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= The Secret of Monkey Island =
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The Secret of Monkey Island is a 1990 point @-@ and @-@ click graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games . It takes place in a fantastic version of the Caribbean during the age of piracy . The player assumes the role of Guybrush Threepwood , a young man who dreams of becoming a pirate and explor... |
The game was conceived in 1988 by Lucasfilm employee Ron Gilbert , who designed it with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman . Gilbert 's frustrations with contemporary adventure titles led him to make the player character 's death almost impossible , which meant that gameplay focused the game on exploration . The atmosphere... |
Critics praised The Secret of Monkey Island for its humor , audiovisuals , and gameplay . The game spawned a number of sequels , collectively known as the Monkey Island series . Gilbert , Schafer and Grossman also led the development of the sequel Monkey Island 2 : LeChuck 's Revenge . LucasArts released a remake of t... |
= = Gameplay = =
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The Secret of Monkey Island is a 2D adventure game played from a third @-@ person perspective . Via a point @-@ and @-@ click interface , the player guides protagonist Guybrush Threepwood through the game 's world and interacts with the environment by selecting from twelve verb commands ( nine in newer versions ) such... |
= = Plot = =
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A youth named Guybrush Threepwood arrives on the fictional Mêlée IslandTM , with the desire to become a pirate . He seeks out the island 's pirate leaders , who set him three trials that must be completed to become a pirate : winning a sword duel against Carla , the island 's resident swordmaster , finding a buried tr... |
Guybrush also encounters the governor and is instantly smitten , and she soon reciprocates . However , as he completes the tasks set for him , the island is raided by LeChuck and his undead crew , who abduct Elaine and then retreat to their secret hideout on Monkey IslandTM . Guybrush takes it upon himself to rescue h... |
When Guybrush returns to LeChuck 's ship with the elixir , he learns that LeChuck has returned to Mêlée IslandTM to marry Elaine at the church . He promptly returns to Mêlée IslandTM and gatecrashes the wedding , only to ruin Elaine 's own plan for escape ; in the process he loses the elixir . Now confronted with a fu... |
= = Development = =
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= = = Origin and writing = = =
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Ron Gilbert conceived the idea of a pirate adventure game in 1988 , after completing Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders . He first wrote story ideas about pirates while spending the weekend at a friend 's house . Gilbert experimented with introductory paragraphs to find a satisfactory idea . His initial story fea... |
Gilbert soon realised that it would be difficult to design the game by himself ; he decided to join forces with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman , both of whom he hired for Lucasfilm . The game 's insult sword fighting mechanics were influenced by swashbuckling movies starring Errol Flynn , which Gilbert , Schafer and Gr... |
The game 's plot , as described by Dave Grossman : “ It ’ s a story about this young man who comes to an island in search of his life ’ s dream . He ’ s pursuing his career goals and he discovers love in the process and winds up thinking that was actually more important than what he was doing to begin with . You ’ re ... |
The game 's world and characters were designed primarily by Gilbert . After having read Tim Powers ' historical fantasy novel On Stranger Tides , he decided to add paranormal themes to the game 's plot . He also cited Powers ' book as an influence on the characters , particularly those of Guybrush and LeChuck . Inspir... |
= = = Creative and technical design = = =
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Gilbert , Schafer and Grossman 's primary goal was to create a simpler and more accessible gameplay model than those presented in previous Lucasfilm titles . Gilbert had conceived the main designs and puzzles before production began , which resulted in the bulk of the designers ' work to flesh out his ideas . He was f... |
The Secret of Monkey Island was the fifth Lucasfilm Games project powered by the SCUMM engine , originally developed for Maniac Mansion . The company had gradually modified the engine since its creation . For Maniac Mansion , the developers hard coded verb commands in the SCUMM scripting language . These commands beco... |
The game 's " pirate reggae " music was composed by Lucasfilm Games ' in @-@ house musician Michael Land in MIDI format . It was his first project at the company . The game was originally released for floppy disk in 1990 , but a CD @-@ ROM version with a high @-@ quality CD soundtrack followed in 1992 . The music has ... |
= = = Special edition = = =
