Issue #66: How Guybrush Threepwood Became Kajbjörn Trahnved
And how the world never got to experience it.
No doubt you remember last week’s excitement with Monkey Island appearing on Pointless and all. Well, turns out that question truly did revolve around a ship part: As (finally) explained on our forums, “monkey island” is the “upper bridge or flying bridge on top of a pilothouse or chart house.” (Source: Marine Insight) What is the world coming to?
And with that chapter closed, let’s jump into some sweaty Swedish Monkey Island craziness.
Yours,
Remi
It Started With Some “Missing“ Lines
Swedish ScummVM Spelunker™, Erik Torbjorn, was digging through The Secret of Monkey Island’s resource files when he noticed a set of unused dialogue lines from the Sea Monkey. A condition in the code was set to trigger the dialogue the first time Guybrush entered the hull, but it was modified so that it would only activate if it had already been triggered. Which, of course, is not possible.
The lines were:
Yech!!!
The unmistakable stench of Monkeys!!!
This whole ship smells like hot, sweaty primates.
I knew I should have taken it for a test sail.
And in video-ish format – sound up:
Yep, as is the case with the Special Editions, every line of dialogue was recorded, even those that didn’t appear in the game.
In the end, none of this turned out to be the result of a bug, coding error, or a mistake – the logic had been put in place as a way to remove the lines from the game. Per Ron himself:
Here is the SCUMM code. Not sure I'd call that a coding error. The lines were just cut. But what do I know.
enter {
start-script bak run-water
break-here
if (said-hot-monkey-line) {
said-hot-monkey-line = true
say-line SH-HULL-LINE1 ;"Yech!!!":
}
}
Still, it’s always fun to hear some “new” dialogue.
Going by their wiki, ScummVM has apparently put the lines back into the game, though I’d presume that will be reversed, seeing they were intentionally cut.
The Swedish Train Keeps Rolling
The conversation kept going on Mastodon, where one Lars Sundström “revealed” that a Swedish translation of The Secret of Monkey Island had been finalized but never released. Instinctively, I expected to be another Spiffy Effect situation, but lo and behold, according to a fairly detailed interview, it looks legit.
Some points of interest: The game’s title was translated into Hemligheten om Apornas ö while Guybrush Threepwood was to be known as Kajbjörn Trahnved. Not surprisingly, the most difficult part to translate was the insult swordfighting, which took over a month.
There’s a bunch more information in the article, so go read. You may notice a familiar name in there, too: SoftGold’s Boris Schneider-Johne, the German translator of the first two games in the series as well as Return to Monkey Island.
And as far as translations go, there are also quite a few fan-led ones out there. Into Latin, for example.
I have no clue how accurate that is, but still… You gotta admire the gusto.
El Poll Diablo
Our April 1st poll read, “Did you believe Ron’s decidedly non-schtick-y Monkey Island pre-announcement?” where 39% of you said “yes.” 33% went with “no,” while 28% gave the correct answer: “No, and Jason is a butt.”
Today’s question:
Soundtrack of the Week
Get down and dirty with almost three-and-a-half hours of Tales of Monkey Island tunes.
Looking for a Monkey Island music trivia game? The Legend of Monkey Island’s Guess That Tune is your go-to, and you can post your results on the Mojo forums.
The Tariffs Hit Mojo
I mean, more or less. Mojo has been in the red for a while now, and as much as we don’t mind not making a profit from the site, we wouldn’t mind not paying to run it, either. We already have a Patreon (see the footer for more), but if anyone reading this feels like throwing in a few bucks through Substack, you’d be our best friend for life. Hell, let’s gift you a special offer.
This is obviously a non-pressure situation…
… as we don’t have any rewards for now. (Other than being a friend of Mojo, which, let’s be honest, is all you all want in life.) Should we, against all odds, become a Substack Sensation, we probably would do an additional newsletter with some specialized content, but… Not quite there yet.
(GIF courtesy of The Legend of Monkey Island.)
Full News Roundup
09 Apr: Hot, Sweaty Kajbjörn Trahnved: That Missing Swedish Secret of Monkey Island Translation: This is turning into a soap opera...
07 Apr: Hot, Sweaty Primates: The Missing Sea Monkey Lines: The Secret of Monkey Island, the game that keeps on giving.
Last Week’s Mojole Results
It’s the game that sweeps the nation! Can you beat Mojole, our fiendishly difficult daily puzzler? Only hardcore LucasArts aficionados need apply.
02 Apr: “slime##” – Either way, they both mean slime.
03 Apr: “amstrad” – The game was released on the Amstrad.
04 Apr: “####cpc” – Specifically the Amstrad CPC.
05 Apr: “pc#88##” – And for the PC-88.
06 Apr: “pc#98##” – And for the PC-98 (whatever that is).
07 Apr: “x68000#” – The X68000 too, of course.
08 Apr: “sharp##” – Which was a Sharp product.
And for the competitive amongst you, the Mojole forum thread has gone strong for more than two years. The two juggernauts to beat: Sushi and Huz.
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