheated massively at the end. I can't say more without spoilers.

Some good puzzles, though.

Full Throttle was ridiculously good. Its only real problem was that it was woefully short. Fantastic idea, awesome execution, not much actual content.

The Monkey Island 1 and 2 games had an official remake, recently, which you can buy on Steam. It's the old games from the 1990s, completely redrawn with new graphics. They are just freaking gorgeous. And at any time, you can hit a function key (I think it's F5) and instantly be back in the original VGA graphics, exactly as they originally shipped. (the EGA versions are not included; they sucked anyway, no big loss.) You can toggle repeatedly back and forth to see the different renderings. Really neat feature.

Day of the Tentacle was, for me, the standout of the LucasArts adventures.
posted by Malor at 5:30 PM on October 10, 2011

no Sam n Max? But, yeah... I got plenty of early 20s nostalgia for those LA games
posted by edgeways at 5:31 PM on October 10, 2011

Day of the Tentacle was, for me, the standout of the LucasArts adventures.

I can't do that, me and my therapist have an agreement.

So, no love for Afterlife? The hardest, funniest city building sim ever?
posted by The Whelk at 5:48 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

No Infocom games?
posted by benzenedream at 5:53 PM on October 10, 2011

127 hours was basically that movie, you know, except without the asteroid and space aspect.

I thought it was based on the Aquaman episode of Justice League?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:05 PM on October 10, 2011

Wow, so many memories looking at those screens, I was doing some consulting and training work for the games division around the time that those titles were big, it was a crazy time for the CD-ROM game biz, all sorts of cool creativity and small, tight teams that weren't yet the armies of hundreds often involved today. Great music in those titles as well, I have the soundtrack CD for Full Throttle somewhere in a box, signed by Tim Schafer (a truly great guy). I seem to remember a wrap party for Throttle with the band in attendance, doing the soundtrack live. Good times. Actually, heck, Great Times.

So I had some friends who were senior staff over at the brown monstrosity of a building they ended up in, off 101 at Lucas Valley Road, and no surprise, they were seriously hardcore Akira fanatics. My weird life being what it is, I was in possession of a rather large cache of original production cels, and decided to gift them one for their office. They were really shocked when I showed up with it before a lunch outing one day, made a huge deal of having it framed and hung on a wall in the bullpen, and they told me that as long as they worked there, I would never be homeless, the ground directly below the cel was deemed my "special space", and that I could live in a sleeping bag on the floor if my world turned to shit. Thank goodness, I never had to put it to the test, but it was on that wall for years. I wonder who ended up with it?

And one small final side inside note: Uncle George was being told by a certain someone he hired (DN), that he should divest himself of the fame division in the early nineties, and came very close to doing just that. Lucas had already been advised to sell Pixar to Steve Jobs, he didn't like paying salaries to a highly technical crew if he couldn't bill out the hours consistently and predictably, so off it went. Then again, most people aren't aware of the layoff cycles of tech folks that ILM underwent for many years, screwing the best people, while coordinators were kept at their desks on the payroll. Ah, the hubris of humanity, and the vast chasm between perception and reality. It's enough to give me agita.
posted by dbiedny at 6:05 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

GAME division, dammit. I believe the fame division continues to be the driving Force behind the empire.
posted by dbiedny at 6:06 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Now I super want to play Monkey Island.

When I was in college my then boyfriend (now husband), ourcollective best friend, and I realized that he looks a lot like Guybrush Threepwood, being a scrawny nerd and all. Upon closer inspection, I look decently like this picture of Elaine Marley (for those of you who have met me, I was thinner in college) and Mr. Pterodactyl is a big dark-haired guy so for Halloween we went as Guybrush, Elaine Marley, and Ghost Pirate LeChuck.

We mostly just looked like pirates so we had nametags (Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate; Elaine Marley, Governer of Mêlée Island; Ghost Pirate LeChuck). When someone looked at the name tags and recognized us as being from Monkey Island I gave them a cheap white t-shirt on which I had scribbled "I Beat the Swordmaster" in Sharpie which I felt fit how I actually imagined the t-shirt to look. It was awesome.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:07 PM on October 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Let me be the first to lament the lack of Grim Fandango backgrounds.
posted by komara at 6:08 PM on October 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Grim fandango had the best music


The best.
posted by The Whelk at 6:12 PM on October 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

got to make a plug for this great video, Evolution of PC Audio - As Told by Secret of Monkey Island. It's amazing to see the cards evolve from a few through-hole chips and big passive components to a mass of surface-mount ICs in 5 years.
posted by scose at 6:16 PM on October 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

my friend's band wrote a song about Maniac Mansion
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:18 PM on October 10, 2011

Grim fandango had the best music


The best.
posted by The Whelk at 9:12 PM on October 10 [+] [!]

