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Ex-LucasArts team announces game 12 Feb, 2007 / Comments: 16

By Jason


Way back when, Jake made us aware of three startup companies that were comprised of some former LucasArts employees. One was called Autumn Moon, another Telltale, and the third Pileated Pictures. As it wasn't specifically a games company, Pileated didn't receive much coverage from us (though it did aid Autumn Moon in putting together a technology demo for A Vampyre Story within the last year).

The folks behind Pileated decided to start a games company called Crackpot Entertainment and are working on an action adventure game called Insecticide, due out by the end of the year! Totally rad! Marek Bronstring put together a very informative interview with the company that is a must read. Enjoy this snippet which reveals some of the team:
The announcement suggests that more than one industry veteran is involved. Who else is on the team?

I can announce here for the first time that Larry Ahern, lead designer of The Curse of Monkey Island and lead artist/animator on games such as Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Sam & Max Hit the Road, is co-lead designer and art director of Insecticide. In addition, Peter Chan has done the bulk of the concept work for this game and been a huge influence who I cannot credit enough. Dave Grossman also worked with us in the early days to develop the characters and the world. Jacob Stephens, who worked with us at Lucas then worked at Nihilistic, is our lead level designer and our real secret weapon on the project. Everybody involved deserves tremendous credit. This has truly been a team effort. Many other LucasArts vets are also involved, including Anson Jew (concept art), Peter McConnell (music), Julian Kwasneski (Sound FX) and others.
Larry Ahern, baby. Seriously, read the entirety of Adventure Gamers' exclusive (and awesome) interview to learn more about this great sounding new title, and after you've done so you can probably find something more stupid to do than visit the newly launched official site for Insecticide.

Time to make a new company icon.
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16 Comments

  • Purple Tentacle on 13 Feb, 2007, 12:21…
    Now, that certainly does look interesting.
  • jp-30 on 13 Feb, 2007, 07:54…
    Is it just me, or is everyone having trouble accessing the MOJO archive;

    http://mixnmojo.com/php/news/showfile.php?category=advnews&id=1590
  • Jake on 13 Feb, 2007, 22:54…
    Sometimes it doesn't work. :(
  • hierohero on 13 Feb, 2007, 05:42…
    wow inspired by homicide:life on the street..my fav tv show of all time..and the wire..best tv show at the moment.. and I love film noir.. This title sounds awesome
  • hierohero on 13 Feb, 2007, 05:37…
    Larry Ahern is the man!
  • Jayel on 13 Feb, 2007, 04:46…
    Maybe it's just me, but the concept art totally reminds me of Beyond Good & Evil. Not that I'm complaining.
  • pheeph on 13 Feb, 2007, 02:54…
    Let's see... the former LucasArts adventure team broken up into four different developers instead of three...

    Telltale, Double Fine, Autumn Moon, and Crackpot
  • jp-30 on 13 Feb, 2007, 03:02…
    Yes. But these 3 seemed to be the result of the restructuring and the layoffs a couple of years back after Simon Jeffrey left (could be wrong here, memory's a bit hazy).

    Wasn't Tim already off doing his own thing by then?
  • Jake on 13 Feb, 2007, 22:56…
    Autumn Moon and Pileated have been around for a while in various forms. They're not directly related to Freelance Police shenanigans, that I know of.
  • jp-30 on 14 Feb, 2007, 01:43…
    Oh, right-ho!
  • jp-30 on 13 Feb, 2007, 02:36…
    An end to Telltale and AME domination of MOJO!
  • The Tingler on 12 Feb, 2007, 23:42…
    Ditto! Awesome!

    Also: "for PC and Handheld"? Roll on Holiday 2007!
  • numble on 12 Feb, 2007, 22:14…
    Looks like Grossman's got his hand in this too (albeit, likely only at the beginning of development).
  • Jake on 12 Feb, 2007, 22:58…
    He helped them plot out the story structure and flesh out the game's universe back before he started at Telltale (so, well over a year ago). These guys have been hoping to make this game for a while.
  • Rum Rogers on 12 Feb, 2007, 22:00…
    YAHOOOO, awesome news!!!
  • Udvarnoky on 12 Feb, 2007, 21:14…
    Woooooo!