The International House of Mojo

Remember that Day of the Tentacle remake that was being created by LucasArts Singapore and was cancelled when it was estimated to be 80% complete?

A lot of people were wondering if this cancelled remake really existed and if Double Fine might use some of the assets in their Day of the Tentacle Special Edition. Well, we now have the answers to those questions, and they are yes, and maybe.

Double Fine's Vice President of Development, Matt Hansen, had this to say on the Double Fine forums:

I have to be careful with being too open since it isn’t our license, but I will say that I am very happy with the stuff from Singapore so far.

They're understandably cryptic about whether the material will be used, but it's good to finally have confirmation that it existed, and that it was apparently pretty good. Hopefully they do use these assets, as this would be the perfect game to become the last released project that was co-developed by LucasArts. Unless of course anyone is bidding to complete Sam & Max: Freelance Police.

Tim took to Twitter to turn the implicit into the explicit:

So buy Grim Fandango Remastered, in other words. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, and you've already bought the game. But have you bought enough? What if you break the very bytes of the game by playing it too hard? Wouldn't you want a backup copy in such an event?

Did you buy a copy for your Mom? Sibling? The child you're pregnant with? The dog you own? To be clear, I'm not saying not buying your dog Grim Fandango makes you a bad pet owner. I'm saying it makes you a terrible one.

Source: Double Fine's Twitter

We had to pay Jennifer double for working the graveyard shift, and I'll be damned -- she got the review up on time.

Is the remastered version of Grim Fandango a classic or a turd? You already know the answer, but go read the review anyway.

¡Viva la yada yada yada!

Find it on GOG and Steam for the PC, and on other places for other things.

Hey, ah. I gotta split, so um...Viva la Revolución!

Just when you thought you couldn't get any more excited for tomorrow's release of Grim Fandango Remastered, here comes a fat new interview with Tim Schafer about all things Land of the Dead.

There's a lot more, like Tim's correct observation that Double Indemnity and Sweet Smell of Success feature some of cinema's best dialog, as well as some mysterious claim that the game features a new camera pan and hints about future adventure remakes, but you'll just have to read it all, my good man.

Source: Eurogamer.net

ResidualVM, the interpreter for playing Grim Fandango and Myst III on modern platforms, has been updated with a bug fix release. Version 0.2.1 fixes a crash when using subtitles in the Polish version of Myst III. In addition, a new port has been added. In addition to Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Amiga OS 4, ResidualVM is now available on SGI IRIX workstations.

I was reminded that we didn't really do anything to acknowledge the 10th anniversary of the Sam & Max 2 cancellation last year. Not that we should have. It's an increasingly irrelevant exercise and plus, with each passing year, it actually becomes more cringey for me to think back on that time when, shall we say, some slightly mortifying behavior was exhibited? Not that I'm absolving myself, but I was in high school in 2004.

One thing we are known to do sometimes is bust out our big honkin' compendium article, which is really just the database entry from Old Mojo that's been sloppily expanded over time as new facts and media came to light. I'm kinda proud of the unwieldy thing, because as far as I know it's still the ultimate resource on all known information related to the game, though I confess I'm too lazy to see if the Wikipedia article has gotten more accurate since I last saw it.

So as to why I'm making this post. I was re-reading that thing, when I got to this part, which made me sit up straight in my chair:

Ha, oh yeah! I'd forgotten about that. I wonder if anyone from the old team still has that lying about? I guess even if they did, Disney would be on them like sleaze on a Remi, but still, eff that Something Awful guy who got to see it!

Hold onto your hats, folks. "OzzieMonkey" in the comments reports that our sassy friends at Rock, Paper, Shotgun seem to know the next three LucasArts games that GOG will give a digital release. Behold what will arrive on the 27th:

- Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
- Star Wars: Starfighter
- Star Wars: Republic Commando

There was apparently a proper press release announcing GOG's latest LucasArts drops, by the way. This is supposed to continue "throughout 2015," so with any luck they'll accidentally include Outlaws or The Curse of Monkey Island at some point.

