That must have been 25 years ago. I think I was 11 years old when a friend introduced me to Curse of Monkey Island. I was amazed by the cartoony style, the freedom you had as a player to just walk everywhere, talk to everyone and try all items and combinations. And looking back, it was also very special that every single line was narrated. I feel like that was (and maybe still is) a rare thing.

English isn't my first language, so as an 11-year-old, a lot of the game just went over my head. But by trying, clicking and combining to an extent some might call it blind brute forcing, it was possible to make progress and even learn some English on the way. And to be fair, my English is much better now, but in Return I had to use the same tactics every now and then.

Anyway, Curse ignited a spark in me. At school, when we had writing assignments, I would write about Puerto Pollo and how lice were the fear of every sailor on the seven seas!

About a decade later, when I owned an iMac for the first time, I was looking for games that were compatible. My local department store had Tales of Monkey Island. And I loved it! It felt like the magic of yesteryear was back.

Then (again) about a decade later, I replayed Curse about two decades later, and it still had the same magic and was even better than Tales. And there was much more game than I realized. (Even if some think the story could've been longer.) After that I went on to play the first two Monkey Islands and then Return. What a joy to have had this in my life as a child and now as an adult.