When is Monkey Tales based?

edited July 2009 in Tales of Monkey Island
Is it after the 4th game is it based? Been years since I played all 4.

Comments

  • edited July 2009
    Gelbs wrote: »
    Is it after the 4th game is it based? Been years since I played all 4.

    Yes. A "significant" amount of time has passed between the fourth game and this one.
  • edited July 2009
    This game technically takes place after a fictional "5th" Monkey Island.
  • edited July 2009
    The way I understand it is there is some significant time between each and every game....

    as for the actual date as in year?

    The only year I can remember seeing in any of the games was 1687.... and that was on the coin in the third game and anyone who has had a couple of coins rattling in their pocket knows you get a wide span of decades when you have a handful of them..... There may be other dates or years in the games I am not thinking of though.
  • edited July 2009
    Irishmile wrote: »
    The way I understand it is there is some significant time between each and every game....

    as for the actual date as in year?

    The only year I can remember seeing in any of the games was 1687.... and that was on the coin in the third game and anyone who has had a couple of coins rattling in their pocket knows you get a wide span of decades when you have a handful of them..... There may be other dates or years in the games I am not thinking of though.

    The only other vague reference to date I can think of off the top of my head is in CMI...when you look into Mort's room, you see he has a Moby Dick poster, and you make a comment that "it'll never take off" or something like that. Moby Dick was written in 1851.

    But Monkey Island is full of anachronism, so I feel better just saying it takes place in The Days of Pirates.
  • edited July 2009
    Irishmile wrote: »
    The way I understand it is there is some significant time between each and every game....
    I'm pretty sure the other games were relatively close to eachother. 1 and 2 was only a couple years apart IIRC, 3 takes place very shortly after 2, as it starts with him escaping that carnival. Not sure about 4, but I don't think it's that long after 3.

    He does mention in this game at the beginning that he has 12 years of booty. Not sure if that is supposed to mean 12 years since he started being a pirate or 12 years since his last adventure though.
  • edited July 2009
    Just for fun I grabbed 10 random coins

    1962
    1989
    1997
    1981
    1986
    1964
    1979
    1985
    1983
    2006

    Comes to about the average year of 1983..... a 26 year difference from our current year...

    So if Guybrush had the same kind of odds I did tonight he would be kicking it pirate style in the year 1713 (during Curse of MI)

    Right at the tail end of the "Golden Age of Piracy" (1650-1720)
  • edited July 2009
    Guybrush seems to elude to "nearly 10 years" of pirate adventures in the opening scene, so he's been adventuring without us between EMI and TMI.
  • edited July 2009
    Guybrush seems to elude to "nearly 10 years" of pirate adventures in the opening scene, so he's been adventuring without us between EMI and TMI.

    That would imply a decade after Secret, and I think he was supposed to be about 17 years old so in Tales he is about 27... seems right he looks to be in his late 20's (a year younger than me)
  • edited July 2009
    Irishmile wrote: »
    That would imply a decade after Secret, and I think he was supposed to be about 17 years old so in Tales he is about 27... seems right he looks to be in his late 20's (a year younger than me)

    He definitely alludes to the fact that he's not a kid anymore. The newspaper editor calls him "kid" and says "when I was your age" and Guybrush replies something like "That was what? 30 days ago?"

    I'm butchering the line, but that's the general gist.
  • edited July 2009
    LOL I hope TTG is prepared for the fans to pick apart every detail... But I suppose since there are plenty of MI veterans working on the game we shouldn't worry about them messing it up
  • edited July 2009
    Irishmile wrote: »
    LOL I hope TTG is prepared for the fans to pick apart every detail... But I suppose since there are plenty of MI veterans working on the game we shouldn't worry about them messing it up

    Eh, looking at this stuff is just for fun. I'm not deluded enough to think that this kind of continuity matters whatsoever for a game such as this one.
  • edited July 2009
    Obviously it doesn't matter if it all fits together continuity speaking... otherwise it would be hard to accept grog machines as the most convenient means of a pirate getting their daily grog.
  • edited July 2009
    I'd always thought late 1600s, early 1700s, but the Marquis' getup highly suggests the later 1700s. Eh, oh well. The rule of funny trumps logic. MI takes place during all piratey times ever.
  • edited July 2009
    shnaa wrote: »
    I'd always thought late 1600s, early 1700s, but the Marquis' getup highly suggests the later 1700s. Eh, oh well. The rule of funny trumps logic. MI takes place during all piratey times ever.

    I think Monkey Island exists in its own universe where time does not correspond to our own.
  • edited July 2009
    puerca wrote: »
    I think Monkey Island exists in its own universe where time does not correspond to our own.

    After all, there is a lot of islands that definitely don't exist in our world :D
  • edited July 2009
    puerca wrote: »
    I think Monkey Island exists in its own universe where time does not correspond to our own.

    Yes, how many pirates had VCRs, coffee mugs, coffee houses, microbreweries, and countless other things that have been mentioned/seen in previous installments.
  • edited July 2009
    In the third game, if you offer Kenny game he'll say "Meat flavored game? That is so 1650s!"

    So I think the games are taking place sometime in the 1600s, or early 1700s.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2009
    Guybrush's "10 years of adventuring" are meant, I think, to represent the span of all of the adventures we've seen -- Monkey island 1-5. He wasn't meant to have spent 10 years away. Though, as we all know, he nearly did, with EMI being released in 2000 :)

    But yeah the events of Tales take place after Escape. We wanted it to feel like the world had kept on existing after Escape (like we all imagine it does when we stop playing) and like you're just catching up with your old friends in the middle of some adventure, "some time" after you last saw them. Hopefully it worked.
  • edited July 2009
    Jake wrote: »
    We wanted it to feel like the world had kept on existing after Escape (like we all imagine it does when we stop playing) and like you're just catching up with your old friends in the middle of some adventure, "some time" after you last saw them. Hopefully it worked.