Source: Rock, Paper Shotgun

The material from the second episode doesn't start until one minute in. As always journey to Youtube if the video doesn't embed properly for you below.

Source: Youtube

As ever, Kotaku proves to be way behind the Mojo curve by pointing out the (not quite) existence of the cancelled LucasArts game Justice Unlimited. For those who don't know, it was the studio's ill-fated, late-nineties attempt to make a Diablo game, except with superheroes. Jackassery aside, two of the three bits of concept art in Kotaku's article are new to me, although it turns out that's just because they're from that Rogue Leaders book I never bought.

To show that we're grownups, here's our own, better scoop about Justice Limited as part of Mike Stemmle's recollection of the wacky stretch of his career between Afterlife and Escape from Monkey Island.

That comes from an interview Mike granted us for that big honkin' EMI retrospective. Oh dear, did I just flog our own content? How embarrassing.

Source: Kotaku

And they are:

- Star Wars: Empire at War (Gold Pack)
- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
- Star Wars: Rebellion (aka Star Wars: Supremacy)

Sorry I'm an asshole, but I'm sure enough of you are genuinely excited by these to balance it out.

Source: GOG.com

GOG has announced a second wave of six LucasArts games to be made available beginning this week. Yawn your way through the following selection!

• Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance
  
• Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Saga
  
• Star Wars: X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter
  
• Star Wars: Dark Forces
  
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II
  
  • Star Wars: Battlefront II

Because if there's one game that Earth's population has struggled to find at a decent price over the last fifteen years, it's KOTOR 2. Thank goodness our prayers have been answered.

Look, I get it. These are well regarded games, and they deserve to be re-released. But generally, you treat the guy who's in cardiac arrest before the guy whose foot fell asleep.

You ain't funny, GOG. Give us a better reason to wait next time, please. These reasons should feel free to be spelled exactly like Day of the Tentacle or Full Throttle.

Source: GOG.com

Once in a while, not often, but once in a while, Jason plays a game. And this time, he even reviewed it. Check out his thoughts on Game of Thrones episode 1: "Iron from Ice".

When we last posted about MunkyFun, the San Francisco mobile game developer founded by LucasArts veterans, longtime Telltale (and former LucasArts) art director Mai Nguyen had replaced Bill Tiller in that role at MunkyFun. She left MunkyFun last year to start her own company, Le Heart Design, which creates collectible mouse taxidermy. MunkyFun's LucasArts and Telltale alumni ranks continue to be replenished however, as earlier this month, Mike Stemmle has joined MunkyFun as a project leader.

It will be interesting to see what Mike Stemmle comes up with in that role, as the team is known for creating fun games for mobile platforms, such as last year's League of War, but they're not known for creating narrative experiences like we are used to from Mike Stemmle's projects. We'll keep an eye on them for sure, though. With Mike Stemmle at the helm, they might surprise us just yet.

Source: AlfredJ

Perhaps you already knew about this, in which case quit showing off, but about two weeks ago Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick launched a development diary for Thimbleweed Park, and they've been updating it fairly regularly. Might be something to keep an eye on.

Source: Thimbleweed Park Development D

Now we know for sure this is an actual game. The screenshots and videos featured on the site seem to be things you'd have already been exposed to, but it's pretty much all worth it for the paper mache version of the Double Fine logo. Unless that's old news too.

Bit of trivia: The site's only been up for hours, which means that it's roughly on par with the sum total of Mixnmojo's uptime since 1997. Thank you! Thank you!

¬¬

Source: Grim Fandango

The video speaks for itself. (Click the link if you don't find the video embedded below. Mojo ain't too reliable when it comes to video embeds, but we feel it gives us personality.)

Dear Lord, this looks wonderful.

And that is what one calls "link bait".

