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ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Here's my crude attempt at a colorization:

February 15, 2026 at 4:28 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

And another one because I couldn't resist.

Everything important on the background is contained in this 128-pixel range, much like the art in Indy Last Crusade. It's possible the background started at that height and was expanded later.
#samandmax #lucasarts #adventuregames #lucasfilmgames

Another fake screenshot made with the surviving EGA background of Sam & Max's office and the EGA Sam and Max sprites used to train LucasArts SCUMM programmers. Again, lost areas of the background data are colored orange. In this image, the bottom of the background is removed and replaced by a GUI like the one in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game. There are fifteen verbs at the bottom of the screen, including "What is" to detect hotspots. However, the "Travel" verb from Indy 3 is here replaced by a grayed-out "Shoot" verb, modeled on the "Fight" verb in pre-release Last Crusade screenshots. The top of the image is also cut off and replaced with a black area for dialogue text, which limits the text to two lines at a time. Max is saying "Sam, is it just me, or is our interface kind of clunky all of a sudden?"

February 15, 2026 at 4:00 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

"Sam, our new desk is an unfathomable color from beyond space and time!"

"Don't worry, little buddy. In a few years, I'm sure everyone will have desks of this blindingly bright orange hue."

(A quick mockup I made for fun.)
#samandmax #lucasarts #lucasfilmgames #adventuregames

A fake screenshot made with the surviving EGA background of Sam & Max's office and the EGA Sam and Max sprites used to train SCUMM programmers at LucasArts. Lost areas of the background pixel data, in particular Sam and Max's desks, are colored orange. The bottom area of the background has been removed and replaced with a GUI from Monkey Island 1, though the inventory arrows appear grayed out next to an empty inventory, as in early promotional screenshots of MI1.

February 15, 2026 at 2:59 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Here's the surviving EGA background of Sam & Max's office used in training SCUMM programmers at LucasArts, along with a quick edit I made to fix the properly white areas of the background.

Lost areas are in white (image 1)/orange (image 2).
#samandmax #lucasarts #adventuregames

An EGA background of Sam & Max's office, used to train SCUMM programmers at Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts. The image was rescued from a Z-plane file, meaning that objects which characters could walk behind are whited out, and white areas of the background are recolored. In this case, Sam and Max's desks are colored solid white, and the white baseboards and trim of the office walls are recolored purple.

The same image with the missing area of Sam & Max's desks recolored orange, and the properly white areas of the background fixed. A lot more details are obvious in this version, such as a photo with a huge closeup of Max's face on the wall, and the rings of the bullseye with axes embedded in it.

February 15, 2026 at 2:55 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

A near-final screenshot of #IndianaJones and the #FateOfAtlantis from Game Player's PC Entertainment, Vol. 5 #4, July/Aug 1992.

The inventory icon with two orichalcum beads has them spaced farther apart than in the final game. Gripping!

#lucasarts #adventuregames

An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Entertainment volume 5, number 4, July/August 1992. The image shows Indy, Sophia, Kerner, and Dr. Ubermann standing around the God Machine in the finale. The GUI is not grayed out, and the inventory icon of two orichalcum beads has the beads spaced farther apart than they are in the final game.

February 14, 2026 at 6:37 AM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Even more early #indianaJones and the #FateOfAtlantis images from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol. 4 #7, Nov/Dec 1991. The palette issues extend to the background of the GUI inventory icons.

#lucasarts #adventuregames

An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. Indy and Sophia are exploring the ruined buildings on the surface of Crete, and have just found the "X marks the spot" leading to the Moonstone. The inventory icons in the GUI have a a palette glitch where their backgrounds are gray instead of brown. Also, there appears to be a purple-colored hose in Indy's inventory.

An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. The image shows the top-down view of riding in the balloon over Algiers.

An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. Indy is in disguise aboard the Nazi submarine, while Kerner and Ubermann talk with Sophia in the captain's quarters below. Sophia's jacket and the backgrounds of the GUI inventory icons both have issues with brown areas appearing gray by mistake. There are also some crude early designs for the icons, including a leather jacket on a coat hanger for Indy's "IndyWear" (TM).

An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. The submarine is cruising underwater in the seas near Atlantis.

February 13, 2026 at 11:34 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

More early #FateOfAtlantis images from that issue. Plenty of palette issues on display.

