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What games do you remember the first to mention lucasarts? Most likely something "Star Wars". However, in the 1990s, the studio was better known for its quests. Here we collected them all to trace the development of the genre from the very beginning.

Labyrinth: The Computer Game, 1986

"Labyrinth" – Game adaptation of the film of the same name with David Bowie. During the filming, George Lucas instructed Lucasfilm Games Group – the unit responsible for the video games – to make the game based on the picture.

Although the game reproduces many elements and makes it possible to see some heroes, it still does not follow the main plot. At the very beginning, the player is asked to enter his name, floor and favorite color. This will all affect the appearance of the protagonist and how they will contact him.

The game begins with a text entry. They say that the main character came to watch the movie (guess which one). As soon as the show starts, a jaren, an antagonist of the game appears, and throws the protagonist in a maze. After that, the player has thirteen real hours to destroy the villain, otherwise the hero will be locked forever.

The design was borrowed from the game Habitat , She was then in development.

The developers saw the future adaptation of the film as an adventure game. However, David Fox, the manager of the project, did not like that it was necessary to dial commands from the keyboard, so he created a new way of interacting with the game world: two scrolling text menus, from where the teams were chosen.

A radar was a radar who simplified the passage over the text menu.

The Labyrinth entered the Apple II, Commodore 64 and MSX, and the players liked the design of riddles worthy of schedule and friendly interface. In America, the game was a greater commercial success than the first-first film. An interesting fact: before the development of the team, the team went to London, where she arranged a brainstorming with Douglas Adams, the author of the book "Hitchhiking in the Galaxy".

Maniac Mansion, 1987

In 1985 Lucasfilm Games instructed her two employees, Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnik, to create an original, not based on anything, game. Since employees were friends with similar tastes and a sense of humor, work went well. As a result, it was born Maniac Mansion.

The Palace of Maniac tells a comedic story based on horror and cliches of category B movies. Everything begins with the fall of the meteorite next to the mansion of Dr. Fred Edison, whose mind is the same meteorite and enslaves. Twenty years later, a crazy scientist abducts a girl named Sandy Pantz, friend of Dave Miller. The guy makes his way to the mansion with two friends and tries to save the lady of the heart.

The player had the opportunity to choose two of the six friends who had unique abilities in his associates. The choice of comrades also influenced the ending of the game.

Having come up with the main concept, Gilbert and Winnik thought about the genre. Visiting relatives at Christmas, Ron saw that his cousin was playing in King’s Quest: Quest for the Crown, quest Sierra on-line. Although Gilbert loved text adventure, this was his first acquaintance with electronic adventures of this type. He spent his holidays playing King’s Quest and getting acquainted with this format, and eventually decided that Maniac Mansion would be embodied as a quest.

All game locations. At one of the first stages, Maniac Mansion was spelled out as a card game.

Starting to program the game, Gilbert quickly realized that writing code from scratch is not easy, so I decided to create something new. So appeared Scumm – Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion – something between the engine and the programming language. More than six months were spent on its development, and Ron Morningstar helped Ron. However, these half a year paid off in full – later SCUMM was used in one form or another in all quests of the company (then in the text I will mention only significant changes in the engine because it was really everywhere).

What is important, in games of this kind, the full-fledged Point-And-Click system appeared for the first time, which actually became the standard for adventure games. Although Ron wrote the main code for the game, most game events were programmed by David Fox. Initially, he planned to work on the project for about a month, but remained with the team for as many as six. Together with Gilbert, they wrote dialogs and made an animation for scenes.

To make the characters recognizable, Winnik increased their heads.

Maniac Mansion became a hit. Humor later beloved by everyone appeared in it, the Katsets were unusual and excellently worked out, each character had its own character, and everyone was delighted with the details of levels, graphics and animation. In addition to the main platforms, such as Commodore 64 and Apple II, the game also visited NES. Here Tim Shaifer was lit up for the first time as a game tester for a new platform. A few years later, the film adaptation of Maniac Mansion appeared: the series that came out from 1990 to 1993.

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, 1988

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders – The next quest from Lucasfilm Games, for whose development David Fox was responsible. The game tells the story of Zak Maccrochen, a yellow press journalist who should save people from the evil race of aliens – the Kaponians. The latter have been introduced into the company under the guise of employees of the telephone company and methodically make people dumber by interference in telephone signals.

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders was supposed to become more serious, but Ron Gilbert convinced Fox to add more humor to the game. Its creation was influenced by the theory of aliens and mysterious civilizations. This is not to say that the game turned out to be bad, but, as some journalists said, it could simply be better.

