# The Secret of Monkey Island

11 Hacker News commenters recommended The Secret of Monkey Island and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Classic point-and-click adventure loved for its pixel art, music and charm; it is short, and critics say some ports were lazy conversions.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong pixel art and platform assets (3 comments): "with custom assets which fully used the capabilities of the various platforms" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47409978)) "Amiga struck the best, IMHO, balance between good hand-crafted pixel art" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47410552)) "I think the VGA version often looks better at least post-intro" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47409137))
- Memorable music and floppy audio (2 comments): "the music on the Monkey Island CD-ROM remaster was a real jaw dropper" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49346158)) "what worked best for me was the Floppy Audio" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47410488))
- Nostalgic, formative childhood memories (3 comments): "I love the Monkey Island games, they're a part of my childhood." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49109806)) "we played it for months on the Amiga 500 at the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49832607)) "Monkey Island taught me English." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47920048))

## What people warn about

- Weak ports and conversions (2 comments): "the Amiga port still feels like a good example of why there were lots of complaints about "lazy" ports" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47410490)) "Based on reviews, it was a bad conversion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47409419))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Sid Meier's Pirates!](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sid-meier-s-pirates.md): 61 recommend
- [Grim Fandango](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grim-fandango.md): 41 recommend
- [Myst](https://hackerapproved.com/p/myst.md): 31 recommend
- [Monkey Island](https://hackerapproved.com/p/monkey-island.md): 29 recommend
- [Doki Doki Literature Club](https://hackerapproved.com/p/doki-doki-literature-club.md): 25 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Secret of Monkey Island", https://hackerapproved.com/p/secret-of-monkey-island/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).