The International House of Mojo

Sure, by being someone who is “with it” and therefore a confirmed reader of the forums, you’re about to be told redundant information, but a new version of DREAMM always has to hit the broadsheets. Here is Aaron with the rundown of your newest testing mission, DREAMM 2.1 Beta:

Source: Aaron Giles

The latest DREAMM build from Aaron Giles is meant to be the final beta before the release of DREAMM 2.0 and the start of world peace. Download away and replay your favorite LucasArts classics all over again for the good of mankind.

Aaron’s apparently made of sterner-than-average stuff, as he hasn’t yet been scared away from the Mojo Forums (we’ll get there), so share your findings with the mad scientist himself in the DREAMM thread if Bernard starts talking like Dr. Fred or The Dig starts acting like a good game (Footnote: Low blow. I like The Dig.) or something. And remember, DREAMM is beginning to expand to support a broader LucasArts catalog, so you can give titles like Afterlife, X-Wing, and Dark Forces a whirl on it these days. Don’t bother getting your beloved copy of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game out of hock just yet, though.

Source: DREAMM

Last year we brought some attention to the work of one @ScrungusCrungus, who has apparently devoted their time on Earth to reverse-engineering the Psychonauts source code, and more broadly to the discovery and collation of every fragment of esoterica related to the classic game. Certainly, Mixnmojo should be the very last to judge such an obsession.

The ongoing quest has included the search-and-seizure of rare pre-release media, which means the disreputable archives of certain fan sites and communities active in Double Fine’s earliest days are being plumbed, to the justifiable horror of us all. Mixnmojo, the Idle Thumb forums, and Thrik’s dedicated yet sadly unmaintained (Footnote: Not to get political, but I find this delinquency fairly reprehensible in light of the fact that CEOs are currently posting record profits.) fan site Razputin.net (which today redirects you to an Archive.org snapshot) are but a few of the resources that have fallen into the crosshairs of this Robert Caro-esque level of research:

ScrungusCrungus even politely noticed that The Grim Fandango Network (another milestone from Thrik’s executive training days) underwent a rather yawn-inducing theme change, leading to a bonding moment that international relations could stand to benefit from looking to as inspiration.

You can find some of ScrungusCrungus’ most notable findings collected on this blog dedicated to the purpose, but you’ll want to work up some loyalty toward the Twitter account if you want the minute-by-minute updates. And let’s not kid each other: you do.

The fearless correspondents at Pixel Refresh decided the time had come at last to puncture the veil of the sordid, rock’n roll world of LucasArts poster restorations by chatting it up with Jan Hofmeister (the unlikely handle of your friend Laserschwert), who requires no introduction here. Put aside an hour you don’t have and listen to what goes into his masterpieces of masterpiece-conservation:

Next up is the ongoing “Conversation with Curtis” series hosted by Daniel Albu, who previously brought you interviews with such luminaries as Brad Taylor and Aaron Giles. This time his subject is ScummVM’s project leader Eugene Sandulenko (again, you better know him by the name on his birth certificate: sev), and they dive deep into the twenty-year history and ever-expanding future of a project that some of us would still call miraculous. You can even hear the official ScummVM perspective on DREAMM if you scrub over to 1:16:28.

Incidentally, Remi decided to climb off the tanning bed long enough to do something useful, and the forum now has a catch-all thread for these increasingly frequent hour-plus long interviews.

No need to get fancy with this one; I’ll just reprint what Aaron posted over on the forums:

I mean, you heard him. Get to work, and do your part to ensure that Hugo the perfume salesman will forever spritz his way across the computer monitors of future generations.

Source: The forums

As noted on the forums, a feature-length interview with Aaron Giles is now streaming on YouTube. The chat covers Aaron’s prolific history in the dark sciences of porting and emulation, and you’ll get to hear some of his stories directly from the horse’s mouth. His LucasArts tenure is of course highlighted, with DREAMM getting discussed at length in the second half. Though the games are not supported yet, he also relates adventures in expanding his emulator to run the two GrimE titles, and he even namechecks some non-adventures in the LucasArts catalog he’d like to tackle.

