The International House of Mojo

I guess we were too busy justifying the unjustifiable to acknowledge Dave Grossman's annual Halloween tradition in a timely fashion.

But let's acknowledge it now - Dave has give the reliable Pumpkin House of Horrors its 2018 update, which includes two - count 'em, two - pumpkins on the receiving end of inventively unaccountable cruelty. In these capricious times, when seemingly robust studios capsize at a moment's notice, it is comforting that there are still some things you can hang your hat on.

Source: Phrenopolis

While the enduring characters keep an eye out for a new game developer to license themselves to, Sam & Max have been busying themselves with being made into collectible toys. As a loyal reader of Mojo, you already knew this.

Today, Boss Fight Studio (the company manufacturing the collectibles) has offered a first look at the design. They stress that the below rendering is a work-in-progress, but it's surely the kinda progress I can get behind:

Source: Facebook

Leisure Suit Larry is set to return to his adventure game roots for a new outing headed by fledging German studio CrazyBunch. Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry (ugh) is already available for preorder on Steam, and visually it looks impressive, even if Larry looks a lot less short, pudgy, and middle-aged than he used to.


There's no mention of series creator, Al Lowe, being involved which almost certainly means he isn't. Given the spotted past of LSL games, who knows how this one will turn out, or how it will be received by a modern audience.

As Larry says in the press release: “My new adventure takes me from the end of the ’80s directly into the 21st century and wow, how the world has changed! While my view of the world and women from way back in the 1980s collides with modern reality harder than the breasts of a lusciously stacked blonde jogging along a beach, I’m all set to date my way across the modern world!”

You be the judge!

Thanks to reader Rum Rogers for alerting us to this story.

(Give me a break, I'm too tired to write a proper headline.)

Some outfit called Boss Fight Studio has revealed they will be producing collectible Sam & Max toys.

That's all I got. Great if you like toys I suppose.

Source: SameDods

... but I suspect people only say so because they’re both about pirates. Or possibly because its open world like with chances to customize stuff. Or something. Despite looking like a pure action game I deemed it news-worthy, although I’d never even heard about the game before, so give me a break.

For those who know Sea of Thieves, and have given it a go on the PC and/or the Xbox, sound off in the comments which I suspect will be suitably quiet.

Here's a brief video of Steve Purcell being chatted up at the recent expo. Was anything of importance learned? No, but it's still always nice to see Steve.

Source: IdeateTV

Harvey Atkin, who voiced Sam in the Sam & Max animated series, passed away on July 18th. Atkin was the second of three voice actors who have so far taken on the role of Purcell's character, though he is more widely known for his roles on TV shows such as Cagney and Lacey and Law and Order, as well as the Ivan Reitman comedy Meatballs, which he co-starred in opposite Bill Murray.

Thanks to "Threepwood4life" for bringing this to our attention in the comments.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Monkey Island fanatic and Eurogamer personality Johnny Chiodini decided to answer a gauntlet that was never thrown by creating grog using the ingredients listed in The Secret of Monkey Island. And although he punts on third down by subtracting the more lethal ingredients, the end result is still gross enough that we award him and his two confederates eight Monkey Bucks for introducing it into their digestive system.

Here is the write-up, and below is the video proof of the reckless endeavor:

Source: Eurogamer

It looks like the folks at Hashtag Collectables has been spying on my dreams, because the Max plush toy is finally here, just in time for Sam & Max's 30th anniversary.

It's too bad that dream entering technology wasn't available 20 years ago, since I've been dreaming about this since I was a kid, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Now I just have to resist the urge to buy a dozen of them...

We're now a week into 2017, which means it's the perfect time for a new poll. We couldn't just put one up on the first day of the new year. That's just not The Mojo Way™.

There's a lot of goodness coming out this year, from just about every company that this site covers. So go to the poll on the right and let us know which one has you excited the most.

Dave Grossman's annual tradition of gleefully deforming pumpkins continues with his 2016 entry to the Pumpkin House of Horrors.

Enter, if you dare.

Source: Pumpkin House of Horrors

ScummVM, the project that aims to re-create engines for point-and-click adventure and role-playing games, using the original scripts and data files, so that the games run on modern (and some not-so-modern) systems, has received a new release.

This release brings support for six new games: Myst, Myst: Masterpiece Edition, U.F.O.s (also known as Gnap), and Sierra's Hi-Res adventure games #0: Mission Asteroid, #1: Mystery House, and #2: The Wizard and the Princess.

