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George Broussard (Duke Nukem Forever guy, to be reductive) tweeted this earlier: What are people's thoughts? Bear in mind that he's specifically referring to the classic point and click adventure format - not genre hybrids or TWD style 'interactive narratives' or whatever. Just stop referencing Monkey Island and come up with a cool setting is his advice. I don't really think he's right, tbh. Some sub-genres (which I think we can call the classic PnC now) are just niche and that's that. Splatter horror, say, is a niche movie genre, it's got its fandom and it will keep going forever and making money as long as budgets are pitched correctly and the occasional great one comes out, but you're not going to be able to make a billion dollars with one. You've got to do something different with your PnC otherwise it could be the perfect game and every single review would still include the words "but it's still the exact gameplay that Lucasarts perfected 40 years ago". Removing in-jokes and coming up with a "wider appealing" setting isn't going to solve that.

My thought on this has always been: don't create a game that includes references to popular games, instead create a game that other games will reference in the future.

Im of many minds on this, in that I think I agree with you and with George. The part that I fully agree with is that developers should stop saying “I’m making my own spin on Monkey Island,” which is a sentiment that somehow keeps coming up directly from developers mouths. 1) no you aren’t, and 2) if you’re trying that, you probably shouldn’t be. (are you asking yourself what the actual developers of monkey island thought they were doing that led to the creation of that game? what media they were engaging with? they definitely did not set out to make “a monkey island game” when none existed before.) I think making a genre work that fits in a well-worn groove is a fine and good thing to do. But the reason the LucasArts games hit as hard as they did when they were new was the surprise and variety of them - you never knew what you were going to get next, even with the ones that were sequels. (With the exception of Last Crusade to FoA, but I think they’re the exception that proves the rule.) So is “LucasArts” a genre on any front? I’m not sure. It’s a mostly common user interface, it’s a design philosophy (as written out explicitly in many of their manuals), but I don’t think those are the things devs mean when they say they’re making a LucasArts game. I think they usually mean “has 9 verbs and has jokes in,” and probably has a guy say “look behind you a four headed monkey” in it. I obviously have muddled thoughts on this but I mostly think, taking from a game or developer or genre you like is fine, but I’d hope you are trying to actually examine their work and figure out what in it was successful and unique and spoke to you, and try to figure out how to make your own version of that. Just quoting the references or lifting the art style or name dropping the games won’t get you much, beyond something to pander to lowest hanging fans with.

Anakin's lightsaber is still missing a few tiny pieces, then I can assemble it as well. After that, it's time to think of some wall-mounted display for them.

I just finished 3D-printing these beauties. Good enough for my decaying eyesight