Ask your questions to David Fox

Home Forums Previous Months 54 – February 2021: Day of the Tentacle Ask your questions to David Fox

  • This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 3 years ago by Tijn.
Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • Tijn
    Keymaster
    Podcaster
    #4178

    In honour of us covering Day of the Tentacle (and by extension Maniac Mansion) this month, I thought it would be fun to reach out to a bunch of ex-Lucas people, hoping they would be willing to talk to us about how these games came together, and how things were like at Lucas in general.

    Among the people I contacted are Dave Grossman (co-designer of DOTT), Gary Winnick (co-designer and artist on Maniac Mansion), Ron Gilbert (you know what he did) and Aric Willmunder (SCUMM system programmer, one of the few people who worked on both MM and DOTT).

    But you’ve guessed it from the title, the one responding with a resounding yes is David Fox! He’s one of the founding members of the Lucas games division and played a critical role in many of Lucas’ early games, such as Rescue on Fractalus!, Labyrinth, Zak McKracken and Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. According to Wikipedia he’s the main script programmer for Maniac Mansion, so we’ll ask him what that actually means.

    We’d love to hear your questions however! If you have anything to ask David, drop it down here. Once we do the interview, I’ll go through the questions from this thread and see what he has to say. So don’t be shy and get typing!


    f2bnp
    Participant
    #4179

    Hey that’s pretty awesome! Hmm, how about this…

    How does it feel to know that a game you worked on (Maniac Mansion) ended up shaping an entire industry of graphic adventure games in its shape and form of with its usage of predefined verbs and a cursor driven interface?


    LunarLoony
    Participant
    Podcaster
    #4180

    What was game industry culture (not sure on the wording) like during the development of these games? Was crunch even a thing back then? I guess what I’m asking is how it felt to be part of what was a major studio, and how different (or similar!) it was to working at a AAA studio today.


    firefyte
    Participant
    Podcaster
    #4184

    I’m wondering what the most complex thing they managed to do with SCUMM and if there was something they wanted to do, but couldn’t (until say a later version).


    dollarone
    Participant
    Podcaster
    #4187

    Many, many years ago you were the Project lead for Labyrinth: The Computer Game, and you and your team were flown to the UK to have a one-week brainstorming session with Douglas Adams.

    Can you offer some insights in what kind of stuff came out of that? Both things that ended up in the game and stuff that was too weird (my assumption) to be included?


    bluntman3000
    Participant
    #4197

    @LunarLoony: Thumbs up for the “crunch” question, I would have asked that too!

    Besides that I’d like to know whether he is still in contact with old Lucasfilm Games colleagues and (obviously) if he is still following the current game- and especially adventure scene.

    Also: How exactly was he involved in the development of “Thimbleweed Park” and can you imagine it like a nerd version of “Space Cowboys” in which a crew of veterans is called (by Tim Schafer) to compete with the young guns and to save the world from evil things (bad games)?


    Tijn
    Keymaster
    Podcaster
    #4276

    The interview is out! https://www.dosgameclub.com/david-fox-interview/

    We managed to get most questions squeezed in, so thanks for your contributions 🙂

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.

Home Forums Previous Months 54 – February 2021: Day of the Tentacle Ask your questions to David Fox