Ron Gilbert, the industry luminary behind multiple Monkey Island games and Thimbleweed Park, is working on anothe rproject, and it’s a little different from his usual fare. It’s called Death by Scrolling, and it’s a roguelike RPG where you’re pursued through Purgatory by a constantly-scrolling screen, and Death herself.
Shown off for the first time today at Gamescom: Opening Night Live, Death by Scrolling features a top-down perspective and a Zelda-like combat system. But unlike Zelda’s slower pace, in Death by Scrolling, you’re constantly running upward, chased by the bottom of the screen. You can choose between several different playable characters with different perks, and then run up while fighting off enemies and collecting gold and loot. Death will be right on your heels, so you can’t dawdle.
Gilbert has actually been talking about Death by Scrolling for a bit now, including soliciting beta sign-ups on social website Mastodon and blogging about his progress. According to his blog, he began working on this game in 2019, but got busy with Return to Monkey Island and had to put it off for a while. When Monkey Island was over, Gilbert started working on a different RPG that he says was too ambitious and that he couldn’t finished, so he moved the two contractors he was working with on that over to Death by Scrolling to get it to the finish line.
The trailer during Opening Night Live didn’t give a release date, but Gilbert has said it’ll be out sometime in 2025.
You can catch up on everything shown at Gamescom Opening Night Live right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
