BlogAllAlong » Lucasarts

Monkey Island Playground

Bashar — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:49:58 +0000

Without any relation to the game (but it should), HERE IT IS!

Why not real one? You know with hidden dirty T-Shirt treasures, lovely governors, spit contests, real grave digging and all. That would be much cooler.

Monkey Island 2 Special-Uber Edition

Bashar — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:20:09 +0000

I can’t believe I call my self Monkey Island fan and I haven’t heard about this proof of concept for Monkey Island 2 Special Edition with 3D environment. And I haven’t even played the Tales of Monkey Island yet. I shouldn’t blog about this or else… Err, what do you mean I just did? Umm… back to topic.

Enjoy the videos.

Google Experimental Search

Bashar — Sat, 19 May 2007 12:24:52 +0000

A nice and neat new feature from Google. Google Experimental lets you search for terms and see their results and events over the course of Timeline. The service is still new and you can see lots of empty gaps even when you search for Google. You can enjoy searching for your favorite topics like Monkey Island or Sam & Max. See how the Sam & Max comics started in 80′s, was turned into a game in 93, strange announcement from The Adventure Company and Telltale to bring Sam & Max season 1 to stores in 1996! (That’s one flaw) The real link points to PDF document dated 2007. How in 2002 there was a hope for Sam & Max 2, 2004 marked the death of adventure games at Lucasarts. It’s still in testing phase, but quite fun and useful too.

Happy Birthday SCUMM

Bashar — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 10:34:46 +0000

Or should I say Happy Birthday Ron? This years marks the 20th anniversary of SCUMM, the scripting utility Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert created to aid in the development of adventure game Maniac Mansion. The utility became the foundation of many other adventure games, like the legendary Monkey Island. A virtual machine is in place now and is adapted to different platforms to keep the old franchise playable. Nintendo DS now is able to play the old games while you are on the move. Read a short interview with Ron Gilbert on IGN.

If more games were just half as good as this one

Bashar — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 07:09:28 +0000

This is beyond the shadow of a doubt one of the best video game trailers ever made. The game it self is among the best as well. Somehow it didn’t get the attention it deserves. (Embedding YouTube videos stopped working on my blog for some reason, while Google Video still works, I had to hyperlink it)

Grimfandango was the last worthy adventure game from Lucasarts. After which, it was all gone and missed. If you still like to get your hands on it, or any other classic adventure game, GamePlanet New Zealand is having it with international shipping. Each game is worth $15. When they first promoted the classic games for sale, it was $7 only! Now it’s out of stock and rising in price. Can you believe the late 90′s game is now sold for the price of Prince of Persia!

Lucasarts revisiting The Dig?

Bashar — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:51:48 +0000

That’s right. The great old classic game, The Dig is not forgotten at all by Lucasarts as many people might think, not even after 12 years. You can tell so from the lawsuit Lucasarts are filing against Digg.com, saying that the name is confusing with their 12 years old point and click adventure game, which was not a big success even. Lucas have also turned down the offer by Digg to trademark it’s name. The funny thing is, Dig.com is a registered domain for Walt Disney Interactive Group, and they had nothing to say about it! I find it awkward Lucas are revisiting the name after 12 years just for the sake of a lawsuit. This is either a UTube inspired similar lawsuit case, and if so, it’s a real shame on Lucas to follow that way just to make few bucks. Who the hell would remember The Dig game today, and instead of searching for it would think there is a domain for it, and that domain is misspelled as Digg.com. The other possibility is that Lucasarts are planning to revisit The Dig again! Since Lucasarts have republished the classic adventure games for sale, said they are getting back to adventure games, even if in 2015, they are probably either considering a second episode, or a movie based on the game. After all, there have been some thoughts about making movie of the game. All in all, it is still very funny how Lucas ignores the customer cries for years, promise only to come back in 2015, when they know many people are going to Digg.com to read about the dozen years old game, yet they still do nothing but file lawsuits about it. More on the news also from International House of Mojo.

Lucas Powering Monkey Island Inspired Movie

Bashar — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:17:27 +0000

Isn’t it funny how it all started? In the late 80′s, Ron Gilbert, creator of the legendary Monkey Island so-called best adventure game of all time, Ron started reading Tim Power’s On Stranger Tides, which inspired him about the game. Ron him self said it several times that Pirates of the Caribbean the ride also did inspire him. Even though he says that’s not totally true, the scene with the dog holding the key in his mouth can be seen in the original ride. At least, it must have had some positive impression on him.