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LucasArts released a remake with updated audiovisuals titled The Secret of Monkey Island : Special Edition in July 2009 for iPhone , Microsoft Windows , and Xbox 360 exclusively via digital distribution . PlayStation 3 , Mac OS and iPad versions followed early in 2010 for download on their respective services . LucasA... |
LucasArts 's game producer Craig Derrick and his team conceived the idea of the remake in 2008 . After researching the Monkey Island series ' history , they decided to make " something fresh and new while staying true to the original " , which resulted in the idea of The Secret of Monkey Island 's remake . The develop... |
= = Reception = =
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The Secret of Monkey Island sold well and received positive reviews from critics . Hartley , Patricia , and Kirk Lesser of Dragon praised the designers ' attention to detail , and cited the game 's humor as a high point . Although they believed that the game was too expensive , they summarized it as " a highly enjoyab... |
ACE 's Steve Cooke also found the controls convenient , and he praised the game 's atmosphere . He wrote that , " in graphics and sound terms ... Monkey Island , along with King 's Quest V , is currently at the head of the pack . " However , he disliked the designers ' running joke of placing " TM " after character an... |
Writing for The One , Paul Presley stated that " Lucasfilm appears to have taken all of the elements that worked in its previous releases and , not only incorporated them into this tale of scurvy swashbuckling , but even improved on them in the process ! " Like the other reviewers , he praised its controls . He also l... |
The Secret of Monkey Island has featured regularly in lists of " top " games , such as Computer Gaming World 's Hall of Fame and IGN 's Video Game Hall of Fame . In 1996 , Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 19th best game of all time , " writing " Who could ever forget the insult @-@ driven duel system or the iden... |
= = = Special edition = = =
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Like the original release , The Secret of Monkey Island : Special Edition received positive reviews from critics . Sean Ely of GamePro praised its updated audio , and said that the new graphics " blow the old clunker visuals ... out of the water " . He cited its script , humor , plot , puzzles and balanced difficulty ... |
= = Legacy = =
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The Secret of Monkey Island spawned four sequels . The first , Monkey Island 2 : LeChuck 's Revenge , was released in 1991 and focuses on LeChuck 's return . Six years later , LucasArts released The Curse of Monkey Island , which features a new visual design . In 2000 , the company released Escape from Monkey Island ,... |
Elements of the game have appeared elsewhere in popular culture . The original version was selected as one of five for the exhibition The Art of Video Games in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2011 . A fictive drink recipe in the game for grog was mistakenly reported as real in 2009 by Argentinian news channel C... |
= Temple of Eshmun =
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The Temple of Eshmun ( Arabic : معبد أشمون ) is an ancient place of worship dedicated to Eshmun , the Phoenician god of healing . It is located near the Awali river , 2 kilometres ( 1 @.@ 2 mi ) northeast of Sidon in southwestern Lebanon . The site was occupied from the 7th century BC to the 8th century AD , suggestin... |
The sanctuary consists of an esplanade and a grand court limited by a huge limestone terrace wall that supports a monumental podium which was once topped by Eshmun 's Graeco @-@ Persian style marble temple . The sanctuary features a series of ritual ablution basins fed by canals channeling water from the Asclepius riv... |
The Eshmun Temple was improved during the early Roman Empire with a colonnade street , but declined after earthquakes and fell into oblivion as Christianity replaced paganism and its large limestone blocks were used to build later structures . The temple site was rediscovered in 1900 by local treasure hunters who stir... |
= = Eshmun = =
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Eshmun was the Phoenician god of healing and renewal of life ; he was one of the most important divinities of the Phoenician pantheon and the main male divinity of Sidon . Originally a nature divinity , and a god of spring vegetation , Eshmun was equated to Babylonian deity Tammuz . His role later expanded within the ... |
The myth of Eshmun was related by the sixth century Syrian Neoplatonist philosopher Damascius and ninth century Patriarch of Constantinople , Photius . They recount that Eshmun , a young man from Beirut , was hunting in the woods when Astarte saw him and was stricken by his beauty . She harassed him with her amorous p... |
From a historical perspective , the first written mention of Eshmun goes back to 754 BC , the date of the signing of the treaty between Assyrian king Ashur @-@ nirari V and Mati 'el , king of Arpad ; Eshmun figures in the text as a patron of the treaty .
