The creator of the game Monkey Island initially told fans that he was working on a new game in the series, but could be joking.
Kodoani.com – Ron Gilbert is a legend among adventure game fans. Ron is the game director for iconic classics including Maniac Mansion, the first two games Monkey Island and more recently The Cave and Thimbleweed Par. Gilbert’s next project is still unknown, but he may have just told fans exactly what he’s working on. In a recent post on Gilbert’s blog, he tells readers he’s working on a new Monkey Island game. Only one thing worth noting, is that Gilbert posted it on April Fools’ Day – but the story doesn’t end there.
Normally, an April Fool’s post would immediately be seen as a joke. It wouldn’t be surprising if many Glibert fans saw his post about a new Monkey Island game and immediately dismissed it, but there’s a problem with that interpretation. Gilbert has a long history of not celebrating April Fools’ Day explicitly. In 2021, Glibert explained that his Grumpy Gamer blog “was and will always be free on April Fools’ Day” for 17 years running. Suffice it to say, the situation still seems to be a regular April Fools’ post.
Grumpy Gamer’s blog post for 2022 also acknowledges its long history of refusing to celebrate April Fools’ Day. The post read: “For 18 years, Grumpy Gamer blogs with April Fools’ Day were stupid. So just to make things clearer, I’m taking this opportunity to announce that I’ve decided to create a Monkey Island other.” The intention is confusing, obviously. The aim was to confuse the situation so that no one knew if Ron Gilbert was actually working on the new Monkey Island.
There doesn’t seem to be any clear evidence that can be used to refute Ron Glibert’s claims. Anyway, Gilbert was working on an unspecified project. What is revealed through the job listing only confirms that the studio is working on another point-and-click adventure game.
For license Monkey Island, the last known owner of course is Disney. The Monkey Island games are published by LucasArts, as part of Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012. In 2016, Glibert asked Disney to resell the intellectual property rights to him. He also said at the time that taking back ownership would allow him to “make the game that I want to make.” Maybe Disney sold it Monkey Island to Gilbert in later years, or maybe Disney is licensing Monkey Island to him.
One interesting detail to consider is that Gilbert was recently directly involved in the release of Monkey Island. He has signed over 7,000 Arr Certificates! Thenticity for the Limited Run Games release of the Monkey Island Anthology, in partnership with Disney. Maybe Gilbert could have worked something out with Disney. Here’s hoping all Monkey Island fans around the world have a new project to look forward to.
Theo: Kodoani.com
