The Secret of Monkey Island
- Genre: Graphic Adventure
- Company: Lucasfilm Games
- Release Date: October 15th, 1990
The Secret of Monkey Island is the first installment of a
eponymous point-and-click
graphic adventure video game series, created by
Ron Gilbert and published by Lucasfilm Games (a video game subsidiary of Lucasfilm Ltd), releasing on home computers in 1990. The plot focuses on
Guybrush Threepwood, a young man who dreams of becoming a swashbuckling "Mighty Pirate" after washing ashore to
Melee IslandTM, exploring a few islands while solving various puzzles to succeed in
the three trials given to him by
pirate leaders and trying to stop the evil undead ghost pirate captain
LeChuck from abducting Méléé Island
TM's governor and his love interest,
Elaine Marley.
The game is critically-acclaimed and still declared
one of the greatest adventure games of all time, all thanks to it's witty comedic humor (especially
quotes), memorable characters/puzzles (like
insult swordfighting) and a fantastic soundtrack, which all entirely defined/pioneered the genre itself and
left such a lasting impact that it's influence has spread throughout the industry, even having been exhibited in the
Smithsonian American Art Museum (alongside Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros.). It was referenced in multiple games such as
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (
a Jedi mind trick),
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine,
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End,
The Witcher 3 and
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, even getting
a easter egg in Sea of Thieves (complete with a iconic theme song) through the Pirates of the Caribbean expansion, which speaking of,
a cancelled movie adaptation's script was
apparently re-used for it's very first film in 2003, The Curse of the Black Pearl.
It also
achieved a few sequels over the years like
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991),
The Curse of Monkey Island (1997),
Escape from Monkey Island (2000),
Tales of Monkey Island (2009; by Telltale Games which was founded by former LucasArts employees) and the latest game which acts as the finale story,
Return to Monkey Island (2022). Remakes of the first two installments (titled "Special Editions") with a hand-drawn artstyle and voice acting with those returning from Curse and Escape, were also released on PlayStation 3 (can be played on PS4 and PS5 via PlayStation Plus Premium), Xbox 360 (also backwards compatible for Xbox One and Series) and iPhone alongside Microsoft Windows.
For additional features/side content, perhaps we should have those like voice acting from a Special Edition remake released in 2009 (via options; not necessary if you're a 1990's kid),
different sound cards (with Roland LAPC-1/MT-32 being a default option) and a hint system for newcomers/beginners, who doesn't have any idea what to do next (even helping with insult sword-fighting by having a marklist for quotes and solutions before facing Carla the Sword Master).