The Secret of Monkey Island Review: Where Point and Click Adventure Began

Before we begin, I’ll say this one time, and then Carl will probably start talking about how modern adventure games destroyed everything, and Tim will start his usual “I ‘discovered’ point-and-click games last year” nonsense, but I’ll tell you about the only game that invented everything the new games copy around. The Secret of Monkey Island not only defined adventure gaming, it perfected it on the first try. In fact, the Secret of Monkey Island was the first point-and-click adventure game to solve almost every problem that plagued adventure games prior to its release in October 1990 in the United States (Wikipedia).

Dead ends? Gone. Unwinnable states? Gone. And pixel hunting? Not in this game, mate. Ron Gilbert (IMDB) and his team of six main developers (Wikipedia) put together a game that was both revolutionary and completely playable, which should not have been possible considering how terrible most adventure games were in 1990.

And for good reason; it has its place in our [ranking of the best PC adventure games ever made]. Honestly, it’s the template that every adventure game since has attempted to emulate.

The SCUMM Engine Revolutionised Everything

Now, I’m aware that everybody loves to rave about graphics and stories, but the actual revolution here was the SCUMM engine (Monkey Island SCUMM Bar). This was not just another adventure game interface; this was the interface that finally allowed humans to play adventure games. Prior to SCUMM, you typed commands such as “use rubber chicken with pulley in the middle of the room” and prayed the parser would somehow magically understand what you intended. Madness!

With SCUMM, you had a verb interface at the bottom of the screen. Click “Use” and then click the object you wish to use, and then click what you wish to use it upon. Genius? Absolutely genius. No longer would you have to guess which verbs the game recognised. No longer would you have to type “examine” while the game expected you to type “look at.” The commands were right there: Open, Close, Pick up, Look at, Talk to, Use, Push, Pull, Give, Walk to. All of them.

But what really made SCUMM great, beyond the obvious convenience, was that it eliminated the potential to create an unwinnable state. You simply cannot lose The Secret of Monkey Island. You cannot sell a critical item to the incorrect person. You cannot get stuck in a room with no exit. You cannot die unless you spend ten minutes underwater, and even then the game will reset you. Gilbert specifically designed this as an anti-King’s Quest, and I am grateful for that.

The interface also functioned flawlessly on each of the platforms it was available on. Whether you had the PC version with EGA and VGA versions released (Monkey Island SCUMM Bar), or you were playing on Amiga or Atari ST (PCGamingWiki), the experience was identical. The mouse-driven interface operated identically on all platforms, which may seem trivial now, but was by no means guaranteed back in 1990.

What Made Monkey Island Unique Compared to Every Other Adventure Game

Adventure games in 1990 were truly terrible to play. Sierra’s games would kill you for simply looking at the wrong thing. Text-based adventures required you to interpret the designer’s thoughts about the precise verb they wished you to enter. Most adventure games seemed to hate the player.

The Secret of Monkey Island was unique in that it actually desired to help the player succeed. Unlike previous adventure games, the three-act structure (Wikipedia) provided the game with a proper pace of progression and removed the necessity for you to suffer through an endless array of random puzzles. The first act on Melee Island taught you everything you needed to know regarding how the game functions. You learned the interface, the humour, and how the puzzles were logically structured. By the time you reached the real challenges aboard Monkey Island proper, you were prepared to tackle whatever came next.

The puzzle design in the game was actually rational, which is something that shouldn’t have been noteworthy in 1990 but certainly was. If you needed to pass the troll bridge, you needed fish, so you got fish. To prove you were a pirate, you did pirate-type activities. The answers were reasonable and fit the world the game constructed.

And the writing! Nobody discusses how genuinely humorous this game is anymore. Humorous “for a video game”? Not funny. The insult sword fighting mechanic (New Game Drop) converted combat into wordplay. “You fight like a dairy farmer!” “Well, how fitting, you fight like a cow!” It is incredible because it is combat that matches the tone of the game’s comedy perfectly.

The game also respected your time. You could save anywhere, load at any time, and never worry about missing a critical piece of information. Most modern adventure games still fail to grasp this basic concept, but Gilbert mastered it thirty years ago.

The Technical Achievement That Still Impresses Today

Michael Land’s music (Wikipedia) deserves a special nod because it accomplished things in 1990 that most games could not. The dynamic music system seamlessly shifted tracks according to what was occurring on screen. As you walk into a building, the music changes to match the interior. As you engage in a conversation, the music adjusts to match the mood. The music in this game was not merely background noise; it was adaptive audio design that amplified every moment of the game.

Similarly, the graphics were phenomenal for the time period. The EGA version was acceptable, but the VGA version was spectacular. The art style found the perfect balance between detailed and cartoonish to allow the humour to land without causing a disconnect from the immersion. Guybrush appeared to be someone you would actually want to spend time with, not like a mannequin with a split personality.

