I can give you my soul for doing another great game!

... Or maybe I'll just save that one for my own big breakthrough...

Hahaha good interview. Thank you, I actually coughed from laughing so hard.

Look at you, all cute and maniacal. http://www.worldofmi.com/imageviewer.php?id=269

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What I liked most about the interview was your suggestion that LucasArts and SCUMMVM do something for DS. That sounds like the best idea I've heard all year. I'm playing Zelda Phantom Hourglass on DS, and replaying MI1 on laptop right now (I alternate depending on my mood). And it looks like there is already a SCUMMVM DS project.

I think Wii would make a good platform also (I'm sure the pointer is good enough, though you would need a steady hand), and distribution would be even easier over Wii shop. Come to think of it, if someone could write a SCUMMVM in flash you wouldn't even need to persuade Nintendo to play along.

Ah, well...you can play with ScummVm on almost every console..
I know that you can play with ScummVm on NintendoDs, Sony's PSP and Sega Dreamcast (forgive me if i forgot one). And the Wii should be no problem 'cos of the SD Slot in it.
(You can even remote controll your PC per Wii xD )

I am led to believe that the wii can be used to 'download' things onto a DS, this is to be used to distribute DS demos. Obviously, this could also be done for ScummVM DS. However, this would depend on the potential market owning both a Wii and DS. Another problem is that although I am sure ScummVM would happily allow Nintendo to distribute their software, I am uncertain as to whether LucasArts will allow the actual games to be.

I was just thinking last night that Lucasarts should release those games on DS, and then I read your interview...  I think I'm gonna start sending them emails about it today.

Dear Mr Ron
I'm a little spanish boy, I have too much problems, my mother is in the hospital, my father have a cerebral problem, I have to go to the psycologist every day and my dog doesn't talk to me. The psycologist said me that all of these problems can be solved by one person by telling me what's the secret of Monkey Island...
I beg you, please give me a hope!!!
Yours faithfully
Alex


PS: Its a nice Idea that which talks about the DS and SCUMMVM with the suport of LucasArts. But... what would Brian Boitano do?

DEAR SIR,

My name is Mugaba Baseko M'bumba III. I am a represantative for the gouvernment of Nigeria. Recently I was forced to flee my kountry, and I have the sum of $ 28,000,000 trillion dollars that I had to left behind. Please if you help me I can depoist the sum on your bank account if you give me advance payment of one (1) SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND. I hope you will hlep me becose you seem trustwrothy person.

With regrads,

Mister M'bombi.

"The problem is, you can only do one deal with the Devil and I blew it on a 16-color EGA game."

That one answer made my day! : D

What I always wanted to ask:

Has Monkey Island anything to to with the 13th Floor Elevators song?

"..despite it being the dark ages and half the population dying from the plague and we all walked around with six-shooter to battle dinosaurs.."

Brilliant imagination, and clearly from the mind who created Monkey Island!

Thanks for doing this interview, Ron. Looking forward to your future endeavours!

Dear Ron,

Does anyone every ask you anything without bringing up games or monkey island?

You almost did. Except while not exactly asking about them, you still seems to bring them up.
Maybe it's a curse?

Hello Ron.

What about Wii? I think you would make great games both for Wii and Nintendo DS.

Wii is a perfect platform for complex adventure games, expanding the genre into being more interactive thanks to the use of gestures. See Zack & Wiki for a good example of control on an adventure game (and made by japanese guys, CAPCOM), the game is more puzzle than adventure but still being great.

If Nintendo of America were more smart, they would get geniuoses like you and Tim Schaffer for making a top quality studio for adventure games like they did with Retro Studios ( Grumpy Studios? :) ). A lot of people like me are tired of videogames because full of FPS and other kind of fast action games (racing, soccer...) or boring RPG games (not all of then are, but most), see how ScummVM is having great response between people.

Please make a game for Wii and other for DS, I'm tired of crappy third parties doing very bad quality games in general. There are exceptions (Phoenix Wright, Trauma Center...), but still being a minority for the full market.

