Ron Gilbert
| Ron Gilbert | |
| Known for | Co-designer of The Cave, Fatty Bear, Freddi Fish, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island 1 and 2, Pajama Sam, Putt-Putt 1, 2, and 3, and Thimbleweed Park Designer of The Big Big Castle!, DeathSpank 1 and 2, and Scurvy Scallywags Co-founder of Cavedog Entertainment, Humongous Entertainment, Hulabee Entertainment, and Terrible Toybox |
|---|---|
| Birth | January 1, 1964 |
| Death | |
Ronald David Gilbert (born January 1, 1964) is a video game writer, programmer, designer, director, and producer.
Early life
Ron Gilbert was born on January 1, 1964 in Le Grande, Oregon. His father was David E. Gilbert, a former physics professor and president of Eastern Oregon State College.
Originally considering a career in film direction, he became interested in programming video games at age thirteen due to an HP-65 programmable calculator that his father brought home from work. Programming games was originally a creative outlet as he continued studies related to the film industry.
In 1983, Gilbert became employed by Human Engineered Software, commonly known as HESware, programming action games for the Commodore 64 that were never released due to the closure of the company in 1984.
LucasArts
In 1984, Gilbert became employed by Lucasfilm Games, programming ports of Koronis Rift and Ballblazer, both released in 1985, from the Atari 800 to the Commodore 64.
Gilbert's Commodore 64 object memory manager was used in Habitat, the first large-scale graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG. It was released in beta by Quantum Link in North America in 1986.
He also contributed various algorithms and special program routines for PHM Pegasus, which was released in 1987.
Ron Gilbert was given a chance to create his own game when he created the Maniac Mansion adventure game, alongside Gary Winnick, from 1985 until its release in 1987. To create the game, Gilbert created the scripting language known as the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, or SCUMM.
Maniac Mansion included scripted scenes that introduced game events as well as humorous story beats. The term 'cutscene' was coined by Gilbert for these events, taking a term from the film technique. 'Cutscene' would come to be the standard term used for scripted side-events in video games.
In 1989, Gilbert contributed to Pipe Dream and was the co-designer of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, alongside David Fox and Noah Falstein.
He was then the director, programmer, designer, and co-writer of The Secret of Monkey Island in 1990, alongside Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. After the studio became known as LucasArts, Gilbert continued in his role alongside Schafer and Grossman as director, programmer, designer, and co-writer of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge in 1991.
Before leaving LucasArts, he contributed ideas to Day of the Tentacle early in development. The game was released in 1993, after Ron Gilbert had left to form his own studio.
Humongous Entertainment
In March 1992, Ron Gilbert co-founded, with Shelley Day, Humongous Entertainment, a studio that was formed to develop adventure games for children.
He brought SCUMM with him to Humongous Entertainment, and continued to expand upon it for games created at the new studio. The first game on which he served as a director, designer, and programmer at Humongous Entertainment was Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, which was released in 1992.
In 1993, he was the director, designer and programmer for Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise and Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon.
Other games in which he served as director, designer, and programmer were Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds in 1994 and Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo in 1995 and Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside in 1996.
Cavedog Entertainment
In 1995, Ron Gilbert and Shelley Day founded Cavedog Entertainment as a division of Humongous Entertainment. Gilbert was the producer of its games, including Total Annihilation in 1997, Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency and Total Annihilation: Battle Tactics in 1998, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms in 1999, and Total Annihilation: Kingdoms – The Iron Plague in 2000.
Hulabee Entertainment
In 2001, he founded another children's game developer with Shelley Day, Hulabee Entertainment. He was the director and programmer of Moop and Dreadly in the Treasure on Bing Bong Island in 2001 and Ollo in the Sunny Valley Fair in 2002.
Later games
Ron Gilbert designed DeathSpank and DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue at Hothead Games, The Big Big Castle! and Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover The Ultimate Sea Shanty: A Musical Match-3 Pirate RPG at Beep Games, The Cave at Double Fine Productions, and Thimbleweed Park at Terrible Toybox.