The Great Monkey Island Race of 2009
Icedhope and I have decided to hold the Great Monkey Island Race of 2009. Starting Monday morning, the two of us and anyone else who wants to participate will begin playing through the entire series from Secret to Tales in a race to finish first.
Rules
It is required that you play all five games in the series in order. Sequence breaking is not allowed. You must play Secret, Lechuck's Revenge, Curse, Escape (yes, Escape), Narwhal, Spinner Cay, Leviathan, and Trial and Execution in that order.
Both editions of The Secret of Monkey Island are fair game, however if you choose to play Special Edition, you are not allowed to toggle between classic and special edition modes. This does not mean you have to play in special edition mode, but you must choose a mode at the start and stick with it.
Skipping dialog or cutscenes is not allowed.
The credits count as a cutscene. Since the SoMI: Special Edition credits are longer than the original version, switching during the credits is allowed. You're finished when you see "Turn off your computer and go to bed", "Turn off your computer and do something constructive", when Curse and Escape auto-quit, and when the Tales episodes return to their menus.
The race will begin at 16:00 (4:00 PM) GMT on Monday. If you struggle with time zones, this post was made at 12:40 PM on Saturday in that time zone, so adjust accordingly. If that seems late, it's because Icedhope and I are at GMT -6 and -7, respectively, so we're starting at 9 and 10 AM. All entrants must make a post in this thread when they begin. Late entrants will be allowed in, as long as they make a post when they start, but it's preferred that everyone start at the same time to make it easier to determine the winner. Also, as I will be participating in the race and probably not checking the thread, late entrants will not be added to the entrants list until I finish.
We're mostly doing this on the honor system, however it's preferred that you provide some sort of documentation. This idea sprang from the MonkeyThon 2009 thread, so Icedhope and I will be doing this in the form of a live stream on...er...Livestream. This can cause sluggish performance in some games, so if you prefer not to take the same route, other forms such as Twitter are okay. If nothing else, it's fine to post status updates in this thread. It is not required that you maintain the same form of documentation throughout, such as if you'd like to stream the lower performance games and Tweet the higher performance games. If you choose to document, please include a link to where you're documenting it so we can add it to the list.
Certain puzzles in Escape from Monkey Island cause problems on certain PCs. The use of previously made saves is allowed as long as it is only for the following problems:
The raft locks up when Guybrush tries to disembark at Deadeye Dave's.
The timing for the boulder puzzle is incorrect because you have a faster PC.
You may NOT use it to skip Monkey Kombat.
Feel free to suggest any other situations where a problem with the game necessitates the use of saves.
Saving the game during the race is allowed, and may be a good idea in case of a game crash (though I only see that as being likely to happen in Escape). Loading saves made during the race is fine (but other than a crash, why would you want to?). If your game crashes and you haven't saved, er...I really have no idea what happens then.
A 10 minute break is allowed after finishing each game or episode.
The winner is whoever posts that they are finished in the shortest time. Entrants who start at the start time automatically win if they get the first "finished" post. Late entrants will have to have their time calculated first.
The only prize is bragging rights.
We'll be adding rules from now until Monday as we think of them. Suggestions are encouraged, really.
Entrants
GuruGuru214 - http://livestream.com/monkeython2009
Icedhope - http://livestream.com/thegreatmonkeyrace2009 and http://www.twitter.com/monkeyrace09
Secret Fawful - http://livestream.com/thegreatmithon2009
Teeth - (Dropped Out)
Rules
It is required that you play all five games in the series in order. Sequence breaking is not allowed. You must play Secret, Lechuck's Revenge, Curse, Escape (yes, Escape), Narwhal, Spinner Cay, Leviathan, and Trial and Execution in that order.
Both editions of The Secret of Monkey Island are fair game, however if you choose to play Special Edition, you are not allowed to toggle between classic and special edition modes. This does not mean you have to play in special edition mode, but you must choose a mode at the start and stick with it.
Skipping dialog or cutscenes is not allowed.
The credits count as a cutscene. Since the SoMI: Special Edition credits are longer than the original version, switching during the credits is allowed. You're finished when you see "Turn off your computer and go to bed", "Turn off your computer and do something constructive", when Curse and Escape auto-quit, and when the Tales episodes return to their menus.
The race will begin at 16:00 (4:00 PM) GMT on Monday. If you struggle with time zones, this post was made at 12:40 PM on Saturday in that time zone, so adjust accordingly. If that seems late, it's because Icedhope and I are at GMT -6 and -7, respectively, so we're starting at 9 and 10 AM. All entrants must make a post in this thread when they begin. Late entrants will be allowed in, as long as they make a post when they start, but it's preferred that everyone start at the same time to make it easier to determine the winner. Also, as I will be participating in the race and probably not checking the thread, late entrants will not be added to the entrants list until I finish.
We're mostly doing this on the honor system, however it's preferred that you provide some sort of documentation. This idea sprang from the MonkeyThon 2009 thread, so Icedhope and I will be doing this in the form of a live stream on...er...Livestream. This can cause sluggish performance in some games, so if you prefer not to take the same route, other forms such as Twitter are okay. If nothing else, it's fine to post status updates in this thread. It is not required that you maintain the same form of documentation throughout, such as if you'd like to stream the lower performance games and Tweet the higher performance games. If you choose to document, please include a link to where you're documenting it so we can add it to the list.
