Remember kids, don’t be afraid to do things differently, keep your rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle handy, and go where the treasure takes you, even if it’s a series of questionably sub-par sequels. In a lot of ways, The Secret of Monkey Island’s legacy is one that stays very true to the spirit of the game, 30 years on. That's the second biggest rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle I've ever seen!

While hardcore Sierra fans, and others, might still argue on whether or not this is actually a good thing, it’s clear that it’s what the gamers wanted. Monkey Island’s and LucasArts’ influence in this respect was so prolific that this is now something point-and-click adventure games are known for: the ability to keep trying new solutions to puzzles until you finally hit on the right one, rather than go down in a blaze of gunfire if you can’t figure out the door passcode fast enough. Sure, it was still frustrating at times, even with Guybrush’s strange quips and gags about misused items, but it was a far cry from games where if you missed picking something up from the floor in your house, you would continue for 18 minutes only to be permanently stuck, halfway across the country (looking at you, Gold Rush). Not that all the answers would be handed to you on a plate, but the basic idea was that, if you tried every single possible combination of items and places and exhausted all the dialogue, you would eventually find the solution. It was quite revolutionary in its simplicity you couldn’t die or lose the game. Not that it was the first adventure game, but it took a concept from Lucas’ previous game Loom and expanded upon it for the point-and-click genre. Not only is the world unique and crazy, but at the time the gameplay itself was unique. A tongue-in-cheek satire of typical stories involving the Golden Age of Piracy, we see him complete a series of ridiculous tasks to be accepted by other pirates, fall in love with Governor Elaine Marley, and battle the ghost Captain LeChuck after surviving a harrowing experience with Stan, the Used Boat Salesman. The plot, for those of you who have never played (shame on you), follows protagonist Guybrush Threepwood in his quest to become a mighty pirate™. The Secret of Monkey Island is bizarre and hilarious and wonderful and takes place in its own little slice of the Caribbean where both nothing and everything make sense, all at the same time. We also have vegetarian cannibals, giant monkey heads, and a man wearing a badge that says “Ask Me About Loom.” For good measure, there’s a protagonist with low moral fiber who can hold his breath for 10 minutes, a kick-ass governor who can stuff two monkeys in a wedding dress, and a ghost pirate who really can’t take “No” for an answer. There’s Insult sword fighting, cookery equipment repurposed as headgear, and rubber chickens with pulleys in the middle. The short answer to all of these questions is: because it’s fun.

Tv tropes monkey island