    Oh it worked allright :)

    Smart move you made, nostalgic for the old fans yet fresh for the new ones
  • edited July 2009
    All I can say is that Guybrush looks significantly older from his Monkey Island 4 self. It's hard to tell how much, with these differing character designs. Ten to fifteen years, or so? Which is strange, because Elaine seems to have only aged a few years. She must use some amazing facial creme.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited July 2009
    Meowzy wrote: »
    All I can say is that Guybrush looks significantly older from his Monkey Island 4 self. It's hard to tell how much, with these differing character designs. Ten to fifteen years, or so? Which is strange, because Elaine seems to have only aged a few years. She must use some amazing facial creme.

    Guybrush got a lot younger looking in Escape, to my eyes. I think that people looked at Guybrush from Curse and Monkey 2 and said "what would he look like two or three games later?"
  • edited July 2009
    He actually talks to a monkey at some point, and refers to Escape from Monkey Island. I read somewhere that there is supposed to have happened a few things between Escape and Tales, so they can pull up a few odd stories now and then that will probably be funny stuff. Like in the beginning of the game where there is alot of old Monkey games cliches. Lazy crew, long quest to make some enchanted voodoo item and other stuff which you probably all already found out in the first scene of episode one :)
  • edited July 2009
    Jake wrote: »
    Guybrush got a lot younger looking in Escape, to my eyes. I think that people looked at Guybrush from Curse and Monkey 2 and said "what would he look like two or three games later?"
    Well, like I said, it's hard to tell with the character designs. I think the reason he looks so old in MI2 is because he has that beard. Imagining for a moment that he's around 17 in the first Monkey Island, then 19 in MI2... Early twenties in MI3, which is plausible with those cutesy cartoon graphics. Perhaps mid-twenties in the fourth MI game? But here in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, he seems to be more in his late twenties. I think a far greater time has spanned between this game and the fourth, than any of the other games.
  • edited July 2009
    There were only three months between 3 and 4
  • edited July 2009
    Oh! Of course! Because they got back from their honeymoon!
    *facepalm*

    Well, his age around those two games would still gravitate around... hm... 22 to 25 years old, I'd say.
  • edited July 2009
    In Escape, Guybrush, Herman and Murray all mention that it's only been a few months since Elaine and Guybrush got married/The Carnival of the Damned was destroyed, etc. So the general idea is that the time between the ending of Curse and the start of Escape, not even a year has passed.

    From escape to Tales however, first off, there is no mysterious MI5, that comment got taken WAY out of hand. The game simply takes place YEARS later where all the characters have moved on, had their own adventures and experiences, etc, which Guybrush refers to at the start of Tales.

    The "Takes place after MI5" comment was just a way of saying it takes place a LONG time after Escape and that things have happened between the games. It's like people trying to refer to MI2 and really being MI3 because once again a couple of years pass in between the events of MI1 and MI2 that we didn;t see and only hear about.

    MI3 obviously takes place a very short time after MI2, possibly less than a week.
  • edited July 2009
    Ash735 wrote: »
    MI3 obviously takes place a very short time after MI2, possibly less than a week.
    You're basing this off the fact that Guybrush is in a bumper car at the start of MI3, talking about how he escaped Big Whoop, right? But we don't know how long he's been stuck in Big Whoop. LeChuck placed a pretty big 'curse' on him at the end of MI2. Was there ever a real time indication?
  • edited July 2009
    Meowzy wrote: »
    You're basing this off the fact that Guybrush is in a bumper car at the start of MI3, talking about how he escaped Big Whoop, right? But we don't know how long he's been stuck in Big Whoop. LeChuck placed a pretty big 'curse' on him at the end of MI2. Was there ever a real time indication?
    There was, kind of. It has been a while since I played ToMI, but wasn't there a guy who guessed Guybrush's age and weight? He guessed the weight right (much to Guybrush's displeasure), but was 'wrong' with the age. He said '19' but Guybrush 'proved' that he was 21 with some identity card (the old library card or another, I don't remember). So he probably was still nineteen years old in CoMI.
  • edited July 2009
    Well, I looked it up. Guybrush uses a "Scumm Pirate Actor Guild" card to prove that he's 20 years old. The library card you're thinking of is the one from Monkey Island two, where you have to enter Guybrush's age as 21 so he'll be allowed to order a drink at the Bloody Lip. It's a fake card, so I doubt he was actually 21 during the second game. 20 seems like a more appropriate guess.
  • edited July 2009
    Meowzy wrote: »
    You're basing this off the fact that Guybrush is in a bumper car at the start of MI3, talking about how he escaped Big Whoop, right? But we don't know how long he's been stuck in Big Whoop. LeChuck placed a pretty big 'curse' on him at the end of MI2. Was there ever a real time indication?

    I can't remember where it was used, but someone mentioned that LeChuck rushed off after Elaine on Plunder Island not too long after the curse was placed on Guybrush, now I'd imagine Guybrush to be a little smart and quickly figure out that his world isn't reality and escape back to normal reality. Then again to counter myself, Guybrush seems to have a lack of memories of his time at Big Whoop, claiming he's seen it somewhere in a nightmare before when he walks in under the curse again in Level 5 of Curse. So that could mean Guybrush was there long enough for it to be buried deep in his mind but for a place like Big Whoop and the strong illusion of another reality, I can't imagine Guybrush being there longer than a Month.

    Back onto Escape, I think near the start someone mentions Elaine's been declared dead because she was missing for 3 Months, which was the point she went on the honeymoon, with previous evidence could it be safe to say that the time between Curse and Escape is a little over 3 months?
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