Ron Gilbert

Ron Gilbert

(New York, New York City, USA)

Ron Gilbert is an American video-game designer, programmer, and producer. His games are generally focused on interactive story-telling, and he is arguably best known for his work on several classic LucasArts adventure games, including Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games. While a student in 1983, he co-wrote Graphics Basic and he then worked on action games for HESware, which went out of business. He afterwards joined Lucasfilm Games (LucasArts), and was given the opportunity to develop his own games. He became particularly known for inventing SCUMM, a technology used in many subsequent games. After leaving LucasArts, Gilbert co-founded the children’s gaming company Humongous Entertainment in 1992 and its sister company Cavedog Entertainment in 1995, where he produced games such as Total Annihilation for adults. He cofounded Hulabee Entertainment with Shelley Day, releasing children’s games between 2001 and 2003. After working with Beep Games between 2004 and 2007, he was creative director at Vancouver-based Hothead Games development studio between 2008 and 2010, also doing some work for Telltale Games and with Penny Arcade. In 2013, he announced that he would move on from Double Fine Productions, after releasing the game The Cave with them. In 2017, he announced Thimbleweed Park with Terrible Toybox, serving as writer, designer, and programmer since 2014.