The International House of Mojo

Read all about wacky Mojo adventures as well as scolding in-depth articles here. Well, maybe not "scolding" or "in-depth", but you get the idea.

Feature	Updated
2006: A Year in Review 2006 was the year that the Sam & Max episodes began, going some way to heal the rift in the LucasArts adventure gaming community that had been created when Freelance Police was cancelled. As we stand on the verge of a new year, I ask what was good about 2006 and what I want from 2007, and I also make some wild predictions that will no doubt amuse you, o future reader, seeing this in the mystic and arcane land of 2007, or maybe even 2008.	30 Dec, 2006
2007: A New Hope Since 2006's "review of the year" proved popular with the site's readers (all six of them!) the mega brains in Tower C. of Mojo Castle decided to make another review, this time of 2007! If you?re reading this in 2007 or early 2008, this article will prove to be a convenient summary of things you might have missed. For those who have wearily plodded further along the time vortex (or for those who have cheated and used a time machine), this article will be a useful artefact of what our opinions were like in those simple and carefree days!	31 Dec, 2007
2008: Fears and Tears Another ghastly year-in-review wank, this time about the year of our Lord two thousand and eight. Aside from some rambling rubbish, this article casts an eye on the exploits of LucasArts in these troubled economic times.	27 Dec, 2008
2010: A Review A look back on the year 2010 with polls.	03 Jan, 2011
2011: A Review A review of 2011 and the result of our polls.	28 Dec, 2011
2012: A review Wait, didn't we write something like this a year ago?	31 Dec, 2012
2013: A Review 2013, how was it?	30 Dec, 2013
2016: A Review It… was a year, alright.	26 Dec, 2016
2017: A Review Brexit, Trump, and we turned 20.	28 Dec, 2017
2018: A Review No games were released and Telltale closed down. On the plus side, coffee still tastes good.	03 Dec, 2018
23 Years Ago I Would Have Written an Article Called “Not MY Monkey Island” Instead, I wrote an article called “23 Years Ago I Would Have Written an Article Called 'Not My Monkey Island'” about Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island.	12 Jun, 2023
25 Years of Mojo: Staff Picks The staff celebrates/laments 25 years of Mojo by sharing their personal favorite articles.	22 May, 2023
A Meditation The line between LucasArts and Sierra is often forgotten, but in the early nineties, both companies were locked in direct competition with each other. On one side were the Quest games: Police Quest, Space Quest, King's Quest... on the other side, LucasArts had Maniac Mansion and The Last Crusade. But then Monkey Island appeared and changed the rules of battle forever...	15 Sep, 2009
April Fools 2002 Mixnmojo's most famous and most elaborate April Fools stunt teased a fictional fifth Monkey Island game, Return to Monkey Island. Now, in protest honor of an actual Return to Monkey Island having been announced, we felt the time was right to enshrine our finest prank as a deathless feature so that future generations of Mojo readers may experience the exhilarating feeling of being defrauded as if they were really there.	11 Apr, 2022
Barbican Museum: The Art of Star Wars Three Mixnmojo staff members take a look at a large Star Wars display at the Barbican Museum. This exhibit featured concept art, props, and costumes from both the original trilogy as well as The Phantom Menace.	23 Sep, 2000
Be Grateful to Telltale Jason thinks adventure fans need a reality check when it comes to what the successful studio owes them. (Hint: nothing)	17 Nov, 2014
Contest: Create the Ultimate Insult The Results from the Ultimate Insult Contest, judged by Mike Stemmle and Sean Clarke, Designers of Escape from Monkey Island. The winners received a signed copy of Escape From Monkey Island.	11 Jan, 2001
Control Freaks: The Case For Telltale When Telltale released their new Monkey Island games, there was some controversy over the control system they chose. This article attempts to justify this decision, and to blow up the all-hallowed point 'n click sacred cow.	18 Jul, 2009
