Lucasfilm Games

Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is a video game creation company, famous for its graphic adventures. It started its activities in May 1982 and closed in April 2013. In 2017 Disney reopened the company to develop new games for the current and next generation.

History of the company

The company was founded in 1982 as a game developer for Lucasfilm Ltd. (Limited). George Lucas's movie production company was looking for his company to start working on its own in video game development, so to begin with it cooperated with Atari in video game development.

The first results of this collaboration were the action games Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus!. The beta version of these games was leaked by pirates, exactly one week after Atari received unprotected versions of its products, the games were released months after the original release date. In 1984 the games were re-released for the Atari 5200 under the Lucasfilm Games brand. The PC version was not released until 1985, by the publisher Epyx. Lucasfilm's next two games were Koronis Rift and The Eidolon. Their first games developed solely by Lucasfilm, and one publisher would distribute the games. Atari published their games for Atari systems, Activision and Epyx would do so for their respective computers. Maniac Mansion was one of the first games published and developed by Lucasfilm Games.

In 1990, in a reorganization of the Lucas companies, Lucasfilm's gaming division became part of the newly created LucasArts Entertainment Company, beginning with the creation of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and Skywalker Sound. Later ILM and Skywalker Sound would be consolidated under Lucas Digital and LucasArts would become the official name of the formed gaming division.

Acquired by The Walt Disney Company on October 30, 2012, through the acquisition of parent company Lucasfilm, its closure was announced on April 3, 2013, for which many titles that were in development were cancelled. The company subsequently reopened in 2017, and from 2021 Disney revitalized the Lucasfilm Games name.

Logo

Logo of LucasArts used between 2005 and 2013.

Lucasfilm Games used a logo with simple modifications of the parent company's logo.

LucasArts' longest-running logo was affectionately known as the Gold Guy, introduced in 1991 and consisted of a primitive figure colored in gold standing on an "L& #3. 4; residence registered with the name of the company. The figure had its hands raised into the air from which it gives the impression of a Sun rising. Some say that it represents an eye with rays of light. The logo was revised in 2005 losing the "L" from the pedestal, the figure was resized to a more flattened version, with the LucasArts name below with a small arc-shaped curve in the name. In some games, the gold figure, sunbathed as possible, and used it as a lightsaber, the figure acquiring movement, or using force as in Star Wars. The logo possibly references the ending of George's first film, THX 1138, which featured sequences of some of the main characters raising some weapons.

In the video game Grim Fandango you can see how the logo goes from being the original to becoming a skeletal Gold Guy, referring to the characters from the video game.

In 1998, Lucas proposed the end of game developer Remedy Entertainment, citing that the eye that appeared on the game's logo was partly copied from the LucasArts logo, and took legal action against them. Remedy took advantage of this time to redesign its logo, so for a while the logo was not seen on their website, shortly after it was changed on the web and the new logo could be seen.

Adventure games

The first adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games was Labyrinth (1986), based on a Lucasfilm movie of that name. Déjà vu, inspired by the 1987 title Maniac Mansion which used the SCUMM engine, a company language that was featured in most of their later titles. Point and click adventure releases in the following years included Zak McKracken (1988), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and, especially, the critically acclaimed The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), among others. These video games contributed to a greater extent to strengthen the reputation of Lucasfilm Games as one of the great developers in the graphic adventure genre. They were thus made with one of the two reference names in the subject, competing with Sierra Online, another of the high-quality developers in the field of graphic adventures.

In the first half of the 90s, the heyday of the company arrived, creating a great fame among graphic adventure video games, with classic titles such as Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991), which introduced the iMUSE action-adapted music system, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992) and the sequel to Maniac Mansion, Maniac Mansion Day of the Tentacle (1993). The latter was the last title to retain the traditional "Open, Close, Grab, Use..." interface. The following title, Sam & Max Hit the Road (1993) remodeled the interface, keeping the SCUMM, but graphically bringing it closer to the control of the Sierra titles, clicking the right mouse button to change the icon and with it, the action.

In the later half of the decade, the popularity of graphic adventure games fell, and the costs associated with game developers increased, increasing the high resolution graphics and audio quality. The PC market looked for titles that could squeeze the best results out of graphics cards for low prices, a change that fell on the home console market such as the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64, marked by the games that were released for the platforms. The adventure genre (two-dimensional, story-oriented, and interaction and puzzles) were not the most popular with the following game installments.

