Ron Gilbert working on Penny Arcade Adventures

The caustic wit that put hapless hero Guybrush Threepwood through hell in the Secret of Monkey Island games now has the chance to subject the creators of Web comic Penny Arcade to similar suffering. Hothead Games today revealed that Ron Gilbert, the adventure-game author whose past credits also include Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken, is contributing to the development of Penny Arcade's gaming debut, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

Founded in March of 2006, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Hothead Games is working on an episodic series of games based on the adventures of Penny Arcade creators Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik. The company is working with Gilbert, Holkins, and Krahulik "in an intense collaborative development process," with the first game in the series set for release as a downloadable offering on home computers. Hothead has also stated its intent to bring the series to next-generation consoles, though nothing has been confirmed as yet.