Err...am I seeing things...?

or has someone ROYALLY ripped off pretty much every MI game, like, ever?!

http://s827.photobucket.com/albums/zz193/monkeywhatnow


http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/8192/robinson-crusoe-and-the-cursed-pirates/index.html

Yes - I'm a pirate game junkie but I've had this one (Robinson Crusoe and the Cursed Pirates) downloaded for a wee while and just now (whilst there's a lull in the football) decided to play it....has someone already posted this?

I swear to god even the music is so similar I've been humming the MI theme.

I know there's the age old question of which came first - the ride or the game but jeeze!!

Please someone else play this and tell me I'm not wrong! Mods even - take a look! :eek:
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Comments

  • edited June 2010
    Omg
  • edited June 2010
    I guess games aren't allowed to be "inspired" by Monkey Island here.
  • edited June 2010
    I guess games aren't allowed to be "inspired" by Monkey Island here.

    Inspired by? That island picture practically IS Monkey Island. Plus, the little X cursor looks like it might be exactly the same as the one from CMI.

    Granted, I don't really care, but there is no mistaking that island shape.
  • edited June 2010
    Oh my...
    And I think I saw the navigators heads eyebulb-necklace (try saying that three times fast) at the end of the video. :/
  • edited June 2010
    I... want to play that, oddly enough.
  • BasBas
    edited June 2010
    The ride came first.

    Anyway, that screenshot with the island is obviously 'inspired' by an overhead map picture of Monkey Island. The cursor is exactly the same, and "Men of Low Morals"... hilarious. Apart fromt hat screenshot though, I don't particularly see anything obviously ripped from MI.
  • edited June 2010
    robinson-crusoe-and-the-cursed-pirates029.jpg

    This one strke a deja vu on me.
  • edited June 2010
    Eduardo wrote: »
    robinson-crusoe-and-the-cursed-pirates029.jpg

    This one strke a deja vu on me.

    Yeah - I'm just waiting for the bolt of lightning to highlight some spotty underwear!
    Bas wrote: »
    The ride came first.

    Anyway, that screenshot with the island is obviously 'inspired' by an overhead map picture of Monkey Island. The cursor is exactly the same, and "Men of Low Morals"... hilarious. Apart fromt hat screenshot though, I don't particularly see anything obviously ripped from MI.


    Yes - 1967, 1973 then I was there when they opened the one at Disneyland Paris in '92 - I was looking for Guybrush but all I got was this stupid t-shirt. In French.

    I guess you didn't play the demo then - I thought I'd seen pretty much every 'inspired by MI' game over the years but this one got eerily close, especially on the music as I already said, although it did sound like the MI1 original sound.
  • edited June 2010
    Is it bad I want this game?
  • edited June 2010
    Inspired by? That island picture practically IS Monkey Island. Plus, the little X cursor looks like it might be exactly the same as the one from CMI.

    Granted, I don't really care, but there is no mistaking that island shape.

    Call it a tribute.
  • edited June 2010
    Call it a tribute.

    heh heh - a tribute with REALLY annoying similarities. MI-Lite :p
  • edited June 2010
    If it were a traditional point and click adventure game, but it's not.
  • edited June 2010
    Other similarities along the way include:
    - Cap'n Guywood (looks spookily like Robert Deniro in Stardust, with the same fetish)
    - Men of Low Morals sitting around a fireplace telling a story
    - A female Swordmaster with a training dummy that's a machine operated by monkeys
    - A voodoo curse object that's a necklace of eyes
    - A difficult to navigate system of underground caverns which lead to a voodoo curse ship and it's undead Captain
    - Having to locate pieces of a map to locate the undead Captain's hideout
    - A minigame where to speak to one of the pirates you must raise him from the dead
    - A pirate barber
    - A Cartographer who you have to help by finding his magnifying glasses who is located in a village made of abandoned ships
    - Three pirates and a parrot who are also located in the ship village who are scared of demons (men of low moral fibre and the rat in MI2)
    - A mad pirate chef also located in the village
    - One of the transmutations of Flint's parrot (in monkey form - please just play the game so I don't have to explain that) is a little cannibal with a lemon for a head
    - A cannibal who you need to locate fruits and vegetables for so he doesn't eat another pirate


    .......these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head...

