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By Al Giovetti
Developer: Cavedog Entertainment
Web Site: www.cavedog.com
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Ron Gilbert and GT Interactive form Cavedog Entertainment
Ron Gilbert spent eight years at Lucas Arts Entertainment and he was one of the most creative people there. Ron worked on Maniac Mansion, the computer game that spawned a television show. Maniac Mansion was follwed by an equally zany and successful Day of the Tenticle, which Ron was not involved with.
Later Ron worked in the Secret of Monkey Island series which was unique in its committment that you did not have to kill anyone to make an interesting computer game. In the game the hero, Guybrush Threepwood, insulted his pirate advarsaries into submission without spilling a drop of blood. Swordfights were equally bloodless. While in many Sierra games, a wrong step on the side of the mountain resulted in a smashed hero and a forced reboot, Ron's hero landed on rubber trees which bounced him back up to the path he strayed from with a funny retort to boot.
Not only did Ron complete the games without bloodshed, but he did it with a vast amount of humor and inventiveness. His games became parodys of other games on the market, adding his classic humor to the greats already creating games.
In 1994, most of us were not surprised when Ron left adult gaming to the children's entertainment market, where he produced educational and entertaining titles,like Freddi Fish and Pajama Sam. Soon, characters Humongous has created will form the basis of a television cartoon show, repeating the spinoff success of Maniac Mansion.
Eventually a leading magazine called Humongous, Ron, and his co-workers, the Walt Disney of computer games. The games were nice, educational and entertaining at the same time. Walt Disney always said that to be successful entertainment must be educational and education must be entertaining.
"As an offshoot of Humongous Entertainment, we are building on our considerable resources and talent while tapping into the creativity of our expanding team of the best game designers, programmers and artists in the industry," said Gilbert. "Cavedog is a place for the most talented people in the industry to come together to build amazing games, leveraging their game design experience and ideas to create the next level of interactive entertainment."
Gilbert has been responsible for producing some of the most influential games of our time. Gilbert is also responsible for creating the LucasArts Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, humorously called the SCUMM system, a critically acclaimed, high-level proprietary game engine.
Gilbert's return to adult games has been one of the most highly anticipated events in gaming. Ron has promissed to return and now he finally has. With Cavedog, and GT Interactive Ron will be able to work on adult games, while remaining creative director of Humongous. Ron plans to produce games for both companies, an ambitious project with which we hope he is successful.
"Total Annihilation, Cavedog's first release in late 1997, is an intense real-time combat strategy game being crafted by designer and lead programmer Chris Taylor. Taylor's successful track record includes creating interactive hits Hardball II, 4D Boxing and Triple Play '96. Cavedog's integrated online network play for all of its CD-ROM games will be driven through a website to be launched in the near future at http://www.cavedog.com. Cavedog's second release in late 1997 will be a first-person, multiplayer flight-experience game while a third Cavedog release is slated for early 1998."