The Secret of Monkey Island

D
MS-DOS 0 subscribers
Manual

383K plays 1990 #Adventure

The Secret of Monkey Island is a 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It takes place in a fictional version of the Caribbean during the age of piracy. The player assumes the role of Guybrush Threepwood, a young man who dreams of becoming a pirate, and explores fictional islands while solving puzzles.

The game was conceived in 1988 by Lucasfilm employee Ron Gilbert, who designed it with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. Gilbert's frustrations with contemporary adventure titles led him to make the player character's death almost impossible, which meant that gameplay focused on exploration. The atmosphere was based on that of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride. The Secret of Monkey Island was the fifth game built with the SCUMM engine, which was heavily modified to include a more user-friendly interface.

Critics praised The Secret of Monkey Island for its humor, audiovisuals, and gameplay. Several publications list it among the greatest video games of all time. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series. Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman also led the development of the sequel Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. LucasArts released a remake of the original in 2009, which was also well received by the gaming press.

From Wikipedia's article The Secret of Monkey Island, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Pixel Verdict

The Secret of Monkey IslandDOS

4.0 Great job!

GameRankings 81% (archived)

What the reviews talk about

Key wordshilariousenjoyableoriginalclunkygenericaccessible

What the critics said

  • According to Next Generation, The Secret of Monkey Island was a "relatively minor hit" in the United States, but the game and its sequel became "blockbusters on the PC and the Amiga throughout Europe".

    — Next Generation, 1996

  • Writing for The One, Paul Presley stated that "Lucasfilm appears to have taken all of the elements that worked in its previous releases and, not only incorporated them into this tale of scurvy swashbuckling, but even improved on them in the process!"

    — The One

  • Computer Gaming World said that "Monkey Island offers up LucasArt's famous humor at its best... For an adventure you'll long remember, raise your cup of grog".

    — Computer Gaming World, 1994

  • Sean Ely of GamePro praised its updated audio, and said that the new graphics "blow the old clunker visuals... out of the water".

    — GamePro (Sean Ely)

  • He summarized it as "one of the best times you'll ever have pointing and clicking", and noted that "few games are this funny".

    — IGN, 2009

  • Amiga Power's Mark Ramshaw wrote "with The Secret of Monkey Island, the mouse-controlled, graphic-adventure comes of age".

    — Amiga Power (Mark Ramshaw)· about another version

  • Nick Clarkson of Amiga Computing cited the game's graphics as "flawless", noting that "the characters are superbly animated and the backdrops simply ooze atmosphere".

    — Amiga Computing (Nick Clarkson)· about another version

  • The staff of Amiga Action wrote that the "attention to detail and the finely tuned gameplay cannot be faulted".

    — Amiga Action· about another version

From the Reception section of Wikipedia's The Secret of Monkey Island article, under CC BY-SA 4.0. The words are the critics'; their full reviews are on the publishers' pages.

Scores

  • Metascore 86/100 · DOS
  • GameRankings 81% · archived average · DOS
  • Computer and Video Games 94%
  • Dragon 5/5
  • Amiga Power 1991 90%
  • Amiga Action 1991 90%
  • The One 92%
  • Amiga Computing 90%
  • Zero 84
  • ACE 922 (Amiga) ; 918 (Atari ST) ; 915 (IBM PC)
  • Mega 91%
  • Eurogamer 2009 9 out of 10
  • GamePro 2009 4 out of 5
  • GameSpot 2010 8 out of 10
  • IGN 2009 8.7 out of 10

From the review table of Wikipedia's article. The face takes, first that applies: the Metascore for this platform, GameRankings' archived average, our average of the critics (one number per publication, a panel averaged), one review alone, the players' rating. Critics and players are never mixed.

Players' rating: 89/100 · 3,800 votes

Full reviews

Face key

  1. 1.00+
  2. 1.540+
  3. 2.050+
  4. 2.560+
  5. 3.068+
  6. 3.575+
  7. 4.080+
  8. 4.585+
  9. 5.090+

5.0 Outstanding! · 4.0 Great job! · 3.0 Good job · 2.0 Could be better · 1.0 Wake me up when it's over · A thumbs-up adds half a point. Our own drawings, in the spirit of the faces GamePro magazine used in the '90s.

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