The Quadrangle

Issue date: 4/7/04 Section: Arts & Entertainment

More nostalgic gamers will remember the glory days of the adventure gaming genre. With minor exceptions, all of these games were both smart and fun, and it is unfortunate that they have seemingly become obsolete.
The company Lucas Arts was a leader of their development. Their adventure games evolved from the heavily pixilated Maniac Mansion to the three-dimensional Grim Fandango, and one of their best and the longest-lived series, Monkey Island.
Monkey Island is a much beloved story documenting the misadventures of everyone's favorite want-to-be pirate hero, Guybrush Threepwood. The games really evolved over time.
The original, The Secret of Monkey Island, which came out in 1990, is arguably the best. This game introduced our hapless young protagonist, who proudly brags about his ability to hold his breath for ten minutes, and whose only desire is to be a pirate. Of course, everything does not go as planned, and Guybrush embarks on another quest to save his love, Elaine. She has been captured by the evil ghost pirate LeChuck. Silly and simple as this may sound, the game is actually challenging and makes you think at every turn.
This game features the classic Lucas Arts adventure game interface, which eventually changed over the years. A panel of action buttons is at the bottom of the screen. They can be selected by pointing and clicking, as can all objects on the screen, and anything that is not nailed to the digital floor can be collected and stored in your character's inventory. Command sentences are constructed by stringing together various objects and actions. These range from "Talk to three-headed monkey" to "Use giant q-tip in giant monkey ear."
Clearly the game has a sense of humor. It is often simplistic, slapstick, or just plain ridiculous, but it really works for this type of game. It even pokes fun at itself and the genre in general. In one of Guybrush's predicaments, he finds himself underwater and tied with a rope to a heavy idol statue. Lying nearby, but just out of reach are a pair of old scissors, a sword, and other sharp objects. I wracked my brain for what items in my inventory to combine to obtain one of the life-saving objects. Suddenly, I laughed as I realized that Guybrush had actually been carrying the idol statue around earlier. I solved the problem by sheepishly selecting "Pick up idol statue" and walking to shore.
The entire game is made up of puzzles. Some solutions are less obvious than others, but this game really achieved a perfect difficulty balance, which needs to be maintained in any puzzle game. This is a common issue with the entire genre. Games that are too easy are over much to quickly, and ultimately are not that satisfying of an achievement. Games that are too difficult become more frustrating than fun. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge came out a year later, and suffered from this. Ridiculous and tough puzzles detracted from its appeal.

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