Since we've been posting about the SpaceVenture Kickstarter, I thought I'd update with news that a playable prototype demo has been released which already contains a lot of the humor that the Space Quest series is known for. The Guys from Andromeda (the creators of SpaceVenture, and the creators of the Space Quest series) plan to release a new prototype demo each time a $100,000US goal is met. It's currently just above $270,000US (54% funded) with less than two weeks left to go.

Also, The Space Quest Collection is today's daily deal on Steam. For 9 more hours, you can pick up all 6 Space Quest games for only $5US.

The Space Quest games play just like SpaceVenture, so if you enjoy those games, pick a pledge tier and support SpaceVenture.

It's rare for an indie bundle to include an adventure game, so the Bundle in a Box: Adventure Bundle is a very rare thing, as this indie bundle includes nothing but adventure games.

Like the other indie bundles out there, this is a pay-what-you-want bundle to support developers and charity. For a minimum of less than $2US, you will receive the LucasArts-inspired adventures Ben There Dan That: Special Edition and its sequel Time Gentlemen, Please from Size Five Games. You will also get the adventure set in a neo-noir dystopian future, Gemini Rue, from Wadjet Eye Games, and the text adventure (interactive fiction) 1893: A World's Fair Mystery from Illuminated Lantern. You will also get the never before released The Sea Will Claim Everything by Jonas Kyratzes.

If you pay more than the average of less than $6US, you will also get the first game from Wadjet Eye Games, The Shivah, and the heavy-metal influenced zombie adventure from Walk Thru Walls Studios, The Metal Dead.

The Journey Down Chapter One is the first part of a four part point-and click adventure game by Skygoblin (formed by the merger of the developer of the Nord casual MMO, SLX, and the indie dev team responsible for the freeware lo-res The Journey Down Chapter One, Skygoblin). It is an HD remake of a free low-resolution game, named The Journey Down: Over the Edge. The game has been getting a lot of pre-release buzz in our forums for it's art direction. Developer Skygoblin was "inspired by the cartoony style of Bill Tiller's COMI, as well as Peter Chan's Full Throttle and Grim Fandango", and you can definitely see the influence in the art direction.

The game has had a long development cycle, starting out on Adventure Game Studio, then switching to a custom engine called Gobby. But now, the wait is over, as The Journey Down has been released for PC, Mac, and Linux in downloadable form at Adventure Shop, Desura, and a whole lot of other places.

The Be Mine 2 Bundle is up now, and it includes a lot of things for whatever you wish to pay. And, like the other indie bundles, a portion goes to charity (in this case Feed Them With Music). But, most importantly to Mojoans, is that it includes The Baconing (the Hothead-helmed Ron Gilbert-less sequel to Ron Gilbert's Deathspank), along with Roesha DLC.

The full list of things it includes is not just games, but comics and music as well. It includes a bunch of stuff like Madballs in...Babo: Invasion and DLCs, Beat Hazard and DLCs, Plain Sight, Sol Survivor. If you pay $5 or more you get more things, such as Killing Floor. Once 75,000 bundles are sold, Scratches: Director's Cut will be available, and another bonus will be shown to be available at a certain amount of bundles sold after that.

The games also include Steam keys, so what are you waiting for, pay what you want on the Be Mine 2 Bundle now!

This and more revealed in this fine, career-encompassing interview with Steve Purcell by the fine chaps at Thunder Chunky.

So we're about a two months late on this one, a Mixnmojo phenomenon known as "par for the course," but we've really got to report it.

You might recall that Jonathan Ackley, the co-project lead of The Curse of Monkey Island who isn't Larry Ahern, has been a Disney Imagineer for most of his post-LEC years, and in that capacity has worked on all kinds of neat stuff.

His latest project is "Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom" - an attraction that's sort of a treasure hunt mixed with a role playing card game that was launched at the Magic Kingdom in February. Armed with a map and spell cards, guests partake in a narrative in which classic Disney villians are scattered throughout the park in order to retrieve crystal shards at the behest of Hades. Guests solve quests by tracking down and activating Magic Portals and doing battle with the villains using their spell cards, which are divided into nine different spell classes.

A better explanation of the whole thing, complete with Ackley quotes, can be found here. Sounds like something I could get into. Yes, I'm trying to invite myself to your next Disney trip.

Update: Well whaddya know! Some diligent stalking of Larry Ahern's Linkedin, a daily Mojo rote, has led to the revelation that he in fact worked on "Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom" with his old cohort. Now we just need those guys to resurrect Vanishing Act.

After Double Fine's success on Kickstarter, more game developers are eager to get on the bandwagon.

First up is Replay Games with their Kickstarter campaign named Make Leisure Suit Larry come again!. The goal is to raise $500,000 for a remake of the first Larry game, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Their future plans include remaking the other five games in the series as well as making new sequels.

The second one is Jane Jensen and her newly established studio Pinkerton Road with a Kickstarter campaign where the backers can vote on which games they want made, including a sequel to the 2010 adventure game Gray Matter.

First, Telltale has uploaded another episode of Playing Dead, their video diary-thingy covering The Walking Dead. There's also a Q+A, so check it out.

Also, Stacking is available for the PC through Steam. For cheap -- $7 for a limited time.

Everyone's favorite video game podcast about video games, Idle Thumbs, has got a mind to make an ambitious comeback, and to help make it happen they've launched one of them there Kickstarter projects, which are all the rage these days. For those unfamiliar with Idle Thumbs, the [latest] cast of the cast is Chris Remo (patron saint of your face), Jake Rodkin (formerly of Mojo, currently of Telltale), and Sean Vanaman (formerly of not Mojo, currently of Telltale) and over the course of a somewhat sinusoidal six-year existence 87 episodes of gaming commentary were produced.

