 He was frustrated by the adventure games that Sierra On-Line was releasing at the time, and later said that "you died any time you did anything wrong".Gilbert considered such gameplay as "a cheap way out for the designer".He had previously applied his design ideas to the 1987 graphic adventure title "Maniac Mansion", but considered he committed a number of mistakes during development, such as dead-end situations that prevented the player from completing the game and poorly implemented triggers for cutscenes.