Questions for Mike Stemmle? Post 'em here!
Emily
Telltale Alumni
While the Q&A with the team thread is quite possibly the coolest thread in the history of Telltale's forum, we wanted to give you guys a chance to get a little more in depth with the folks working on the game, so starting this week we will be doing Q&As with specific members of the Tales of Monkey Island team... starting with designer Mike Stemmle!
Mike's the lead writer/designer on the first Tales of Monkey Island episode, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, so you should definitely pick his brain about that. But also feel free to ask about other projects he's worked on, his favorite color, his favorite Star Trek character, etc.
During his decade-plus tenure at LucasArts, Mike was kept as far away from Star Wars as possible, instead acting as lead designer on titles like Escape from Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Afterlife, and the never-released Sam & Max: Freelance Police. After several years working as lead writer on Star Trek Online, Mike came to Telltale, where he co-designed Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. His disturbing blend of dry wit, convoluted syntactical constructions, and bathroom humor have added a healthy helping of absurdity to the Tales of Monkey Island proceedings.
Mike's the lead writer/designer on the first Tales of Monkey Island episode, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, so you should definitely pick his brain about that. But also feel free to ask about other projects he's worked on, his favorite color, his favorite Star Trek character, etc.
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Comments
How much have you been influeced by the original Monkey Islands in not just the first episode, but on other games you have worked on?
Is it truely a landmark franchise that you are glad to finally be working on again?
I have a lot of questions, but I won't give you a ton of homework in the first post. My question is this: You, of course, made Monkey Island 4. What was it in that project that you wanted to achieve (how did you wanted to make it 'your' game while at the same time keeping it in the spirit of the previous games), and what's different in style/atmosphere this time around? In a semi-related question, how do you do differently in this project then you did with your previous project, Strong Bad? Both are of course episodic, but they have a very different sense of humour.
I have a lot more questions, but I'll let the rest of the forum members have a chance first.
EDIT: All right, one more question. Seeing as how you're the lead designer on the first episode, what do you do after that one is finished (which, I guess, is right about now, except for all the bug-hunting etc.)? Do you stick around to help on the other episodes, or are you going right into the next project (Sam & Max)?
I'm guessing for you the 'designer' part of your job title is referring to more technical skills.
Hey Mike!
Since you're a designer/writer for a single episodie, how much collaboration do you have with the designers/writers of other episodes? Is it all kind of worked out in an outline beforehand, or is it kind of developed as you go?
If you're working on the first episode, would your decisions for that episode end up affecting later ones, or are all "overarching" and repeating series gags talked about beforehand?
In fact, what really is your role in it? We know that you dessode, wign and write the first episode, so we'll know we thank you when it's great. But how's that work into the grander scheme of the season?
Who's your favorite Star Wars character?
1. One thing has perplexed me since I bought EfMI (and enjoyed it
2. Is there much more to the island we see in ToMI (Flotsam iirc?) than we have seen already, or will the episode be built largely on the dock-area?
On Hit the Road.
1. How much creative input did you have on the game?
2. What's your favorite puzzle?
3. Any interesting or funny stories about the production of the game? Where did the idea for the Andy Griffith/Don Knotts twin come from? I always wondered how you guys got this idea.
4. What made you switch to that interface instead of the old SCUMM interface?
On Freelance Police (yep, I have to grill you on it. whether you answer me is a different story.)
1. With you guys and Lucas finally in good terms again, do you think you'd consider or rather would LA consider remaking Freelance Police with updated graphics? I know you tried a long while back to obtain the rights again and failed. And if not....that brings me to Question 2.
2. Can you give us any good snippets of some funny moments out of the game?
On you-
What did you think of the new Star Trek movie?
On Tales of Monkey Island-
1. Which game in the series would you compare it the most to?
2. Is the bad guy going to be big mean and scary?
3. Who is your favorite MI character?
4. What was your main goal when writing for the game versus when writing for Escape? Okay, I brought it up once. Did you have a general idea of how it would go in your head when you started out?
Wich were the hardest parts, the things that took really a lot of work and time? Also wich were the lightiest (is that a word?) and funniest.
Anticipated thanks and congrats for the great work!
There is something that you would change on EMI today?
Thank you!
