It's okay to have, but I don't like that it's on by default, frankly. A different toggle (off by default) would be better in my opinion...

It could absolutely be an engine option, or a render mode. The reason I made it this way was because of how "Visual Changes" enhancements are documented in enhancements.h:

 *  --- Visual Changes ---
 *
 *  Any graphical change which is not classifiable as a "fix" but is, as a matter of fact,
 *  a deliberate change which strays away from the original intentions, should be marked
 *  with this class. Some examples of this are enhancements which modify palettes and add
 *  or edit graphical elements in order to better match a particular "reference" version.

Of course, it's hard to know if the darker graphics were in fact the original intention. Arguments for assuming it was:

• They brightened the "SCUMM Bar" sign, perhaps to compensate for the darker graphics.
• Surely it went through some sort of testing and approval process?
• Someone later made a "ROM hack" to fix it, so I guess there was no technical reason for it?

Arguments for assuming it wasn't:

• Just look at! It's completely ridiculous.

I'm absolutely for implementing the ridiculous, so to me it's just a question of how we do it. Do we change a 20+ year old default behavior in the name of accuracy or not?

So here are the options I can think of:

• Dark mode on by default, bright mode an enhancement.
• Bright mode on by default, dark mode a checkbox.
• Bright mode on by default, dark mode a rendering mode.

I don't think it should be a rendering mode, because I don't see how it could possibly apply to any other game.

It would be nice to hear from people who experienced the game on actual hardware. Maybe it's only excessively dark in emulation? But the only one I know of is Dominic Armato himself, and he's said he could only remember the awful load times. (And I don't think anyone is seriously considering implementing those, right? Right?!) Maybe I should reach out on the LucasArts Facebook group? The Sega CD version did get one vote as best version of The Secret of Monkey Island, after all. (The Amiga version won with 280 votes. Because of course it did.)

This looks to be the best option - we don't want to change the default settings of something that has been working for years:

Bright mode on by default, dark mode a checkbox.

This looks to be the best option - we don't want to change the default settings of something that has been working for years:

Bright mode on by default, dark mode a checkbox.

I can fix that later today, probably.

Any thoughts about the method of darkening the colors? I'm sure it's not quite accurate, but it is simple, easy to understand, and seems to match the screenshots I've seen fairly well. (But how accurate are those anyway? I tried asking on the LucasArts Facebook group, but even though I specifically asked for people who ran it on original hardware a depressing number of replies were of the "I never played that version but...", "I played it on Amiga, and...", or "There's a ROM hack for that" variety.)

Here's a TV screen recording of the game running on real hardware
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRjJT6aAf2E

You can also try looking for reviews on old magazines, those had actual screen captures, usually.

This one is supposedly also captured from real hardware. It looks a little brighter than mine, but not all that much:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuoYuePzUP0

Since comparing to original capture is hard (given that it's fuzzy YouTube videos), we're probably better off referring to existing emulators. I've been provided with some links that I'm going to investigate further. This one in particular looks promising:

https://segaretro.org/Sega_Mega_Drive/Palettes_and_CRAM

The new color darkening isn't quite as dark as the old one. I still haven't had the time to run the game in a proper emulator though.

I finally managed to get jgenesis to run in Linux. Now, it uses a different, slightly darker color table and I couldn't get the camera to stop at the exact same position. But I think the results are pretty close, and given the choice I'd rather pick the slightly brighter one.

So unless someone has a better idea, I think this is close to a final version.

Looks good!
What is the default setting of this checkbox?

The intention was for it to be false, i.e. brighter graphics by default. I need to double-check that this is the case, because I just remembered I started out doing this in a slightly different way.

I see some changes I should make for consistency. Maybe later tonight, maybe tomorrow.

A fixed the thing I meant to, but now I noticed that the engine settings dialog for the game has stopped working for some reason. I'll mark it as a draft again until I can investigate.

Edit: Or maybe this is an old bug? It seems the "extra" field doesn't get set when a game is first added? Only when you start it the first time?

The problem I had was that the appropriate settings for the Sega CD version did not appear when the game was added, only on subsequent launches. This was because it used the "extra" field to determine if it should show the MI1 CD version settings, and the Sega CD (and apparently also the FM Towns) version has an empty "extra" field.

The reason it worked at all was that on subsequent launches, the "extra" field gets set to the variant because... actually, I have no idea.

Now it uses the platform for this determination instead. Note that I don't have the FM Towns version, so that part of the change is just an educated guess.

While at it, I removed the intro adjustment setting from the Sega CD version, because its Lucasfilm Games logo doesn't have any animation that would warrant that kind of fine-tuning. It doesn't remove the setting from the config file, though. People are still free to experiment with it manually.

On second thought, people may still want that setting to adjust where in the music the Monkey Island logo appears, so I'll revert that bit later. (I know what to do, but I can't commit from this computer.)

The option is back. (Around +1.10 seems like a sensible setting for me.)

Nice work, thanks!