 Gilbert soon realised that it would be difficult to design the game by himself ; he decided to join forces with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman , both of whom he hired for Lucasfilm . The game 's insult sword fighting mechanics were influenced by <unk> movies starring Errol Flynn , which Gilbert , Schafer and Grossman often watched for inspiration . They noticed that pirates in those films often <unk> their opponents instead of attacking them , which gave the designers the idea to base the game 's duels on insults rather than combat . Writer Orson Scott Card helped them write the insults during a visit to Lucasfilm 's headquarters at Skywalker Ranch . Many of Gilbert 's original gameplay ideas were abandoned during the production process , although he stated that " most of that stuff was left out for a reason " . 
