My top-o-the-line boyfriend knew me all too well before he knew me all too well. At some point during the second month we started seeing each other he gave me the large and lovely coffee table book Rogue Leaders - The Story of LucasArts. He may have been tipped off about my love for LucasArts after we spent the first few hours of our first date raving about classics like The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam and Max Hit the Road, but either way he knew I had to have it. He knew right.
So now I've got my cup of rooibos tea, some Kid A playing in the background, and I'm ready to get deep in the legends of the LucasArt lore. This post will serve as my note taking platform, for quotes, references, and inspiration, since frankly I'm jealous of all those grad school kids who are hovering over their desks, underlining printed articles they found on JSTOR. *humph*
A quote from Habitat's beta player manual, a game developed by Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer that essentially captured many ideas and concepts of online social games in 1987, about 10 years before it's time:
Although you can remove your head at any time, it is considered extremely tacky to wander around the world headless. The sight of a headless Avatar can be quite upsetting to some of the younger, more liberal citizens of Habitat.
The game was eventually canceled for U.S. release, due to the fact that the servers available at the time couldn't handle a large, online mass of players playing the game all at once.
The Secret of Monkey Island
Ron Gilbert:
The pirate theme came from one place: I hated fantasy.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Bug classes, found on the programmer bug reports for Indy IV:
- A - crash (can't finish the game)
- B - truly ugly (but you can finish)
- C - golly it would be nice if we could fix this
- D - existing game design matters
- E - game design suggestions
Two additional Indiana Jones games were planned following the release of The Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix and Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny:
Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix...involved exiled Nazis hiding in Boliva, discovering a way to resurrect the Führer from his ashes...Though Nazi themes were permissable, a story involving a revived Hitler -- or a simmering Nazi regime prepping to resurface from its hideaway in a South American country - likely wouldn't make the cut, so the game was cancelled after spending 15 months in development.
Both games were eventually turned into comic books by Dark Horse. Zombie Hitler? With the recent success of Intolerant Bastards by Tarantino and the release of the Polish Zombie Nazi film Dead Snow, the Iron Phoenix concept sounds like it might suit today's audiences well (*hint*hint*nudge*nudge*)
Lucasfilm Games becomes a part of the newly formed LucasArts Entertainment Company in 1993
Tim Schafer's reaction to the new company structure:
At the announcement of the new company structure, emerging design star Tim Schafer wanted to ensure that the Lucasfilm Games group wasn't lost in the shuffle. By gluing glitter in the form of the new company logo onto fez-like hats, the employees ensured that nobody could forget that alongside the cutting-edge technology development of ILM and Skywalker Sound, a vibrant creative group was making popular games within the growing company.
Note to self: Glitter + Fez = Made of Win and Awesome.
Full Throttle
On Full Throttle's game length:
While some critics derided its relatively short length (at a time when many games offered more than forty hours of gameplay, Full Throttle could be completed handily within six hours), this brevity meant that many players actually saw the ending. Schafer was told by many gamers that, "It's the only adventure game I've ever finished."
Additional note: The concept art for Ben Throttle used for Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels (the intended sequel, circa 2002) is reminiscent of the big shouldered character design of Eddie Riggs for Tim Schafer's new game Brutal Legend. Or maybe I'm just seeing things.
On characters smoking in Grim Fandango:
Dealing with such a specific cultural event brought its own potential problems, as did some issues endemic to the game's film noir story. According to [public relations manager Tom] Sarris, concerns arose about showing certain characters smoking. "Our answer was: 'Well, why? The characters are already dead!'" he recalls.
The book is great, but some of the facts about Habitat need clarification. Too bad he didn't ask anyone who actually worked on the project.
http://habitatchronicles.com/2009/02/fact-check-lucasfilms-habitat-in-rogue-leaders
Posted by: F. Randall Farmer | 09/30/2009 at 05:17 PM
Wow, can't believe they didn't fact check. Thanks so much for the link!
Posted by: .tiff | 09/30/2009 at 05:32 PM