The Art of LucasArts

Gamasutra has a piece talking with Michael Rubin about his new book, Droidmaker. From the article: "GS: Why do you think George Lucas saw the importance of games so early, and why was he able to capitalize on it so relatively well? MR: I think he actually didn't see the importance early. He had to be convinced that a games effort wasn't going to be a distraction. Quickly though, he was able to integrate his personal interest with education and using technology to aid in education, with the research going on in the games group. Making video games was only one aspect of that groups' work."

Pac-man: The trilogy: The book...

[Chaffar]

...by 1982 it was quickly buried among the hundreds of new video game "winning at Pac-Man" books produced at the time.

Hundreds of books on how to win at Pac-man? My god... I think most of them would be along the lines of:

1- Collect as many yellow dots as you can.

2- If an encounter with a ghost occurs:

a- If you have consumed the blinking yellow dot (BYD), skip to c-

b- Consume BYD.

c- Eat ghost.

3- When no yellow dot remains, next level (NL) is achieved. return to 1-.

Re:Pac-man: The trilogy: The book...

[rewinn]

I assume you're joking ... cuz one could just as well have a book on chess that goes "Move a piece when it's your turn until you've got the other guy's king checkmated."

Pac-Man was so wildly successful in part because it nicely combined strategy & tactics, with pure reflexes. Books could describe highly specific strategies, such as the least-time path through a maze, and more general information, such as the differing behavior of the ghosts, e.g. which ones were more likely to chase you, which ones wer

Patterns

[snuf23]

Memorizing certain patterns could also help a lot when playing Pac-Man.
For more information check out How to Win at Pac-Man [hanaho.com].
Ah, those were the days...

Not that it's changed much - most "boss" encounters in games these days rely on finding the "pattern" of attack and repeating it until the big guy falls over.

translated

[argStyopa]

GS: Why do you think George Lucas saw the importance of games so early, and why was he able to capitalize on it so relatively well? MR: I think he actually didn't see the importance early.

GS: George Lucas is a god! I want him to have meh babiez!
MR: Actually, he had no vision and isn't that great of a director and didn't even LIKE video games. Star Wars was literally ripped from Kurosawa, Empire was directed by someone else, in RotJ he brought us Ewoks, in TPM he brought us Jar Jar and the last movie coul

Lucasarts also gave us the movie tie-in

[SmallFurryCreature]

In a good way. X-wing was the bomb. Later games would be like The Phantom Menace but X-wing showed us what a movie tie-in was meant to be. Not just the endless disney tie-ins where a bad sidescoller has the sprites replaced with the latest chars.

Re:Lucasarts also gave us the movie tie-in

[hal2814]

Disney has had their moments. Tron was a Disney tie-in and quite possibly the best movie tie-in ever. Also, the Magical Kingdom game on the SNES was a cut above most of the generic side scrollers. Can't figure out why that's not the engine they used in their later games. Disney also has a Mario Kart type game on the DC that I'm not fond of but my wife prefers over any of the Mario Karts she's played (which I think is all of them but the new DS one).

Re:Lucasarts also gave us the movie tie-in

[Prophet of Nixon]

The Alladin game on the Genesis was incredible too, though that probably had more to do with Shiny (back when they were competent) than Disney.

Re:translated

[drdiode963]

yer a moron. and not particularly funny.

SCUMM

[sirboxalot]

Lucasarts adventure games were and always will be my childhood. You can't beat stuff like Maniac Mansion, Loom, both Indy adventures, the Monkey Island series (excluding 4), Grim Fandango, Zak McKracken, Sam & Max, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, and so forth. The only Star Wars games I care about are the old X-Wing series.

Re:SCUMM

[LordPhantom]

And why, pray tell, did you not like 4?

Re:SCUMM

[Cadallin]

Probably because EMI blew, and is a black spot on the name of the series. The writing wasn't up to par, the 3D engine wasn't as good as handdrawn 2D animation, and the ending was crap.

Don't forget Battle over/of Britain

[SmallFurryCreature]

and Secret weapons of the Luftwaffe. THE ORIGINAL.

Of course by todays standard they are truly horrible and the flight and combat is a joke BUT at the time it was great. Shooting pixels at pixels. Sitting in a bomber with a bloody rocket after you are trying to fly under a bomber to use your upward firing missles. Great stuff.

Oh also a game that had a manual that not only told you about the game but also the history of the era you were fighting in and a whole chapter in SWOTL about the impact the various r

Re:Don't forget Battle over/of Britain

[Lando]

Hmmm,
I thought it was Falcon 4.0, but it's probably 3.0 wasn't it extended by the user community. AnywayF-117 Steath was interesting acknowledging of course that Falcon was the best for a very long time until the launch of the internet flight game, don't know what that one is called either.

As far as X-wing and Y-wing were and to my mind still are the only decent star wars games, I've played with some of the others, but I really liked the first one and might even buy a console or actu

Re:SCUMM

[Pxtl]

I was thinking a similarly nostalgic thought about BallBlazer, from back when it was Lucasfilm Games. Why does nobody remember BallBlazer?

For the old schoolers

[fujiman]

The first wave of LA games were as good as the first wave of EA games:

1. Rescue on Fractalus
2. BallBlazer
3. The Eidolon
4. Koronis Rift

Not to troll, but LA has also ended up like EA. If either has a game I want, it is more by wild coincidence than any concious effort on their part. I wish there was a publisher (like early LA/early EA) that actually sought out a limited number of fantastic games.

Maybe I'm ill-informed... does anyone know of any such publisher?

And for the new schoolers

[tulak_horde]

KOTOR was game of the year, and the Battlefront series is highly sucessful as well.

Game publishers

[gknoy]

I wish there was a publisher (like early LA/early EA) that actually sought out a limited number of fantastic games

There have been a few studios from whom I have always been impressed. Not all of them are "current", but have all been similar as faras providing great games.

Bioware. I may not always like their games,and Neverwinter Nights does show its age, but it (and the KOTOR) series have been unmatched in my game library for replays, short of Fallout and Fallout2.

Monolith. I loved SHOGO, and aparently s