The Secret of Monkey Island is a 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure game made and sold by Lucasfilm Games. It is set in a made-up version of the Caribbean during the time of pirates. The player plays as Guybrush Threepwood, a young man who wants to become a pirate, and explores imaginary islands while solving puzzles.
The game was created in 1988 by Lucasfilm employee Ron Gilbert, who worked with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman to design it. Gilbert was unhappy with other adventure games, so he made it very hard for the player character to die. This made the game focus more on exploring the environment. The game’s atmosphere was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride. The Secret of Monkey Island was the fifth game made using the SCUMM engine, which was changed to make it easier for players to use.
Reviewers liked The Secret of Monkey Island for its humor, visuals, and gameplay. Many lists include it as one of the best video games ever made. The game led to several follow-up games, all called the Monkey Island series. Gilbert, Schafer, and Grossman also helped create the next game in the series, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. LucasArts released a new version of the original game in 2009, which was also praised by game critics.
Gameplay
The Secret of Monkey Island is a 2D adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Players use a point-and-click interface to guide the main character, Guybrush Threepwood, through the game world. To interact with the environment, players choose from twelve verb commands (nine in newer versions), such as "talk to" for communicating with characters and "pick up" for collecting items. These actions help solve puzzles and advance in the game. When talking to other characters, players can select topics from a list of choices in a conversation tree. This feature was one of the first in video games. The game often stops the action to show short scenes called cutscenes. Like other LucasArts adventure games, The Secret of Monkey Island uses a design approach that makes it very hard for the player character to die. However, Guybrush can drown if he stays underwater for more than ten minutes.
Plot
A young man named Guybrush Threepwood arrives on Mêlée Island with the goal of becoming a pirate. He seeks out the island's pirate leaders, who give him three tasks: fighting a sword duel against Carla, the island's sword expert; finding a hidden treasure; and stealing a valuable idol from the governor's mansion. These tasks take Guybrush across the island, where he learns about the ghost pirate LeChuck, who supposedly died during an expedition to the mysterious Monkey Island. This expedition was meant to win the love of the island's governor, Elaine Marley. Along the way, Guybrush meets several characters, including a local voodoo priestess, Stan the Used Boat Salesman, Carla the Sword Master, a prisoner named Otis, and Meathook, whose hands are replaced by hooks.
Guybrush meets Elaine and falls in love with her. She feels the same way. However, as Guybrush completes his tasks, LeChuck and his undead crew attack the island, kidnapping Elaine and taking her to their secret hideout on Monkey Island. Guybrush purchases a ship and hires Carla, Otis, and Meathook as crew members before sailing to Monkey Island. There, he finds a village of cannibals who are fighting with Herman Toothrot, a castaway stranded on the island. Guybrush helps them resolve their conflict and retrieves a magical "voodoo root" from LeChuck's ship for the cannibals. In return, they give Guybrush a seltzer bottle containing a "voodoo root elixir," a substance that can destroy ghosts.
When Guybrush returns to LeChuck's ship with the elixir, he learns that LeChuck has gone back to Mêlée Island to marry Elaine at the church. Guybrush quickly returns to the island and shows up uninvited at the wedding, but he accidentally ruins Elaine's plan to escape. During this, he loses the elixir. Now facing LeChuck, Guybrush is badly beaten in a fight that takes place across the island. At a ship store, Guybrush finds a bottle of root beer. He uses it as a substitute for the lost elixir, spraying LeChuck with it and destroying him. Guybrush and Elaine share a romantic moment, watching fireworks caused by LeChuck's explosion.
Development
Ron Gilbert had the idea for a pirate adventure game in 1988, after finishing a game called Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. He first wrote story ideas about pirates while staying at a friend's house. He tried different ways to start the story to find the best one. At first, the villains in his story were not named, and Guybrush was not part of the story yet. He shared his idea with Lucasfilm Games as a series of short stories. His idea was welcomed, but the game was delayed because Lucasfilm assigned its designers, including Gilbert, to work on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure. After finishing that game in 1989, Gilbert began making The Secret of Monkey Island, which was called Mutiny on Monkey Island during development.
Gilbert realized it would be hard to design the game alone, so he worked with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman, both hired by Lucasfilm. The game’s insult sword fighting was inspired by swashbuckling movies starring Errol Flynn. The designers noticed pirates in those films often teased their enemies instead of fighting them, leading to the idea of using insults during duels. Writer Orson Scott Card helped create the insults during a visit to Lucasfilm’s headquarters. Some of Gilbert’s original ideas were not used during production, though he said most were left out for good reasons.