There's also been a lot of bugfixes for Sierra's SCI games, the addition of Hercules rendering and font for the AGI games, an enhanced Sherlock games experience, and the addition of AmiUpdate on the Amiga port.

ScummVM is the project that aims to re-create the engines used in adventure games (and, since this year's Google Summer of Code, role-playing games) so they can be played on systems ranging from Windows, Mac, and Linux to iOS, Android, and even consoles such as Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and Wii.

Right before a major release they do a public testing phase for new and improved games, which helps them iron out any remaining bugs. This testing cycle includes two new games: Myst (and Myst: Masterpiece Edition) and U.F.O.s (also known as Gnap). There also have been a lot of improvements in the SCI engine as of late, so they are also testing Conquests of the Longbow, Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, King's Quest V, King's Quest VI, Quest for Glory 1 VGA, Quest for Glory 3, Space Quest 1 VGA, and Space Quest 4. Other games that have seen recent improvements and are undergoing testing include Beneath a Steel Sky, the Commodore-64 version of Maniac Mansion, Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo, and Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel.

So, if you have any of those games, play them through in a daily build of ScummVM on your platform of choice, and report any bugs you find at the new and improved ScummVM bug tracker. Then tell the team about your experience, and any bugs you filed (or if you didn't spot any bugs at all) in this thread on the ScummVM forum.

I'm back from PAX East. I'll post about my experience at the show in a bit, but for now, I'll catch up on some of the releases that have happened lately.

The Walking Dead: Michonne, the miniseries by Telltale Games that reveals what happened to the character of Michonne during the period when she left the group in the comics after the events of All Out War, is now complete, with yesterday's release of episode 3.

Also receiving its third episode yesterday was King's Quest, the official ninth game in the series, by The Odd Gentlemen. This episode, Once Upon A Climb, tells the story of how Graham saved his future wife Valanice, who is also Gwyndolyn's grandmother.

We have awful news to share today as audio veteran Jory Prum has passed away. Since 1999, Jory has been credited on innumerable titles published by LucasArts, Telltale, and Double Fine in a broad scope of sound design, recording, and engineering capacities.

Those of you who follow Jory's colleagues on Twitter may know that he was involved in a bad motorcycle accident last month from which he sadly did not recover. You can read the statement from his parents as well as heartfelt remembrances from some of his colleagues - including Julian Kwasneski - here. It appears to be one of many articles published in tribute of Jory today.

While we may not have known him personally, any reader of this site will be familiar with games to which Jory Prum made a vital contribution. It's hard to imagine titles where sound design could be less trivial than the sort he worked on while wearing any number of hats. The reason we celebrate the best of these games as timeless is because good stories endure, and Jory's work - far from merely a technical supplement - serviced those stories. Our condolences to his friends and family.

Source: Designing Sound

Firewatch is now out for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Steam and PlayStation 4 on PSN.

I've played through the first day, and it's lovely so far. We'll have a review up on it soon (so within the next year or so in Mojo Time™).

Campo Santo updated their blog with news that their debut game, Firewatch, is now available to pre-order on Steam. It's currently available for a pre-order discount of 10% off it's usual price of $20. It can also be purchased at Steam in a bundle with the soundtrack, also for 10% off.

It will be released for Windows, Mac, Linux, and PlayStation 4 on February 9. PlayStation Plus members will be able to purchase it on PlayStation 4 on launch day for 10% off as well!

Okay, so you hardly needed Mojo do learn this bit of bad news, now a week old, but we should acknowledge the passing of heavy metal icon "Lemmy" Kilmister.

Other sites have done better than we ever could at attempting to put Lemmy's larger metal career in perspective, but we'll always remember him for his performance as the bass-playing Kill Master from Double Fine's Brütal Legend.

Those Symbiote Studios keychains that were released at the San Diego Comic Con are no longer Comic Con exclusive. You can now pick them up at Amazon for $10 each.

Get your Sam keychain here and your Max keychain here.

This news is a day late for Halloween, but we here at Mojo prefer to think of it as a day early for the Day of the Dead.

Graham Annable, former art director at LucasArts and Telltale, and Oscar nominated film director, has released a new Grickle short. You probably know Grickle best as the source for Telltale's Puzzle Agent series, but the shorts are awesome and worth checking out as well. The newest short, The Webb is the longest Grickle short created to date. Enjoy it by watching the video linked below, or watching the video directly in YouTube by clicking this link.