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Eshmun was identified with Asclepius as a result of the Hellenic influence over Phoenicia ; the earliest evidence of this equation is given by coins from Amrit and Acre from the third century BC . This fact is exemplified by the Hellenized names of the Awali river which was dubbed Asclepius fluvius , and the Eshmun Te... |
= = History = =
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= = = Historical background = = =
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In the 9th century BC , the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II conquered the Lebanon mountain range and its coastal cities . The new sovereigns exacted tribute from Sidon , along with every other Phoenician city . These payments stimulated Sidon 's search for new means of provisioning and furthered Phoenician emigration a... |
= = = Construction = = =
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Sidon returned to its former level of prosperity while Tyre was besieged for 13 years ( 586 – 573 BC ) by the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar II . Nevertheless , the Sidonian king was still held in exile at the court of Babylon . Sidon reclaimed its former standing as Phoenicia 's chief city in the Achaemenid Empire ( c.... |
Eshmunazar II displayed his new @-@ found wealth by constructing numerous temples to Sidonian divinities . Inscriptions found on the king 's sarcophagus reveal that he and his mother , Amashtarte , built temples to the gods of Sidon , including the Temple of Eshmun by the " Ydll source near the cistern " .
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As two series of inscriptions on the foundations of the monumental podium attest , construction of the sanctuary 's podium did not begin until the reign of King Bodashtart . The first set of inscriptions bears the name of Bodashtart alone , while the second contains his name and that of the crown prince Yatan @-@ milk... |
= = = Roman era & Decline = = =
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The Eshmun sanctuary was damaged by an earthquake in the fourth century BC , which demolished the marble temple atop the podium ; this structure was not rebuilt but many chapels and temples were later annexed at the base of the podium .
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The temple site remained a place of pilgrimage in the classical antiquity during the early Roman Empire and until the advent of Christianity , when the cult of Eshmun was banned and a Christian church was built at the temple site across the Roman street from the podium . Remnants and mosaic floors of a Byzantine churc... |
A Roman colonnade was built in the third century , probably by emperor Septimius Severus , and a Roman Villa showed a period of renewed relative importance for the city during the late period of Phoenicia under Roman rule . Furthermore , within the original Phoenician temple site the Romans added the processional stai... |
Another earthquake hit Sidon around 570 AD ; Antoninus of Piacenza , an Italian Christian pilgrim , described the city as partly in ruins . For many years after the disappearance of the cult of Eshmun , the sanctuary site was used as a quarry : Emir Fakhr @-@ al @-@ Din II , for example , used its massive blocks to bu... |
The site later fell into oblivion until the XIX century
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= = = Modern discovery = = =
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Between 1737 and 1742 , Richard Pococke , an English anthropologist , toured the Middle East and wrote of what he thought were ruins of defensive walls built with 3 @.@ 7 @-@ metre ( 12 ft ) stone blocks near the Awali river . When the French orientalist Ernest Renan visited the area in 1860 , he noticed that the Awal... |
In 1900 , local clandestine treasure hunters digging at the Eshmun Temple site haphazardly discovered inscriptions carved onto the temple 's walls . This discovery stirred the interest of Theodore Macridy , curator of the Museum of Constantinople , who cleared the temple remains between 1901 and 1903 . Wilhelm Von Lan... |
= = = After 1975 = = =
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During the Lebanese Civil War and the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon ( 1985 – 2000 ) , the temple site was neglected and was invaded by vegetation overgrowth ; it was cleared and recovered its former condition after the Israeli withdrawal . Today the Eshmun sanctuary can be visited all year round and free of char... |
In literature , the temple of Eshmun figures in Nabil Saleh 's 2009 novel , The Curse of Ezekiel as the setting where Bomilcar falls in love and rescues princess Chiboulet from the evil design of one of the temple 's priests .
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= = Location = =
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