© LucasArts.

In the world of interactive game makers, where companies disappear and reorganize with the speed of particles in a linear accelerator, LucasArts Entertainment stands out as a model of stability and productivity. Though the gaming world admires their StarWars-inspired action games, I have long admired their pioneering cartoon work in adventure-animation games.

With Maniac Mansion in the 1980s, LucasArts established a new form of the cartoon interactive game. Followed by the acclaimed Day Of The Tentacle, the hilarious Sam And Max Hit The Road, and the dark humor-tinged Full Throttle, this company has been raising the standards in this art form for years. They have successfully made the transition in technology from the very limited possibilities of early adventure gaming platforms to something that looks very much like feature, or at least television, animation. Their products are known for their sharp-edged wit, funny visual gags and cool artistic style.

Such unfettered creativity in a collective art form is mighty suspicious. Are the rumors true of roller-skating wunderkinds with their genius spilling onto the pavement outside their San Rafael headquarters? Or are darker forces at work, such as a team of Malaysan programmers chained to Silicon Graphics workstations somewhere deep in a basement? Determined to get to the bottom of the matter, I set out to investigate.

The Dominion of The Hyphenates
Actually, I was disappointed on both accounts. What I encountered was a company where creativity is fostered within a surprisingly conventional structure. The strength of the organization rests instead with a rigorous peer review system, a culture of mentoring that gives credit where it is due, a stable senior staff, a roaring production department, and a commitment not to release a product before the artists involved are satisfied.

Most of all, LucasArts differs in the way they select and treat their senior team leaders. The senior team leaders are the artistic core of the project and are treated as such. While most start as programmers, they soon become hyphenates: programmer-writers, writer-animators and so on. The cultivation of these hybrids makes it possible to move ahead with projects with only a slender production book to guide them. The actual writing of dialogue occurs on the fly as programming, artwork and animation move ahead in tandem. This method may sound like heresy in the feature animation world, but this company somehow gets it right.

Writer-animator Larry Ahern and programmer-writer Jonathan Ackley are exemplary hyphenates. They were the co-team leaders for the recent pirate-themed satirical release The Curse Of Monkey Island. Universally acclaimed by reviewers and game players alike, this sequel to two earlier LucasArts games, again stretches the bounds of artistry in the genre of interactive animation games. A little over two years ago, Ahern and Ackley took the idea of this project to management.