Dave Grossman described the game’s plot as a story about a young man who travels to an island to find his life’s goal. Along the way, he discovers love and learns it is more important than his original plans. When writing the story, Gilbert noticed Schafer and Grossman had very different styles: Grossman’s was dry and sarcastic, while Schafer’s was more direct. To help them work together, Gilbert gave them different characters and scenes based on the type of humor needed. Grossman said their different styles worked well together. Much of the dialogue was written while programming the game, often improvised. Some lines, like Guybrush’s “I had a feeling in hell there would be mushrooms,” were based on the designers’ personal experiences, such as Schafer’s dislike of fungi.
Gilbert designed most of the game’s world and characters. After reading Tim Powers’ book On Stranger Tides, he added paranormal themes to the story and characters. He also got ideas for the game’s setting from his favorite childhood ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. Near the end of development, Gilbert added characters not directly tied to the story, believing they would be important later.
Gilbert, Schafer, and Grossman aimed to create a simpler and more accessible game than previous Lucasfilm titles. Gilbert had already planned the main designs and puzzles before production started, so most of the team’s work was to expand on his ideas. He was frustrated by adventure games from Sierra On-Line, where players could die easily. He believed this made the games unfair. He had tried similar ideas in Maniac Mansion but made mistakes, like dead-end puzzles and poorly timed events. He wanted to avoid these in The Secret of Monkey Island. The team decided the player could not die, except for one situation, focusing instead on exploration. A joke in the game parodied Sierra’s game-over screen: Guybrush falls off a cliff but is bounced back up by a “rubber tree.” Guybrush can also drown, but this is a hidden feature unlikely to be found.
The Secret of Monkey Island was the fifth Lucasfilm Games project using the SCUMM engine, first created for Maniac Mansion. The engine was updated over time. For Maniac Mansion, commands were hard-coded, but later versions used more abstract commands. The team still called game areas “rooms,” even though Monkey Island had outdoor settings. The game used the same engine as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, with minor changes. A dialogue tree was added to help players choose conversation options and solve sword-fighting puzzles. The “What is” command, which described objects, was removed in favor of highlighting objects with the mouse. The game’s improved interface became a standard for future Lucasfilm titles. Logical verb shortcuts were added, like clicking on a character to automatically choose the “talk” action. The SCUMM engine’s visuals were updated: the original EGA version used 16 colors, which limited the art team’s choices. They used black and white for Guybrush’s outfit for the same reason. The VGA version later used 256 colors for better visuals. The “stump joke,” where players had to insert fictional discs to continue, was removed from later editions.
The game’s music, called “pirate reggae,” was composed by Lucasfilm’s musician Michael Land in MIDI format. It was his first project at the company. The game was first released on floppy disks in 1990, followed by a CD-ROM version with a CD soundtrack in 1992. The music remains popular and has been remixed by fans and musicians.
The Secret of Monkey Island cost $200,000 to make and took nine months to develop. LucasArts released a remake in July 2009.
Reception
The Secret of Monkey Island received good reviews from critics. According to Gilbert, it "sold well" but was "never a big hit." Grossman later said the game's sales were "north of 100,000, far south of 1 million." At that time, selling a few hundred thousand copies was considered a major success. According to Next Generation, the game was a "relatively minor hit" in the United States, but it and its sequel became "blockbusters on the PC and the Amiga throughout Europe."
Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser of Dragon praised the designers' attention to detail and the game's humor. They believed the game was too expensive but called it "a highly enjoyable graphic adventure" with interesting puzzles, a fantastic Roland soundtrack, superb VGA graphics, smooth-scrolling animation, and some of the funniest lines ever seen on a computer screen. Duncan MacDonald of Zero praised the graphics and found the game "quite amusing." His favorite part was the difficulty level, which he thought was "just right." He ended his review by saying, "at last an adventure game that's enjoyable rather than frustrating."
Paul Glancey of Computer and Video Games said the game was better than Lucasfilm's earlier adventure titles. He wrote that usually, the fun in adventure games comes from solving puzzles, but the game's hilarious characters, situations, and movie-like presentation made it feel like playing a comedy film. He called the puzzles "brilliantly conceived" and said the controls were easy to use. He summarized the game as "utterly enthralling."
ACE's Steve Cooke found the controls convenient and praised the game's atmosphere. He wrote that, "in graphics and sound terms … Monkey Island, along with King's Quest V, is currently at the head of the pack." However, he disliked the use of "TM" after character and place names, which he thought hurt the atmosphere. He said the game's writing, characters, and plot structure were its best features. Amiga Power's Mark Ramshaw wrote, "with The Secret of Monkey Island, the mouse-controlled, graphic-adventure comes of age." He praised the comedic elements, which he called the highlight of the game. He also said the control scheme allowed players to "more or less forget about the specifics of what [they are] physically doing … and lose [themselves] in the adventure instead." He noted that the game's plot and visual and aural presentation created a thick atmosphere and finished by saying, "Forget all those other milestone adventures (Zork, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings et al) — for sheer enjoyment and general all-round perfection, The Secret of Monkey Island creams 'em all in style." The game and its sequel were ranked the 19th best game of all time by Amiga Power.