The wiimote is the perfect device for an adventure game: sustitutes the cursor in a comfortable way (lazy people can play adventure games on their sofa), doing interesting gestures (opening a door, cutting something, entering a key or object in a hole, drawing something, pushing certain parts on a wall, scraping a surface...) and more than enough buttons for controlling the character actions and movement.

It could be nice if you do one article on this blog about Wii. There are adventure game fans that are waiting adventure games to resurrect in the mainstream world.

There are a lot people tired of using PC because new adventure games requires operating systems from the evil (Microsoft) and needing to install the games. It's a lot easier playing games on a console and forget if your computer is too old or not.

Regards...
(sorry for my highly inaccurate english)

A pirate adventure game for the wii with the occasional actual sword fights using the wii remote would be awesome. Been waiting for one of those.

the only problem is that the wiimote doesnt have an inbuilt microphone for shouting insults at your sword fighting opponent.

I agree that Phoenix Wright is a nice beacon of light in a world where adventure games are becoming all too rare.
Ron, if you haven't already played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, I highly recommend it. I will look out for it on your "What I'm Playing..." list.

Ahh, good times in Amsterdam with naked guys performing tricks in mid-air. A day worth remembering!

Your comment in the interview (which by the way was very swell) about Lucasarts mysteriously not being interested in a Billion Dollars by releasing the classics on the DS does beg the question: what are they (not) thinking?

I used to spend a lot of time hanging around World of Monkey Island. I even catalogued the Phatt Island Library for them. I started writing a serialised fan fiction story for them ages ago but gave up after the first installment because I thought I'd rather focus on writing my own original novel.

If I'd stuck with it, I'm sure I'd now be making it big in the Monkey Island fan fiction scene. I'd have my own custom-made MI bling. I'd have a jet painted by Paco. I'd be flying around the world in my jet, waving my bling at people. That's what I'd be doing.

How's it going with your novel? If you get it published, you may yet get all those things that only the nouveau riche have. :)

I've finished, but now I don't know how to get it published. All the publishers say I have to go through an agent. I contacted an agent and she said I have to send my book to a script assessor. I found a script assessor online and calculated that they would charge NZ$600 to 'assess' my book. Quite frankly I can't stand this long chain of people who are determined to make money out of me whether my book gets published or not. So I'm trying to find out how to publish my book without going through parasites.

Man, that sucks. Maybe you could have your book published through one of those online publishers, like Lulu.com, but then you'd get less exposure than if you'd publish through a regular publisher, I guess...

There is a fairly well-known law in the publishing world: "Money flows toward the author". Never ever pay someone to get your stuff published, because if you do, it's probably just a scam and you'll be laughed at by real publishers and agents.
Try again with better agents, until you find someone who (at the very least) will tell you why your book sucks... and then you can go back and rewrite it over and over again until it's so good that you'll find someone willing to take you on.

Do not pay. Whatever happens.

Here you go buddy... this book helps, something like last chapter: http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Stephen-King/dp/0743455967/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9664336-9029510?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194486111&sr=1-1

It takes work, though. My relatives have all published (non-English) novels, and although the works were very highly acclaimed, it takes a while to get publishing done. :/ Hell, JK Rowling got turned down my five (now-suicidal) publishers. Tolkien got turned down by more. So good luck. I'm gonna be in your shoes soon I guess, shipping around a collection of short stories. But now that it's done, you're over the hard part. toast

Writer's Digest usually has ads at the back with agents.

Is happy time?!

I was thinking about adventure games remakes for the new consoles the other day, for example, what if LucasArts wants to port MI for the Wii (as an example) would you (if consulted) remake the graphics and GUI to make it more appealing for new players or would you just go the ScummVm way and port them as they were for the old nostalgic gamers?

Seeing how much attention the Street Fighter HD remake is gathering, I wonder if that would be the right path to go with the old adventure games.

Nostalgia seems to be hitting the 30 something people pretty hard right now, seeing how much money Nintendo is making on the virtual console downloads and Microsoft with their downloable arcade games I wonder why LucasArts is not joining the party, I'm pretty sure that they're sitting on a gold mine and the time is running out to make money out of it.

EDIT where it says "downloable" it should say "downloadable" EDIT

We do now...

What is the Secret of Monkey Island?