Following the release of "Escape from Monkey Island" in 2000, LucasArts put three further adventure games into development. However, all three were later canceled. The first of these was "", a sequel to "Full Throttle" that began production in early 2000. Tim Schafer, the original creator of "Full Throttle", was not involved in the project. Instead, development was led by Larry Ahern and Bill Tiller, who had both worked on "The Curse of Monkey Island". In the early stages, the project received positive feedback from other LucasArts employees. According to Tiller, however, "Payback" eventually fell apart because of disagreements over the game's style between the development team and "a particularly influential person" within the management division. Production ceased in November 2000, when a quarter of the levels and about 40 percent of the preproduction art were complete. Ahern and Tiller both left LucasArts in 2001.