Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert has stopped work on his previously teased but largely ignored role-playing game.
Back in May of last year, I first learned about a 2D RPG with pixel art from the developers. which he described as “classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park.”. Screenshots released at the time show a town that reportedly has a bakery and a gun shop. As Gilbert noted, these two establishments will truly provide players with “everything possible.” [they'll] necessary before setting out on search day.”
However, it looks like we won't be able to spend the day on pixel quests, as in a new interview, Gilbert revealed that he is no longer working on his Zelda-like RPG due to a lack of financial support from publishers.
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“I just [didn't] there is money or time to create such a big open world game,” Gilbert explained ArsTechnika. “You know, it's either your passion project that you've spent 10 years working on, or you just need a ton of money to be able to hire people and resources.”
Gilbert added that getting that “ton of money” to realize his vision was a challenge because “the deals the publishers were offering were just terrible.” He also felt that the genre he was working with was not working to his advantage.
“Creating a pixelated old-school Zelda is not a big, hot thing, so publishers are looking at us, but not from the perspective of, 'We're going to make $100 million and this is worth investing in,'” the Monkey Island creator said. “The amount of money they were willing to put in and the deals they were offering just made absolutely no sense for me to do it.”
Gilbert previously turned to crowdfunding for his previous release. Thimbleweed Parkbut even that path isn't as easy as it might have been in the past, as the game's creator suggests, “Kickstarter is pretty much dead as a way to fund games these days.”
Today's established publishers are “very analytics-oriented,” Gilbert continued. “Big companies just have formulas that they apply to games to try to figure out how much money they can make, and I think you end up making a lot of games that look exactly like last year's games because it makes some money.”
This is different from the start of his career, Gilbert continued. “When we first started, we couldn't do it because we didn't know what was making the money, so yeah, it was a lot more experimenting,” he said. “I think that's why I really like the indie game market because it's free of a lot of the stuff that the big publishers bring in there, and there's a lot more creativity and, you know, weirdness and quirkiness.”
However, some of the illustrations from Gilbert's now-canceled RPG have found new life and are featured in the Death by Scrolling creator's newest game.
Death by Scrolling is described as a “roguelike, vertically scrolling RPG” where the ultimate goal is to race up through endless levels to accumulate enough money to pay the Ferryman and escape Purgatory. To do this, players will have to fight enemies, collect gems and power-ups, complete quests and much more, while outsmarting the ever-hunting Grim Reaper. You can watch the trailer for Death By Scrolling below.
Concluding the interview, Gilbert looked back on his career as a game creator, noting that the world is a very different place now than it was 40 years ago.
“Back then there were a few print magazines, there were a lot of reporters, and you sent out press releases… That's not how it works today,” he said, adding that the rise in content not only from streamers but also from developers like YouTube requires one to have good skills in front of the camera.
” [developers] “The successful ones are not necessarily the good ones, but the good ones that also have a good presence on YouTube,” he said. “And you know, I think that's kind of the problem, that's the gateway now… In some ways I think that's a really bad thing because as a developer you have to be a doer. And I'm not a performer, right?
“If I made films, I would be a director, not an actor.”
Back in 2022 Gilbert and co-writer Dave Grossman produced Return to Monkey Island.. Many thought the project would never come to fruition, but it was actually in secret development for two years before April Fool's Day was announced that year.