#indianajones #lucasarts #adventuregames

An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. This image shows Kerner and Ubermann talking in their secret Nazi laboratory. Kerner is saying "Concealed in the base is this small shiny bead..." Part of Kerner's head appears to have a palette glitch, as do some areas of the floor and ceiling.

An early screenshot of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 4, number 7, November/December 1991. Sophia is having a seance with Trottier in a dark hotel room in Monte Carlo, while Indy is wearing his Nur-Ab-Sal disguise. Sophia is saying "Oh! I feel the great presence of Nur-Ab-Sal approaching us..." The word "great" was cut in the final game. The inventory displays several alternate or unused icons, including the wax cat from Barnett College and Kerner's passport from the intro.

February 13, 2026 at 11:26 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Early #indianaJones and the #FateOfAtlantis images from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol. 4 #7, Nov/Dec 1991.

It looks like this build was having some palette problems!

Note Heimdall is frozen while standing up - but Indy describes him as having died in a "cave-in"!

#lucasarts #adventuregames

February 13, 2026 at 11:17 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

In-development images from Castle of Dr. Brain, EcoQuest 1, and Willy Beamish, from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol. 4 #6, Nov/Dec 1991.
#sierra #dynamix #castleofdrbrain #drbrain #ecoquest #willybeamish #adventuregames

Line art for the title screen of Castle of Dr. Brain, by Sierra.

The background art for the Code Room in Castle of Dr. Brain, with no face on the hangman's dummy.

What appears to be an early mockup screenshot of EcoQuest 1, showing a completely different design for the protagonist Adam.

An early image of The Adventures of Willy Beamish, showing an entirely different design for the living room of Willy's house. The general layout is the same, but the background art is entirely different than in the final game.

February 13, 2026 at 10:26 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

As for Strike Commander, this early screenshot appears in Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol. 4 #5, Sept/Oct 1991... and the next issue (Vol. 4 #6, Nov/Dec 1991) has a whole dang six-page article!

February 13, 2026 at 10:16 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

More early #MonkeyIsland 1 images from Game Player's (a separate title), Volume 2 #11, Nov. 1990.

Here's another image of that cut lookout background (unfortunately slightly obscured by clip art), and a better version of the pic of the un-cleared inventory in Part 4.
#lucasarts #adventuregames

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's, Volume 2, number 11, November 1990 (not to be confused with Game Player's PC Strategy Guide or many of their other similarly named sub-brands.) The image shows another screenshot of the cut reverse view of the lookout point on Melee Island. The left edge of the image is slightly obscured by clip art of a pirate ship.

An image of the box art painting by Steve Purcell for Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's, Volume 2, number 11, November 1990. The image shows a different expression on Guybrush's face, with pursed lips and slightly apprehensive eyebrows, which was repainted in the final version.

February 13, 2026 at 10:02 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Here's an article from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol. 4 #2, March/April 1991!

February 13, 2026 at 9:37 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

A late build of #MonkeyIsland 1 shown in Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol. 3 #6, Nov/Dec 1990.

Along with the reverse view of the lookout point that was cut, we can see the inventory wasn't cleared out in Part 4. Plus a fifth beach on Monkey Island that was removed!
#lucasarts #adventuregames

An early image of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 3, number 6, November/December 1990. The screenshot shows a reverse view of the lookout point on Melee Island, a background that was later cut.

An early image of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 3, number 6, November/December 1990. Guybrush is standing inside the church on Melee Island in Part 4, but unlike the final version, the inventory still shows all the items he picked up in the rest of the game.

An early image of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Volume 3, number 6, November/December 1990. The image shows the central section of the Monkey Island map, but with an extra beach on the coast to the left side of the screen, just north of the mountains dividing the island in two.

February 13, 2026 at 9:26 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

And "Cap'n Munch cereal" too. :D

The issue also has two pics from Summer CES 1990, showing a possibly earlier build with grayed-out inventory arrows if there aren't enough items to scroll. Plus there's a black-bearded pirate instead of Cob in the SCUMM Bar.
#monkeyisland #lucasarts #adventuregames

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. Guybrush is negotiating with Stan to buy the Sea Monkey.

