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Monkey Island

Monkey Island is the collective name given to a series of graphical point-and-click adventure games published by LucasArts (formerly Lucasfilm Games).

The games follow the misadventures of the hapless Guybrush Threepwood as he struggles to become the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean, defeat the plans of the evil undead pirate LeChuck and win the heart of governor Elaine Marley. Each game's plot usually involves the mysterious Monkey Island and its impenetrable secrets.

So far, four games in the series have been released. A fifth is planned, though it has not yet been announced to be in production.

Interesting facts
The Monkey Island series is full of spoofs, in-jokes, humorous references, and easter eggs: so many, in fact, that entire web sites are dedicated to their detection and listing. Some of the most notable ones are:

The name "Guybrush" stems from the fact that the character's graphics, made using Deluxe Paint, were saved using the filename guy.brush.

In the last two games, Guybrush has a deathly fear of porcelain. This is said by the developers to be a reference to a fight in the first game in which he gets hit in the head with a vase. However, in that fight, it is in fact Guybrush who hits his enemy over the head, not vice versa.

The name "Threepwood" comes from the works of P. G. Wodehouse, whose characters included Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth and Galahad Threepwood.

The bar in The Secret of Monkey Island (the SCUMM Bar) contains a character from LOOM, wearing a pirate hat and a button reading "Ask me about LOOM". (If asked, he indeed describes the game with much enthusiasm.) The game also includes a seagull from LOOM. MI2 and Day of the Tentacle contain the same seagull; both are mentioned in the credits. A scene in CMI features a skeleton strongly resembling Manny Calavera from Grim Fandango; he sports a button that says "Ask me about Grim Fandango".

In SMI, Guybrush can accidentally fall off a path atop a tall mountain. A dialog box appears offering the choices "Reload, Restart, or Quit" (appearing suspiciously similar to those in Sierra's adventure games of the time); seconds later, however, Guybrush bounces back into view and lands safely on the path. He offers the concise explanation: "Rubber tree." The game continues as normal. In EMI Guybrush can approach a cliff side by the Governor's Mansion and will have the option of jumping off the cliff; he will walk to the edge shout: "Goodbye cruel adventure game!", then step back and say, "Nah, maybe later."

Pressing the key combination Alt + W in MI2 "wins" the game instantly. This feature possibly gets MI2 the award for the fastest completion available in a videogame. (Note that this "winning" is intentionally jokey, and is not the same as completing the game; the Alt+W keypress simply displays the text "You Win!" and ends the game. If the player completes the game the "normal" way, this text is never displayed.) This function has been kept in the later games.

An easter egg allows Guybrush to die in course of the "Three Trials" chapter of the first game. Guybrush claims to be able to hold his breath for ten minutes. At a certain point in the game, he becomes trapped underwater. If the player waits for ten minutes, Guybrush suffocates, and the game is over. It is one, if not the only, way to die. Guybrush makes a joke about how it is always the same time in video games, and after drowning the time of death is ten minutes later. This is the only time a change in the displayed time occurs. A reference to this fact is made in EMI, where Guybrush quotes that he can hold his breath for ten minutes.

In another faux-death easter egg, Guybrush can supposedly die in MI2 by being lowered into a pit of acid. This results in a logical impossibility since (at the time) he is relating the story to Elaine, obviously very alive. Elaine points out this paradox and Guybrush backtracks, bringing the player back to the beginning of the acid pit scene.

Each game in the series features oblique cameo appearances by Steve Purcell's characters Sam and Max (who were featured in their own LucasArts adventure game, Sam & Max Hit the Road). The pair appear as voodoo idols in the first game, as costumes in a costume shop on Booty Island in the second, and as toys in LeChuck's demonic carnival in the third.

One infamous joke in SMI, which many players assumed was a technical error, involved a stump in a forest. When examining the stump, Guybrush proclaims that a hole in it leads to a maze of caverns. If Guybrush tries to climb down into the stump, the game prompts the player to successively insert "disk #23," "disk #47" and "disk #98." (The game was actually distributed on 4 or 8 floppy disks.) The endgame credits also have an entry for "art and animation for disk #23." Many people didn't get the joke, and LucasArts tech support received quite a large number of calls for help with the missing disk. The joke was removed from the CD version of the game. It was, however, mentioned in MI2: Guybrush can call the LucasArts hint line from a phone and ask, "Who thought up that dumb stump joke?", and the annoyed operator answers, "I'm tired of hearing about that damn stump. Do you have any idea how many calls I get a DAY about that?" In CMI, Guybrush briefly sticks his head into an opening, which leads to the very same tree stump rendered in EGA-style graphics.

Only SMI, MI2, and EMI were released for the Apple Macintosh (all four games are available for Microsoft Windows). This leaves a gap in the series for Mac users (the free software ScummVM interpreter supports CMI on the Macintosh, although the required data files for the game are not freely distributable).

The first game was released for the Sega CD and was noted for having a odd password feature that did not seem to save the various items the character had acquired in the game, but always saved the items needed. The low commercial success of the game, prompted Lucas Arts to cancel plans to release Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and MI2 for the Sega CD system.