When news hit that Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer were working together again at the same studio, all thoughts seemed to shift to Monkey Island.
And that makes sense.
After all, the first two games in the Monkey Island series includes the first game the humorous development duo worked on together. It also includes the last. And the only two.
Technically, Gilbert points out, he did do a bit of work on Schafer's Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, but in their minds all of their joint game development efforts involve the words island and monkey.
So does that mean that a future one will too?
Unfortunately, that decision doesn't sit with Schafer and Gilbert, but rather with LucasArts who still own the property.
Have you, I asked the two, thought of going back to LucasArts now that you're working together again at DoubleFine Productions and asked if they'd like the two of you to do a Monkey Island game for them?
"Or like with a gun demanding our IP rights back?" Schafer added, giggling. "I mean we're on good terms with them, we did that commentary for them on Monkey Island."
In fact, the two say they have regular conversations with LucasArts about a possible Monkey Island sequel. Most recently the idea of the two getting back to the game came up when they were working on the commentary for Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge Special Edition.
"I've had talks with LucasArts on and off for years about maybe doing another Monkey Island game, you know, they never got really serious," Gilbert said. "That's something I might be interested at some point in doing, maybe they'll come around to being interested at some time as well."
Gilbert added that The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition did really well... but then LucasArts got a new president.
The president of LucasArts "talks with Ron and goes, 'Whoa, we should do a Monkey Island game again!' and that gets them fired," Schafer said, joking.
"You know the ex-president (of LucasArts) always leaves a note to the new LucasArts president that says, 'Don't talk to Ron about Monkey Island."