The animation in the game was fantastic. Each character possessed distinct movement patterns and facial expressions. Guybrush’s idle animations displayed personality. The sword fighting scenes were choreographed. Even minor background characters felt alive and distinct. Character animation on this scale was unusual in adventure games, as most developers treated characters as mere movable objects.

However, the true technological feat was creating a seamless experience. Loading between scenes was very brief. The interface responded quickly. Inventory management was effortless. The overall experience felt modern, which is something that few 1990 applications managed to achieve. Gilbert and his team realised that polished technology was not solely about visually appealing graphics, but rather about eliminating obstacles to the player’s experience.

The SCUMM engine also demonstrated a high degree of long-term viability. LucasArts utilised variations of it for years, and numerous fan communities have successfully reverse engineered it on several occasions. The ScummVM project allows you to run Monkey Island on virtually any modern device. This demonstrates the quality of the engineering: when your 1990 software still operates correctly thirty years later.

Insult Sword Fighting and Comedy That Actually Works

Let us discuss insult sword fighting because it represents the perfect illustration of everything Monkey Island accomplishes well. Traditional adventure games typically forced you to gather particular items to defeat certain enemies using specific methods. Arduous, arbitrary, and exasperating when you cannot determine the specific sequence the designer desired.

In contrast, Monkey Island provides a combat system based on wit and wordplay. You learn insults through losing battles, and then you discover suitable responses to those insults through logic and trial and error. “You’re no match for my intellect, you fool!” requires “I’d be in serious trouble if you ever utilised yours.” It is a puzzle mechanism masquerading as combat, and it is excellent.

The humour in the game is successful due to its character-driven nature, rather than reliance on references. Guybrush is a genuine comedic lead as a protagonist because he is utterly unqualified to be a pirate but absolutely intent on becoming a pirate regardless. The humour arises from character interaction and absurd circumstances, rather than breaking the fourth wall or referencing pop culture that becomes dated.

Additionally, the game allowed you to specify Guybrush’s personality via conversation choices. You could portray him as naive, sarcastic, romantic, or cowardly, and the game responded accordingly. These were not simply cosmetic preferences; they impacted how other characters reacted to you and altered the tone of entire conversations.

Even the description of the items in your inventory were amusing. Each item had multiple examination text choices that furthered the humour and characterised the character. The rubber chicken with a pulley in the centre of the room wasn’t merely a puzzle solution; it was a running gag that ultimately resolved itself in multiple sections of the game.

Why The Secret of Monkey Island Still Matters Today

You can currently play The Secret of Monkey Island and it will appear modern. Not “fun for its age,” or “charming in a retro way.” Truly modern. The interface works perfectly, the puzzles make sense, the writing continues to hold up, and the technical performance remains solid. How many thirty-year-old games can assert that?

The game is available through ScummVM on nearly every platform imaginable. It operates on phones, tablets, modern PCs, retro handhelds, and essentially any device with a screen and some form of computing capability. The Special Editions include voice acting and updated graphics, but the original version is fully playable and arguably preferable due to its pure design.

The influence extends far beyond adventure games. Numerous modern indie games continually reference Monkey Island’s design ethos: honour the player’s time, construct puzzles rationally, ensure the game is always winnable, and prioritise character and humour above arbitrary difficulty. While these may appear as common-sense guidelines today, they were revolutionary in 1990.

The Monkey Island series has collectively sold over four million copies (Wikipedia), demonstrating that the enduring appeal of the game goes well beyond nostalgic fans of the adventure game genre. New gamers continue to discover the game and find it fully accessible despite being thirty years old.

The Ultimate Adventure Game Experience

What bothers me about contemporary adventure game discussions is that people seem to believe that the genre required evolution beyond Monkey Island when Monkey Island had already addressed every issue the genre needed to resolve. Walking simulators, puzzle-platformers, and narrative-adventure games are all attempting to recapture what Gilbert achieved on the first try.

Tim argues that modern adventure games possess superior graphics and voice acting, and he is technically correct, however, he misses the entire point. The Secret of Monkey Island demonstrates that perfect game design exceeds technical limitations. The writing in the game surpasses that of most modern games. The puzzle design in the game is more logical than most modern games. And the overall player experience in the game is smoother than most modern games.

Carl disputes my assertion that this is the ultimate adventure game because he believes Day of the Tentacle improved upon the formula, but he is dead wrong. Day of the Tentacle is outstanding, but it builds upon the foundation that Monkey Island established. Without Monkey Island establishing that adventure games can be enjoyable rather than frustrating, Day of the Tentacle would not exist.

The Secret of Monkey Island is not only the origin of point-and-click adventure gaming, it is the pinnacle. Everything that followed is a variation on the theme that Gilbert perfected. Some of the variations are excellent, others are terrible, but none have improved upon the fundamental design. Thirty years after its initial release, this remains the adventure game that achieves perfection.

Joe

Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”