This week we journeyed to Phatt Island thanks to the fantastic Captain Dread. Below you’ll see the screens we released (and a few we didn’t). The reaction (as we hoped!) was fantastic. You guys really love your Monkey Island. But, we can’t just let some screenshots be all the news… Fans also got quite excited when they found out that Phil LaMarr, the voice of Hermes, Kit Fisto, and tons of other geek favorites would be playing the part of our favorite Rastafarian pirate. Who wouldn’t be excited about that? He’s PERFECT!

To top all of this off, our Playstation Home fans got a huge release this week in the form of avatar items, clothing, and an exclusive private space – Lechuck’s Pirate Ship from The Secret of Monkey Island. What a crazy week. All the screens are below for your perusal, just be ready for next week as we visit the island now home to the lovely Governor Marley. Perhaps a pink dress will show up. Perhaps.

But the world itself is the real story here. Woodtick, a seaside port on Scabb Island has been taken over the evil and diminutive Largo LaGrande. Luckily, our hero has allies to help him in his time of need. While Scabb has many sights to see, my memories of the island always take me right back to the first time I crossed that bridge with piles of coins and gold in my pockets. For those who missed out on all the nostalgia and want to join in, hit the jump to see Scabb Island in its high-res glory.

Next week we’ll be doing updates of Phatt Island, and if you’re nice about it we will be showing you a full set of concept art and telling you about the process all these backgrounds went through. If you’re nice, that is. Want to see the screens first? Hit up our Facebook and Twitter feeds and join up for the latest news.

So now you can dress up as Starkiller, rearrange a few Crystal Skulls, and even head out to the Central Plaza. What’s so cool out there? Keep an eye out for a new fountain featuring the worlds favorite green Jedi Master. Modeled after the fountain we at Lucasarts are lucky enough to walk by everyday, now you too can bother a bronze Yoda with everyday questions. Ask him about your career, your money, love and more – and he will give you sage wisdom in return. Check out the gallery after the jump – then head into Home and dress your avatar up!

As a side note, I still have not witnessed any Lightsaber battles taking place within Home. I am disappoint. Get out there and show us how creative you can get!

The plethora of items can be purchased on Xbox Live, but like all good net-faring XBLA user, you can also drop right into their website and pick up the set!

This first big announcement of the year is definitely something the fans will love – we’re throwing our efforts into providing you guys with an unexpected demand – Digital Swag. With our huge releases last year, there were tons of items you could get a hold of through Xbox Live. Lightsabers, Jedi outfits, shirts, and more.

And of course, once you give a mouse a cookie, it will ask for a glass of milk. And once you guys had your cookie, you began asking for all sorts of crazy items. We already had the lightsaber out there, thankfully (which was quite popular), but we were missing a whole group of you, and you let us know it. We were missing Playstation Home.

At least, until now. It is my honor to announce that LucasArts will be opening a storefront inside the mall within Playstation Home. Naturally, this is pretty big news to our fans. Bigger news is that we’re doing this tomorrow to coincide with the release of the final Force Unleashed DLC – Hoth. For those who didn’t pick up the epic Sith Edition, you’ll finally get to take Starkiller through the snowy world of the Rebellion and see some old enemies and friends – and throw them around like ragdolls.

So, with Hoth arriving on the 18th for PSN and the 24th for Xbox 360, we grabbed hold of this opportunity in the form of all sorts of crazy stuff. Take a look for yourself – below are the PlayStation Home goodies:

Yup, that’s right – no longer will you have to envy your Xbox 360 friends – you can now own your own lightsaber. Bonus points for anyone who choreographs a huge fight scene within Home itself. I imagine people doing the cabbage patch on the dance floor slicing through other dancers. Not that I condone such things.

Of course, there is much more to come. Besides the items above, we’ve got posters, banners, and all sorts of things coming down the pipe for our Playstation fans. And next week – I’ll just say keep an eye out for some other swag.  Like I said – this is shaping up to be a great year to be a fan of LucasArts.

Hey All,

Since we launched Lucidity on XBLA and PC, it’s been a really valuable experience to track the response from people to this experimental new game we put together. We’ve had some fantastic, supportive fans and positive responses and have gotten some great reviews from sites such as Edge, Eurogamer and Official Xbox Magazine.

