Sunday, March 14, 2010

LucasArts - A Fond Farewell


After 3 years at LucasArts the time has come for me to move on. It's been a fantastic experience for me. If I could go back and tell my 10 year old self this was in my adult future maybe high school would have been a lot more tolerable!

I worked with an amazing group of talented people. Some of the most talented, passionate developers I have ever known. Together we had a great team culture that allowed us to weather every storm. We never gave up and kept meeting each new challenge head on. The team carried me on their backs as often as I carried them.

We got to build a team culture built around the concept of togetherness, empowering everyones creativity and the idea that no one person is bigger or better than the team.

I got to spend hours with George Lucas, sharing my creative ideas with him, and enjoying his own enthusiastic ideas (the part that would have made my 10 year old self's head explode).

And we had success! Our team relaunched the companies interest in its Heritage, with the development of Monkey Island: SE, which has led to the recent announcement of its sequel, Monkey Island 2, led by my good friend Craig Derrick.

We also got to create Lucidity. For me, this was a deeply personal game. Creating a game around a little girl who's is on a 'metaphorical journey of dealing with the death of her beloved grandmother' is not exactly an established gaming premise but the company stood behind our creative muse and let us take it all the way through. It was a great experience and I'm proud of the game we delivered in such a crazy short development time.

As to what I will be doing next, as an independent I have some great ideas and a post GDC inspirational tailwind to carry me forward. Hopefully I will be able to announce something soon. In the meantime, to all my great friends and colleagues at LucasArts, thanks for the great memories!

3 comments:

Rich Clark said...

Sorry to hear LucasArts will be losing the creative mind behind Lucidity, but I'm excited to see what you've got planned as an independent!

Colum said...

Good luck D.!

David Nottingham said...

Thank you! Hopefully more good things to come!