One of the important technical aspects of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders was MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). Later such a standard was used in other studio projects.

The player had to visit many places that are associated with aliens: in Mexico, at Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids. Even on the surface of Mars!

If the main release took place in 1988, then the Japanese version was released in 1990. However, she was not on a floppy disk, but on CD-ROM for FM Towns computers and had a 256-bit graphics. This version of the game became available to everyone only on March 19, 2015, when the game appeared in GOG.Com.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, 1989

In 1989, Lucasfilm Games first released the game adaptation of one of her main franchises – Indiana Jones. The plot of the game was not only close to the plot of the film of the same name, but also expanded it, but some key points still missed.

The main gaming difference was the input of the so -called “indie coefficient” (IQ or Indy QUOTIENT), which made it possible to solve some puzzles in different ways. For example, you could fight the guards, get around it or simply convince the hero. Otherwise, this is the same classic quest from Lucasarts.

Ron Gilbert, Noah Foles and David Fox was responsible for the development of the project – for the latter it was the final project at Lucasfilm Games.

Loom, 1990

One of two games that are not typical for Lucasfilm Games. Developed by Brian Moriarty, it differed from the rest with a serious plot – a comprehensive story in the fantasy genre.

Another important difference was a non -standard system of interaction with the game world. If in other quests Point’N’Click the player chose an object and action that will be applied to it, then in Loom He had to reproduce a four -year melody to apply a spell with a certain effect on the subject.

A set of tunes corresponding to each spell is generated randomly at the beginning of the game.

The game had three difficulty levels. On the latter, the player could only rely on his ear – there were no tips about notes. As a reward, the quest showed several scenes that were absent at other levels of complexity.

A design idea was presented in Loom – according to her, the player should not die or fall into a hopeless situation. Later, such a decision began to be used in all quests, with the exception of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: Leccock’s Revenge, 1990-1991

Designed by Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Tim Shaifer, these games became cult. They fell in love with audiences all over the world thanks to a successful humor, which sees the "fourth wall" worse than the series Mgs, as well as soundtrack and original story.

If the publisher of the first part was Lucasfilm Games, then Lucasarts was already responsible for the second – in 1990 there was a reorganization of Lukasi companies, then the department was renamed.

Both parts tell the story of the adventures of the unlucky pirate-amateur Gybrash Tripwood during the heyday of piracy in the Caribbean Sea. The main character appeared in a difficult name due to the fact that the first sketch of then the nameless protagonist was called just Guy (guy) and was stored in the standard expansion of the DPAINT graphic editor-Brush (brush). The surname was chosen during the competition among developers.

In ** monkey island **, the characters' replicas began to appear not at the bottom of the screen, but over the heroes themselves.

Michael Land wrote almost all the music for both parts. For him it was the first such work. During the development of the second part, the team created Imuse (Interactive Music Streaming Engine), a musical engine that made it possible to synchronize MIDI music with what was happening on the screen. The version of the game on CD-ROM included the original soundtrack and improved graphics with drawn inventory elements (before that the menu was completely text).

Screenshots from ordinary and special publications. The first part has a bar called Scumm. Inside sits a gloomy pirate with the icon "Ask me about loom". If this is done, he enthusiastically begins to talk about the game of the same name released by Lucasfilm Games in the same year.

In 2009 and 2010, Lucasarts released games remakes, with voice acting characters processed graphics and music. In addition, developers' comments were added. So if you are not familiar with projects, not without reason called the best games Lucasfilm Games, but there is a desire to eat, you can do it here.

Monkey Island 2: Leccock’s Revenge became Ron Gilbert for the last project in the walls of Lucasarts. He left the company, worked in many studios, and in 2014 he founded his own: Terrible Toybox , Her team later included Gary Winnik and David Fox. All this resulted in a recently released Thimblewed Park: One great nostalgia for Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, 1992

Hal Barwood (his last project for Lucasarts) and Noah Folestin engaged in the creation of another story about the famous archaeologist. Unlike the previous part, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis told an independent story.

The game remains the Indy QUOTIENT system. To pass the central part of the game, you could choose three ways: “Smecking Way” (intellectual solution of problems), “Fist Path” (lighter puzzles and solving problems using fist fights) and “command path” (using an assistant to solve many puzzles).

The maximum number of Indy Quotient points, and there are 1000 of them, you can get a game by all three options and using all alternative riddles.

