Fans of renowned game designer Ron Gilbert should brace themselves for the impact of today's news, as the LucasArts veteran has teamed up with Hothead Games to announce development of a "strange little episodic RPG-adventure game called DeathSpank: Episode One: Orphans of Justice".

Described as "Monkey Island meets Diablo", the episodic series will follow the "thong-tastic adventures" of DeathSpank, star of a short-lived Grumpy Gamer animated comic by Gilbert and long-time creative collaborator Clayton Kauzlaric.

It has long been rumoured that Gilbert was planning an RPG-adventure game, and Gilbert claims that he began work on the game four years ago, but was unable to find a publisher willing to back the project. That all changed when Gilbert teamed with Hothead Games, the independent Canadian game studio, during work on Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Now the two have taken the partnership one step farther, as not only will Hothead self-publish DeathSpank as an episodic series, but Gilbert has officially joined Hothead as Creative Director.

While little is known about the game so far, it should be noted (particularly by those who aren't familiar with Diablo) that the game is by no means a traditional adventure. But for those craving some of Gilbert's creativity and humour mixed with some roleplaying action and adventure, DeathSpank should certainly be a title to keep an eye on. And you can already do just that at the DeathSpank website, though for now there's only a single concept sketch on display.