1990 came the first Monkey Island game, followed by a bigger success one year later with Monkey Island 2: Lechuck’s Revenge. Years passed then, and Ron started his own career. 2003 brought a new taste from Disney films. A piracy taste. I still remember how I was waiting eagerly to go back to my PC from the cinema and check what people say about the Monkey Island movie. I was absolutely right, and only then I could rest down asleep. Last year, Ron him self talked about the Monkey Island movie (Dead Man’s Chest). He him self admired it as you can read, I totally agree. But the point is, now Disney are taking ideas from Ron. And now, as posted earlier about part 3, there is even a more clear evidence from the town of ship parts.

So is that all really bad? Well, I don’t think so. If they are using things as inspiration, they are adding their own theme, story and touch, this could only help things get better. As Steve Jobs used to quote Picasso for saying “Good artist copy, great artists steal!”. So Disney are good artists, not great yet. They would have been if they hired Ron for script writing the movie maybe.

Enough talking now, so what’s the really funny thing about it. The funny thing is that Lucasfilms Studios are hosting and powering the graphics rendering for the Pirates of the Caribbean (Monkey Island movie). So eventually, the two sides shake hands on the big project, and it’s team work at the end that will come to the big screen. Lucasfilms participated in Dead Man’s Chest as well. You can see from CNet a video from inside the Lucasfilm server studio farm.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 – Another Copy From Monkey Island

Bashar — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:11:56 +0000

While the release date of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, the last episode of the trilogy, approaches, concept arts are starting to reveal some secrets about the film. One great discovery was the copy of the Monkey Island 2 Scabb Island, which is made of ship parts.

See the similarity. The copy story started from Ron Gilbert days when he was inspired by a book novel and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, more credit for the novel as he said. The similarity was reported first on International House of Mojo. Kroms Blog has a sharp eye on those news and quickly grabbed it. Still, this is the last worthy pirate movie to watch. If Lucas sold us for FREE, we can still enjoy Monkey Island movie with Pirates of the Caribbean name on it. After all we all did play Monkey Island 4 didn’t we? This movie is more worthy of the name I believe.

New ex-Lucasart Team United = Tough New Game!

Bashar — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:45:57 +0000

Brilliant news for old Lucasarts adventure game fans, a new group of ex-Lucasarts employees (as usual) have started up a new company, Crackpot Entertainment and are coming up with a new action/adventure game this year called Insecticide. Lead designer of Curse of Monkey Island, Larry Ahern, and artist/animator of Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Sam & Max Hit The Road are among the team. You can already see some pictures, art design, and even a short trailer of the game. The 3D Graphics and animation are so amazing.

The emerge of the fourth adventure game company after Lucasarts, success of Telltale games so far, and the new coming adventure games sequels are all solid proof there is still a market for this genre, and 2015, Lucasart are going to have a tough time getting back in the game. I would assume they will try to approach the new formed up companies for development, and they simply become the publishers. I hope non of the companies agree though. How they turned down all their fans was more than bad.

For more on the news, you can read the original article on The International House of Mojo. I also have to thank Kroms for posting the news first.

Telltale Vs Lucasarts

Bashar — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:08:06 +0000

March 2004, the famous anticipated sequel to the Sam & Max Hit the Road was cancelled by Lucasarts for good, and and all other adventure game plans have been put on hold until further notice. A late comment came from Lucas officials late last year saying they will get back to the adventure games in 2015!

Fans went mad, petitions started on the internet, and even the Lucas employees who were working on the game felt frustrated. A group of the employees heard the cries, quit Lucas and started what’s called today Telltale games back in June 2004. They have managed to acquire the license for the abandoned Sam & Max and already released two episodes which were well accepted by the fans.

Now, and after 3 years and a half, I thought of making this comparison between the small Telltale, and the Star Wars fueled Lucasarts. The first thing I tried was how often people Google for one over the other by using Google Trends.

Lucas are still in the lead, but as it is properly called Trend, you can see end of 2006 how Telltale closed up on Lucasarts. This was when Sam & Max Ep. 1 was released. A clear message from the fans to Lucas I suppose. Also, you can see below the difference from Alexa for Reach and Rank:

Daily Reach has still a huge gap between the two, though at every Sam & Max release this gap gets a lot smaller. If we look at Ranking it gets much more interesting. At Nov and Jan, when the two Sam & Max episodes were released, the 3 1/2 years old company, living on the forgotten and leftovers of Lucasarts beats Lucas in ranking! Now that Lucas are out of new Star Wars movies, and Telltale still gathering up their forces, there could be a real turn in situation here. I don’t believe Lucas will start losing, no. But their sales may get affected now without new Star Wars fresh movies coming, and may really consider appealing back to the fans they turned their back to.

On the other, I take off my hat and salute all the people at Telltale for their continuous and hard working efforts that really seem to be paying off. They have won the fans heart and loyalty in a way that with every release, we customers face serious issues launching the game, and can still feel the sense of humor between fans and the company. How could a company like this fall I wonder?

BlogAllAlong » Lucasarts

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