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. This image is from Summer CES 1990, perhaps showing a slightly earlier build than in the other screenshots. Guybrush is standing in the SCUMM Bar. Cob is absent, and instead there's a pirate with black hair and beard sitting in his place. There are no inventory items, but grayed-out inventory arrows appear in the GUI.

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. This image is also from Summer CES 1990, perhaps showing a slightly earlier build than in other screenshots. Guybrush is standing in Melee Island's Low Street by the Men of Low Moral Fiber. Again, there are no inventory items, but grayed-out inventory arrows appear in the GUI.

February 13, 2026 at 9:17 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Early #MonkeyIsland 1 images from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Vol. 3 #5, Sept/Oct 1990.

Notice the inventory: "dead chicken", "articles" (PTA minutes?), "Chateau de Singe" (fine wine), and "money (# Pieces of Eight)" - up to 481, more than you ever get in-game!
#lucasarts #adventuregames

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. Guybrush is standing outside the Governor's Mansion in front of the open door, but his sprite is scaled a bit too large, so his head is bumping up against the porch roof overhead. The inventory contains "money (173 Pieces of Eight)", an "article", and a "dead chicken".

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. Guybrush is at the troll bridge. The inventory contains an "article", a "dead chicken", and "money (481 Pieces of Eight)", which is more than you ever get in the final game.

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. Guybrush is standing on the deck of the Sea Monkey. The inventory contains "Cap'n Munch cereal" instead of just "cereal", and "Chateau de Singe" instead of a "fine wine".

An early screenshot of Monkey Island 1 from Game Player's PC Strategy Guide, Volume 3 #5, September/October 1990. Guybrush is shown in the act of tickling Meathook's parrot, complete with gag verbs in the GUI, though the Sentence Line says "walk to tunnel".

February 13, 2026 at 9:11 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

An unused view from far away of Mordack's island from King's Quest V.
#kingsquest #sierra #adventuregames

February 13, 2026 at 6:23 AM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

There's also this animation of Cedric being grabbed by a wolf, which is used in-game, but absolutely looks like it began life in EGA.

Look how off-model Cedric is!
#sierra #kingsquest #adventuregames

An animation from King's Quest V of a wolf grabbing Cedric the Owl.

February 13, 2026 at 5:56 AM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

An unused WIP EGA animation (View 591) of the two-headed roc from #KingsQuest V from the VGA version resource files.

The published EGA downgrade uses a different sprite based on the final VGA animation.
#sierra #adventuregames

An unused 16-color animation of the giant two-headed roc from King's Quest V, found in the VGA resource files.

February 13, 2026 at 5:52 AM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

@banditloaf.wcnews.com TIL I have a book by your boy

Photos of the covers of the book "It Seemed Like A Good Idea...: A Compendium of Great Historical Fiascoes", edited by William R. Forstchen and Bill Fawcett.

February 10, 2026 at 11:37 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

I hate whispering campaigns.

If you're not going to name who you're talking about, posting this sort of thing is entirely unhelpful. Vague rumor-mongering only feeds suspicion and paranoia, and God knows we need less of those on the Internet.

Screenshots of Bluesky posts by Alex de Campi, in which they drop insinuations about a "wildly misogynist indie comics publisher who loves to publish stories with young women heroes... but only if they're written by men" and who "allegedly pay their women variant cover artists 50% of what they pay the men", without giving any specifics.

January 23, 2026 at 10:54 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Here's another instance of ST Joshi being astonishingly snobbish in his biography of HP Lovecraft, I Am Providence, when he casually dismisses the entire medium of cinema as schlock:
#lovecraft #hplovecraft #literature

ST Joshi on HP Lovecraft attending cinema showings in the 1910s: 'By 1910 there were already 5000 nickelodeons throughout the country, even if these were regarded largely as entertainment for the working classes. Lovecraft reports that the first cinema shows in Providence were in March 1906; and, even though he “knew too much of literature & drama not to recognise the utter & unrelieved hokum of the moving picture,” he attended them anyway—“in the same spirit that I had read Nick Carter, Old King Brady, & Frank Reade in nickel-novel form.” One develops the idea that watching films may have occupied some, perhaps much, of the “blank” years of 1908–13, as a letter of 1915 suggests: “As you surmise, I am a devotee of the motion picture, since I can attend shows at any time, whereas my ill health seldom permits me to make definite engagements or purchase...'

continued: '...real theatre tickets in advance. Some modern films are really worth seeing, though when I first knew moving pictures their only value was to destroy time.” And yet, Lovecraft was willing at this time to entertain the possibility that film might eventually evolve into an aesthetically viable medium: “The moving picture has infinite possibilities for literary and artistic good when rightly presented, and having achieved a permanent place, seems destined eventually to convey the liberal arts to multitudes hitherto denied their enjoyment” (“Department of Public Criticism,” United Amateur, May 1915). Nearly a century later we are perhaps still waiting for this eventuality to occur.'

