While working on the recent Special Edition of the game, Lucasarts' Adam Bormann says he had to go back into the code for the original Monkey Island. And while in there, poking around for puzzle AI, he found a ton of content left in the game by its developers, including Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer.

Seems every time the original developers made a change to a puzzle or a piece of dialogue, they simply left the old stuff in the code. So Lucasarts have yanked it all out and posted it. Some of it's all-new content, others added lines to existing chit-chats, but for fans of the series it's all good reading.

Secret of Monkey Island – The Deleted & Extended Scenes [Lucasarts]

Before we could talk about DeathSpank, we had to get past the subject of my magical pen. I use a Livescribe pen during interviews, which records sound while I take notes, allowing me to later touch the pen to the text and play back exactly what it recorded while I was writing. Ron was astounded to the point of accusing me of cavorting with the devil.

"It's magic! That's not technology - you're a witch."

Having established my unholy status, I moved on to asking Ron exactly what DeathSpank meant to him.

"DeathSpank to me is Monkey Island meets Diablo. Obviously I love adventure games a lot, and I wanted to take some of the really great things about adventure games - the way they tell stories, present dialog with characters, and include puzzle solving. But I'm also a big fan of action RPGs like Diablo, and I wanted to marry those two things together."

The marriage of classic 2D adventure games and a 3D isometric action RPG like Diablo carries over into the art direction for the game as well, with 3D characters, NPCs, and enemies doing battle and interacting amidst 2D scenery, creating something that almost has the look and feel of a pop-up book.

Ron walks me through a little combat, showing me how any of DeathSpank's powers and abilities can be mapped to any action button, allowing players to play however they want. Powers like the ability to summon a pack of wild chickens to attack your enemies. It sounds like a great power to have, but it has a major drawback - if you accidentally hit the birds with an attack, they'll turn on you.

"One of the guys on the project summons 100 chickens, gets them to attack him, and then runs around with this horde of 100 chickens following him everywhere. It's amazing to see."

So Ron's trademark humor is intact, and seems to translate well into a 3D action game, but what of the adventuring elements? He warps to a place further along in the game, where DeathSpank has to talk to a retired hero in order to get a new weapon. Like the classic Monkey Island games, the dialog options aren't simply decisions you make, but a way to flesh out the story, with humorous exposition that is only there to entertain the player. Eventually DeathSpank gets the old man to tell him what he wants in exchange for the weapon - "A tank! No wait...a taco!"

It's more than you'd expect from a 3D RPG, with more than you'd expect from an adventure game.

"Adventure games and RPGs share a lot in common. They tell stories. They're both about collecting items. RPGs have quests; adventure games send you off to solve puzzles, and I really just enjoy them both. Why should I play two games when I can just play one?"

That one game is coming from Hothead Games sometime next year, playable on everything Ron can possibly release it on.

"Everything with a chip on it. It'll be on microwave ovens."

DeathSpank is a 3D action RPG from Ron Gilbert, the man behind classic PC games like The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion. With that sort of pedigree, you can expect a game that's at the very least entertaining. Check out this trailer and the accompanying screens, and let us know if you've got any questions for Mr. Gilbert, as we'll be sitting down with him later today to discuss all things DeathSpank.

Choice quotes from the keynote:

-"I remember when 16 colors were more than enough and I remember when 16 colors were not nearly enough."

-"Monkey Island's budget was $135,000, and that was a AAA game back then."

-"I have the job our parents tell us does not exist."

-"We should always live in a state of discomfort of fear about what we are creating. It means you are making something different and special. It means you are making something unique."

-"This is what excites me about [today's] indie games: they have the freedom to fail... they have the freedom to be better."

-"People ask me to prove that games are art. I ask them to prove me them they're not."

When he mentions that he created SCUMM a thousand gamers in attendance cheer. That's PAX.

1UP have a weeklong feature running on the game, which looks set to satisfy a gaping hole in the market by serving as a smart, funny parody on gaming genres and cliches. Well. We don't know about the smart, funny bit just yet, but with Ron Gilbert - the man behind Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island - at the wheel, things are looking promising.

More on the game - including its take on adventure gaming and Diablo - below.

[DeathSpank @ 1UP]

"This is an unbelievable moment for us," Penny Arcade's Robert Khoo said. "I wasted an entire family vacation one year trying to figure out how to win that stupid spitting competition."

This year's Penny Arcade Expo will take place from Sept. 4 through Sept. 6 at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center in Seattle. As with previous years, the show will include plenty of panels, a show floor packed with game demonstrations, the annual Omegathon gaming competition, and the PAX 10 indie game showcase. This year's musical performances will include Freezepop, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot, Paul and Storm, Anamanaguchi and Metroid Metal.

Last year's show brought in 58,500 attendees, making it the largest gaming festival in North America.