Certain puzzles in Escape from Monkey Island cause problems on certain PCs. The use of previously made saves is allowed as long as it is only for the following problems:
The raft locks up when Guybrush tries to disembark at Deadeye Dave's.
The timing for the boulder puzzle is incorrect because you have a faster PC.
You may NOT use it to skip Monkey Kombat.
Feel free to suggest any other situations where a problem with the game necessitates the use of saves.
Saving the game during the race is allowed, and may be a good idea in case of a game crash (though I only see that as being likely to happen in Escape). Loading saves made during the race is fine (but other than a crash, why would you want to?). If your game crashes and you haven't saved, er...I really have no idea what happens then.
A 10 minute break is allowed after finishing each game or episode.
The winner is whoever posts that they are finished in the shortest time. Entrants who start at the start time automatically win if they get the first "finished" post. Late entrants will have to have their time calculated first.
The only prize is bragging rights.
We'll be adding rules from now until Monday as we think of them. Suggestions are encouraged, really.
Entrants
GuruGuru214 - http://livestream.com/monkeython2009
Icedhope - http://livestream.com/thegreatmonkeyrace2009 and http://www.twitter.com/monkeyrace09
Secret Fawful - http://livestream.com/thegreatmithon2009
Teeth - (Dropped Out)
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Comments
AAAAAH, I hate you!
You could have just said 16:00 GMT to reduce the struggle even more
Did you get the PAX-flu?
Oh, and this is going to be AWESOME!
EDIT: Might as well add "Rise of the Pirate God" to the list, by the time you're done with all the other games, the new one will be out :P
Yeah, but i'm better now..and yes this will be the most awesome thing in the world.
Naw, I figure we have at least 24 hours to release from the start time. I mean, I've timed myself on Curse before and took four hours, so I doubt it'll take a full day. Besides, Procaster causes Tales to lag a bit on my computer (though it looks perfect in the stream, somehow), so I'd rather not have my first experience with Rise of the Pirate God to be like that. Besides, I'd rather take my time and enjoy it.
I know, I know, but hey I remember PLAYING an original Monkey Island back in the day.
No time like that for me, I STILL haven't gotten past the bit I'm stuck in and I need to be writing the review come Monday!
Ugh, I just realized that the worst bit of it is going to be not having time to check the other streams and see how my competitors are doing.
You can finish Secret in under an hour on the 360, and that's without a mouse and no option to skip dialogue. Surely you can do better on PC!
Too bad the prize isn't a copy of LeChuck's Revenge...boxed.
Of course, then I'd be rushing through the games and not pausing to enjoy the humorous dialogue options.
I wish there were prizes involved, I want the monkey island collectors set with SMI LR, CMI...but thats almost three hundred dollars.
Muahahaha! Already got it! Now if only I had a floppy disc reader...
Oh then it's useless to you. I'll be happy to take that worthless game off your hands. I'm not conning you about the worth of the game at all. You have no reason to hold on to it when you could...ahem...just you know...wink wink...give it to me.
*pulls out gun* GIMME THE GAME!!
Well, now that...thats...special, were bonding.
Er...I...um...well...I never knew you felt that way...must be the gun.
Awesome! You going to document? And for curiosity's sake, which version of SoMI are you going with?
And you can't have my copy of MI2. It's missing the Mix-n-Mojo wheel anyway. Damn thrift store. But hey, I found it and I got it cheap.
That's a shame. I actually ran the series about a month ago, right after chapter 4, and I explored the games more thoroughly than usual, so this sort of balances for me. If you change your mind, you're welcome to join us.
-hides behind LCR box-
Erm...you might want to hide behind something less valuable...
Hehehehehe! I know he won't shoot it!
Especially in Australia where I find that you can find gamers scarcely. Unless of course you look on clan gaming sites where there's a cornucopia of them.
I used to have that too, but I've found that if you right-click on the application , go to Properties, then Compatibility, and select Run this program in compatibility mode for Windows 95, Run in 256 colours, and Run in 640x480 screen resolution, it solves it all.
I just tried it and no dice I'm afraid. The screen goes into all the right modes but the game doesn't start. Thanks for the suggestion though, almost had it.
It's not the biggest issue in the world, it's not like I already have the entire game memorized or anything like that
Nah, it's alright, I only just went through them all. I'm interested to see how it goes though.
Did you do it to the shortcut or the actual application? If it's the shortcut, one of the options in the right-click menu will be "Open File Loction". If you use this, you'll go to the place where the actual application is located, and you can do the compatibility things onj that then.
Also, I'm put off by one bit - there's a nasty but not quite fatal glitch on my PC when I play Escape, in that when I try to pull something out of the inventory, about 90% of the time, Guybrush picks up and puts down the paddle over and over again, and he takes forever to actually take out the inventory item. If I were allowed to skip this bit with a save game I'd consider joining in.
Well, I think it's specific to my PC, but I can manage everything up to and including getting the chess clock and directions to Pegnose Pete's house. Then I'll need a save file taken outside Pete's house.
Actually, I will join.