SO true. I listen to Rusty Anchor pretty frequently and have been known to request it at parties.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:20 PM on October 10, 2011

"How it shone, pale as bone,
as I stood there alone,
and I thought to myself, how moon

"that night, cast its light,
on my heart's true delight,
and the reef where her body was strewn."

Together this time!
posted by JHarris at 6:41 PM on October 10, 2011

How THE moon, dammit.
posted by JHarris at 6:41 PM on October 10, 2011

Grim fandango had the best music

Grim Fandango was The Best Adventure Game. Period. It was pretty much the high point of the entire genre, and it came out after adventure games were out of style (thanks Doom!), so no one played it.
posted by dortmunder at 6:42 PM on October 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

All I'm seeing are thumbnail sized images, and a lot of "502" errors. A little help here!
posted by Brocktoon at 6:56 PM on October 10, 2011

We killed it, much like that frozen cave explorer in one of the Indiana Jones titles. Atlantis?
posted by Think_Long at 7:10 PM on October 10, 2011

I was nine when my stepfather moved into my mothers house, relatively used to my parent's divorce but still a bit wary of this man who was coming to live with us.
But with him came a brand new Power Mac G3, a copy of Photoshop 5, and a box full of old LucasArts graphic adventures. I still attribute that Power Mac to a lot of choices that I made in my life. (Then, my father bought DSL. Also a game changer)
posted by daniel striped tiger at 7:21 PM on October 10, 2011

scose: I think a lot of that has to do with manufacturing technology as well. You can automate the placement and soldering of surface mount components very easily compared to through hole components, which are still often hand placed on a board.

I really liked "Loom". A video game where the protagonist may be a musically gifted cosmic horror.

"If you're afraid of nothing, don't look under my hood"
posted by Grimgrin at 8:01 PM on October 10, 2011

Grim fandango had the best music

Grim Fandango was The Best Adventure Game. Period. It was pretty much the high point of the entire genre, and it came out after adventure games were out of style (thanks Doom!), so no one played it.

these guys did

No, I don't know why there are multiple local bands inspired by LucasArts adventure games
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:03 PM on October 10, 2011

OK, I retract my earlier claim: DOTT was the second best LucasArts game, after Grim Fandango. For whatever reason, I think of that as not LucasArts, probably because of the 3D engine.

There are full video playthroughs of Grim Fandango available, and it's super-entertaining just to watch it played through. It's almost more fun than playing it.
posted by Malor at 10:22 PM on October 10, 2011

Amazing looking screenshots.
posted by Meatafoecure at 11:32 PM on October 10, 2011

So, no love for Afterlife? The hardest, funniest city building sim ever?

The one where things could go a little... whack-a-ding hoy?
posted by Spatch at 1:02 AM on October 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I never did get to finish Grim Fandango. Here's hoping for a re-release on modern platforms.

Also, I feel the need for a Sierra equivalent to this site.
posted by IndigoRain at 1:47 AM on October 11, 2011

Obligatory SCUMMVM:

ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!

and Residual linkage:

Residual is a cross-platform 3D game interpreter which allows you to play LucasArts' LUA-based 3D adventures: Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island, provided you already have their data files.

SCUMMVM is pretty much available for any modern platform [iOS/Android/webOS included], I just installed it on my tablet a couple of days ago and I'm working my way through the whole catalogue [starting with Day of The Tentacle obviously]
posted by xqwzts at 4:34 AM on October 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

I liked Grim Fandango, but I would have liked it better in 2D. But it was so good, I don't hold it against it.
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:40 AM on October 11, 2011

It's a shelf full of Snuckey's crap!

Ditto on everything said thus far about Grim Fandango. That game was funny, clever, touching, and just incredibly well designed from every possible aspect.

I loved Sam & Max to itty bitty pieces, and seeing those screens was a fun bit of nostalgia.

The only one of those backroubds that surprised me, though, was LOOM. I know for a fact that I played that game (I was a little too old for it, in fact, so it was easier for me than for its target demographic), but I'll be damned if any of those screens sparked a memory. :-/
posted by shiu mai baby at 8:19 AM on October 11, 2011