Gilbert admits that he was struggling, with no more than the beginnings of a design document or, for that matter, a design philosophy, when a mandate came down from Lucasfilm Games’s parent company’s management: they wanted an adventure game to go with the upcoming film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
What did make things complicated, however, was his desire to create a more playable, forgiving adventure game than even Maniac Mansion had managed to be. Nor was the goofy humor that was so much his stock in trade as a game designer. The Disneyfied piracy wasn’t hard to do, especially after Gilbert discovered a charming little historical-fantasy novel by Tim Powers called On Stranger Tides. Along the way, he falls in love with the island’s beautiful governor Elaine - her name sets the game up for a gleeful The Graduate homage - and soon has to rescue her from the villain of the story, the evil ghost pirate LeChuck. Arriving on Mêlée Island, a den of piratey scum and villainy, he has to complete a set of trials to win the status of Official Pirate. The game casts you in the role of Guybrush Threepwood, a lovable loser who wants to become a pirate. Thus was the idea for The Secret of Monkey Island born. What the need to keep shoveling amusement-park guests through a paid attraction disallowed, a computer game could allow. He only wished that he could linger there, could get out of the little boat that carried guests through the attraction and wander amid the scenery. “I wanted to do something that felt like fantasy and might kind of tap into what was interesting about fantasy,” he remembers, “but that wasn’t fantasy.” Gilbert loved the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, which took guests through a whole pirate adventure in fifteen minutes.
Shortly after completing Maniac Mansion, his first classic graphic adventure, Ron Gilbert started sketching ideas for his next game.
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