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Lucasarts' Ron Gilbert discusses Secret of Monkey Island source code

The Video Game History Foundation's recent chat with Ron Gilbert is now available for everyone to check out and it includes a heavy behind-the-scenes look at the making of Secret of Monkey Island.

Ozzie Mejia

November 24, 2020 6:25 PM

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It's been 30 years since Lucasarts released one of its most beloved adventure games, The Secret of Monkey Island. It's a game that still stands out as one of the studio's best efforts, which says a lot about a development team that released such games as Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle. Developer Ron Gilbert recently discussed a lot of behind-the-scenes facts about The Secret of Monkey Island and its source code and it's now available for everyone to check out for free.

There's a lot that the VGHF's Frank Cifaldi and Gilbert discuss about The Secret of Monkey Island. They go into the game's origins, its development process, the coding process, the art process, and what it meant to work at Lucasfilm Games. Gilbert even offered a live look into how the team would work with the game's SCUMM scripting language, as well as a handful of the other development tools used to bring the game to life. Not only did the team use these tools to bring Monkey Island's various assets to life, but they even got some practice in for creating assets on a few other games, like Sam & Max Hit the Road.

Those who grew up on The Secret of Monkey Island will be fascinated by a lot of the early assets revealed, including early prototypes of Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley. Gilbert also talked about how many of the game's environments evolved into the eventual final product and what changes ultimately needed to made in order for everything to work. Some of those changes even included cutting out some sequences entirely.

There's a lot to soak in, so be sure to check out the full presentation above, read the whole story over on the Video Game History Foundation website, and consider donating to their cause to help teach the world more about video game history.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?