“Ask a Monkeyologist” was a series created by me, Wolf, with the desire to play a funny character that would interact with the audience, you, and answer silly questions.
The idea took off, albeit in a less elegant way and in a rather rough quality, leading up to a collaboration between me and Marius Winter (previously Fietzek) who played an arch nemesis, opposed to my character.
Doctor Kauff von Diefendorf, the protagonist of “Ask a Monkeyologist”, kept having scientific arguments with this nemesis, Professor Gustav von Schneider. It was funny, it was a great way for both Marius and I to learn new things. However, due to the lack of time, we weren’t able to properly continue the series, leaving huge gaps between episodes.
During the gaps, the idea of an adventure game has been brainstormed around several times, leading up to the DEMO you all know. The game actually had a script, a completed story and a very well designed gameplay mechanic that would’ve been fun to go through in order to complete your tasks as a gamer.
The idea of time-travel has been tossed around, ultimately ending up with a mix between Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island, two very dear games that I love. As far as I know, I still have the basic files for the game, including the code, so in theory I COULD continue to work on it.
However, Michal Michalski, a very talented artist who worked on the backgrounds cannot be reached. I have tried several times to no avail. Aside from that, Jasmin Belima, who made 90% of the sprites, does not have time to work on the game anymore. Last but not least, Marius and I are involved in so many other, different projects that we simply cannot squeeze in the AaM game in our lives right now.
Will we ever finish it? Most likely not. Will we grab the story and turn it into a movie? Most likely not or, if we ever do, it probably won’t feature the same cast as before.
As much as I love working with him, I cannot travel by plane (due to a certain medical condition) and I can’t ask him to come over to Romania because, from the project’s perspective, it would be a waste of time. Just look how much it’s taking my bro and I to film Plustard… and that is EASY compared to the amount of wigs and costumes we’d need for Kauff and Gustav’s adventure.
I’ll share a few screenshots with you guys if I find them on old CDs and such but, officially, this project is long gone. 🙂 Sorry about that.
That doesn’t mean that Kauff and Gustav are gone, as characters. Even if Marius and I don’t end up playing them again, I’m pretty sure we could find other collaborators to join in on the monkeyology fun. After all, it’s all about making you guys laugh and having a good time.
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