Thank you all for your interest and support for this project. It means a lot to me that you would sign up based off just a high-level concept.
Passport to Adventure is one of my dream documentaries. I've had various versions of this idea in my head for years, going back really to the very beginning of my career as a journalist and historian — my first professional article was a history of adventure games for Ars Technica, wherein I praised Ron Gilbert's player-friendly design philosophies and waxed poetic about my favourite SCUMM adventure, the ever-delightful, gleefully-absurd Sam & Max Hit the Road.
Since then I've been waiting for my moment and building my skills, delving into other areas and finding bits of overlap — like how I got get deep into the stories behind several other classic adventure games for my books The Secret History of Mac Gaming and Shareware Heroes, as well as for my directorial debut, the previous project I did with my team at CREATORVC, the acclaimed five-part docuseries TerrorBytes: The Evolution of Horror Gaming (where we had a couple of adventure segments — on I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and The Walking Dead — in episode 2 plus an FMV games focus in episode 3).
Now, with your help, I'm hoping this is finally the time I get to dive deeply into the stories behind (and the greatest moments within) the games and the people that redefined my favourite genre, and to celebrate and explore just what made them so special. And on that note, some good news: SCUMM and Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert has agreed to take part in the documentary, as have other SCUMM legends David Fox (Zak McKracken designer), Aric Wilmunder (SCUMM programmer), Tami Borowick (Monkey Island 2 and Freddi Fish co-writer/designer), and Mark Ferrari (Monkey Island 1, Loom, Zak McKracken background artist). They’ll no doubt be joined by many others as we move further along with the project
We'll have plenty more to share in the coming months about my vision for the documentary and how you can help — both to get it made and to shape what it will become. But for now this is just a hello from me.
If you haven't already, be sure to follow us on Bluesky, where I'm personally running the account, or if not on there then on Instagram or Facebook, where we're scheduling a post a day of SCUMM-related fun and trivia. And please hassle any friends, colleagues, or enemies of yours who love the LucasArts and Humongous classics to join you here on the waitlist.
I'll see you in a few weeks.
Richard