The series protagonist (the ridiculously named Guybrush Threepwood) doesn’t know a thing about pirating at the beginning of Monkey Island. Introduction to Guybrush Threepwood, soon to be mighty pirate. This trio only worked on The Secret of Monkey Island and its sequel, but each of them would be instrumental in shaping the adventure game for decades to come. Once he got the go-ahead, he picked out Tim Schafer and David Grossman, who were just starting out in the industry, to co-write the game and help with the programming. Gilbert was inspired by Tim Powers’ pirate fantasy novel On Stranger Tides and Disney World’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride when he pitched The Secret of Monkey Island. In fact, the man who goes by the online moniker ‘The Grumpy Gamer’ wrote an article in 1989 called Why Adventure Games Suck, which outlines what Gilbert found frustrating about adventure games and doubles as his, and subsequently LucasArts’, design ethos - no dying, no unwinnable game states, and no text parsers. Gilbert didn’t like the harsh penalties that Sierra's games dished out to players who took a wrong step, among other things. Maniac Mansion was the first step towards Ron Gilbert’s ideal for the adventure game genre. LucasArts released eleven further games in the SCUMM engine in the following ten years, many of them considered classics of the genre, such as Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, and of course, the Monkey Island series. With its verb-laden interface, puzzle-heavy gameplay, and focus on humour, Maniac Mansion set the template for LucasArts’ adventure game success.
The SCUMM engine was created by Ron Gilbert for his 1987 classic, Maniac Mansion (SCUMM stands for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion). Founded in 1982 by George Lucas under the name LucasArts Games (as a companion to his film production company), LucasArts became a prominent player in the games industry with its combination of licensed Star Wars games and point-and-click adventures created with its famous SCUMM engine.
The two giants of the genre were Sierra Online, developers of King’s Quest, Space Quest and more, and LucasArts.
Once upon a time, point-and-click adventure games ruled the PC gaming landscape (that time was about 1984 to 1993). Before returning to Monkey Island™, let’s have a look back at the entire Guybrush Threepwood saga.
After thirteen years, it is once again time to set sail to Monkey Island, with the sixth entry in the legendary comedic point-and-click adventure series, Return to Monkey Island, arriving on September 19th.
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