Penny Arcade Expo

Ron Gilbert, who wrote both the original Monkey Island and its sequel, has posted on his blog a picture-filled trip down memory lane, detailing some of the some of the design decisions behind what many regard as one of the funniest video games ever made.

It's the "making of" book you always wanted, but never got, because...well, there hasn't really been one. Makes you wish game and/or book publishers would realise there's a market for this kind of stuff!

Stuff and Things and Monkey Island [Grumpy Gamer, via GSW]

[via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

I think that it will [shift into a Hollywood-type model]. And I think that, ultimately, it has to. And I think we will shift to that model, but I think that there are a couple of things that have to happen before we really shift to that. One is that I think technology has to settle down a little bit. I think technology is moving forward really rapidly, and part of what a lot of teams do is exploring new technology, and I think that's kind of hard to do with an ad hoc thing.

I think the other thing that's going to have to happen - and this is a really big one - is we're going to have to become unionized. Because I don't think that you're going to be able to grab all of these freelance people when you need them if there isn't some kind of a union structure that's over the top of them. You can't really have a bunch of animators just floating around from job to job with nothing in between.

So I think there's going to have to be a lot more structure, and I think that's going to have to come in the form of unions - which, you know, I don't know that I really agree with that; I think unions bring a lot of bad things to gaming, but I think they're going to be necessary for us to move into that Hollywood model.

Interesting interview with a lot of content; worth plowing through if you're in the mood for some interesting reading.

Spanking Death: Ron Gilbert Goes Episodic... And Loves It [Gamasutra]

Speaking from his secret game design cave, Ron Gilbert said, "I've spent over four years trying to find the right publisher for this strange little game. Now that I've done it, you just know that somewhere four horsemen are saddling up."

HOTHEAD GAMES TO PUBLISH NEW RON GILBERT GAME DEATHSPANK

Gilbert joins the Vancouver crew as Creative Director

The Great White North, January 9, 2008 - In a move that may upset the balance of the universe (or at least that around the 49th parallel), Hothead Games announced plans to publish Ron Gilbert's long-awaited RPG-Adventure game, DeathSpank. Described as "Monkey Island meets Diablo", the game will be released in episodic format and feature Gilbert's unique style of humor and storytelling. In a related move, Ron Gilbert will be joining the company's Vancouver-based studio as Creative Director, effective immediately.

Speaking from his secret game design cave, Ron Gilbert said, "I've spent over four years trying to find the right publisher for this strange little game. Now that I've done it, you just know that somewhere four horsemen are saddling up."

The episodic game follows 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 he penned with long-time creative collaborator, Clayton Kauzlaric.

Hothead prepared for Gilbert's arrival by ordering the finest morsels of jellied moose meat and lager brewed with water from the nearest available glacier. "We're all huge fans of Monkey Island and we love Ron's unique vision and sense of humor," said Joel DeYoung, COO of Hothead Games. "Ron shares Hothead's goal of bringing much-needed humor and innovation into games, so having him here in Vancouver as our Creative Director is an excellent fit."

"I'm really excited to be working with Hothead Games not only on DeathSpank, but as their new Creative Director," said Gilbert. "I got to know everyone at Hothead while I was helping with On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. They really understand humor and being creative like very few publishers do."

As Creative Director, Gilbert will work in the Vancouver-based studio on all of Hothead's games. He is also expected to improve his hockey skills substantially during his stay.

In the wake of Variety calling out movie critics for likening the movie 300 to a video game in a bad way comes this short piece by the Grumpy Gamer using the movie to insult video games.

300 is a vacuous film filled with bad dialog, stiff acting, a pointless one-dimensional plot and interchangeable characters that hardly deserve to be named in the script. The film barely has a first act and does nothing but drive to a preposterous conclusion led along by a sequence of ridiculous events. The Visuals are nothing more than technical masturbation.

Simply put, 300 is the best damn film I've seen all year. I haven't had this much fun watching a movie in a long time. It's nice to see Hollywood is finally striving to be more likes games.

Ouch. Brian Crecente

The Convergence [Grumpy Gamer]

Joystiq announced Monkey Island Music Day, which of course put an obligatory warmth in me scurvy little heart.

They hosted a slew of videos, all of which I believe have been previously posted here, so instead I offer you the bounty of the downloads section of Scumm Bar, the Monkey Island mega fansite.

A vast trove of MP3s and MIDIs from all four games.

I will also take this opportunity to reflect upon an episode from the Video Games Live performance I attended at the Hollywood Bowl.

Somewhere in the middle of the concert, seemingly out of the blue, it was announced that for the first time in many years, LucasArts composing legends from the old days, including my favorites Michael Z. Land and Clint Bajakian, were teaming up onstage to wail on the old glories of game music. And yes, they performed the Monkey Island theme.

