Simon Woodroffe explained that the character of Simon was a mixture of Blackadder, Rincewind, and Guybrush, and that he was originally intended to be a trainee wizard, similar to Harry Potter. He also explained that he was invented because they needed a character to compete with characters such as Rincewind, and that the game was inspired by the "Discworld" books and "Monkey Island". Mike Woodroffe said that the game was inspired by "Dungeons & Dragons" magic stories. Other influences, according to Simon Woodroffe, included "Red Dwarf", "Fawlty Towers", and "Monty Python". The character was invented during a journey on the M5 motorway, and was not named after Woodroffe. The name "Simon the Sorcerer" had that format because of the magical nature of the character, and because other names, such as "Willy The Wizard", were rejected because they were disliked. "Simon the Sorcerer" was developed by a team of 15 people. There was an effort to be British so as to distinguish themselves from the humour of "Monkey Island". Simon Woodroffe stated that his greatest challenges were the script creation and puzzle design, and he tuned the scripts (which were written in an in-house scripting language) continuously. The world was created for the characters rather than the puzzles, and the story was wrapped around characters the team liked. Woodroffe believed that Adventure Soft were able to rival more experienced studios due to their small team, all of whom had the same goals and passion for the game. On deciding which fairy tales to include in the game, Simon Woodroffe said that he "read a whole bunch of that kind of stuff", including the "Grimms' Fairy Tales", and that he also owned Ladybird Books when he was growing up. He said that there were some he "really wanted" to include, such as "The Magic Porridge Pot", but could not.