Ron Gilbert has announced on Mastodon that he has decided to put the in-development game “RPGTBD” on hold and instead focus on a new game that he started developing a few years ago.
Anyone know what other game it could be? 
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I hope it’s a point-n-click adventure game.
Maybe Thimbleweed Park 2.
He also says, “Good news is we’re planning on releasing it in the next few months,” which suggests he either did a lot of work on it previously, or it’s something that doesn’t require that much work.
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Then, as much as it saddens me, I don’t think it can be Thimbleweed Park 2. 
I remember Ron saying in an interview that he only had an idea for the plot, but nothing more.
But I also hope that it’s a PnC adventure game!
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Why not? He still uses the (modernized) engine, had an idea and the assets are still there from the first game. Maybe he made a prototype already.
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Well, I don’t know… I didn’t get that impression when he talked about it.
A year ago he said “just kind of writing stuff”, referring to writing, not coding/wireframing. And for at least the last 12 months he has been working on RPGTBD.
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Yes, same here. I really don’t have an idea of what he is doing. But after the surprise with Monkey Island everything could be possible. 
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I am definitely interested in anything Ron produces. 
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I don’t expect an adventure game. That would not be possible to do in a few months without dropping voice acting and play testing and using crude art like in the 80s… so one person can finish making that game in a couple of months.
Unfortunately Ron simply can’t afford putting out an adventure game that would look/feel/play literally like Maniac Mansion did. *
My guess it will be something more procedurally constructed, like his match-3 Scallyways game.
Or something like the Thimbleweed Park Desktop adventures. That might be more plausible using an RPG engine.
* I would be really happy with something like that, but I am a niche of a niche.
Either way I look forward to any new game by Ron. You can’t accuse him of milking his previous successes by only releasing another director’s cut or HD remaster - as other franchises cough Broken Sword cough seem to do.
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And maybe he was just kidding and he is still working on his RPG …
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Or the few RPG screenshots might have just been a ruse to hide the development of a new point-n-click game.
He kept RtMI under wraps for a long time and I think even denied the game he was working on was a Monkey Island game a few times during that time. And we know he’s big on secrets.
I’m hoping for a Stan solo adventure.
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Based on things Ron’s said on Mastodon and with this new blog post he made, it seems like he’s just working on the same game still?
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Yes, it’s very likely.
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I’d expect 205 but 210 may be more fun.
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Ah, everything is now explained!
In summary -
I started working on [Death by Scrolling] back in 2019. It started out great and everybody I showed it to loved it, but it was simple. Everyone asked for progression and “game” stuff and over the next six months I proceeded to ruined it…
…[Return to] Monkey Island ended and I started working on a new game I dubbed “RPGTBD”. It was a classic Zelda-like pixel art RPG and was a lot of fun…
It became obvious that my vision for the game was never going to get done and on top of that I was spending a lot of money so something had to give.
But I had all this wonderful art and a nice quest and exploration system from RPGTBD it felt odd to let them go to waste.Then I remembered Death By Scrolling. I rebuilt the whole project, stripping out all the stupid stuff and returned it to the core of the game back when it was fun.
Elissa and Craig leave the project on March 1 then it’s just me for a few months and then release it in 2025.
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Sounds very interesting!
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I think if it’s “simple” and presumably shorter than his RPG idea, I’m more likely to play it, as I could find the time.
The last RPG I played was in 1990, Interplay’s “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I”, DOS version, and it kinda took a long time.
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Which “type” of RPG are you referring to? The Zelda-like games?
Actually I can’t remember the last RPG I played …
I’m not really sure.
The Lord of the Rings one I played is how I think of them - where you have several characters in your party and they take turns in hitting some other characters as they explore a big world.
But Ron’s RPG didn’t seem to be that.
I played “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past”, though that seems to be listed as action-adventure.
Ron described “RPGTBD” as being “Classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park” and “a classic Zelda-like pixel art RPG”.
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If I remember correctly, Diablo II is the only RPG I ever played. To be honest, I never became a fan of it, so I totally ignored that genre subsequently. Hence, I am not sure if I would enjoy Ron’s upcoming game, but I will find it out. At least, I like the pixel-art graphics.
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In the spectrum of RPGs, Diablo is certainly one of the extremes. From the information above, I doubt Ron’s game will be anything like this, nor like any other RPG, really.
If I had to guess, based on the Death by Scrolling name and the salvaged RPGTBD systems, I’d say its a puzzle game where the view is constantly moving and players have to navigate their character around obstacles (trees, water, etc), survive run-ins with monsters (maybe bumping into a monster will deduct a certain amount of HP, whilst also giving XP) and complete objectives along the way (i.e. hitting specific tiles to start quests, pick up quest items and complete them). If the game scrolls the character off-screen, it’s game over. Then again, that doesn’t feel like the kind of game Ron would make …
Maybe give Disco Elysium a try. It’s on the other end of the spectrum.
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