That Zelda-ish, Diablo-ish RPG Monkey Island designer Ron Gilbert was working on has, unfortunately, been canned

Around May last year, the one and only Ron Gilbert from Monkey Island declared fame RPG it was supposed to be some sort of mixture of classic Zelda and Diablo, and Thimbleweed Parkthe latter of which is another outstanding work from the game designer. He never got a full reveal or even a name, and unfortunately it looks like he never will, as he was essentially canned.

Gilbert recently spoke with Ars Technique about his career, including his last released game, Death by scrollingwhich just came out in October of this year, but the interview begins with a discussion of his untitled RPG. The designer explained that after working on adventure games such as Thimbleweed Park and Return to Monkey Island. for years he had been “thinking about something new.”

This new thing led to Gilbert hiring an artist and another designer, devoting an entire year of time to the aforementioned role-playing game. Problem? There are not enough people and, as is the case with most things in life, not enough money. “I just [didn’t] You have the money or the time to make a big open world game like that,” Gilbert explained. “You know, it's either a 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.”

For Gilbert, raising funds was more difficult than he thought. He tried to promote the game in different places, but “the offers that the publishers offered were just terrible.” He continued, “Making a pixelated old-school Zelda isn't something big and hot, 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 amount of money they were willing to put in and the deals they were offering made absolutely no sense for me to do it.”

Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter don't work as well these days either, as Gilbert's Thimbleweed Park also went that route, and although it raised over $600,000, the game's developer noted that it still has private investors providing half of the game's final budget.

Mostly, this is another reminder that making games is difficult not only because they are technically complex, but also because they have material needs that cannot always be met due to external forces. It would be great if someone did something about this. Revolution anyone?