Dear LucasArts, we’ll miss the inside jokes

Dear LucasArts,

Thanks for all the inside jokes.

I think that’s what I’ll miss most about the games – the seemingly endless ways you could drop in a LucasArts pun, a Star Wars quote, Max’s head popping up somewhere, the Millennium Falcon on a map in The Dig, or just make another play on the word SCUMM. It seemed like the developers were all having fun.

A quick search on the big toolbar will list dozens of really great sites that pay homage and serve as a record of the LucasArts inside joke library (like these for Monkey Island, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango). The record reminds us, that even though people were working their asses off on some really cool games, they cared enough to drop in the occasional tip of the hat to the gamers, and that meant something.We can’t help get nostalgic after the close, we were sort of prepared for it after the Disney deal, but I don’t think any of us wanted to imagine a world without LucasArts. And yes, there’s hope that some of our favourite titles might get picked up and developed again but I don’t know if anyone will ever be able to capture the humour.

It was unique.

The jokes were what made LucasArts titles different – they were all connected somehow…by a Force one might say.

We can talk about the fact that 150 people were laid off, and find the blame with how it all went down – and those conversations need to happen. Yet, the best memories are the good ones; the ones that we’ll remember LucasArts for – the jokes.

Because at one point they were totally nailing it with the releases, and the jokes were funny as hell.

Question: What was your favourite LucasArts joke?

Images taken from Gameological and mixnmojo.com (who has an excellent collection I might add)