Ron Gilbert on writing comedy, designing puzzles, and Monkey Island (Action Talks #14)
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- Опубліковано 22 чер 2023
- Ron Gilbert is a game designer known for games like Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and Thimbleweed Park. He talks about the early days of LucasFilm, how he creates puzzles in his comedy, and how he tackles comedy. You can see his Moby Games profile at www.mobygames.com/person/1363...
Action Talks on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7D289Yt...
Action Talks on iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Telegram: t.me/ericjacobus
My studio SuperAlloy: www.superalloyinteractive.com
Blog: www.ericjacobus.com
Timestamps:
0:01:41 Ron's Influences
0:04:54 Why Adventure Games Suck
0:02:02 Ron's home videos
0:06:15 SCUManiac Mansion engine
0:12:38 No action scenes in Maniac Mansion
0:13:46 Zak McKracken
0:14:20 How to make a joke
0:18:41 Are people less funny if they're trying to be more realistic?
0:20:38 Indiana Jones The Adventure Game
0:23:17 Action scenes in Indy
0:26:16 What he learned from Maniac Mansion
0:29:06 The Maniac Mansion TV show
0:31:41 Ron's involvement in Loom
0:32:13 Chronology of his work
0:33:02 Indiana Jones made in 1 year
0:34:08 Puzzle Dependency Chart
0:35:18 Origins of the Puzzle Dependency Chart
0:36:52 Ron's inspiration for puzzles
0:39:03 Being the first to do a verbal user interface
0:40:16 How games like Maniac Mansion get made without a greenlight
0:40:54 Ron's inspiration for Monkey Island
0:43:28 The ethics of comedy
0:44:44 Return to Monkey Island's mature content
0:47:37 Inspiration for Guybrush Threepwood
0:51:14 The Monkey Island Pitch process
0:53:25 Monkey Island's art design
0:55:30 Why a pulley chicken?
0:55:54 Collaboration on Monkey Island
0:57:52 Number of verbs in Monkey Island
1:00:04 Trusting the audience
1:03:02 The inspiration for insult swordfighting
1:06:00 Music in Monkey Island
1:07:22 Hardest puzzle in Monkey Island
1:08:08 Monkey Island 2's verb reduction
1:08:29 Writing an adventure game where you can't get stuck
1:11:06 Incentivizing curiosity
1:14:50 How you insult your audience
1:15:31 Monkey Island 2 Production timeline
1:16:01 The one joke from Monkey Island 2 Ron regrets
1:18:27 Star Wars point n click?
1:19:48 Relationship between Sierra & LucasArts
1:21:39 Why LucasArts sold better in Europe
1:24:57 Humongous Entertainment and why you can't make adventure games for kids today
1:28:27 Ron's views on the Maniac Mansion remake
1:29:12 Don't f*ck it up. - Ron on Day of the Tentacle
1:29:55 Why Ron Left Lucas
1:30:38 Ron's involvement in the MI1 and 2 remasters
1:31:37 Ron's involvement in Tales of Monkey Island
1:32:01 The Cave
1:33:28 Thimbleweed Park trusting the audience
1:34:51 Puzzle design in Thim
1:35:44 Thimbleweed Park inspirations
1:36:46 Thimbleweed voiceover
1:39:32 Making Adventure Games for short attention spans
1:41:51 Can there be hard adventures?
1:43:45 Artificial intelligence
1:44:35 Film adaptation of Monkey Island?
1:46:28 Hollywood Envy today
1:48:20 Ron's advice for making adventure games
1:52:45 Why we laugh
1:55:05 Selling 100K units can be a success - Розваги
![PC Longplay [094] Tales of Monkey Island (part 2 of 5)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZAilaoffP6w/mqdefault.jpg)
I can see Ron finished his Colosseum Lego at some point. :). Great interview!
Very interesting interview with very well thought questions, and of course Ron is a legend!!!
Really interesting interview and great insights. I’m doing pixel art and design some small games in my freetime and Ron always is a big inspiration.
Great interview! I really enjoyed the whole two hours.
@EricJacobeus Every time I come across your channel, I'm reminded of the quote "The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards."
The credit for quote is not clear. But the idea makes sense. You, sir, are closest I've seen to the idea of fighter-philosopher.
A very good interview, with really interesting questions and answers.
Really good interviw. Was very interesting to hear Ron's stories and who is made so many great games and how important the whole team is + testers who will give more tips how to improve games. But for me the best thing about my favorite games is the story.
I'm huge fan of Monkey island 1 & 2, Day of the tentacle and Sam & Max Hit the road. I think those are the funniest games ever made. Well maybe Leisure Suit Larry games are also funny. It's so sad that comedy has come down so much. In TV, Movies and specially in game. It's more about action and speed... not the story and humour. For my I like to watch a lot 80's movies and I found that even a bad 80's movie is way better than many movies this year. Something about that era of humour is rare and funny.
Maybe I'm old fashion gamer but I like the whole experience of the game. Like in Day of the tentacle the cartoon graphics, music and humour is so great. It's just a pleasure to play and don't have hurry at all. That is why I don't understand the "speedrun" gamers at all.. for me you would miss all the fun. I think in advetunture game is the journey not the end what is important.
That is why I like more old fashion cartoon graphics which are colourful are better. But that is just me :D
Great conversation! Thank you for asking some really great questions! Cheers!
Cool! Delightful conversation. Cool to learn about the work that goes into making games & puzzles. Also sorta want to make a comedy game now...
Awesome! Best games ever !!
Nice shout out to Nuclear Throne
Brilliant stuff!
When you asked if Maniac Mansion was the first filmed adaptation of a game, the first thing that came to my mind was The Super Mario Bros Super Show with Lou Albano, which I Googled and did indeed beat Maniac Mansion... but not by that much. On air one year and a week before MM.
Yes I thought of that too afterward. Haha what strange casting...
Neat
Great interview! My only complaint is poor audio quality for Ron 🙁