Maniac Mansion 2: Day of the Tentace, 1993

During the development of Monkey Island games, Tim Shaifer and Dave Grossman worked with Ron Gilbert. After the departure of the latter, the studio decided that this couple was ready to lead the production of a new game. Understanding that the sense of humor of the authors perfectly corresponds to the spirit of Maniac Mansion, Lucasarts invited friends to be continued.

At the initial stage of writing the plot, Shaifer and Grossman managed to work with Gilbert and Winnik. As a result, they got a story about the salvation of three friends of the world from a giant purple tentacle-mutant using a time travel.

Michael Land, Clint Bajakyan and Peter McConnel participated in the writing of the soundtrack, whose compositions are used, respectively, in the future, the past and present. The Vedupalz Day was the first project to refuse to support more old and less successful platforms. The game was originally released only on DOS and Mac OS. Day of the Tentace was one of the first video games, where there was a full -fledged voice acting of the characters immediately after the release (in previous durable games, if it was added, then not soon).

In 2016 Double Richy Farmer Casino FinE Productions , Studio, founded by Tim Shaifer after leaving Lucasarts, released Day of the Tentacle Remastered – reprint for modern platforms.

SAM & Max Hit the Road, 1993

Having focused on their most popular franchises, in 1993 Lucasarts nevertheless released a quest in a new universe based on Comics Steve Persella SAM & MAX: Freelance Police. He became a new game SAM & Max Hit the Road.

One morning in the office of two private detectives, an anthropomorphic dog named Sam and a rabbit named Max, a call is heard. Perhaps the most funny investigation of the case begins with him, it will conduct partners from New York all over America.

As in Day of the Tentacle, all the characters from the very release had their own voices. The most important difference from previous projects was the changed interface. The list of commands at the bottom of the screen was removed, all management was concentrated on a cursor with several modes. The inventory was now in a separate menu, and it could be hidden. As a result, a lot of space was freed for the game scene, which allowed the developers to add details.

Ilya Ovsyannikov about sam & Max Hit the Road

"Sam and Max" can be compared with "Simpsons" , where current problems are served through hilarious jokes and hokhma. This is a game for centuries. All passage is accompanied by laughter. Is it funny, sad, but laughter. The time spent with the voluntary police flies unnoticed.

Sam and Max are not just detectives with a bunch of oddities. They themselves are two big oddities! The investigation is often not like themselves, but criminals are at a dead end. Classic interrogation methods are interspersed with a game in a “good and bad cop” (often in the person of the same creature). Without a gram of violence and cruelty, but still not for children.

Full Throttle, 1995

Is it necessary to tell something about this masterpiece created by Tim Shaifer at all? Does anyone know about him? If so, today, April 18, a reprint comes out, and we strongly advise you to get acquainted with it. If you still doubt it, then in a couple of days a review of the site will appear on the site Full Throttle Remastered, And we will tell you everything in detail.

For the first time in Lucasarts quests, adjusted katsets with 3D elements for the juicy soundtrack of the group appeared The Gone Jackals. The interface has changed slightly again: when the left mouse button is held, the contextual action menu consisting of a glowing skull (“viewing” and “conversation”), hands (“take” or “use”) and a boot (“hit” or “kick”). When pressing the right button, an inventory opens in the form of a skull with an open mouth, where Ben, the protagonist, objects are presented.

The Dig, 1995

Alexander Pushkar about The Dig

I heard about The dig This story: “Spielberg and Lucas are old friends. And then one comes to another one and says: “There is an awesome idea. Look: Asteroid flies to the ground. To prevent the disaster, they send a group of astronauts-trumpers towards, they sit on its surface, dig a hole in it and lay a bomb in a nuclear. Asteroid is split, changes the trajectory, the earth is saved ".

“No,” the second replies. – Too simple. Come on this: they explode an asteroid, it split, inside the astronauts find a tunnel, and in it – objects of artificial origin. It turns out that in fact an asteroid is an alien ship. The astronauts are clinging there, and he takes them to the planet, where the medicine is invented for death, but the planet is dead. As a result, guests have to figure out how this is: the race is immortal, but at the same time extracted ".

So that you understand, went 1995, before the exit "Armageddon" Three more years. At the same time, not only is the plot the same, it is also the very beginning of The Dig, the first ten minutes.

So play the dig. He is not the right word.