Paul Presley of The One said Lucasfilm took elements that worked in its previous games and improved them in The Secret of Monkey Island. Like other reviewers, he praised the controls. He also praised the "hilarious storyline, strong characters, and intriguing setting" but mentioned graphical slowdowns. Nick Clarkson of Amiga Computing called the graphics "flawless" and said the characters were "superbly animated" and the backdrops "ooze atmosphere." He highly praised the sound effects and music and said the controls were "couldn't be simpler." The staff of Amiga Action wrote that the "attention to detail and the finely tuned gameplay cannot be faulted." They called the graphics "stunning throughout" and believed that when combined with "excellent Caribbean tunes," the result was a game filled with character and atmosphere. They ended by saying, "there is absolutely no excuse for not owning this game." Computer Gaming World said, "Monkey Island offers up LucasArt's famous humor at its best … For an adventure you'll long remember, raise your cup of grog."
The Secret of Monkey Island has appeared on many "top" game lists, such as Computer Gaming World's Hall of Fame and IGN's Video Game Hall of Fame. In 1991, PC Format placed The Secret of Monkey Island on its list of the 50 best computer games of all time, calling it "genuinely funny." In 1996, Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 19th best game of all time, writing: "Who could ever forget the insult-driven duel system or the identity of the mysterious Swordmaster?" In 2004, readers of Retro Gamer voted it as the 33rd top retro game. IGN named The Secret of Monkey Island one of the ten best LucasArts adventure games in 2009 and ranked the Xbox Live Arcade version as the 20th best title of all time for that platform in 2010. In 2017, The Secret of Monkey Island ranked 78th in the "Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time," a statistical analysis by Warp Zoned of 44 "top games" lists published between 1995 and 2016.
Like the original release, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition received good reviews from critics. Sean Ely of GamePro praised its updated audio and said the new graphics "blow the old clunker visuals … out of the water." He cited its script, humor, plot, puzzles, and balanced difficulty level as high points and finished, "The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is impressive, hilarious, and downright worth your money." Daemon Hatfield of IGN wrote, "Almost 20 years after its release, [The Secret of Monkey Island] remains a blast to play." He called the new graphics "slick, if a little generic" and noted that the "original graphics have a certain charm to them that the fancy new visuals just don't." However, he enjoyed the redone music, the new hint function, and the added sound effects and voice acting. He summarized it as "one of the best times you'll ever have pointing and clicking" and said "few games are this funny." Justin Calvert of GameSpot noted that "the Special Edition looks much better and is the only way to play if you want to hear … what characters are saying, whereas the original game's interface is less clunky." However, he wrote that "the voice work is such a great addition to the game that it's difficult to go back to the original edition." He praised its humor, writing, puzzles, and characters and said it had aged well. Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead wrote, "Purists like me will almost certainly find something to grumble about over the span of the game, but the overall impact of the redesign is undeniably for the better." He preferred the original game's Guybrush design and believed the new control system was "rather less intuitive" than the old one. He finished by stating, "few games can stand the test of time with such confidence."
Legacy
The Secret of Monkey Island led to five follow-up games. The first, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, was released in 1991 and tells the story of LeChuck returning. Six years later, LucasArts released The Curse of Monkey Island, which includes a new visual style. In 2000, the company released Escape from Monkey Island, which uses the GrimE engine from Grim Fandango to create 3D graphics. The next game, Tales of Monkey Island, was released in 2009 and consists of five short chapters released one after another. The most recent game, Return to Monkey Island, was released in 2022 and returns to locations and characters from the first game.
Parts of the game have appeared in other media. The original version was chosen as one of five for an exhibition called The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2011. A fake drink recipe for grog in the game was accidentally reported as real in 2009 by an Argentine news channel, C5N, which warned teenagers not to drink the dangerous "Grog XD." In Tales of Monkey Island, the character Guybrush mentions this news story while pressing the Grog XD button on a Grog machine.
To celebrate the game's 30th anniversary, Ron Gilbert shared details from the game's original code during a video call with the Video Games History Foundation. These details included early character designs, animations that were not used, and different game environments that were not included in the final version.
On July 20, 2023, the game studio Rare LTD released an update for their game Sea of Thieves. This update allows players to visit Mêlée Island and interact with characters from the Monkey Island series in a new adventure that connects the stories of both games.