Cooking with Spaff #1 In the first installment of Cooking with Spaff, we are treated to a decently intricate pasta dish by Dominic Armato, the voice of Guybrush Threepwood. Note: This article is mildly insane.	11 Feb, 2002
Cooking with Spaff #2 The second installment of Cooking with Spaff	13 Feb, 2003
Demystifying the Lucasfilm Learning Division The somewhat enigmatic educational division of Lucasfilm’s interactive business receives a tentative inquiry that may raise more questions than it resolves.	14 Feb, 2024
Disinterring "Fiction by Louie" In the nineties, some irrepressible LucasArts cohorts produced an aggressively weird, exceedingly unseen public access show that ran its course in absolute obscurity, and remained there twenty years into its afterlife. Until now.	09 Aug, 2021
E3 2000: cry of the forsaken E3 vs. Jake: E3 wins. Jake's mad rambling report on LucasArts and the showfloor scene at the Electronics Entertainment Expo 2000, Los Angeles, California.	13 May, 2000
E3 2001: Carnival of the Damned Back in the day (2001 to be precise), we waddled our fat little bottoms to sunny Los Angeles, to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Afterwards, we all went to Disneyland with Domic Armato, the voice of Guybrush Threepwood. A fun time indeed!	12 Jun, 2001
E3 2003: Embarrassing Photo Gallery Enjoy these shameful pictures we took while down in Los Angeles for the show.	25 May, 2003
EMI PS2 Release Party Wilst on their LucasArts trip, Jake and Spaff are invited to the launch party of Escape From Monkey Island for the PlayStation 2. It's on a boat with steel drums and grog, its gotta be good!	11 Jul, 2001
EMI: A Random Rant A Random Rant about Escape from Monkey Island written by Spaff after he tried to write a review of the game.	17 Jan, 2001
Evolve or Die 2 The adventure game genre needs to change to keep up with modern technology - classics like Sam and Max and Monkey Island are all very well but they just don't cut the cheese any more. The time has come to bridge the genre gap...	19 Jul, 2005
Excerpts from the Slack: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Is it THAT bad? We investigate.	17 Jun, 2019
Excerpts from the Slack: Jake's Monkey Island Twitch Stream Watchalong While Jake, Marius Fietzek and Dominic Armato played The Secret of Monkey Island on Twitch, the Mojo staff offer their live commentary like a bunch of creeps.	26 Apr, 2020
Excerpts from the Slack: Psychonauts 2 Trailer Reactions A chat log from the Mojo admin Slack channel documenting staffers' reactions to the Psychonauts 2 trailer.	14 Dec, 2018
Excerpts from the Slack: The Worst Memes on the Internet Some staffers needed to get some really stupid memes out of their system (Hey, there are unhealthier ways to work through things), so they worked out their issues in the safety of the Mojo Admin Slack. Well, safe until Jason published them here for your amusement.	09 Jun, 2021
Firewatch Revisited We go back to the woods, asking ourselves: “Were we right?” (Of course we were!)	17 Sep, 2017
Fun with Editor's Day '02 It's Editor's Day! That glorious day when LucasArts begs you to sit around, eat their food, and play their unreleased games. We got to check in on Bounty Hunter, The Clone Wars, and Jedi Knight II: Console Edition, and now you get to check out... the story!	28 Jul, 2002
Future Tense When do you stop making something that people enjoy? When they’ve had enough, when you’ve run out of inspiration, or simply when your creation is finished? The question is applied to Telltale’s Sam and Max series, and madness ensues.	22 Aug, 2008
GDC 2007: Into the Vortex Mojo visited the Telltale offices in San Rafael during GDC week (March 2007). They were very nice, and showed us their game making tool, as well as a sneak peak of the new Sam & Max episodes. We also attended an awards show hosted by Tim Schafer.	22 Mar, 2007
Gold Guy Exposed Some dirt on your favorite shiny logo.	24 Mar, 2003
I Get Made Fun of for Being a LucasArts Fan News Editor Emeritus Sarah "invisibelle" McKeever doesn't like the reaction she gets from her coworkers when she admits that she likes LucasArts ... but not for their Star Wars games.	09 Feb, 2002
Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix: The Lost Sequel to Fate of Atlantis A look at the cancelled follow-up to Fate of Atlantis, under development at LucasArts from 1993-1995.	09 Jul, 2016
Indiana Jones Game Chat A discussion involving fiveIndiana Jones fans, and four Indiana Jones games. Which one is the best? More importantly, what did they do to Sophia's bottom in The Infernal Machine?	15 May, 2008
Indy Smoke & Mirrors LucasArts' follow-up to Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb was first announced in 2006, to be released in 2007... then that was changed to 2008... and then in 2008 that was changed to 2009, and the rumour seeped through that the development had only just properly started. What went wrong?	28 Mar, 2008
Insecticide: What the Hell Happened There? We harassed Mike Levine and Larry Ahern until they gave us all the dirty laundry on their...beleaguered 2008 game, the only release from their label Crackpot Entertainment.	10 Jul, 2018
J'Accuse! On the Cancelled Monkey Island Movie and Pirates of the Caribbean We take a trip back to 2013 when we summed up 2003 movie speculations.	10 Aug, 2023
Jason Frames His Maniac Mansion Poster: A Gripping Account The widely tolerated Mixnmojo staffer owns a poster, which he then got framed. Based on a true story.	06 Aug, 2020
LucasArts Memorabilia Will your old LucasArts junk be tomorrow's treasure? Quite possibly, if history is anything to go by.	11 Aug, 2005
LucasArts Summer Press Day '03 LucasArts is only just now figuring out that they shouldn't be giving us as much attention as they do, as we tend to squander it in their eyes. Nontheless, we've got some lovely hands-on previews of Gladius, Armed & Dangerous, Secret Weapons over Normandy, Wrath Unleashed, Jedi Academy, and Rebel Strike for you, as well as the usual Mojo wankery you've come to expect and, eventually, love.	01 Aug, 2003
LucasArts' Secret History #10: Full Throttle Tim Schafer jumps on a bike and gives us Full Throttle.	25 Jan, 2009
LucasArts' Secret History #11: The Dig The game that probably literally ate project leaders finally was released with Sean Clark at the helm.	10 Mar, 2009
LucasArts' Secret History #12: The Curse of Monkey Island The first Monkey Island sequel sans Ron Gilbert, and one that spawned a new generation of fans at that.	21 May, 2009
LucasArts' Secret History #13: Grim Fandango Tim Schafer's last game for LucasArts might be his best.	30 Aug, 2009
LucasArts' Secret History #14: Escape from Monkey Island LucasArts' last adventure game until market realities hit.	23 Feb, 2010
LucasArts' Secret History #1: Maniac Mansion A young stallion named 'Ron Gilbert' springs onto the scene.	29 Jan, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #2: Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders Remember when LucasArts liked adventure games? Jason does, and so he took a trip back in time.	09 Mar, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #3: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Ron Gilbert whips SCUMM one step further with this Indy game.	22 Apr, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #4: Loom Screw verbs; let's ROCK those puzzles instead!	29 May, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #5: The Secret of Monkey Island The game responsible for this site. We think it's OK.	30 Jun, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #6: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge Quite possibly the best sequel to have happened to anybody ever.	04 Aug, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #7: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Some might feel this was a better fit for Indy than crystal skulls were.	01 Sep, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #8: Day of the Tentacle Grossman and Schafer's directorial debuts.	13 Oct, 2008
LucasArts' Secret History #9: Sam & Max Hit the Road After numerous LucasArts cameos, the duo finally gets their own game.	08 Dec, 2008
LucasArts.com 20th Anniversary Flashback Feature As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the studio, LucasArts.com published a compilation of memories from some of its long-time employees. Nearly two decades later, Mojo shamelessly loots this long-defunct material for preservation purposes.	02 Aug, 2020