The Dig is the second quest that is not typical for Lucasarts with an unusual plot and the longest production period. The meeting of the developers, where there were Lucas and Spielberg, who originally invented the concept, and Gilbert and Folestin, took place back in 1989. However, the game was released only in 1995. Over these six years, the project manager has changed three times, and in addition to Scumm and Imuse, the Insane engine used for Kitszen is involved in The Dig, and Industrial Light & participated in the creation of special effects Magic (Lucasfilm unit responsible for special effects).

3D monster in the 1995 quest.

Of course, a long development affected the schedule that many journalists noted. However, they also noticed the atmosphere of the game. The almost complete absence of jokes and the soundtrack, which the press called the best that is in The Dig, did their job, putting the game on a par with the rest of the quests.

Due to the long development in The dig, the dialog and inventory systems are not like in Full Throttle, but as in SAM & Max.

By the way, in Steam There is a package consisting of both games about Indiana, Loom and The Dig.

The Curse of Monkey Island, 1997

The third game from the Monkey Island series, the first in the development of which Ron Gilbert did not participate, as well as the twelfth and the last used Scumm.

For 1997, Scumm was clearly outdated, so the developers had to almost completely process it to create the most advanced graphics, which has ever been in quests from Lucasarts. And, I must admit, they did it. Cartoon style was given by artist Bill Tiller.

References to the first part and Grim Fandango – The next game of the studio.

The development was led by Larry Aheern and Jonathan Excla, who had worked on Full Throttle with Sheifer. Management in the latter turned out to be very convenient, therefore the interface of the games is almost the same. For the first time in a series of the protagonist, and all the characters, a voice appeared. The composer remained the same: Michael Land.

To defeat the enemy, it was necessary to surpass him in a verbal battle, choosing the most sharp from a large list of replicas.

Grim Fandango, 1998

By 1998, the quests genre became unpopular. Lucasarts tried to refresh him, draw attention to him. So one of the best quests appeared in the game industry – Grim Fandango.

The head of the project was appointed Tim Shaifer, so the development began shortly after the end of work on Full Throttle, in mid -1995. A new engine was developed for Grim Fandango – Grime (Grim Engine). Its main difference from Scumm is that he operated not with two -dimensional springs, but three -dimensional landfills. The transfer of a quest in 3D implied a complete revision of the canons of the genre and the gameplay.

The developers abandoned the usual Point’N’Click interface. Management was carried out using a keyboard or joystick, the mouse was not used. The character interaction with objects of the game world took place only with the immediate proximity of the character. To facilitate the gameplay, the main character turned his head towards the subject.

The character also had an inventory where all the collected items lay. Their use was possible only when they were in the hands of the hero, but the interaction of objects with each other was excluded. Needless to say, not all players liked such a system?

The Point’n’Click interface was added to the 2015 reprint, but it did not replace the control from the keyboard, so at any time both options could be used.

The world of Grim Fandango is based on the mixing of Aztec myths and legends about the afterlife with classic works of the Noir genre. The idea of ​​creating a game based on "Day of the Dead" I came to the head of the neck before starting work on it. The plot is dedicated to Manuel Kalaver, a travel agent in the world of the dead, who is damn not with customers. However, after certain events, Manny goes into four -year journey to the ninth of the afterlife, the last marina of all dead.

In GRIM Fandango, three -dimensional characters and objects were superimposed on the distressed, static backdrops.

Although Grim Fandango at the time of the release was recognized by critics, it fell in a commercial plan. This situation greatly influenced the production of quests from Lucasarts: the priority of their development in the studio was greatly reduced, and after a couple of years it came to naught.

Escape from Monkey Island, 2000

The fourth adventure game in the Monkey Island series and the last from Lucasarts.

The development was led by Sean Clark and Michael Stammla, who worked on SAM & Max Hit the Road and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Like Grim Fandango, Escape from Monkey Island made on the Grime engine, but slightly improved. A new version of IMUSE was added to the game, which has now worked with MP3 format. The composer remained the same, Michael Land, only this time he was helped by four new.

Le CHAK, chief antagonist of the entire Monkey Island series.

Although mainly a new part was met positively, its estimates were lower than that of the predecessors. At this moment, Lucasarts decided that it was time to stop the production of adventure games, and focused on the production of the Game on Star Wars.

Everything someday comes to an end, and Lucasarts quests too. However, do not be sad. Now in the world there are no less promising studios concentrated in the production of adventure games, one Telltale Games What is worth it! So there will always be something to play lovers of the genre, but classic projects, those that we all love so much, have not disappeared and remind of themselves from time to time, though?