Adventure game development hero Ron Gilbert is having trouble shopping his new story-driven project around, and reckons that publishers are missing a trick by not funding small, low-budget games.
Ron Gilbert was the driving force behind perennial favorites Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and other titles using the versatile SCUMM engine.
Speaking to Gamasutra, Gilbert said his new project, which he's working on from home, is a "very story-heavy, story-based kind of RPG game".
"The thing I'm trying to do with the game right now is kind of meld it with an RPG. So what you've got is the kind of large world exploration that you have in an RPG that you don't really have with an adventure game. You've got the action, some light combat, you know, Diablo-style combat going on with it, but it is also infused with really good adventure-game-style puzzles and adventure-style sensibilities to the storytelling," he explains.
"So what you can do there is take those puzzles and that storytelling that really appeal to people on a certain level, but you can fuse it with the kind of action and mindless play mixed in. I think you can really broaden that audience, and really get to the people who are buying and playing games today."
It wouldn't break the bank to turn it into a full game, Gilbert says, but right now nobody's interested. "You sit down with a publisher and the minute you mention anything like an adventure game or something story-based or adventure-game-like in any way, the meeting's basically over," he says.
"I think a lot of it is that they cannot point to anything like this that is successful in the market today," he adds.
They wonder why we don't buy games. They are afraid to take risks and some game slips through they copy the hell out of it.
Unless it is the next Halo, it seems like no one wants to make any RPG or Adventure styled game. This is relly anoying to me since alot of people do like RPG and Adventure games an that they would sell a lot.