Hey, we’re the first to admit it: The site has been around since 1996, and we have enough content to make even the most hardened hoarder proud. Finding stuff here can sometimes be hard. And as we keep moving forward, we’re looking at making things a bit easier for you, starting with two new landing pages:

Media Browser: Whenever we post any new media—trivia, cutscenes, commentary tracks, etc.—this page will update with the latest entries. Visit it daily—or more.

The Monkey Island Fun Zone™: Basically a catchbag for weird and wonderful-ish content. Links to crazy games like Mojole and ReMI Trivia Cards can be found here, as well as downloadable fonts from the Monkey Island games. Fan music, too, if that’s your jam.

That aside, content keeps trickling in. Remember the Curse of Monkey Island Designer Diaries? No? Well, now you can read ‘em!

Content to Swim In

The problem with adding content marathon-style is that we forget what’s new and what’s not. Because, good grief, it’s starting to accumulate. So, consider the following a selection of what may or may not be new since our last update:

The Secret of Monkey Island: Misc Funsies; Magazine Clippings; new Trivia.

LeChuck’s Revenge: Magazine Clippings; new Trivia.

The Curse of Monkey Island: Updated Cutscenes; Misc Funsies; Magazine Clipping.

Escape from Monkey Island: Updated Cutscenes; Misc Funsies; Trailers.

Tales of Monkey Island: Trivia; Trailer.

Return to Monkey Island: Misc Funsies.

There’s more, but hell if I can remember what. Just go browse—it’ll make you a better person.

Missing Parents sign in MI2 and in Disneyland

It’s been a bit of a slog, but finally, our cover sections are starting to look up. To wit:

And there’s also the more context-less Cover Art Browser for those wanting a quick overview. A good selection of these covers is from Laser LRG Doesn’t Really Know His Name Schwert, so make sure to check out his LucasArts Poster work.

Some covers are still missing, but maybe that’s all part of…

The cover up!!!

Those Release Dates

Following yesterday’s version comparisons, we’ve added release dates for all the different versions of the games. Or, at least we’ve tried—the information for the early titles is sketchy at best. Even reputable sites have clearly gotten the dates from a questionable source. (Us.) Anyway! Here is what we got.

Chuck us an email if you have any corrections, and the editorial board will thoroughly vet them.

A Look at the Many Versions

Back in the day, any self-respecting platform (plus the Atari ST) would see a version of Monkey Island. And many of the differences between them were bizarre—it’s downright baffling that there are a bunch of variations in the floppy and CD-ROM versions of Secret.

Anyway, we have started documenting some of the more major differences in the versions, as any self-respecting website is wont to do. So far:

And more is to come.

EGA Monkey Island

Those Commentary Tracks

Why play the games when you can listen to the developers talk about them instead? Or at least some of them: We’ve added a commentary section to Tales. Additionally, we created an interactive commentary browser for LeChuck’s Revenge about a year ago, so check that one out, too.

Conceptually Awesomeness

Well, egg on our faces for hiding links to pages that are done—as far as anything in Purgatory is done. Which, all is to say, you can now reach the concept art sections:

Meanwhile, the ongoing A Conversation with… series has pulled Clint Bajakian in for a 4.5 hour interregation interview:

And that’s all we got.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

We’re slowly chipping away on the games sections, replacing old/outdated content and adding new stuff. And today we have a big one for those who are into long lists: Credits!

The Secret of Monkey Island is worth a glance if you have an hour or two—what kind of artwork did Mike Stemmle do for that game?!

The Sea of Thieves expansion The Legend of Monkey Island might not have bowled us over, but as we are a website for the people, we have added a gigantic section for the game. Gigantic here meaning tiny.

Meanwhile, out on the web, somebody loves El Pollo Diablo enough to go through an impressive amount of hoops to make a real-life wall-hanging of everybody’s favorite Curse of Monkey Island creature.

And back here at the Bar, we’ve added a quote of the day feature to give you yet another reason to visit us daily. That’s just how well we treat you.

Update! While Jason borderline apologizes for his recent schtick, we’ve expanded the SeMI section with the full cast list.

While the smut peddler (singular) over at a young upstart tries to throw dirt on the Bar, we keep giving you, the real connoisseur, the goods you so crave.

Our save game section has, of course, been stuffed for literal decades, but that hasn’t stopped us from finding things to improve. First, we’ve added ScummVM saves for Monkey Island 2—fourteen of them, so you should easily be able to get where you need to.

Second, Return to Monkey Island—a bunch of key locations in the game fully accessible, most notably Cogg Island. No trivia needed.

The SCUMM Bar: A site for the people.

We Keep Returning to Monkey Island

Noclip Videos’ long-ish-awaited Return to Monkey Island documentary has hit YouTube:

It may not have a ton of new information for those who obsessively have followed the onslaught of Monkey Island-related interviews over the last few years, but still—it’s always interesting to have the team chat about the game and series as a whole. And we haven’t had much of a chance to hear Rex talk about the art until now, so that’s a real treat.

The documentary is about ninety minutes long—well shorter than many of the minimally edited videos we’ve been seeing recently—so run and watch.

A Handful of Updates

A couple of updates for today:

First, over in the sidebar (or under the mobile menu), we’ve added a “screenshot of the day” feature. Now you can come here every day and see something new! It’s, of course, a similar feature to what we do on Mastodon and Bluesky, but you’ll find a different exclusive image here.)

Trailers: Go relive six ReMI trailers, that we just added, because why not?

LeChuck’s Revenge trivia—a bunch more can be found under the Trivia section.

I’m sure there’s more, but let’s not go too wild. More to come, probably!

Return Returns; LEGO; Trivia

So, what do we got?

First, we’ve started a proper Return to Monkey Island sub-section. Too many screenshots are already in place, and we’ve started putting the Trivia section together, too.

Trivia adjacent: If you haven’t bothered downloading the Monkey Island 2 rolling demo, well, now you don’t have to. View the 13-minute monster that shows off all kinds of oddities and secrets.

And, finally, there’s a LEGO idea making the rounds…

LEGO monkey head

With 10,000 votes at LEGO IDEAS, the thing will make its way to the LEGO Board, which will then decide if it will be officially produced. It’s resting at 609 at the time of writing, so go vote and read up on it.

The SCUMM Bar Gets Newer, Wider

So, here’s the deal: We last updated the SCUMM Bar’s design sometime in 2002. Surprisingly, things have since changed on the web, and as we’ve entered 2024, we were basically left with three choices:

  1. We could keep the 2002 design, which was falling apart at the seams.
  2. We could build a brand new site which would be completed sometime toward the end of the decade.
  3. Or we could put together a façade that looks at least sorta modern. Kind of. An uncanny valley.

We went with the latter.

To be clear, the old Bar will remain a bit, shall we say, old-fashioned thanks to a bunch of legacy “stuff,” but things should be easier to navigate now. Some content has been removed as it was out of date, some because it was broken. Replacements and fixes will drip in throughout… Well, let’s skip timelines.

More importantly, we do have some new and/or massaged content, too. For example:

You get the gist of it. Feel free to browse around and check things out. Some parts are sure to break because again… 22 years is a long time. But, hopefully, you’ll find something to enjoy.

U-Tube

This news item may or may not be posted just to check that our updated news system works. But, to make it worth your while, let’s just alert you to our YouTube account. If it’s ever updated is a bit of a definition question—we don’t actually post videos there (check out Mojo for that!), but we do update curated Monkey Island playlists. So, hey, follow us if you like! Here’s a video, even:

That aside, follow us on Mastodon or Bluesky, too, because why the hell not?