Thank you to everyone who's signed up to this mailing list so far. We're not yet where we need to be to make this documentary a reality, but there's still a decent chance we'll get there — with your help.
And the good news there is that we have plenty more you can make noise about. Let's get into the big announcement first:
New cast announcements
Three more people have agreed to be interviewed in the documentary, should it go ahead: Steve Purcell, Collette Michaud, and Brad Taylor.
Many of you will recognise Steve Purcell's name, as he's the creator of Sam & Max, screwball detectives and perennial SCUMM games Easter egg (one or both of them is hidden in the scenery of every LucasArts SCUMM title from the first Indiana Jones adventure onwards). Steve created character and/or background art on Loom, Sam & Max Hit the Road, and a few other games, and he helped write and design the Sam & Max game. He also painted the cover art for several SCUMM adventures.
Steve's wife Collette Michaud has also agreed to be involved. Collette contributed art and animations to several of the LucasArts SCUMM games, including a role as lead animator on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and a long stint as head of the company's art department. She also helped with the design of Sam & Max Hit the Road. She and Steve met while working at LucasArts.
Brad Taylor was mentioned to me as a must-have by both Ron Gilbert and Tami Borowick. He joined LucasArts in 1990 to help with maintaining and expanding the SCUMM engine and development tools, then went with Ron and Tami (and a few others) over to Humongous Entertainment when that started up in 1992. While at Humongous, he continued with his systems programming work. His contributions over a decade working on SCUMM include authoring the uSWEAT/uSMELL, SPLAT, and CYST animation tools, coding the 3DO and Windows engine ports, and lots of performance optimizations.
These three join the other five we've previously announced: Ron Gilbert, David Fox, Tami Borowick, Mark Ferrari, and Aric Wilmunder. I'm looking at adding more names to this list, and expect the final cast of interviewees to number at least 20 people — most of whom will be LucasArts and Humongous alumni.
Passport to Adventure in the press
Our first cast reveal and full public unveiling last month brought a lovely smattering of press attention and good vibes on social media. Here are a few highlights:
Journalist Laura Cress interviewed me about the project on her YouTube channel Cressup
We had news coverage in Adventure Game Hotspot, Time Extension, Gaming Retro, Retro Handhelds, and Fantha Tracks, as well as being the headline discussion topic in a This Week in Retro episode, among other mentions around the web. I was particularly chuffed with the "big, glossy history lesson it deserves" mention from Jim Gray at Retro Handhelds.
As I've been posting on social media and making my way around sharing the project with fan communities, industry peers, and influencers, I've been saving some of the reactions and comments. Our art director Amanda collated these into a few images that we'll be sharing on social media, one of which we've included below. Probably my favourite reaction, aside from the heartfelt personal messages I've received, was my fellow Aussie journalist James O'Connor taking a page out of Monty Python's spam sketch with his Bluesky quote post.
More signups needed!
This is a niche project, and while we're all excited about it creatively, the company behind the project, CREATORVC, won't take it into crowdfunding and production unless we see clear, strong signals that it's commercially viable. The 800-plus signups we have so far is good, but not good enough — especially given that all we're asking for is an email address.
We need a lot more traction and enthusiasm from the SCUMM fanbase and broader adventure games and retro gaming communities if this project is to go ahead, and we're unlikely to keep this community validation/outreach process going much longer, so if you want this documentary to happen then please share the scummdoc.com page with others and encourage them to sign up for the mailing list if they're into it too.
Thank you,
Richard