LucasArts.com 20th Anniversary History Feature As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the studio, LucasArts.com published a four-page chronicle of its history. Nearly two decades later, Mojo shamelessly loots this long-defunct material for preservation purposes.	02 Aug, 2020
LucasArts’ First Words Nicolas Deneschau takes a look at the Monkey Island 2 voice over tech demo. Benzo hacks it.	03 Aug, 2020
Make Us a Banner Contest Mojo's second contest saw it hand out copies of Escape from Monkey Island for PS2 to two lucky winners.	25 Oct, 2020
Maniac Mansion and the Orphaned Tone For a series with only two installments, Jason believes that Maniac Mansion hints at an uncommon capacity for reinvention with every outing. Also included: some poorly integrated ramblings about Nintendo promotional art.	21 Aug, 2020
Maniac Mansion: The Liner Notes To mark the 30th[-ish] anniversary of jamming out to Maniac Mansion on the NES, Mojo appoints itself to annotate history's finest 8-bit album.	05 Apr, 2022
Mojo Does Cardiff Sometimes the "staff" and readers of Mixnmojo.com like to meet in the physical world, to discuss topics that that normal people don't usually care about. This is the rambling account which will probably not be read by anyone, ever.	24 Feb, 2008
Mojo will remember that: A look at Games that out-TTGs TTG Games that out-TTGs TTG.	29 Sep, 2017
Mojo's Most Liked Games We turn 20, you voted, we report.	30 Sep, 2017
Mojo: 10 Years and Counting In 1997, Gabez wrote an article looking back at ten years of Mojo. He also made us all look bad, though that might have been somewhat appropriate.	26 Sep, 2007
Monkey Island 2: The Demo Examination We jump into LeChuck’s Revenge—our findings may SHOCK you.	26 Jul, 2023
Monkey Island in Mono elTee and Benny try to track down the elusive hercules monochrome mode in Monkey Island 2.	08 Apr, 2022
Monkey Island: From EGA to VGA elTee deep dives into unchartered waters.	31 Oct, 2018
Much, Much More Drastic Things Thrik's reign as Mojo CEO hasn't been without a certain amount of upheaval. Believing that transparency promotes empathy, the staff decided to share privileged, behind-the-scenes moments with the readership to give a glimpse of what 24 hours in the Mojo offices look like in the Thrik Epoch.	10 Mar, 2023
My Monkey Island Coupon Experiment After finding an old copy of Monkey Island at a thrift store, Andrew "telarium" Langley discovers something interesting. The box contains an eleven year old coupon in which you can send in your old 5.25" floppy disks and exchange them for new ones. However, will LucasArts still honor this eleven year old coupon? And do we really have nothing better to do with our time than to send in old coupons? Find out.	05 Jun, 2002
PAX East 2016 Jennifer went to PAX! Read all about it!	21 Aug, 2016
PC Format Collectors Series PC Format - The Collectors Series: LucasArts is a 30-page magazine from 1994 that highlights some of LucasArts Entertainment Company's most treasured classics. And Dark Forces. We have exclusive scans of the entire magazine, so click here!	23 Jul, 2001
Remi Returns to Return to Monkey Island In which we look at Return to Monkey Island one year (and change) after its announcement.	08 Apr, 2023
Return to Double Fine For the second year in a row, Mojo gets the grand circle tour of Double Fine Productions, home of Tim Schafer and his gang. Unlike our first visit, this time we actually knew what game they were working on (Psychonauts), and were graced by the additional presence of LucasArts legend Dave Grossman.	05 Aug, 2002
Revealed! Iain McCaig, the man behind the Monkey Island VGA portraits We exclusively reveal the artist behind The Secret of Monkey Island's VGA close-ups, and get some fascinating behind-the-scenes tidbits!	17 Mar, 2019
Running GOG Escape from Monkey Island under Wine on macOS Yes, you can play EMI on the Mac. Kind of.	23 Jun, 2018
Still Lost in a Theme Park Or: How the post-Gilbert Monkey Island games understood the infamous subtext better than you think	06 Dec, 2014