    oh and one last thing - to defeat the undead pirate captain you must get him to drink a special voodoo brew, but to get near his cabin (behind a big blue glowing door) you have to collect certain items which lead to a screenshot of Guybrush - sorry, Robinson - dressed in black trousers, white shirt and chest belt with a raggedy ponytail hairdo and a necklace of eyeballs - seriously the developer/writer HAS to be an MI fan.....
  • edited June 2010
    This sounds like a law suit waiting to happen. Way too close to Monkey Island...
  • edited June 2010
    I find this simply embarrassing. Reading through the similarities Monkeybutton listed I think it's pure intention to make the game look exactly like a copy (well, not exactly of course, since the gameplay still looks different). They might be counting on us MI fans to buy it just because it's such a provoking copy of MI. They don't care what we think or make of it as long as we have spent our money on it.
  • edited June 2010
    lol seriously where's the creativity of the game it's like a mi game or completely a monkey island game
  • edited June 2010
    lol pirates of low morals
  • edited June 2010
    And only for $6.99! Well, I *was* going to use that money to buy an official licensed game, but....
  • edited June 2010
    That's simply... low. I mean, copying stuff from a famous game just so people will buy it. How can someone even THINK that?
  • edited June 2010
    I really don't think that this a rip-off of Monkey Island. People have said this about Pirates of the Caribbean and numerous other pirate games. The one similarity between all of them? They are about pirates. Pirate stories are always shared with myths of voodoo, spooky undead, graveyards, and so forth. The island does not look like Monkey Island, the graphics are similar, but the shape is completely different. Yes, it is a jungle-infested island, yet another pirate cliche. As for the main pirate, I would think Will Turner way, way before thinking Guybrush.

    This is not a rip off of Monkey Island, just pirate stories in general. Monkey Island is the same thing, many things in the games are from pirate lore. That's not a bad thing, its actually a great thing, but people need to also remember that games like Monkey Island take many pirate cliches. So when other pirate games come along and use that same lore, of course you are going to think it is a rip off. It’s not a rip-off of Monkey Island, just pirate lore, and that is the only definite similarity I see between this game and Monkey Island. They are both rip-offs of pirate stories. Again, I don’t mean that as a bad thing, but a compliment because that is a great idea.
  • edited June 2010
    the images of the island and graveyard are far too similar for it to be a coincidence
  • edited June 2010
    My guess is that one of the people on the team making that game was a monkey island fan, so he would just throw in monkey island references whenever he could because he likes it, and everyone else on the team probably just thought he was being weird
  • edited June 2010
    I guess games aren't allowed to be "inspired" by Monkey Island here.

    There is a difference between inspired and blatent copying....
  • edited June 2010
    It's like I would take the first notes of "Monkey in my Pocket", make some more notes to go with them, write more lyrics, and say it's all mine.
    And it's not.
    That's not inspiration...
    Chuck Jordan Rulz.


    There is a law regarding stealing other people's work. If your work is 70% similar to theirs, you can get sued easily. This is much more than 70%.
  • edited June 2010
    I really just don't see it. That island looks nothing like Monkey Island, complete different shape, layout, and landmarks. Just because there is a jungle does not mean anything. The cover art does not make me think of Monkey Island at all, maby POTC. The graveyard, is the closest thing but once again these are all aspects in pirate stories that many games copy. If anything I would say this is inspired by the games, but blatant copying, I dont see that.
  • edited June 2010
    Other similarities along the way include:
    - Cap'n Guywood (looks spookily like Robert Deniro in Stardust, with the same fetish)
    - Men of Low Morals sitting around a fireplace telling a story
    - A female Swordmaster with a training dummy that's a machine operated by monkeys
    - A voodoo curse object that's a necklace of eyes
    - A difficult to navigate system of underground caverns which lead to a voodoo curse ship and it's undead Captain
    - Having to locate pieces of a map to locate the undead Captain's hideout
    - A minigame where to speak to one of the pirates you must raise him from the dead
    - A pirate barber
    - A Cartographer who you have to help by finding his magnifying glasses who is located in a village made of abandoned ships
    - Three pirates and a parrot who are also located in the ship village who are scared of demons (men of low moral fibre and the rat in MI2)
    - A mad pirate chef also located in the village
    - One of the transmutations of Flint's parrot (in monkey form - please just play the game so I don't have to explain that) is a little cannibal with a lemon for a head
    - A cannibal who you need to locate fruits and vegetables for so he doesn't eat another pirate


    .......these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head...

    oh and one last thing - to defeat the undead pirate captain you must get him to drink a special voodoo brew, but to get near his cabin (behind a big blue glowing door) you have to collect certain items which lead to a screenshot of Guybrush - sorry, Robinson - dressed in black trousers, white shirt and chest belt with a raggedy ponytail hairdo and a necklace of eyeballs - seriously the developer/writer HAS to be an MI fan.....


