About Me

I am a long-time writer, designer, and director of interactive stories and other types of games and entertainments. I'm best known for co-creating such LucasArts classics as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, and for my tenure directing design and writing at Telltale Games. You may also have played one of the many children's games I wrote, or heard my work in voice-controlled audio experiences at Earplay. Humor is a strength, but not an exclusive one, I've done pieces with a more serious tone as well. I'm creatively fertile, technically inclined, and have experience building and managing groups. Here's a little history, in reverse chronological order:

History

Return to Monkey Island (project with Terrible Toybox)

Return to Monkey Island was already planned for a fully remote team and cloaked in an impenetrable veil of secrecy, so the global pandemic had very little effect on it. Ron Gilbert and I partnered on the design and direction of the game, and I wrote the majority of the script. The team at peak was roughly two dozen people. The game launched in September of 2022 to great reviews and considerable financial success.

Earplay

I'm one of the founders of Earplay, a studio which was at the forefront of the emerging voice-first medium, and which created some of the most highly-regarded interactive audio experiences in that space. I was its chief creative officer, which, since Earplay was small, meant that I did a lot of hands on design, writing, and direction, and sometimes had the luxury of a small team. I also supported external partners and clients who used our toolset to make their own content, and I had a voice in our company direction.

Telltale

I joined the fledgling Telltale Games in its first year, and after leading two projects I spent the bulk of the decade directing all of the design and writing at the studio. I was hands-on with the games we developed, but my role also included hiring, training, supervision, and career guidance. I was building games, but also building a department to design them. (Disclaimer: Telltale eventually gained a reputation for poor working conditions and fell apart. I suppose I am lucky to have left when I did, and I stand by the quality of the environment I created while I was still there.)

Freelance Period

Between LucasArts and Telltale, I freelanced for eleven years, during which period I wound up writing and designing a lot games for kids. The focus on children's games was opportunistic rather than purposeful, but I really liked it. I worked with the likes of Humongous, Disney, Fisher-Price, Hulabee, Broderbund, and plenty of others. I also worked on my first real-time-strategy game, and did interactive design for a robotic toy. I branched out into print media, writing five children's books and a newspaper column, and began writing a weekly poem series that I continued for nineteen years (here).

LucasArts

(1989-1994)

I started my (official) career in games at LucasArts. I was one of the three writer-designers of the first two Monkey Island games, before being handed the reins as project leader on Day of the Tentacle. LucasArts was a great environment in which to learn the craft! All three of those games have devoted fan bases to this day.

Projects, Books, Public Speaking

The other pages on this site have more detail about my published games, books, live action experiences, speaking engagements, and so on. Follow the links here or at the top of the page.

Education

I hold a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1987). I don't have any kind of game degree, those didn't exist until many years later.