More important, you finally know that Aaron’s last name is pronounced with a soft G, so you no longer have to worry about making an ass of yourself if you ever bump into him at your local Delchamps.

Source: Conversations with Curtis

Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders have been irreversibly tied together ever since that can of chainsaw gasoline was found on Mars, but a new fan game is taking it to a whole other level. Below is the spiel for Zak the Maniac - An Interactive Music Video:

You can download the game and the cover tune that suggested it right here.

Source: Error 47

Meteor Mess 3D, the 3D fan remake of Maniac Mansion that began development in 2008, was released just three weeks ago. In other words, it still needed less gestation time than an Indiana Jones sequel.

The phrase “labor of love” gets thrown around a lot, but I think a number of recipients of it would be well within their rights to feel embarrassment in the face of this victory, which Gabez’s coverage can surely only claim some responsibility for. Investing this long toward bringing a fan game to its finish isn’t merely dedication – it’s downright hardheaded. So celebrate the occasion by grabbing your very own download of the game, and be inspired by Mojo’s solidarity in updating its gallery – yes, we had one! – with more representative screenshots.

Amberfish Arts: There’s hope for you yet.

Source: Meteor Mess 3D

Like so many stories lately, this one comes from Twitter:

A very long thread of LUA voyeurism unfurls from there, including screenshots of amusingly candid comments in the code, hidden debug levels that were accidentally shipped, and some dialog lines that never get triggered due to bugs (Grim Fandango sympathizes). Even Psychonauts team members like Erik Robson (Lead Designer) and Kee Chi (Programmer) end up weighing in, so passionate fans of the game (and isn’t all of us?) might enjoy diging through.

It’s worth pointing out that @ScrungusCrungus seems to have been part of an effort to reverse-engineer Psychonauts for some time now, and past discoveries made along the way have also been documented for those who crave more.

Source: Twitter

One of those names that seems to always be in the credits, Brad Taylor has had a crucial role on just about every SCUMM game from The Secret of Monkey Island onward, both at LucasArts and Humongous. Alongside Aric Wilmunder and SCUMM's originator Ron Gilbert, he was a key figure in the maintenance and maturation of the celebrated story system over its long years of service, all while preserving its critical separation of complexity from the designers, writers and artists so that their focus could stay on the creative aspects of the games.

So when Arcade Attack publishes a 100-minute conversation with the guy, it amounts to something close to self-care that you watch it:

Source: Arcade Attack

If you've been following Aaron on Twitter, it's pretty clear that his efforts to emulate Grim Fandango (in its original, shipped-in-1998 form) for presumed DREAMM support have made material progress. Perhaps the clearest sign of that is this morning's implication that he's already started down the path of standing up the second of the GrimE engine duology, that undisputed crown jewel of the LucasArts adventure pantheon, Escape from Monkey Island:

Bless him.

Source: Aaron's Twitter

DREAMM was originally intended as an emulator for the DOS-based SCUMM games, but Aaron just couldn't abide a missing title, so he walked one last barefooted mile in broken glass, emulating just enough Win32 to support The Curse of Monkey Island.

Without promising anything, it seems he's being plagued with another itch:

Larry Holland’s Totally Games, the studio behind a slew of well-regarded flight simulators often published by LucasArts (among them the X-Wing series), was at work on an Xbox-exclusive fantasy game in the early 2000s that didn’t make it to the finish line. Details on the sometimes-called Knights of Decayden have now emerged from Axios. Here’s a summation by Eurogamer:

In addition to reading about how the game died, you can check out this footage:

Source: Axios

If you’ve been following Aaron’s DREAMM page or forum thread, you may have been keeping up with the various beta builds of DREAMM he’s been regularly unleashing to your testing efforts. Well, he’s now reached the milestone of the final beta release, which means it’s the last call for you to submit issues before Version 1.0 is minted.

So do your part: download the current version, dust off your Hebrew version of Loom, and report your findings. Put this thing through its paces for mankind’s benefit.