January 15, 2026 at 10:14 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Starting I Am Providence, ST Joshi's biography of HP Lovecraft. Joshi is arguably the greatest Lovecraft scholar alive, but the rank elitism of this passage brought me up short.
#hplovecraft #lovecraft #literature

ST Joshi on the youthful HP Lovecraft reading dime novels: "It is one of the great paradoxes of Lovecraft’s entire literary career that he could, on the one hand, absorb the highest aesthetic fruits of Western culture—Greek and Latin literature, Shakespeare, the poetry of Keats and Shelley—and at the same time go slumming in the cheapest dregs of popular fiction. Throughout his life Lovecraft vigorously defended the literary value of the weird tale (unlike some modern critics who misguidedly vaunt both the good and the bad, the aesthetically polished and the mechanically hackneyed, as..."

continued: "...representative of “popular culture”—as if literary merit is determined by what masses of half-literate people like to read), and he adamantly (and rightly) refused to consider the weird work found in dime novels and pulp magazines as genuine literature; but this did not prevent him from voraciously lapping up these lesser products. Lovecraft knew that he was reading trash, but he read it anyway. It has become fashionable to find literary—as opposed to sociological—value in dime novels by maintaining that they (and popular fiction generally) were read by all classes of society; Edmund Pearson, writing in 1929, already initiated this tendency by concluding his study with accounts by eminent literati of the day (Booth Tarkington, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Marc Connelly, William Lyon Phelps) who read and enjoyed dime novels in their youth. But the brute fact is that the dime and nickel novels were read primarily by the young, the poor, and the ill-educated. The literary formulae..."

continued further: "...they inculcated—thrilling action at all cost and in spite of all probability and verisimilitude; “cliffhanger” conclusions to chapters; stereotyped character portrayal; stilted dialogue; a highly stylised and mechanical structure—were the worst possible influences on anyone wishing to write serious literature, and were all repudiated by Lovecraft by the time he developed a critical awareness of the distinction between good and bad writing. By then, however, he had already read so much of this material—and its descendants, the pulp magazines—that, as he himself correctly detected, his own style became, in small part, insidiously corrupted by their example."

January 14, 2026 at 6:20 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

look, I know @banditloaf.wcnews.com is a Wing Commander superfan, but I'm pretty sure even he wouldn't go so far as to call the guy "Christ Roberts"

A screenshot of a headline of an article from the PC Gamer website which refers to Chris Roberts as "Christ Roberts".

January 10, 2026 at 4:00 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

It's famous enough that Day of the Tentacle even included a reference to it in the GUI. The Save/Load popup menu says "How may I serve you?"
#dayofthetentacle #lucasarts #doublefine #dott #adventuregames

A screenshot of the Save/Load GUI in the original DOS version of Day of the Tentacle, which has the words "How may I serve you?" at the top of the menu window.

December 27, 2025 at 12:03 PM

ATMcashpoint

@atmcashpoint.bsky.social

Some trivia: at one point, one of the 15 toys being made by the machine was going to be the broom alien from #ZakMcKracken! It was replaced in the final version by Fleece from #LOOM.
#lucasarts #lucasfilmgames #adventuregames

An in-development image of the 15 toys made by the machine in Night Shift, standing in three rows.

Top row, all from Star Wars, from left to right: a stormtrooper, Darth Vader, C-3PO, Luke Skywalker, Admiral Ackbar, and R2-D2.

Middle row: Razor and Nurse Edna from Maniac Mansion; the broom alien and Zak from Zak McKracken; Indiana Jones; Bobbin Threadbare from Loom; and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Bottom row: a creature from The Eidolon and a Jaggi from Rescue on Fractalus!

In the final version of the game, the broom alien was replaced with Fleece from Loom.

December 18, 2025 at 8:22 PM

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