At the same time, as many of you may have seen, we’ve also been getting feedback about the difficulty of the game, that people are finding it particularly punishing. We’ve seen comments about the lack of checkpoints in the game. At the time that we balanced the game, we designed the levels to be fairly short and the restarts as quick as possible and we felt that the game would be fine without checkpoints.

The dreams of Sofi...

However, when we started getting feedback, it became obvious that people were getting frustrated! We knew that the game was a challenge, but this showed us that we had underestimated that challenge by quite a bit.

We feel that there is so much great content in Lucidity that we want to open it up and make it more accessible for people to experience. So we have decided to create an update.

This update will launch for PC today and on XBLA in the coming weeks. The update will include the addition of checkpoints! So no more level restart when you die just before the end!

Keep an eye on this space we’ll post when it goes live. Let us know what you think of the improvement and tell your friends to check it out if they haven’t already. We hope this change will make it a little more accessible for a broader group of people!

Lots of Love

The Lucidity Team

Hey, I know that guy!

Hello there, fans of all things classic and LucasArts. This week LucasArts is proud to announce that yet another entry of the classic games has hits the Nintendo Virtual Console. With Super Star Wars’ as a trilogy hitting recently and Zombies Ate My Neighbors just two weeks ago, we have learned how many fans there are who are waiting for the classics to be released. As of today we have release Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures for your classic playing.

Set across the original three films prior to Crystal Skull, IJGA is quite beloved by collectors. A personal favorite of mine thanks to the solid platforming and (at the time) mind-blowing graphics. Those who’ve played it remember it – the classic platforming and shooting of old with that iconic whip-across-gaps that could only be done if that perfect piece of wood was sticking out of the wall.

Many nights were spent trying to get through the game. I don’t remember if I ever did, but I doubt it. This one, like Zombies Ate My Neighbors, is another shining example of those incredibly difficult games you simply cannot put down. The Himalayan raft scene from Temple of Doom might be the most fond of my memories, but the biplane sticks in there. After all, The graphics were totally top of the line – just look!

Go Indy Go!

Okay, maybe not now. But at the time it was amazing on a home console. Ahhh, memories. Nostalgia makes all those old videogames feel like they have the poly-count of The Force Unleashed.

Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures is out now in North America on Virtual Console, and this Friday worldwide. Be sure to drop a comment with your favorite memories – I know I’m not alone. Oh, and passwords for the later levels.

We tried to blur the lines of where sound design ends and music begins, with Jesse doing a first pass on the majority of the prominent game sounds, from the musical notes of picking up fireflies to the cymbal crash of the exploding bomb. Meanwhile I created some “instruments” for Jesse to use in the music from our sound design library. This included tuned owl calls and frog chirps turned into rhythm sections.

As I was creating the sound effect ambiences I carefully tuned each element in the mix from bird calls to the drone of crickets to match the root note of each level’s music so that they blended to create a single musical soundscape. We also timed all of the sounds related to Sofi in the game to play on a 16th note Grid so they were not only tuned to the music but also in time with the music.

The enemies in the game, such as the hornets, mushrooms and dust bunnies, needed to create a sense of danger to the character, so the sounds we chose were deliberately non musical and not timed to the music to create a sense of dissonance with the Sofi’s dreamlike musical existence.

As you can imagine with our melding of music and sound design the division of labor wasn’t clear cut, as the overall soundtrack of the game ended up as cross over of ideas and work between the two of us.

Chip has been a designer in the games industry since 1998.   Before Lucidity, he worked on God of War II, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (among others).  He also recently won third place at the Guitar Hero Arcade World Championship.  Since we’re all pretty busy and the only time I see Chip anymore is at the karaoke bar down the street where it’s too loud to have a real conversation, we exchanged a few emails about Dream Week, and Lucidity.

Shara: Lucidity was born out of DreamWeek, and it was your team’s game.  As a seasoned game developer, what was the Dream Week experience like for you?

Chip: I loved it.  Having a full week to work with a talented group of people on whatever we wanted was an incredible experience.  It felt like the garage days of game design –  no politics, no egos, no red tape — just a small group of people with a passion for making games.  It was one of the most productive weeks I’ve ever seen in the industry, and certainly the most fun I’ve ever had.