Source: DREAMM Page

Marius Winter - Flash animation extraordinaire, celebrated intern of Telltale and Double Fine, co-conspirator of livestreams with Jake, reaction video artisan, reluctant imbiber of root beer, and unanimously elected* mascot for all of Monkey Island fandom - was not about to allow basic human needs like eating and sleeping apply any kinda deacceleration on his ever-escalating contributions to your happiness.

In fact, after coming down with an aggravated case of being awesome, he's putting the final touches on his greatest achievement yet: a Flash film version of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. Stare directly into the burning bush by checking out this sneak peek ahead of Monday's premiere:

*Not that it was gonna stop Germany were it otherwise.

Source: MajusArts

If you read our interview with Aaron Giles back in March, you’ll remember that we touched a bit on the dilemma of faithfulness with running the old SCUMM games on modern systems, leading Aaron to drop this juicy nugget:

So what exactly is DREAMM, and what purpose does it serve in a world where both ScummVM and DOSBox exist? Well, you get to find out for yourself seeing as the software is now in public beta, but this snippet from Aaron’s FAQ sums it up pretty nicely:

The “limitation” of DREAMM is that it is Windows-only and relies on you having the original .exes (which, inexcusably, are often missing from the official releases on Steam/GOG, since ScummVM acts as a replacement), so you’re going to have to dig out your old floppies and CDs. But for any DOS-based version of the SCUMM games (plus, in a heroic exception to complete the catalog, the natively Windows The Curse of Monkey Island), there is no better or more convenient way to play them with faithful exactness, making DREAMM a wonderful new tool to add to the True Fan™’s arsenal.

Source: Aaron Giles

Ron "zo" Gilbert took his website, GrumpyGamer down the other week (I'm not going to find out exactly when, what do you take me for, a journalist?) prompting many in the community to speculate that it was due to a vocal minority of disgruntled 'fans' unhappy with what they've seen of Return to Monkey Island so far and not afraid to swear at the developers about it.

It turns out there might be a nugget of truth to those speculations, because the site is now back with an article called When I Made Another Monkey Island, in reference to that other one. He seems keen to make a few things clear.

For example, he'd like you to know that whatever his idea for MI3 was way back when, it was a nothing. There wasn't enough of a vision in the first place for it to become ruined.

There you have it. The plan for Monkey Island 3, in its entirety.

He goes on to give what I think is a spirited defense of the art style they chose for the game in the context of the history of Monkey Island, expresses disappointment with some of the fan response so far, and finishes with a plea to fans to join them in this ride. I don't think I can entirely do it justice in quotes so you'll just have to read it. I will leave you with one tantalising tidbit about the music, though:

I'm giving you permission to get excited about Return to Monkey Island, people. I know you have it in you. Or as Ron puts it:

Source: GrumpyGamer

We're not quite through selflessly promoting "Video Game History Hour" - that would be the podcast of the Video Game History Foundation - which just last week delivered another Mojo-baiting episode by having Noah Falstein as their guest.

Noah's always a great listen, and this is no exception. He also at one point mentions having a "thick stack of design docs" still in his possession, which can only be interpreted as fishing for a bribe. Anyway, treat yourself to recollections from one of the industry's most storied careers, and thank me later.

Source: Video Game History Hour

You remember Kevin Bruner, former CEO of Telltale Games? Well, he's back... in Dramatic Labs form.

The new games studio collective is "an independent collaboration of 20+ former Telltale writers, developers, designers, artists, and producers" according to their website. Their launch title taps into the beloved, and currently much expanding Star Trek franchise, and they even have a very Telltale-esque teaser trailer to show for their efforts. Behold Star Trek: Resurgence.

The standalone, non-episodic game is due next spring for PC, Playstation and Xbox. And, err, they're hiring!

Source: Dramatic Labs

What we in the business call Xbox Games Showcase Extended happened today, and during it Tim gave a presentation about Psychonauts 2. He describes the game’s setup in pretty good detail, offering a more expansive look at the overworld than I’ve seen so far. It all starts at 16:40 in the video below.