LucasArts however moderately proposed the titles: The Curse of Monkey Island was the last of LucasArts' graphic adventures to use the SCUMM system. Grim Fandango (1998) was the first LucasArts adventure to be converted from two dimensions to three dimensions, using the new GrimE system that replaced SCUMM. The game had a menu that was loaded with all the dimension conversion the game took, unwieldy protagonist control, and loss of intuitiveness with mouse menu input. Despite the change in visual style, voice dubbing and sophisticated writing, Grim Fandango was the 1998 game title of the year according to the specialized website, GameSpot.

Escape from Monkey Island (2000), the fourth release in the Monkey Island saga, switched control with a Grim Fandango-like combination that was generally well received. This was the last point-and-click adventure release the company would release. A sequel to Full Throttle and a new Sam and Max game were developed but eventually canceled in 2003 and 2004 respectively, before the games were finished. The Sam & Max would be passed on to another studio, which would develop a new format.

The unofficial release of a SCUMM virtual machine, ScummVM, was the trigger for LucasArts' graphic adventure revival in the days of the present games. Using ScummVm, the legacy of graphic adventures from other times can be easily emulated on modern computers and any video game console platform (PSP, GP2X, Nintendo DS among others), mobile phones or PDAs.

The titles in chronological order with the SCUMM engine were:

• 1987 - Maniac Mansion
• 1988 - Zak McKracken
• 1989 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• 1990 - Loom
• 1990 - The Secret of Monkey Island
• 1991 - Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
• 1992 - Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• 1993 - Maniac Mansion Day of the Tentacle
• 1993 - Sam & Max Hit the Road
• 1995 - Full Throttle
• 1995 - The Dig
• 1997 - The Curse of Monkey Island
• 1998 - Grim Fandango
• 2000 - Escape from Monkey Island
• 2006 - The Dig reissue
• 2006 - Grim Fandango reissue
• 2006 - The Curse of Monkey Island reissue

• Subsequently relaunched with graphic or sound improvements:
  • Loom was reissued in CD version with full soundtrack.
  • The first two deliveries Monkey Island were also reprinted, both on 3.5" and CD disks with new VGA graphics.
  • Zak McKracken had later versions with EGA graphics and finally VGA with audio CD.
  • In May 2006 Activision launched a reissue Full Throttle, Grim Fandango e Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis in which he put: "completely in Spanish" what made him understand that Full Throttle e Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis They would be be bent to Spanish, which did not occur in the first edition, in the end it was an Activision error, since the versions were accurate to the originals.

• All games used the SCUMM graphic engine to launch Grim Fandango (1998), from which the new GrimE engine began to be used.

Star Wars

• Games launched by the company based on the universe Star Wars:

1. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1991)
2. Star Wars: X-Wing (1993)
3. Star Wars: Rebel Assault (1993)
4. Star Wars: TIE Fighter (1994)
5. Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)
6. Star Wars: Rebel Assault II (1995)
7. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996)
8. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (1997)
9. Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (1997)
10. Star Wars: Behind the Magic (1998)
11. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith (1998)
12. Star Wars: Rebellion (1998)
13. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998)
14. Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance (1999)
15. Star Wars: Episode I Insider's Guide (1999)
16. Star Wars: Episode I. Racer (1999)
17. Star Wars Episode I: The Ghost Threat (videogame) (1999)
18. Battle for Naboo (2000)
19. Star Wars: Force Commander (2000)
20. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (2001)
21. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (2001)
22. Star Wars: Starfighter (2001)
23. Star Wars Jedi Starfighter (2002)
24. Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns (2002)
25. Star Wars: Racer Revenge (2002)
26. Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002)
27. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (2002)
28. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2002 video game)
29. Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike (2003)
30. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003)
31. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003)
32. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: Lords Sith (2004)
33. Star Wars:Battlefront (2004)
34. Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005)
35. Star Wars: Republic Commando (2005)
36. Star Wars: Empire at War (2006)
37. Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption (expansion) (2006)
38. Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron (2007)
39. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (2007)
40. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008)
41. Star Wars: The Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels (2008)
42. Star Wars: The Clone Wars Jedi Alliance (2008)
43. Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron (2009)
44. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (2010)
45. Star Wars The Old Republic (2011)
46. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (2011)
47. Star Wars 1313 (crowd)
48. Angry Birds Star Wars (2012)
49. Angry Birds Star Wars II (2013)
50. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019) (through Lucasfilm Limited and Electronic Arts)