 One, called "Monster Knight", never got past the prototyping stage, while a second, called "Girl with a Stick" and aimed to be a mashup of "The Legend of Zelda" and "Tomb Raider" series, had about six months of development work before Insomniac's CEO, Ted Price, decided to cancel it as "the team wasn't feeling it", according to director Brian Allgeier.Now in 2001 and struggling with ideas, chief creative officer Brian Hasting proposed the idea of "an alien that travels from planet to planet, collecting weapons and gadgets", which inspired the team since it would allow them to create new worlds and characters to develop.Artists sketched a number of concepts for this alien character, which was originally reptilian, but ended up as a new species they called a "Lombax", a name Price had come up with.