We're a bit late with this and the project has already more than doubled its goal, but make a pledge anyway, claim the truly absurd rewards, and lend your support to stuff that is rad.

The AGS Bake Sale Bundle is a bundle of games made with the popular Adventure Game Studio game creation utility. Like the Humble Indie Bundle and other similar bundles, the AGS Bake Sale bundle is available for whatever price you feel the games are worth, and proceeds go to charity (in this case Child's Play, a charity which helps sick children by giving them video games to enjoy).

All fourteen of the games in the bundle are all new and were designed specifically for the AGS Bake Sale. While all the games use the Adventure Game Studio, not all the games are adventures. There are a few games from other genres in there too, such as the Indiana Jones inspired platformer Indiana Rodent and the Raiders Of The Lost Cheese, starring a mouse in a tiny fedora.

So what are you waiting for? Name your price, help sick children take their mind off their illness, and get fourteen new games right here.

ArsTechnica have published an article, entitled Maniac Tentacle Mindbenders, which discusses how "How ScummVM's unpaid coders kept adventure gaming alive" (as opposed to the paid coders, those worthless hacks).

ScummVM, as you may know, is a program that allows you to run certain old school adventure games on a variety of modern machines and consoles, from your fancy new PC to your PSP. It's a lovely piece of software (open source and released under the GPL, I might add; if you think you can contribute, go wild), and it's nice to see a full-length article talk about it. It's so nice I'm going to link you twice.

Here's some wild and cool news for you. So, Japanese rhythm-game extraordinaire Masaya Matsuura (perhaps best known for the ahead-of-its-time PaRappa the Rapper for the PS1) is working on a Kinect-based XBLA game called Haunt. The description I've read makes it sound like a sort of first-person Luigi's Mansion, wherein the player navigates a goofy haunted house with the aid of a flashlight.

The main NPC of the game, which is to release "soon," was already voiced when Masaya and co. bore witness to Tim's charismatic hosting of the GDC Choice Awards and everything changed. Reports Joystiq: Hopefully Tim can parlay this into a career on Broadway. Until then, cool gig, Tim!

As is tradition, Steve drew the grateful world a holiday card starring the indomitable Freelance Police. From the Sam & Max blog:










I especially like the city burning outside. Note that this year is the 25th anniversary of Sam & Max. If you're anything like me and I know I am, you can probably think of some great ways for Purcell/Telltale/LucasArts to commemorate the occasion, but just work up a good belch and you'll feel better.

The deranged Dave Grossman has massacred some more vegetation to bring you this year's entry into The Pumpkin House of Horrors. Called "Food Chain," the latest in Grossman's macabre litany of pernicious sculptures will no doubt bring amusement to those who derive pleasure from the pain of innocent pumpkins.

And we know that's you, so be sure to view the entries of previous years while you're at it.

Replay Games, which earlier this year licenced the rights to the Leisure Suit Larry games and re-released the first one on their website, has announced that they're working on an HD remake of this very game. Larry creator Al Lowe has joined the team and the plan is to continue making original Larry adventures in 2012. If the remake proves successful they may also attempt to remake the rest of the series. The actual development is handled by Adventure-Mob.

When asked about Larry in today's world, Al said: “As a software salesman, I think Larry would feel right at home [in today's Internet age], and would stay current … at least with pornography.”

“Why the hell would Mojo bother with this?”, you may ask yourself. Well, Telltale Games is going to release another game in the King's Quest series, which we'll cover, and Al Lowe did the music for the second King's Quest and worked as a programmer on the third and fourth games.

A new update has been released for the PC game Magicka. Ordinarily this would not be news, as Magicka is neither made by LucasArts nor widely considered to be an adventure game - but nevertheless, this update seems like a real treat for fans of old-school point and clicks because it introduces a Purple Tentacle skin for your "wizard". It is not yet known if this will make it easier for you to take over the world, but at the very least it will make your character appear smarter, more aggressive.

So how are you celebrating the 30th anniversary of Indiana Jones? 'Cause if you haven't made a poster-sized map pinpointing every artifact he's ever found - that's including the movies, games, novels and comic books - then you're clearly not this guy, who accomplished this feat with funding from the Adirondack ComicFest. This effort was also "authorized through Lucasfilm," if you wanted to know.

Fortunately, all of the artist's 255 prints - the proceeds of which went to American Disabled Veterans - have sold out, sparing you considerable temptation, but apparently there are going to be some on sale at the Adirondack ComicFest, should you be attending.

A Maniac Mansion fan by the name of Joseph Flatt decided to sit down and write four instrumental tracks inspired by the game. That's right - bucking the tradition of producing covers of actual tracks from Maniac Mansion, Flatts has obliterated expectations like a microwaved rodent and composed music that might have been heard in the game.

But rather than mail his mp3s off to Mark Eeter or parlay them into an audition for Green Tentacle's band, he's decided to share them with us, and us with you.

So on the subject of lovingly detailed replicas of iconic artifacts from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis...wait, WHAT?!

The gifted craftsman known as Fedora Smith - whose replicas of props from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies had already weltered his Flickr account in fame - was even selling some of his excellence before his stock was depleted earlier today by eager folks who understand the value of a dollar. (That is, they understand that it's irrelevant in the face of OWNING YOUR OWN WORLDSTONE.)

Reader and understandably fervent Maniac Mansion fan BionicBoots has alerted me to a music video he made where he adds lyrics to Dave's theme music from the NES version of the game (the only version where there was music for the kids). I think his effort was commendable and certainly no less misguided than the "Raiders March With Lyrics" Youtube video we pimped some time back, so here it is. Oh, and believing that two is more than one, BionicBoots went ahead and made a "rock remix" version of his own music video; you'll find both achievements below.