Leading up to the actual music, I was so excited I actually drew blood from some stranger I gripped hysterically, but once the middle-aged, plaid-clad gentlemen took their places at their keyboards and guitars, the magic quickly faded. These boys had obviously not practiced a lick in the decade since these games came out, and it showed. They looked small and jaded in the glare from the giant screens, and the respectful but uncomprehending orchestra. And they just sounded messy.

Chastened and regretful, I went home and queued up my mp3s. I hope someday to see those themes done justice on as massive a scale as the other games in the lineup, but with the age and obscurity of the titles only increasing, I doubt I ever will. Eliza Gauger

Happy Monkey Island Music Day [Joystiq]

Ron Gilbert — the funny, crazy, zany guy behind the Monkey Island games — has clued Computer and Video Games in with details concerning his next game. Unfortunately, those forthcoming details are pretty vague and confused at best.

"The thing I'm trying to do with the game right now is kind of meld it with an RPG," he continued, "So what you've got is the kind of large world exploration that you have in an RPG that you don't really have with an adventure game. You've got the action, some light combat, you know, Diablo-style combat going on with it, but it is also infused with really good adventure-game-style puzzles and adventure-style sensibilities to the storytelling.

"So what you can do there is take those puzzles and that storytelling that really appeal to people on a certain level, but you can fuse it with the kind of action and mindless play mixed in. I think you can really broaden that audience, and really get to the people who are buying and playing games today."

Now that's the sort of concise, clear vision you want to see coming from one of the industry's premier talents! Florian Eckhardt

Ron Gilbert monkeying with new game [Computer and Video Games] Image credit: Idle Thumbs

My very favorite grump is on blast at Gamasutra, grumbling about topics ranging from how there are no decent stories in games anymore, to how he is trying to remedy this and being thwarted at every turn by stonefaced game company executives. Full of piss, vinegar, and baseball metaphors, Gilbert gives us what-for:

GS: Is there anyone in particular that you would single out as doing the right things?

RG: Honestly, I have not played anything in a long time that I thought was doing a particularly good job at telling a story.

Computer games, as I just addressed, age very poorly. It must be insanely frustrating to have shed so much of your blood into a project that becomes unplayable to everyone but the gibbering fanatics (such as myself) a few scant years after it is birthed steaming onto the shelves.

Still, the news that he is still working, still campaigning for adventure games, is vastly hopeful. I'm rooting for you, Mr. Gilbert. Eliza Gauger

Ron Gilbert Interview [Gamasutra]

Ron Gilbert is the creator of adventure game masterpiece Monkey Island, and an irritable godfather of a generation of PC gamers, a generation that embraces yours truly. A generation that, when confronted with the Pirates of the Caribbean trailers, cheered raucously because we were finally getting our Monkey Island movie.

So I always wondered if the Grumpy Gamer himself thought the same thing. Today, I got my answer:

So, I'm looking through my neighbor's window with a pair of binoculars, trying to see the TV to figure out if they have HBO that I can steal when the latest trailer for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie [Dead Man's Chest] comes on and I'm thinking to myself, "Hey, I've seen this before... no... I've played this before... no... I've designed this before!" I'm thinking "This is the Monkey Island Movie!" Yeah, they kind of screwed up his beard, but that's LeChuck, and let's be honest, if I'd thought of the squid tentacles for a beard, I would have done that.

More after the jump, me hearties!

So I rush out to my mailbox like an six-year old hopped up on Pixy Sticks with a Pop Rocks chaser figuring there must be a big fat royalty check waiting for me. No such luck. Two overdue credit card bills and a flier from some guy offering to Trim My Hedges, which I'm sure is just an innuendo for Wash My Cars, and I think we all know what that means. I tuck the flier away so I'll know where to find it later and head back to the house.

I'm not worried. Disney will do the right thing.

Ghost pirates, a curse, a mysterious island, the plucky governor's daughter...these are all pirate movie generalisms, yes, but something about the way they were mixed and presented smelt strongly of monkeys. Island monkeys.

It's the little things, as well...Will, PotC's clumsily heroic lead, was distinctly like the blonde, well-meaning and enthusiastic Monkey Island star, Guybrush Threepwood. And he will be bearded in the second movie, as Guybrush was in the second game. And I will bet you an entire Father's Day beard-grooming gift set with special Squid Scraping attachments that the sparsity of said facial fuzz is a running joke through Dead Man's Chest, as it was in Monkey Island II.

But Gilbert is indeed, very grumpy. And the comments on his post indicate that he has not even seen the original, probably preferring to bitch about it being stolen directly from his brains and served up for unwashed audiences. And I am sympathic. But can't we all just roll around in the pirate pile together? Guybrush would have wanted it that way.

The Monkey Island Movie [The Grumpy Gamer]