After years in the videogame wilderness, left behind in the industry's frenzied pursuit of ever more authentic 3D visuals and cool gangsta violence, fans of the old LucasArts point and click adventures can finally come in from the cold. Last year, Telltale Games began its second series of Sam & Max adventures and Tim Schafer started generating real interest with his Spinal tap-style adventure, Brutal Legend which stars Jack Black but might still be really funny.
Now, Schafer's Monkey island cohort Ron Gilbert has announced on his blog, GrumpyGamer, that he has finally found a publisher for his episodic RPG, DeathSpank, described by the designer himself as, "a Monkey Island style adventure game with the wicked RPG gameplay of Diablo". Gilbert spent four years hawking his concept around the industry with little success. As he explains:
I roughed out a game design for the first episode and started pitching it around and a funny thing happened. Everyone hated it. But the weird thing is the more publishers that turned it down, the more convinced I became that this was a great idea. Every rejection fueled me with excitement and the knowledge that I was right. Nothing says innovation and creativity like armed security showing up to escort you out of the building while saying "Let's not have any trouble".
Finally, however, small Canadian publisher Hothead Games has taken the plunge, also employing Gilbert as Creative Director. There's no word on a release date for the first episode yet, but it does have a subtitle: Episode One: Orphans of Justice. A teaser site shows the DeathSpank character, created by Gilbert and illustrator Clayton Kauzlaric, standing atop a pile of skulls clutching a fistful of dollar bills.
We're still a long way from getting Monkey Island onto DS, but, you know, one step at a time and all that...
