The announcement suggests that more than one industry veteran is involved. Who else is on the team?

I can announce here for the first time that Larry Ahern, lead designer of The Curse of Monkey Island and lead artist/animator on games such as Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Sam & Max Hit the Road, is co-lead designer and art director of Insecticide. In addition, Peter Chan has done the bulk of the concept work for this game and been a huge influence who I cannot credit enough. Dave Grossman also worked with us in the early days to develop the characters and the world. Jacob Stephens, who worked with us at Lucas then worked at Nihilistic, is our lead level designer and our real secret weapon on the project. Everybody involved deserves tremendous credit. This has truly been a team effort. Many other LucasArts vets are also involved, including Anson Jew (concept art), Peter McConnell (music), Julian Kwasneski (Sound FX) and others.

What elements in Insecticide would you say are similar to LucasArts-style adventure games?

I think what we are creating, in our opinion, is not that different to what we made while at LucasArts conceptually. We are trying to capture the 'soul' of those games ­— if that makes any sense. If you look at the games we worked on at Lucas, they were never the same, or 'one type' — so I really have a hard time classifying any of them into one genre.

We were always trying to put the latest technology into each new title, and advance the tech, every single time. Everyone wanted to outdo each other, and themselves, in a friendly way. Sam & Max stripped back the interface from what is was in the past, Full Throttle had mini games and as much action as could be done at the time, The Dig upped the animation quality and techniques, Grim Fandango starting using 3D technology based on action games. The point is, we always used what was available at the time.

To me, the heart of those games, and the central theme behind them is they had amazing characters, stories and worlds to play in. In essence, this is what we feel has been lacking from so many games that come out today. So, to answer your question, we are making a game that isn't afraid to let you talk to other characters, let you "investigate" crime scenes or find clues. From a pure gameplay perspective, these parts will be the most similar to parts of what we made at Lucas, but we feel the action parts still will carry the same vibe. And we don't plan on making the action so hard you have to be a button masher to finish them. It will be more about strategy and being tactful, even in the middle of an all out blitz.

So why the move to more action-oriented gameplay from the traditional adventures you've worked on before?

As mentioned, we really don't see this as a huge shift from what we did before. Some may disagree, but I think if you look at the facts I mention above, I don't see how one could. This is the natural extension of what we were doing then, period. Because Insecticide is an action-adventure detective thriller, it of course needed action. But for what it's worth, Crackpot has other concepts in the early stages that have far less intense action in them, and more of an emphasis on mini-games, characters, puzzle solving, etc. We will do whatever is right for the given property. Crackpot is totally IP driven, so we will let the property drive us more than anything.

How will the interface work in the PC version of Insecticide? Is it a point-and-click style game, or is the character controlled directly?

The UI for the game will be very streamlined and cinematic. It is not a point and click game. The player controls the character. But we plan to avoid some of the pitfalls of investigative mode that others have made using this scheme but trying to keep the UI very easy to use.

What does it mean for the main characters to be bugs? Also, what can you tell us about the bug society in general?

Bugs and insects have been done before ... And done well. But I can't recall them being done like this. This is not A Bug's Life. Not even close.

It's funny because the idea purely started as fantasy ­— but as we developed it over the last few years, I kept reading news stories about how the main elements we came up with in Insecticide that led to the humans' demise and the rise of the insects ­— were actually coming true! Allergies are on the rise world wide ­— no one knows why for sure, and it has deadly results in things like Asthma and more. Bio-engineered crops, insects with evolved resistance levels, etc. Its all happening, people ­— so prepare yourself!

In Troi (pronounced "Troy" — the name for the city in the game), the insects live in a thriving metropolis built over the remains of an old human city (or "Hominids" as the insects call them). Though the Hominid population was nearly obliterated when Pollen levels rose to toxic levels many years ago, the remaining Hominids live in underground camps around the city to avoid intense pollen exposure, which is fatal to them. The Hominids are quite deranged, in a silly way, from years of toxic pollen exposure. They are constantly plotting their return to power as the dominant race on the planet, and always failing in humorous ways.

The dominant force in the economy and politics of Troi is "Nectarola, Inc.", a pollen based soft drink that the city's population cannot get enough of. It's run by the longtime and beloved CEO Madame Haezzal Quinbee ­— the leader of Nectarola and the top "Queen Bee". The story is involved and we look forward to telling you more about it as we get closer to release.

Your company is called Crackpot Entertainment and your publisher is Gamecock Media Group. Aren't those names a little... weird?

Is weird bad?

We figured after "Wii" — anything goes.

Gamecock wasn't a name I'd heard before, but a little searching reveals that its founder was also involved in Gathering of Developers. What can you tell us about your publisher and your reasons for choosing them?

On Monday, February 12th, Gamecock and Crackpot will announce themselves to the world. You will soon hear plenty about them, and hopefully a little about us. We signed with them because they are truly an "artist friendly" publisher. Not only do we maintain control of our IP, something that is critical to Crackpot, but we knew we were going to get to make the kind of game we wanted with them, and not be second guessed. So far we have been very happy working with them.

What phase of production are you currently in and what's your expected release date?

We're hard at work putting everything together and we are expecting to have the games out around the end of the year. Also worthy of mention, is that the PC version will be a two part downloadable game at first, and then come out in retail packaged together afterwards.

More information and concept art can be found at the official site. Gamecock Media also launched its website today — you can read about them in this New York Times article.