I'd say that the spirit of the original Monkey Island's "irreverence masking a genuinely dire situation" has stuck with me in just about all my design endeavors. There's no situation so grim that it can't stand a well-placed joke from an appropriate character. And that includes my Star Wars work.
And yes, I'm really, REALLY happy to be working on it again. It's the only porject I could imagine delaying a return to Sam & Max for.
By the time EFMI rolled around, the franchise was in a strange position, story-wise. Arguably, the main characters has achieved some sort of closure, with LeChuck meeting an appropriate end on Monkey Island, and Elaine and Guybrush well and truly married. As a consequence, we felt that we really couldn't just go through the "LeChuck's got a plan, Elaine and Guybrush are stuck in typically pirate-y situations" route, so we tried to shake things up (with varying degrees of success) with a new bad guy, a lot of metatextual commentary about the commercialization of the pirate lifestyle, and a giant monkey robot.
This time around, of course, the air has been cleared by the lack of any MI games for the last decade. This frees us up to go "classic" with our storytelling. A pirate. His wife. An undead evil jerk. Lots of voodoo.
.
The big shift in this project is the emphasis on tight serialization. Tales of Monkey Island is really one big epic story, split into 5 satisfying chapters. Strong Bad, not so much.
Also, Strong Bad is much more absurd. Charmingly so. Most Monkey Island plots, when viewed from on high, are actually pretty spooky.
What a timely question. As it happens, in about an hour I'll be holding the first design meeting for episode 4 of Monkey Island, in which a whole lotta horrible stuff happens to Guybrush. Mark and I will also be keeping a watchful eye over the whole season, to make sure everything continues to hold together.
After that, there's a dog a rabbity thing I've just GOT to muck with.
Mike
After
Over at Telltale, our designers are a varied bunch. While all of us have abstract game design and dialog writing chops, the other skills we bring to the table vary considerably.
Some of us have honest-to-Oa programming degrees, and are dangerously unafraid of wallowing deep into the code, while others of us glaze over whenever someone starts talking about LUA's appalling lack of unary operations.
Some of us are spectacularly accomplished artists, while others of us couldn't draw flies with a rotted dingo carcass.
Some of us are beautiful singers, while others of us, well, aren't. Of course, that doesn't really play into game designing, but it bears mentioning.
Mike
Are you one of the singers? If so, are you singing songs while working and which song is / songs are in your head?
Games I played a lot:
City of Heroes I'm a super-hero comic addict, so this thing was like crack for me. I deeply covet an account for the upcoming DC Online, but I fear that I will have no time to play it... ever.
Sims 2 I love the way numbers are dancing in the background of this game.
The Zelda Games They (usually) do a great job of hand-holding.
Grand Theft Auto Evil, evil games that my sons will be forbidden to play until they're 30... but they're great.
First, it's a great privilege to talk to you and I want to thank you (as I thanked everybody on the team) for bringing back our childhoods once more.
Second, the questions (I'll try to keep them short):
1. What was the first line that you wrote for the game (the first thing you actually put on paper)?
i.e. One of Guybrush's lines, the plot summed up in one sentence, a minor detail regarding one character or something more practical such as "must buy milk" etc.
2. How does a normal work day go for you? Do you enter work place - sit down - drink coffee - write ideeas - watch youtube - write some more - draw - go home?
3. What exactly did you work on in MI4? I am talking about an ideea that was 100% yours that made it into the game (i.e. the duck or Giant LeChuck Statue)
4. Would you work on a Monkey Island Movie? (I know it will never happen, but if someone would just have sooo much money on his hands and was a MI fan?)
5. What is the most dearest memory of them all, regardin the MI series?
Thank you! For everything...
The plot threads for the season have been worked out ahead of time (mostly), but running gags tend to be more organic, with writers seeing things they like in the first episode, then deciding to run with them. Of course, some running gags are so important that we DO plan them out from day one.
After the first episode, I'll be going off to design/write the fourth episode, all the while keeping a steady eye on the second and third eps, to make sure that there's a reasonable continuity of plot and tone. Not that they need my eye THAT much, since Mark, Joe, and Sean have a REALLY good handle on the story.
