Hello everyone. I'm the author of The Secret History of Mac Gaming and writer/director of the documentary series TerrorBytes: The Evolution of Horror Gaming, and I want to share with you a new project I'm working on called Passport to Adventure: The SCUMM Story.

   

Passport to Adventure will peer behind the troop of three-headed monkeys and into the world's largest ball of twine to discover the inner workings of both the games and the engine that revolutionized a genre. With an expected runtime around three hours and interviews with at least 20 genre legends and experts (most of whom worked on the games covered), it'll be an in-depth developer/interview-led game-by-game retrospective documentary film about the LucasArts and Humongous Entertainment SCUMM games (Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Maniac Mansion, Loom, The Dig, Freddi Fish, etc).

We'll celebrate the greatest moments and the inventive satire, as well as provide a thoughtful and (I hope) insightful exploration of the games' development processes, design/art/music innovations, and cultural impact/influence — with numerous breakout discussion segments scattered through the film to talk about things like the SCUMM University internal training program, the overarching design philosophies Ron Gilbert and co put at the core of their games, the impact of new technologies such as the arrival of "talkies" when the CD-ROM format took off in the early 90s, and so on.

The documentary is in development right now, which in the film world means pre-production — concept work, market research, audience validation, casting, budgeting, etc. I'm working with a company called CREATORVC, which makes high-spec, long-runtime crowdfunded pop culture documentaries. They're best known for the In Search of Darkness series of horror film superdocs, and for the hit documentary Aliens Expanded. I previously worked with them on both their gaming docs — I co-wrote and produced FPS: First Person Shooter, and as noted above I wrote and directed TerrorBytes. I'm writing and directing this project as well, and I've had various versions of this concept in my head for about 15 years — going back all the way to my first paid freelance article.

I'll have more to share soon, but in the meantime I want to ask two things of the AGH community:

1. If this sounds like something you'd like to see get made, and especially if you'd be willing to support it on Kickstarter or some other crowdfunding platform¸ please sign up to our waitlist at scummdoc.com. (And follow us on Bluesky, if you're active there.) We need some clear signals that there's a viable audience for the project, and waitlist signups are the best indicator we have right now.
   
2. Tell me what you think of the concept. I consulted with several notable members of the community late last year on a draft synopsis, including AGH's editor Jack, but I'm interested in what the adventure game community at large would want out of such a documentary and I'm happy to answer any questions.
   

Hey , it's a neat idea! Will Ron Gilbert make an appearance in your film?

I absolutely loved your TerrorBytes documentary, especially the episode on FMV games. This is a potentially exciting project, and I would very likely back it.

As for what I'd want to see in a LucasArts documentary, that would mean figuring out the line between what is possible and what is realistic! I don't know if much behind-the-scenes video footage from the '90s exists (and from what I understand, any images from inside the Skywalker Ranch are kept secret), but if there is any video of the teams working on the games then that would be fantastic.

Interview-wise, the essential figures would obviously be Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, Hal Barwood, Dave Grossman, etc. but don't forget the artists, musicians and more technical folk! Personally I'm quite interested in how the technology progressed with each game, how the advent of CD-ROM changed their ambitions. It would also be great to get the voice actors involved, especially since LucasArts would occasionally get big names.

With the run time available, I'd personally like to see each game get an equal amount of love and not to skim over too much to focus on the big hitters. I also really appreciate when a documentary commits to telling a story chronologically rather than jumping around too much.

Random thoughts of cool things to include:

• abandoned concepts, games that were started but cancelled
  
• the creation of an adventure game puzzle
  
• the impact that LucasArts had in the 1990s (they were untouchable for a good while there, and the gaming press rarely were unkind - though from what I understand, they tended to sell better in Europe than in America?)
  
• rivalry with and/or respect for other companies like Sierra
  
• the decision to stop making adventures, etc.
  
• the creation of supplementary material, like The Dig novel and the official strategy guides/hint books
  
• maybe something on the legacy of the games and efforts to keep them playable today, from the remasters to the ScummVM project?
  

The making of The Dig and all the changes it went through could be a documentary in itself!

Hey , it's a neat idea! Will Ron Gilbert make an appearance in your film?

I hope so! I'm trying to get him on board this week; just waiting for him to reply to my email. I have just today got confirmations that Aric Wilmunder (one of the engine programmers) and David Fox (Zak McKracken lead designer and Ron Gilbert's boss in the early days) are on board. Both said lovely things about my synopsis, which is super encouraging.

I absolutely loved your TerrorBytes documentary, especially the episode on FMV games. This is a potentially exciting project, and I would very likely back it.

Thank you! That FMV episode was my darling. I've never been a huge horror guy (I mean, I dabble in them, but my producer is the horror games superfan — not me) but I'm way into the creativity and passion that was behind that wild era of FMV games. I'm proud of the story we told about the rise and fall and surprise return of the FMV genre, and still touched by how raw and honest everyone (especially Graeme Devine) was with me during interviews for that episode.

As for what I'd want to see in a LucasArts documentary, that would mean figuring out the line between what is possible and what is realistic! I don't know if much behind-the-scenes video footage from the '90s exists (and from what I understand, any images from inside the Skywalker Ranch are kept secret), but if there is any video of the teams working on the games then that would be fantastic.

I believe there are some photos from in the studio, and I know for sure there are heaps of design documents, concept artworks, and other relics from the time still around. Aric Wilmunder has even offered to share all the material he's kept. I have the Mixnmojo community to lean on for help, too. If there is any behind-the-scenes video footage, I'm confident we'll find it.

Interview-wise, the essential figures would obviously be Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, Hal Barwood, Dave Grossman, etc. but don't forget the artists, musicians and more technical folk! Personally I'm quite interested in how the technology progressed with each game, how the advent of CD-ROM changed their ambitions. It would also be great to get the voice actors involved, especially since LucasArts would occasionally get big names.

For sure! I want to have a good spread of interviews across every discipline and a couple of people who worked on each game. We're assuming 20 interviews as a minimum for budgeting, and even at that low end we should be able to get a few artists/animators, one or two musicians, and a few programmers in alongside the designers (it helps, too, that some of the designers started in art or code and switched over in later games). And I hope to get one or two voice actors as well, as it'll be fascinating to hear more about the early years of what was then a totally new area of game development. I think there's a really interesting story to explore here about the impact technology had on both the developers and the games, both for better and worse.

With the run time available, I'd personally like to see each game get an equal amount of love and not to skim over too much to focus on the big hitters. I also really appreciate when a documentary commits to telling a story chronologically rather than jumping around too much.

The structure will be similar to an episode of TerrorBytes: chronological, game-by-game segments, each of similar length, with breakout topic discussion segments mixed in along the way to get into curios like the SCUMM University internal training program as well as big-picture things like the cultural impact the studio was having and the Sierra vs LucasArts rivalry.

Random thoughts of cool things to include:
...

Great list! I like all of those and am copying this to a note. To the "creation of an adventure game puzzle" point, I plan to pick some memorable ones (perhaps with the community's input) to ask about in interviews as a way of illustrating their approach to designing these games and to get the designers reflecting on the lessons they learned along the way. I can see a few of the game segments including detailed postmortems on iconic puzzles, but perhaps if we have the material for it there might be a separate segment just for discussing the anatomy of an adventure game puzzle.

As for The Dig's many iterations, I agree that that could be a documentary in itself. If all goes well I'll have someone in the cast from each version of the game, and I'd love to have them all talk about the vision and what went right and wrong along the way.

TAKE MY MONEY!

No, seriously! I’ll be backing the heck out of this!