(More after the jump)

Shara: It must have been strange seeing “your baby” get handed off to a new team to take from prototype to full game.  What was the biggest challenge about this?  What was the coolest thing about it?

Chip: The final game is different than the DreamWeek prototype, but even that version was different than I’d originally envisioned.  Whenever an idea gets handed to a group of people, it’s going to evolve, and you need to let it go.  A core concept can sound great, but nailing down the mechanics and gameplay was a group effort.  The success of the game itself was defined by that team.  The biggest challenge for me was when the DreamWeek prototype was then handed to the dev team.

As a member of both teams, I knew what we’d tried before, and what was successful and what wasn’t.  The new team wanted to try a lot of things that I considered ground we’d already covered.  I had to bite my tongue a few times and let them go down those roads.

Although it was hard for me at first, a lot of good came from this too.  Where the DreamWeek team only had a week to experiment and had to make decisions quickly, the game team was able to spend more time making some of those concepts work.  Which then to come full circle, was also the coolest thing about it.

Shara: Often when we design a feature or a mechanic, the player ends up using it in ways we’d never thought about.  What was the most surprising element that game out of the Lucidity design for you?

Chip: Honestly, I was more surprised by the designers than the players.  The Dreamweek prototype was a very twitch-focused game, requiring fast thinking and quick reflexes with a steep learning curve.  It wasn’t a very casual game.  When game team took over, I started to see designers build levels that required the player to think in ways I’d never anticipated.  We started to see slower, almost meditative experiences, levels based on navigation challenges rather than keeping the player from falling, etc.

Then I was surprised again by the levels created through the BLOP program, which invited people from all over the company to design a Lucidity level.  Some really creative stuff appeared that the Labs team hadn’t anticipated, even from people who’ve never done development before.  And now those levels are in the game!

Shara: If LucasArts does a Dream Week again this year, how would you approach it differently?

Chip: DreamWeek was amazing, but we certainly learned a lot from it.  If we do it again, I’ll be sure to catch up on sleep the week before.  Heh.  But seriously, I think a theme would have helped all the teams get started a little quicker.  DreamWeek was presented as “do whatever you want” which was great on one hand, but on the other you then meet your team and everyone wants to do something different.  We spent an entire day just figuring out what we wanted to do.  TV cooking contests, for instance, all start every episode with a theme, and immediately the chef’s are off and running.  Something like “make a 2D platform game – GO!” would have helped get the ball rolling a lot sooner.

Shara: When you played the final game for the first time, what were your thoughts?

Chip: I’m most impressed by how far this game has come in such a short time.  It’s a very different game than I imagined it would be at the beginning of DreamWeek, but it’s become so much more.  We had a great demo of a core mechanic and some gameplay surrounding it, but seeing it now with the amazing art, story and all the little details that were added to make the environment feel complete still blows me away.  I never would have imagined I’d get lost in a fantasy while playing this game, and I love it.

Shara: Thanks, Chip.  See you at karaoke.  Margaritas are on me.

Lucidity can be played on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam

My name is Adam Bormann, and I was one of the designers on the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.  One of the things I worked on was the new hint system, which meant a lot of digging through the old original SCUMM source code to figure out how Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and company were tracking the state of different puzzles and whether Guybrush had completed something or not.  One thing I quickly noticed was that Ron and Tim had left a lot of notes in the code, explaining why things were the way they were, or putting a date when a certain bug was fixed.  This was fascinating to see and read.  The other thing I noticed is that when they made some changes, they left the original versions of the code in there, but commented out, so that it wouldn’t be used.

Now I know some of you are wondering why we didn’t add this content back into the game for the Special Edition.  But we felt like Ron Gilbert and the team had good reasons for removing them in the first place, and a lot of it doesn’t really fit with the game that shipped or puzzles the game had.   We did want to share the deleted and extended scenes with you though, because we were excited to discover them, and we think they’re pretty cool.

Being tossed in the drink by Shinetop (Extended Scene)

Some extra dialogue before Fester kicks you into the water.

Fester Shinetop

“You’ve been able to make quite a pest of yourself since you’ve been here.”