    Remember this post of so many things so blatantly ripped off of MI
  • edited June 2010
    They are just trying to trick us Monkey Island fans out of our hard earned money...

    Is the game actually interesting beyond the plagiarized stuff?
  • edited June 2010
    Remolay wrote: »
    Remember this post of so many things so blatantly ripped off of MI

    Ah, now I see. Sorry, didn't see that post. I thought everyone was simply referring to the pictures. Never mind then, definitely a rip off now.
  • edited June 2010
    The island does not look like Monkey Island, the graphics are similar, but the shape is completely different.

    Because it's not Monkey Island - it's Scab Island from MI2 :)
    Irishmile wrote: »
    They are just trying to trick us Monkey Island fans out of our hard earned money...

    Is the game actually interesting beyond the plagiarized stuff?

    I actually found myself playing 'spot the MI reference' to be honest - like I said in my list those were just the ones I could remember without writing them down.... Last night I remembered a bit where you end up climbing down the well in the graveyard and it's almost exactly a screenshot of Guybrush and Elaine hanging around in the service shaft on Dinky at the beginning of MI2 except that there aren't 2 people hanging around...

    Check out (if you get it for interest purposes) the bit in the graveyard with a 'pirate princess' who is digging in one of the graves - red head scarf, sulky face, brown eyes, brown curly hair and a brusque manner - remember the old close up screenshot of Elaine in the Manor in MI1. - the one that didn't match the purple headscarf she's wearing everywhere else...?! I lost count after a while but I'm also sure there was a dreadlocked navigator somewhere, a used coffin dealer called Steve (located in a little hut in the graveyard) and a couple more familiar female pirates....at one point the cursor turns into a very familiar blinking white crosshair style.

    I guess those that are querying why it's so much of a rip off have possibly played the later games more than the very first 2 - I would say it's ripping them off more than COMI, EMI and TOMI.

    I can just see the developers now "right right right lads, lads lads headsh togever- y'shee we neesh a new game for the...int...tint...downl...thingy and the deadlinesh....now...*hic*"
  • edited June 2010
    That's just scary, I mean it's one thing to throw in something small as sort of easter egg/tribute/fan thing, but... wow just ridiculous...
  • TeaTea
    edited July 2010
    Whoever wrote this game didn't read Robinson Crusoe.
  • edited July 2010
    Anyone ever played Gilbert Goodmate? That game rips off Curse of Monkey Island pretty obviously

    Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJAI5zfdHS4
  • edited July 2010
    eMKayeN wrote: »
    Anyone ever played Gilbert Goodmate? That game rips off Curse of Monkey Island pretty obviously

    Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJAI5zfdHS4
    Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see anything in that video that rips off Curse...
  • edited July 2010
    Don't you see? It has the same graphics style, so it MUST be a ripoff!
  • edited July 2010
    NeatNit wrote: »
    Don't you see? It has the same graphics style, so it MUST be a ripoff!

    And GAMEPLAY!!!!!
    So has telltale/lucasarts done anything about the true rip off of monkey island(hey that should be this games name the ripoff of monkey island)
  • edited July 2010
    That's ridiculous. Doing some references would be cool and funny, but this sounds like they just ripped off the entire MI series.
  • edited July 2010
    What I say: It's another goddamn hidden object game, which people can't seem to get enough of. Let it lay buried upon layer-upon layers of dust.
  • edited July 2010
    BoneFreak wrote: »
    What I say: It's another goddamn hidden object game, which people can't seem to get enough of. Let it lay buried upon layer-upon layers of dust.

    The only hidden object games I can tolerate at this point are games like Drawn, Return to Ravenhearst, and Dire Grove, since they actually have minimal amounts of inventory based puzzles and are sort of like hidden object/adventure hybrids. :)
  • edited July 2010
    It's not even a wise business move. Who wants to play a game that keeps reminding you of another previous game you played? I dont feel in any way attracted to buying that game, because i feel it would be playing Monkey Island all over again. Why buy a game that is unoriginal, when you can play the original game you own? A waste of money to buy it, a risky waste of money of them to produce it.

    I somehow doubt Lucas Arts will sue for plagiarizing their games.
  • edited July 2010
    Didero wrote: »
    Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see anything in that video that rips off Curse...
    NeatNit wrote: »
    Don't you see? It has the same graphics style, so it MUST be a ripoff!

    You must be pretty blind if you can't see how much of a rip off it is. The wheel and the inventory box are damn near identical. Even the guy who's video it is has noticed it, try watching the whole video before you just judge it on the graphical style and the fact it's an adventure game.

    Plus the designers clearly know about Monkey Island as there are references to a Guybrush in it.
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