But! It's sorta true. Gamesutra tells us Connors is stepping down, and is being replaced by TTG co-founder, Kevin Bruner. There is also some talk about the company being kind of a… harsh… place to work these days, which doesn't come as a big surprise. The company has lost some high profile names lately. Grossman, Stemmle… The place just hasn't been the same since Jake left.

More interesting, perhaps, is that they will be "expending 'a lot of energy' working on original IP". That could be a good thing, right?

As for Connors, he will remain on board as an "executive advisor", which, if similar situations are anything to go by, pretty much means he'll be sitting at home, waiting for his non-compete clause to run out.

Good luck to all, from the ever positive Mojo!

Source: Gamesutra

ScummVM has just announced support for two new games in their daily builds, Zork Nemesis and Zork: Grand Inquisitor. In order to support these games in the next stable release, they need people to help them out by playing through them and reporting any bugs they find to their bug tracker so the ScummVM team can squash them. They also need people to submit screenshots for the games.

When you're done testing, don't forget to let the team know whether you could complete the game and post links to any bugs you submitted to their tracker in this post on the ScummVM forums.

Source: Kolzig

Good Old Games has Grim Fandango Remastered up for pre-order. You get some wallpaper, too, so don't try to be cute and think twice about this.

Source: GOG.com

Those who didn't back the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter at a tier high enough to get a boxed copy have a chance to get a retail version of Broken Age (although not the same one as the one on the Kickstarter, as that one is a Kickstarter exclusive). Nordic Games will be publishing Broken Age at retail in Europe and North America shortly after Act 2 is released online.

The Kickstarter boxed collector's edition will be arriving at some point after that, since it also includes the documentary, and that can't be mastered until the final episode of the documentary is released.

In other Double Fine news, they have started a new YouTube series with 2 Player Productions called Devs Play, where Double Fine developers play through and talk about games from time gone by, and sometimes are joined by the developers of those games. They've covered Aladdin and Lion King for Genesis, Mother, Earthbound, and Mother 3, and Gauntlet for the Nintendo DS so far. They'll be playing through The Legend of Zelda, Doom, and speed running through Psychonauts with a YouTube speedrunner who has found some techniques to speed through the game by way of glitches (and the Psychonauts team will be there to talk about the glitches, which should prove interesting).

Adventure Gamers has posted an informative interview with Dave Grossman, as interviewed by former Telltale PR person Emily Morganti. Dave talks about his time at LucasArts, leaving Telltale, joining Reactive Studios as chief creative officer on their interactive audio dramas, working with Bill Tiller on Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler, and hints at future projects.

Some of the most interesting points brought up in the interview include the fact that Brian Moriarty, the creator of Loom and project lead of the unreleased first version of The Dig is on the board at Reactive too, and the team is going to try to do a text adventure style audio drama at some point, with Dave hinting towards a Sherlock Holmes story and one based on Jekyll and Hyde. Another interesting tidbit is that Dave Grossman is going to be helping out with another game project that had a successful Kickstarter, but he can't talk about that yet. So, even though Dave is working from home now, 2015 certainly looks to be a busy year.

The SpaceVenture team finally posted an update with news about the space themed game by the Two Guys from Andromeda, the creators of Space Quest. They've hired Josh Mandel on as a writer. If you don't know who Josh Mandel is, he's honorary third guy of Andromeda, who co-directed Space Quest 6, as well as Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist, and most recently Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded and Fester Mudd: Curse of the Gold.

The bumps they have been having have been ironed out, as the main problems have been on the programming end, and that is going much more smoothly now. They are now on the final third of game development, and feel confident that the game is on track to be released some time in 2015.

While we were down, ResidualVM, the project that aims to support 3D adventure games on a wide range of modern computer platforms, received its latest stable release.

This release brings Myst III: Exile support, fixes some bugs in Grim Fandango, and adds game data verification on first launch (so that you'll know if your game data was copied correctly from your CDs). There are builds available for Windows, Linux and OS X.

In the unstable builds of ResidualVM, Escape from Monkey Island is also completable with a few glitches. The ResidualVM team is going to continue to work to get that game supported in 2015.