a large gloved hand appears to take him back through. Development and release Mike Woodroffe, Simon the Sorcerers director and producer, wanted to create the game to exploit a market for comic adventure games, which he realised existed due to the success of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. His son, Simon, penned the script. He was inspired by Terry Pratchett (Adventure Soft originally intended to make a Discworld game, but were unable to obtain a licence), and he and his father hoped that he would become involved with the game. Although he chose not to become involved, the script still contained much original humour. Many scenes are based on fairy tales, and the Wise Owl was modelled on Patrick Moore. Woodroffe said that Adventure Soft (then known as HorrorSoft) had done enough horror games and wanted to try a comedy game. The change in genre prompted the name change. Simon Woodroffe explained that the character of Simon was a mixture of Blackadder, Rincewind, and Guybrush, and that he was originally intended to be a trainee wizard, similar to Harry Potter. He also explained that he was invented because they needed a character to compete with characters such as Rincewind, and that the game was inspired by the Discworld books and Monkey Island. Mike Woodroffe said that the game was inspired by Dungeons & Dragons magic stories. Other influences, according to Simon Woodroffe, included Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, and Monty Python. The character was invented during a journey on the M5 motorway, and was not named after Woodroffe. The name "Simon the Sorcerer" had that format because of the magical nature of the character, and because other names, such as "Willy The Wizard", were rejected because they were disliked. Simon the Sorcerer was developed by a team of 15 people. There was an effort to be British so as to distinguish themselves from the humour of Monkey Island. Simon Woodroffe stated that his greatest challenges were the script creation and puzzle design, and he tuned the scripts (which were written in an in-house scripting language) continuously. The world was created for the characters rather than the puzzles, and the story was wrapped around characters the team liked. Woodroffe believed that Adventure Soft were able to rival more experienced studios due to their small team, all of whom had the same goals and passion for the game. On deciding which fairy tales