GDC 2014’s LucasFilm Games postmortem had the air of a legendary rock group reforming as key creatives who worked at the studio between 1982 and 1990 assembled to assess their achievements.
To start, designer and programmer Noah Falstein revealed that the studio got two or three hours with George Lucas every year, Monkey Island designer Dave Gilbert noting that LucasFilm Games’ creative freedom “was actually a source of jealousy for the other LucasFilm companies, who were forced to march to George’s tune.”
The team also discussed their famous rivalry with Sierra, designer and programmer David Fox joking that he didn’t think Sierra “even knew they were in a competition” with LucasFilm Games. “They sold so much better than us,” said fellow LucasFilm Games veteran Ron Gilbert. “I think King’s Quest sold ten times what Maniac Mansion did. We actually played softball with them once – Skywalker Ranch had a baseball diamond and we had a friendly game with them. They won. I’m not bitter or anything,” he joked. “Their success, not just at softball, really drove us to do better.”
Lucasfilm Games was largely set up by Lucas as a business venture to funnel movie profits into business growth rather than lose them to tax; former studio head Peter Langston joked: “most people just invest in land.” At the time of the studio’s formation few people considered game development to be a longterm prospect.
“I think King’s Quest sold ten times what Maniac Mansion did,” said Ron Gilbert in today’s LucasFilm Games postmortem.
“My goals were to use modern technology in the games business,” Langston said. He hired computer professionals and leveraged the existing pool of experts in storytelling, computer graphics and editing at LucasFilm seeking to “create an atmosphere that encouraged creativity rather than hitting deadlines; to create a group of peers.” The first year of LucasFilm Games was spent creating tools, with “two throwaway games” made as a test, said Langston. “That approach got us off to a good start,” he said, “they became BallBlazer and Rescue on Fractalus.”
Describing the development of the latter, David Fox was inspired by the fractal effects that LucasFilm had created for Star Trek II, and asked Loren Carpenter if he thought it would be possible on an Atari 800. “At first he said ‘no way’ but I guess it sparked some interest in him, and he said, ‘you know, I think it’s possible.”
“I wanted it to be a Star Wars game, but I was told right up front we were not allowed to use Star Wars,” Fox continued. “I was really upset — I joined the company because I wanted to be in Star Wars! But we did go on to show the game to George. We had about 20 minutes to show him the game and the first thing he noticed was that you didn’t have a fire button. You were supposed to kill people by having them follow you, and make short turns to get them to crash. He said, ‘no, give me a fire button.’”
Fox also revealed that Lucas was the seed for Fractalus’ most famous feature, the Jaggi pilots. “He suggested adding some tension by making some of the people you are trying to save turn out to be aliens. We were very lucky that Atari listened to our marketing request and did not put that into any of our art on the back of the box or any of the marketing — it was a secret you didn’t learn until level 8!”
“You were playing the game, completely unaware for seven levels until this shock would hit you,” continued Fox. “It terrified people. Kids running out the house screaming, ‘there’s a monster in my computer!’ The first game that actually really scared people, not just make them jump.” Falstein quipped: “now it scares people more to see a paywall in their game.”
The fact that LucasFilm Games wasn’t working with Star Wars allowed the studio the freedom to innovate, said Langston. “We had the brand and respect of LucasFilm, but we got to do our own creations. We were literally the only group outside of George that got to make up new stories and call them LucasFilm. George had only one rule for LucasFilm Games when I first met him: stay small, be the best, and don’t lose any money. The good news was that was an incredibly liberating mandate.”
“We were sort of the equivalent of an indie film company,” concluded Langston. “A little more artsy, not necessarily driven by commercial success. So we developed a culture that was extraordinarily collaborative. We never sacrificed ‘funitivity’—our jokey way of judging how fun something was — to meet a ship date.”
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