Ron Gilbert’s Death by Scrolling turns a familiar pursuit into a real-time survival problem: keep ahead of the screen, collect what you can, and escape when Death comes hunting. Released in October 2025, the game marks a shift from the point-and-click adventures most associated with Gilbert—but its origins, and his comments about adventure games, show a change in emphasis rather than a clean break from his past.
What is Death by Scrolling?
Death by Scrolling is a rogue-lite action-survival game designed by Gilbert. Its screen scrolls continuously, forcing the player to stay ahead of its lower edge while gathering gold and gems and dealing with enemies. Death periodically pursues the player; the reaper can be stunned temporarily, but cannot be killed. Escaping and staying oriented matter as much as fighting.
The game is distinct from Gilbert’s adventure titles, including Maniac Mansion, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Monkey Island and Thimbleweed Park. He has also made reflex-oriented games, among them Backyard Sports and DeathSpank, so the action focus is not entirely without precedent in his career.
Why did Gilbert move from adventure games to an action game?
It was not a straightforward decision to leave adventure games behind. After Thimbleweed Park (2017) and Return to Monkey Island (2022), Gilbert began work on a much larger open-world RPG inspired by The Legend of Zelda. He told Kyle Orland of Ars Technica that a three-person team, including an artist and designer, spent roughly a year exploring the project. He concluded that it needed more time or funding than he had, and said the publisher deals he encountered were unattractive. The RPG was abandoned before release.
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The smaller game that followed began with a 2019 design-meetup prototype called “Runner,” organized by Spry Fox’s Daniel Cook. The initial idea was simple: run ahead of the scrolling screen and use limited-ammo weapons against enemies. Gilbert found that aiming manually while running created “cognitive overload,” so the design shifted to automatic aiming and firing. Art made for the shelved RPG helped give the prototype shape.
The purgatory premise and recurring pursuit by Death arrived in the final six months of development, giving the action a unifying setting and threat. Gilbert said the prototype was fun to watch in groups, with one person playing and others reacting; that is his observation, not a formal playtest result.
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How does the purgatory setting shape the game?
Gilbert described the setting as “purgatory taken over by investment bankers.” In the game’s fiction, the ferryman has become profit-focused under Purgatory Inc.; collecting gold is both part of the economy and a core activity. Gilbert said he intended this arrangement as humorous, sarcastic criticism of capitalism. That is the designer’s stated interpretation, rather than a claim that the game’s mechanics deliver a single required reading.
The constant chase gives the setting a mechanical counterpart: players are pressured to move and gather resources instead of lingering over dialogue. Gilbert said action-game writing should leave players free to skip story, while avoiding burying information they need to understand the game in optional text. He has also observed players skipping dialogue in adventure games, including Thimbleweed Park and Monkey Island; these are his observations, not measured rates.
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What does Gilbert think adventure games should become?
Gilbert is skeptical of returning to the classic “use verb on noun” point-and-click interface, which he regards as dated and likely to remain niche. That does not mean he thinks adventure games are finished. He pointed to Blue Prince and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes as examples of puzzle-led, narrative-infused games using newer techniques, saying, “I think games like that are kind of the future for adventure games.”
His distinction is between the genre’s possibilities and one familiar interface. A game can center on puzzles and narrative without reproducing the verb-and-object interaction of earlier point-and-click adventures. That perspective also helps explain why an action game can be a new direction for Gilbert without implying that he has rejected adventure design altogether.
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Does Gilbert want to make a 3D Monkey Island?
He expressed interest in the design challenge of solving puzzles in a true 3D world if he had the chance to revisit Monkey Island. He also questioned whether that franchise was the right place to experiment, recognizing that fans have strong expectations and that Return to Monkey Island’s gameplay changes drew a mixed response. His comments were hypothetical: the Ars interview announced no new 3D Monkey Island project.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What did Gilbert say about funding and promotion?
Gilbert contrasted the promotion environment of the 1980s—print magazines and press releases—with today’s visibility of streamers and developers’ YouTube updates. He argued that developers need to present well on camera and described that pressure as a gate for game makers. These are his views on promotion, not measured evidence about what makes a game successful.
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He also called Kickstarter “basically dead” for game funding today. The interview does not establish that as a market-wide fact. It does give a project-specific example: Thimbleweed Park raised $600,000 against a $375,000 crowdfunding goal, and Gilbert said private investors supplied half of its final budget. Those figures describe that game’s funding, not crowdfunding outcomes generally.
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