Fester Shinetop

“Poking in places you shouldn’t, taking things that aren’t yours, asking questions about things that aren’t any of your business.”

Fester Shinetop

“The Governor doesn’t need this kind of aggravation. And neither do I.”

After getting out of the water (Extended Scene)

When Guybrush gets out of the water after being thrown in by Shinetop, he runs into Governor Marley, and then this alternate exchange starts.

Guybrush

“You came down here to rescue me?”

Elaine

“Well…”

Guybrush

“You were going to dive into that icy water and drag me out?”

Elaine

“…Something like that.”

Guybrush

“You were going to brave the sharks and the eels to save my life?”

Elaine

“Sharks?  What sharks?”

Guybrush

“And then you were going to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

Elaine

“Don’t push it.”

The Crew Arrives at the Dock

When the crew shows up at the dock after they’ve been recruited,

Guybrush

“You little two-faced cretin!  You tricked me.”

Otis

“Oh come on, I was just kidding.”

“Just a joke, you know?”

“I was going to help you save the Governor, honest.”

“Right after I visited my sick Aunt Tillie…”

“…who, by the way, is in need of some very costly surgery and I was just wondering–”

Otis

“Does our ship have a pool?”

“I could really use a bath.”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “Meathook, I’d like you to meet Otis and Carla.”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “Otis, I’d like you to meet Carla and Meathook.”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “Carla, I’d like you to meet Meathook and Otis.”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “I assume you’ve all met…”

Meathook

“Wait a second–SHE’S not coming, is she?”

“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to have women on board?”

Carla

“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to make stupid remarks like that…”

“…in front of a woman who could slice off your tattoo like a strip of salted pork…”

“…and shove it up your nose so far you could taste it?”

Meathook

“Uh…”

(pause)

“No, actually, I’ve never heard that one…”

Carla

“You didn’t tell me this cannonball-head was coming.”

Meathook

“Hey, I don’t like being called that.”

Otis

“Ooooh…”

“Mr. Big and Sensitive…”

Meathook

“Is he the cabin boy?”

Carla

“What’s going on here?”
Otis

“Where’s our ship?”

Meathook

“Where’s our crew?”

Guybrush

“This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “You’re the crew.  That’s the ship.  Now, get on it.”

Otis/Meathook/Carla

“HA HA HA!!!”

Carla

“Very funny.”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “Well, it’s a long story…”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “Kids!  Kids!  Don’t worry.  I’ve taken care of everything.”

Carla

“Somehow I don’t find that very comforting.”

Guybrush Dialogue Option “I could explain if you’d all just SHUT UP!”

Carla

“Ooooh…Well excuse us, Captain Bligh!”

Otis

(turns to look at ship)

“Geeze, I hope no one’s on that thing.”

“It looks like it’s about to go under.”

Meathook

(turns to look at ship)

“Maybe they need some help.”

Carla

(turns to look at ship)

“Maybe somebody should row out there and check.”

Guybrush

“What a great idea!”

“Let’s all go!”

(Everyone turns and looks at Guybrush)

Guybrush

“I’ll explain everything once we’re out there.”

Men of Low Moral Fiber (the in-jokes version)

There were original a few funny answers when Guybrush talked to the three men of low moral fiber. These probably were never meant to be in the shipping version.

Guybrush

“Say, are you guys pirates?”

Frank

“No, we’re industrial spies from Sierra On-Line, traveling in disguise.”

(Freddy laughs)

Guybrush

“Say, are you guys pirates?”

Fin

“No, we’re just in town for the Game Designer’s Conference.”

Meathook’s Stump Balm

I couldn’t find Guybrush’s question, but I found references to an object in Meathook’s house called “Stump Balm”.  I assume Guybrush asks if he can borrow some, then Meathook’s response is below.

Meathook

“Well, yes, I do.”

“It’s for a friend, I take it?”

“You can have some.”

“Anyone in need, you know.”

“That’s what I always say.”

Recruiting Meathook

When you come to recruit Meathook, after the governor is kidnapped.  Meathook asks what they should do, Guybrush originally had another option…

Guybrush

“Screw ‘em.  Let’s go loot the town.”

Meathook

“Okay.”

