History of PC audio as told by Monkey Island
BlogA stroll through memory lane. Which one spits out your favorite sounds?
In the Caribbean island of Mêlée IslandTM Guybrush Threepwood is determined to become a pirate. Seeking out the Pirate Leaders Guybrush begins an adventure which includes haggling a salesman down for a boat, freeing 'innocent' pirates from jail, escaping the capture of cannibals and escaping an attempt to end his life at the ocean floor.
The game was made accessible to all; Guybrush cannot die1, no game over screens and there is no way to get stuck (apart from genuinely being stumped on how to progress).
Produced in 16-bit color for the PC (as well as coming out on the Amiga, Atari, MAC and the Mega-CD for the Sega Mega Drive) the title fused humour with a simple point and click interface to create a very memorable pirate adventure.
Trivia
- The original game included a code wheel dubbed "Dial-A-Pirate" as a primitive form of copy protection. The wheel consisted of two concentric circles, which could be turned in order to make identikit pirate faces that matched those displayed on screen. The game would show an image of a pirate, and ask when the pirate was hanged on a particular island. The player then had to reproduce the face by rotating the wheel, and then enter the year shown in the hole corresponding to the island.2
