But Ron Gilbert revolutionized the genre with Monkey Island 1 in a way that nobody did. Everybody was influenced, those that came after him and those that came before.
Oh, it neednât be pirate-themed to be Monkey-Islandish in my book. But MI had this certain vibe to it that I missed in TWP. Where MI is innocent, playful and light-hearted, TWP felt pretty heavy and sombre, despite all the in-jokes.
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But Roberta and Ken Williams revolutionized the genre with Kings Quest 1 in a way that nobody did. Everybody was influenced, those that came after them, including some guys at LucasFilm.
Ok, Ok, Iâm sorry for that, but I couldnât resist. 
I agree that Monkey Island 1 was a big step and influenced other adventure game developers. But I wouldnât say that it revolutionized the genre. If we look at the history there were several ârevolutionsâ: Mystery House introduced graphics, Kingâs Quest 1 the third person perspective, Maniac Mansion the interface and so on. Each of these games werenât revolutionary, they just developed the genre a little further.
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I didnât want to lessen other peopleâs talent, but Ron is 1) the creator of SCUMM 2) the man behind Monkey Island. If I were to think of ONE person associated with adventure games, it would be Ron.
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To me, it would have been Ken & Roberta Williams. They were the founders of Sierra and original designers of its early games.
Also, perhaps the guys from Infocom, but I am not as familiar with their names.
LucasFilms suffered from the same affliction as my favorite gaming console of the early 80s, the Mattel Intellivision: it was in second place in a growing market, but a very distant second. By consequence, it wasnât really as big and renown as the fans would like to think.
At least in the USA. I hear the Intellivision was huge in Spain and that LucasFilms Games were big in Europe.
dZ.
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Poor Aric Wilmunder, gets always forgotten. 
I think there is a reason for him to be so famous. He was one of the first game designers to get his name in big letters on the box covers. This was at a time when this was rather unusual. Warren Robinett had to invent the âeaster eggâ to even get his name into the game Adventure on the Atari 2600 at all. I wonder how this prominent âAn Adventure Game by Ron Gilbertâ came about.
In the Maniac Mansionâs intro:
Designed and written by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick
Scripted by Ron Gilbert and David Fox
Programmed by Aric Wilmunder and Ron Gilbert
Ron Gilbert by Ron Gilbert and Ron Gilbert
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Maybe one of the reasons why some developers are more popular than others is simply that they kept making games (and some of them even adventure games) in more recent years.
For example, I have never played the Humongous games but itâs my understanding that they raised a younger generation of adventure gamers who have fond memories of those characters and stories.
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Me neither. I´d never even heard of them when they were new. Also I´d might have been above the age of the it´s target audience when they were new. Then again I´m not certain if I ever was in that target audience. I mean I played MM and Zak when I actually was that age.
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I know Humongous games only from theory, because one day at ScummVM I found out that it was a modified SCUMM engine. As child I preferred the more adult games, though Iâm not sure there were many others. So I played what was available.
When I was young I didnât know anything about the people behind games. I also didnât memorise names and recognised them in the game credits, not until much much later.
Thatâs also how I learned about Humongous Entertainment and who was behind it!
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During the development of Maniac Mansion, he was working on Habitat. Maniac Mansion SCUMM used some code from Habitat (memory system, programmed by Chip Morningstar and the animation system, programmer by Aric). When SCUMM moved from the C64 to the PC, Aric did that port and then worked with me (and later Brad Taylor) exclusively on SCUMM. Aricâs contributions to SCUMM were huge in the post-C64 years, but he didnât create it.
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I know that your intention wasnât to provide a wider list; itâs just that I wanted to mention Jane Jensen and Charles Cecil because I like some of their games. 
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Ah okay, I was just wondering because when I recently replayed the Dig he got a credit for SCUMM but you did not. I guess he activily participated on that refined version or something.
The Dig was released after I left. Not sure why they removed my name from The Dig, but kept it on others.
:pigeon: Must have been the signalsâŚ
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Probably Lucasarts owns SCUMM too, so with you leaving, they could add/remove names as they saw fit. Like any big company does with the work developped by its employees- unless contractually defined.
So basically today, Disney has all these disgustingly named-after-body-fluids-and-stuff software tools in their portfolio. I would like to see the look on that lawyerâs face whoâs in charge of reviewing the list. âWait, we acquired what?â
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