Telltale and Autumn Moon Contest A give-away featuring a signed copy of Bone, a signed peice of Vampyre Story concept art, and ingredients for your very own voodoo doll.	13 Jun, 2007
The Day LucasArts Canceled April Fool’s Day Sam & Max was but one victim.	10 Nov, 2021
The Kinda, Sorta, But Not Really Secret History of Sam & Max: Freelance Police All the dirt in one place.	03 May, 2011
The Maniac Mansion TV Show: At a Glance A look at the TV show based on the Lucasarts adventure game.	04 Aug, 2010
The Many Epilogues of Return to Monkey Island Ron outdid himself on "multiple ending" game, which he's been at since Maniac Mansion, with his Monkey Island comeback. Mojo dutifully catalogs the ten (arguably more) variations of the game's deliberately elusive wrapup.	21 Sep, 2022
The Noughties A look back on the years 2000-2009, mainly comprised of photographs.	01 Jan, 2010
The Old Days Spaff recalls the Monkey Island online community, in the days before there was a Monkey Island 3, when webrings ruled and animated GIFs were worth their weight in gold. Take a look at the sites that started it all.	23 Sep, 2000
The Poxy Custodianship of Monkey Island Assisting Monkey lsland fans in obtaining and running uncompromised versions of the old games can feel like presenting them with an adventure game puzzle. Though fan preservation is invaluable, why in the name of Blackbeard's dandruff should it always come to that?	09 Aug, 2022
The Secret Character Assassination of Smilin’ Stan An obscure dialog alternative in Monkey Island 2 exposes a writing team’s shameful, if not refundable, indifference to character integrity.	14 Jun, 2022
The Secret of Cogg Island Deep in Return to Monkey Island: Cogg Island. We check out the easter egg location.	23 Sep, 2022
Those Ron and Dom IRC Logs Ron Gilbert and Dominic Armato joined #monkey-island way back when. We have the logs to prove it.	27 Jul, 2023
Tiller Techniques Improve your game art with lessons from CMI's lead background artist!	30 Jul, 2001
Tim Schafer Should Never Stop Making Video Games Jason gets cheesed off by an opinion article on CHUD that states the opposite, and states his own opinion.	30 Dec, 2009
Trip to Double Fine We visit Tim Schafer at his new company: Double Fine Productions.	29 Jul, 2001
Trip to LucasArts Spaff and Jake journey to San Rafael, California, to visit scenic Skywalker Ranch, and stop by LucasArts for a tour of everyone's favorite gaming company.	08 Jun, 2001
What do Game Devs Read? We asked writers and game designers for book recommendations, then threw in a few ourselves.	05 Jul, 2023
What the Hell is Wrong with LucasArts? Remember what happened on March 3rd, 2004? No? Well, here's a reminder on that dark day in LucasArts history.	03 Mar, 2004
When did Indiana Jones become a cult game series? I mean honestly.	17 Apr, 2013
Why all Star Wars games suck Star Wars is a great universe for films and books and... games? Well yes, it IS a great setting for games, but only if you do it properly. LucasArts don't do it properly. Other companies do. You do the math.	26 Jun, 2005
Willow Looks Great, And Your Movie Doesn’t Modern fantasy/adventure movies look considerably worse than the thirty-year-old Willow, and Jason is pissed about it. We decided to let him air out his long-incubating grievances in this editorial, because at least this way he’s not hurting anybody.	12 Dec, 2018
Wilmunder Memoirs You may not know his name, but you certainly know his work. Aric Wilmunder has had an influence in everything we love about LucasArts. From co-creating our favorite graphic adventure engine called SCUMM to managing the International Development Team, Aric helped to make every LucasArts title legendary while working along side some of the true gaming revolutionaries. Here, Aric shares his favorite stories and memories from the early days of LucasFilm Games.	30 Jun, 2002
Xmas Contest '08 The entries for our 2008 Christmas contest: write your own fake history of a Lucasarts game (or die in the attempt). The results: insanity, entirely humorous, mostly harmless.	18 Dec, 2008
“Return to Monkey Island,” First Thoughts We editorialize about this unprecedented development.	07 Apr, 2022