INTERVIEW WITH RON GILBERT (1998)

Q. What about LucasArts new games, and especially The Curse of Monkey Island?

A. Monkey 3 was pretty good, although I was afraid of the worst. The biggest mistake was that Elaine fell in love with Guybrush. That's something she never would have done.

Q. You were clearly pivotal to the creation and success of the first two Monkey Island adventures, and, as a result, to the success of LucasArts adventures in general. Yet, you weren't even consulted on Monkey Island 3. Do you wish that you were involved in its creation, or at least in the story-line?

A. I spoke to the development team a lot while they made it, but we never talked about the game per se. But Monkey Island belongs to LucasArts. It's their game, not mine.

Q. It must have been tough for the team on Monkey Island 3 to live up to your legacy, especially after such a long break since the first two, and without your help.

A. I guess so. The team would mention that I had made their life hell. Particularly with the ending to Monkey Island 2. They just didn't know what it meant.

Q. Did you feel any pressure in creating Monkey lsland 2, after the enormous success of the original?

A. I look back at the early adventures and I think that there are certain puzzles that I wish I hadn't put in or locations that didn't look right, but I really don't remember a lot of pressure when I was doing Monkey Island 2. We just went directly into it, almost like a non-stop project. A lot of Monkey 2 was stuff that was supposed to be in Monkey 1. It didn't matter that we were running short of time on Monkey 1 because I could just save the work and come back to it in the sequel. But if I were ever to do a Monkey Island 4, I would definitely feel the pressure.

Q. With your history in adventures, and with LucasArts still releasing some excellent titles, do you envisage creating a Cavedog adventure in the future?

A. I would really like to do a straight adventure game. After doing Good & Evil I may find elements that really make me want to write another adventure game. I hope Grim Fandango does well and kick-starts the genre.