Jar Jar Binks. What can I say, I LOVE the challenge of redeeming unlovable characters.
There's much, MUCH more to Flotsam than those two exteriors, you betcha.
Hey, are you insinuating that I've got a writing tic?
Hey,
Mike
1. Sean, Steve, Collette, and I pretty much teamed up to design the whole thing.
2. I'm really quite partial to the "bungee cord out of Mt. Rushmore" puzzle, although the "pulling the tooth from the wooly mammoth" puzzle also has its charms.
3. The Andy Griffith/Don Knotts thing was a Steve invention... at least I think it was.
4. We'd been drifting away from the classic SCUMM interface for some time by the time Sam& Max rolled around. With machines getting more and more powerful, it seemed time to make the full break and present our games with glorious full-screen graphics, and to eliminate the 6 or so extra verbs that were cluttering up our designs.
1. I kinda doubt that'll happen, cause the amount of work we'd have to do to wrestle down the old project into, say, the Telltale Engine really wouldn't be worth it. I wouldn't mind if LucasArts freed up the intellectual property, though, so that we could mine some of the funnier story bits with a clear conscience.
2. My favorite lines that no one else thinks are funny:
Max - "Don't look at me, I'm more regular than an atomic clock."
Max - "Oh no, it's the Rapture, and I'm not wearing any pants!"
0. As a fan, I was quite pleased and relieved by the new Trek movie. As a guy who worked on Star Trek Online for a long time, I was amused by some of the plot, um, gaps that ended up in the final version.
1. Monkey 2. It's a continuation, it's funny, and it goes into some dark places.
2. Isn't LeChuck always mean and scary? Oh, you mean our OTHER bad guys. Well, they're mean and scary too. And crazy. And occasionally obnoxious.
3. Elaine. She's a pain in the tuchus to write, but there's a hidden complexity to her that's fascinating.
4. This time around I'm looking forward to introducing these characters to an entire generation of game players who've never played a Monkey Island game before, while simultaneously moving the overall saga forward in a surprising fashion. Previously, we weren't as concerned with re-introducing the franchise, since was still quite active at the time.
And with that, my lunch is over for the day,
Mike
What? No. Just that you and Mike Chapman have the same first name. It was kind of an "I can't think of any good questions" question.
I have a question, but I don't know whether or not it can be properly answered until after the game is released to the public. While designing Tales of Monkey Island, were there many ideas that were tossed around, but in the end, left on the cutting room floor?
When you write/design/etc. on ToMI, how much freedom do you have in re: the MI franchise? Given that you guys seem to be driving character dev. forward, were there calls to make to LA, or are they quite cool about your creative freedoms?
2 games like that coming out soon; for Monkey Island (or MI-related) fans that's like heaven
I wanted to know which of the control interfaces did you prefer?
The EMI keyboard or the TMI point & click?
In case you answer point & click, I have another question.
- Why wasn't there a point & click interface to EMI?
1. What kind of variables are you talking with your team about/thinking a lot about in the equation of making a good game?
2. How do you react when you've put down shitloads of time in a project like MI 4 and then what you put out gets heavily critisized by the more hardcore fans?
3. Where do you think the future of gaming is (in terms of gameplay)?
4. I reckon you're very proud of your ToMI. Is it very hard to resist the urge of just spamming the forum with screenies, hints and spoilers? Do you have general guidelines to follow?
5. How does creativity come to you; do you have it under control or do you get possesed by it?
anyways... i guess what i wanted to ask was given that Escape is seen as the weak link in the series, does that effect your approach coming in to Tales? i mean, Sam and Max Hit the Road is an absolute classic, and your Telltale episodes have been some of the strongest ones (i think).
Escape is really the only thing on your record approaching a black spot. Are you approaching this as a shot at redemption? Are you worried about getting a similar kind of backlash? Are you trying to put it all behind you and just focus on making Tales as good a game as possible, or are you more doing the whole 'what went wrong? how do we fix that?' post mortem.
in a weird way, you may well know better than anyone else what kind of jokes and puzzles work in Monkey Island game cause you mainly only hear the bitching about the ones that didn't.
well apart from that swamp of time puzzle. everyone raves about that one. rightly so. i still think it's one of the funniest puzzles in any adventure game.