LucasArts explored porting “games like Monkey Island” to the iPod. Weak software sales numbers and a company repositioning prevented the titles from being developed.

Speaking with us about Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, the game’s producer Craig Derrick said the game took anywhere from over three years to nine months to finish. It’s all perspective: three-and-a-half years ago, Derrick’s first project was to find ways to put classic games on different platforms. One of those select platforms was the iPod.

“Depending on how you look at it, it took either 3 ½ years or 9 months,” Derrick told us via e-mail. “My very first project at LucasArts was exploring ways to bring games like Monkey Island to new platforms, including porting it over to the iPod.”

“At the time, though, there wasn't a big market for games on iPod and the company was beginning a large push towards new IP, so I transitioned into our incubator group. However, I never forgot about Monkey Island or how cool it would be to revisit it one day. Luckily, that day came last summer when I had the opportunity to pitch the Special Edition idea to our new president, Darrell Rodriguez, and the rest as they say is history.”

Interesting stuff. Reliving classic LucasArts titles via an iPod isn’t something we’ve considered. One thing is for sure, though: finding the hidden brick in Maniac Mansion would have been even more of a bummer on a smaller screen.