Bill Tiller and Monkey Island
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
I haven’t written an inspiration post for a while so, this month, I want to give a shout-out to one of my favourite artists, Bill Tiller.
One of the first games I played on Ye Olde Amiga was LucasArt’s Monkey Island, and it’s a game series entirely responsible for my addiction to point-and-click style adventures - and pirates! Bill was responsible for the layout art and look and feel of the third game, which moved away from the pixelated computer graphics to fully hand-drawn backgrounds and animation. The visuals in The Curse of Monkey Island are stunning, and it’s one of the few games I’ve ever replayed just to take screen-shots of the artwork.
I still call those swirly, stylised clouds ‘Monkey Island Clouds’ whenever I see anything akin to them in artwork.
I’m really excited to see that he’s founded a games company and is currently working on an adventure game called A Vampyre Story. The only thing better than pirates? Vampires! The initial concept art looks fantastic, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the completed game.
Bill Tiller Links:
Autumn Moon Entertainment
Interview at World of Monkey island
Interview at the SCUMM Bar
Ah, how I miss Monkey Island! I will now spend the remainder of the day humming the theme tune, much to the annoyance of the people I share an office with.
Ack, no - now you’ve got me started!
I’m so excited about the new game - it looks very Monkey Islandish, which is not surprising as a lot of ex-LucasArts folk seem to be working on it. Bill mentioned a possible Christmas release in an interview, so I’m hoping that’s accurate!
Now that is one beautiful set up. I wish they’d port it over and make it playable again on newer machines.
Hey Spencer - you’ll be glad to know that all of the MI games are playable on current PCs! In fact, I bought a compilation pack of all four games for some ridiculously low price a few years ago. MI I & II are extremely, extremely dated graphics-wise, but still good fun if you’re into point & click type RPG games. I love those retro pixel graphics, anyway. The screen-shots above are from the third game, ‘The Curse of Monkey island’. Possibly my favourite game ever,
P.S. Your artwork is stunning!