VIDEO: Monkey Island creator returns with DeathSpank

Posted at: 3:35pm 2nd September 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

Ron Gilbert presents a new episodic adventure RPG he describes as ‘Monkey Island meets Diablo’

Although many adventure game fans wept when LucasArts abandoned the adventure genre, the team who worked on the original classic adventure games such as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle are all happily making new games again. Dave Grossman is working for Telltale Games, Tim Schafer is working at Double Fine and now the creator of Monkey Island and the infamous SCUMM engine (Script creation utility for Maniac Mansion), Ron Gilbert, is showing off his first major work for years – DeathSpank.

Described by the game’s developer, Hothead Games, as ‘Monkey Island meets Diablo,’ DeathSpank combines elements of RPGs and adventure games and will start to be released episodically next year. Hothead says that the game will ‘feature Gilbert's unique style of humour and storytelling,’ adding that ‘players will follow the thong-tastic adventures of a misguided hero named DeathSpank, a character that first appeared on Gilbert's Grumpy Gamer website in a series of animated comics.’

Followers of Gilbert’s Grumpy Gamer blog will know that DeathSpank has been in the works for a good few years now, with Gilbert struggling to get a publishing deal. ‘Everyone hated it,’ says Gilbert, ‘but the weird thing is the more publishers that turned it down, the more convinced I became that this was a great idea. Every rejection fuelled me with excitement and the knowledge that I was right. Nothing says innovation and creativity like armed security showing up to escort you out of the building while saying "Let's not have any trouble."’

Gilbert is now the creative director of Hothead Games after being brought on as a consultant for the penny Arcade adventure game, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. On his blog, he describes how the game suddenly came to life after meeting the guys at Hothead. ‘I called up Tim Schafer and said "Loan me a desk, I have a game to design!" and I proceeded to crank out what can only be called the perfect melding of a Monkey Island style adventure game with the wicked RPG game play of Diablo.’

After slapping ‘some meat on the characters’ and tightening up the story and world, Gilbert says that he and fellow designer Clayton Kauzlaric then ended up with ‘a design you could cook an egg on.’ Hothead has also just released three teaser trailers for the game, which you can see below.

The Battle

The RPG

The Adventure