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Interview
conducted by Andrew
"telarium" Langley
If you don't know who Ron
Gilbert is, there is something seriously wrong with you. Not
only did Ron Gilbert revolutionize the way we play adventure
games, he also created such classics as Maniac Mansion,
The Secret of Monkey Island, and Monkey Island 2:
LeChuck's Revenge. In this interview, we check back with
Ron to see what he's doing these days at his new company, Hulabee
Entertainment.
Let’s start by talking about
your new company. How would you describe the kind of products
you want your new company to create?
We're focusing
on adventure games for kids, much like we did at Humongous
Entertainment.
What inspired you to start Hulabee
after you left your previous company,
Humongous?
Mostly it was being able to start with a
clean slate, both technologically and creatively. We wanted to
focus on doing games that could be download over the Internet
and be able to create a new cast of characters and
stories.
I know that Humongous licensed SCUMM, a
graphic adventure engine that you helped create at LucasArts,
to make its games. Will Hulabee also license SCUMM, or are you
using something else?
We created a new development
system. SCUMM was a fantastic system, but it's going on 15
years old and was staring to show it's age. The new system is
much more flexible and able to grow as technology grows. Plus
it was just a lot of fun to be able to start over and code
everything from scratch. I had gotten out of programming for a
while, so it was fun to get back into it.
Will we
ever see a more "adult" adventure games from Hulabee
Entertainment, or are you going to focus solely on your
younger audience?
I would love to do another
"adult" adventure game. My dream is to buy the rights to
Monkey Island and do the true Monkey Island 3. I'd call
it "Monkey Island 3a: The Secret Reveled or your Money
Back".
What are your day-to-day responsibilities at
Hulabee?
Scape Goat.
With the exception
of Cavedog, it seems like your career after LucasArts has been
focused mainly on children’s entertainment. What made you
decide to concentrate more on this type of product than, say,
making the typical, overly violent type of computer
games?
I focused on the kids adventure games
because it gave me a way to do more games in a short amount of
time and experiment with design issues. That was hard to do in
the "grown -up" arena because people had expectations. Kids
were new to the whole adventure game "thing" and didn't have
any expectations. You could try new things with them. Also,
kids don't care about wiz bang technology, they just care
about story and characters and game play. That is
refreshing.
I’ve been told that you tapped Dave
Grossman to write two of your recent products, Moop and
Dreadly and Ollo.
For our readers who don’t know, can you tell us about your
past and present collaboration with Dave?
Dave was
one of the programmers and writers on Monkey Island 1
and 2. I've worked with Dave an several projects over
the years. Dave likes Apple Juice.
You’ve mentioned
in a few previous interviews of a game design written by Dave
Grossman and yourself, which I believe is called Bobo and
Fletcher Go Deep in the Congo. What can you tell us, if
anything, about this game?
Bobo and Fletcher
was a design that built upon all the experience that I had
from doing kids games. It was a hybrid game. It was a great
story and great characters and I hope to make it someday. The
idea was to do it as episodes that sold for a few bucks. The
market was not ready for a product like that, but with the
Internet (it's all the rage today) that is becoming more of a
reality. Except that everyone still thinks everything on the
Internet should be free.
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