(screen fades to black)

Title card

“Two hours later…”

(Cut back to Meathook’s house)

Guybrush

“Well, that was fun.”

Meathook

“Yeah, but I didn’t get anything, did you?”

Guybrush

“Well, I got these breath mints.”

Meathook

“Well, what are we going to do now?”

Guybrush

“Hmm…”

And here we go back to the original options.

Meathook questions Guybrush’s manliness

And here we go back to the original options.

Meathook

“Look, I’m sure you have good intentions…”

“…but it takes more than that to captain a ship.”

“Do you really think you’re man enough?”

Guybrush

“Yes I do, but I must say that I found that last remark to be very sexist.”

Meathook

“Boy do you sound like a sissy.”

Guybrush

“Am not.”

Meathook

“Are too.”

Guybrush

“Am not.”

Meathook

“Are too.”

Guybrush

“Am not.”

Meathook

“Okay, let’s see you prove it.”

Then, we return to the original scene

Stan’s Sea Monkey Extended Story

Most of this story appears in game, but this version has a few extra lines.

Stan

“Now, there’s something I should tell you about this ship.”

“It’s got a little history behind it.”

“This here is the famous `Sea Monkey.”

“–The only ship ever to make it to Monkey Island ™…”

“…and come back with anyone aboard left alive.”

“Or, should I say, anyTHING.”

“You see, the previous owners of this ship were two adventurous pirates.”

“They set off, like many before, to find the legendary Secret of Monkey Island ™.”

“And, like many before, they disappeared forever.”

“Their fate–a mystery.”

“Almost as mysterious as how this ship returned to”

” Mêlée Island™ without a single human aboard.

“on its own…”

“…or should I say, not MANNED.”

“Some claim it was sailed back by a crew of chimps.”

Guybrush

“Ha ha ha!”

Stan

“What I really want to know is, if it were sailed by a crew of chimps…”

“…where are they all now?”

Road Pirates In-Joke

When LucasFilm Games first started, their offices were in the “Stables” at Skywalker Ranch. Kerner was a new complex in San Rafael where Industrial Light & Magic was headquartered.

Guybrush

“Can you tell me where the Games Division is?”

Fighting Pirate

“They be moved off the ranch.”

“They be found at ye ol’ kerner now.”

Aboard the Sea Monkey

Right after the Part 2 heading, when Guybrush appears on the deck of the Sea Monkey, he originally said….

Guybrush

“Has anyone else noticed that the whole ship smells like monkeys?”

Carla

“All except the parts that smell like Otis’ breath”

Otis

“It can’t be any worse than the sun bouncing off Meathook’s head.”

Meathook

“Hey!  I warned you two…”

“…no bald jokes.”

Guybrush

“We’ve got to all work together if we’re going to rescue the Governor.”

Monkey Head Ceremony (Deleted Scene)

The first time you arrive at the Monkey Head, there are 4 cannibals, 2 with blue skull masks, one with a shark mask, and Orange Head.  They are exactly the same art as the 3 cannibals we know and love, but have different color masks.  Then it says “some dancing the Hokey-Pokey goes on”, and the natives all move around and one of them moves to the next to the ear.  He does some sort of cranking action at the ear (maybe with the monkey head key?) and the mouth of the Monkey head opens.  The other 3 cannibals walk into the open mouth.  The last cannibal looks around, to make sure no one is watching, and then

Lemonhead examines the Idol, Extended Version

Much of this appears in the game, but there are a few extra lines.

Red Skull

“You’re an expert at this sort of thing, Lemonhead…”

“What do you make of it?”

Lemonhead

“Hmmm…”

“Well, well, well…”

“I see…”

“Very interesting…”

Red Skull

“What?  What??”

Lemonhead

“Ah, this looks like an excellent piece of primitive folk art.”

“Crude, yet brilliant…”

“Simple, yet ingenious…”

“In many ways, very similar to my earlier work.”

“Even down to the `Made by Lemonhead` on the bottom.”

“Just look at the rich detail and superb craftsmanship…”

“We should take this to the Monkey God!”

Many thanks to Adam for the article. If you missed out on The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, you can always get your copy right now off Steam, Direct2Drive, XBLA, or iPhone!