DeathSpank Episode One Orphans of Justice

Let's talk about DeathSpank for a moment. Ron, you've been thinking about this game a long time haven't you?

Ron Gilbert: Yeah.

How did you end up working on this?

RG: The game came about several years ago. It kind of sprung from those little Flash comics that Clayton [Kauzlaric] and I did. We created this character called DeathSpank who was supposed to be a satire of video game characters. It's just over the top and about the stupidity of it all. Clayton and I thought he really should be in a game, because we kept thinking of all these great things that we could do. We started working that into a kind of game format.

Of course I love adventure games, so I really wanted to have a very strong adventure game element to it, but I also wanted it to be somewhat of an action game because he is kind of an action hero. He needs to be fighting and he needs to be wreaking destruction on everything. So that was important.

I'm a big fan of Diablo and Zelda and those types of games and I've always wanted to combine those things together (...) to bring into them those really solid adventure game puzzles that you see in games like Monkey Island.

How would you characterize the parody elements in DeathSpank? Is this going to be “videogames: the video game”?

RG: There is a lot of parody. The whole game is really just a big satire of video games. The characters you encounter, the situations, and just the absurdity of it all.

Is DeathSpank the same game you mentioned in one of your early blog posts as pitching to various publishers, or is this something that evolved out of your comics later on?

RG: No, this is the game.

Is it the game you worked on at your desk at Double Fine, which I guess people turned into a bigger deal than you wanted?

RG: (laughs) Yes.

The piece of concept art that was attached to the DeathSpank announcement – is that indicative of the final art style of the game? People on forums spent a lot of time arguing about that image.

RG: No, that is really not that indicative of the art style. We were pulling that work from the Flash comics.

Grumpy Gamer #9

[AdventureGamers.com]