The International House of Mojo

Rock, Paper, Shotgun have gotten themselves an interview with Valve writer Erik Wolpaw, who it transpires actually worked for Double Fine not too long ago. Not only that, but he was the (a?) story/dialogue writer for Psychonauts alongside ol' Tim Schafer.

Although the majority of the interview is about Valve and their newly released Orange Box, he does talk about his experience at Double Fine for a few paragraphs. And that's good enough for a Mojo post, right? Of course it is.

"Anyway, the best thing about working with Tim was that I could completely trust his instincts. If I wrote something, and then Tim thought it wasn?t that strong, I didn?t have to waste any time agonizing over whether he was wrong because he was right. He?s like a big comedy safety net."

Read that interview.

... that today is Jake's birthday? Let's all wish him a good one.

Update by Gabez: It's also Halloween! Is it significant to Jake's birthday? Probably not. Anyway, have an annoying MIDI on us:

Source: Jake's Facebook

The Autumn Moon blog has been updated once more by Bill, and he has a few things to share with you on this Halloween day. Like:

• This AVS card by artist Jean Louis Sirios
  
• The promise that a second card will be showing up on the official site some time in the future
  
• Bill's submission to Double Fine's pumpkin contest (I daresay it's almost as good as Spaff's), and some general hyping of Br?tal Legend
  
• A status update on AVS's production as well as on AVS 2, which they'll begin working on in December!

Well, what are you waiting for? The candy doesn't come to you, that's the whole point of trick-or-treating.

Up on today's blog Telltale has posted a new gameplay video from Ice Station Santa when Sam and Max visit Santa's workshop for the first time. Telltale has also tossed up three music tracks from the episode, which has become a custom that meets with my approval.

One more week!

At Last - The Ultimate Epic Goliath Sam & Max Season One Review!

It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here. We take a look at the highs and lows of Sam & Max Season One in the biggest review Mojo has done since that last big review someone did. Can you read all the way until the end?

Thrill! To the multiple second opinions! Spill! To the definitive list of things that simply must happen in Season Two! Mill! To the startling negativity! Dare you read the Sam & Max Season One review? You may never come out!

LucasArts have just released this press release. Read and then come back.

The long and short of it is, despite now having been bought by EA and still being tied to SEGA for their Sonic RPG, LucasArts and BioWare are now working together on an "interactive entertainment product" that will be announced at a later date.

In my mind, this can only mean one of two possibilities - Knights of the Old Republic 3 or, possibly more likely, the long-rumoured KOTOR MMORPG. Either way, this is great news. Right?

Jim Ward (remember him?) had this to say about BioWare:

"LucasArts has a deep commitment to developing compelling stories and characters for the unique medium of interactive entertainment, and we have been searching for a developer that shares this value. We found this in BioWare.
Through our previous collaborations, we know that BioWare has an impressive ability to blend gripping stories with technological advancements, and we believe that our upcoming product will deliver an experience that will span the traditional boundaries of video game entertainment."

At least he mentioned videogames once. I mean, "interactive entertainment"?

Greg Zeschuk, president of Bioware, had this to say:

"The collaboration with LucasArts allows us to combine our passion for creating high quality and innovative experiences with those of a company dedicated to bringing only the finest games to market."

I wonder if he's played Star Wars: Bounty Hunter? Still, BioWare and LucasArts... we have a new hope on our hands here.

Source: LucasArts

Just to let you know: the redecorating on the main page is temporary and will be dismantled after Halloween.

Other holiday fun can be found at Double Fine and Telltale (though Telltale's competition is just about to end).

Warning! Do not stare at the orange wallpaper.

P.S. We all have spooky names on #monkey-island, and we're all chatting! Get on right now and meet Jake, Remi and the gang all chatting away to our bonny heart's content.

As he does every year, Dave Grossman has mutilated a pumpkin in a manner most unsavory to fulfill some sick, twisted need of his. Weep for his soul and check out the whole gallery while you're at it.

On the embarrassingly outdated Telltale news front, the company's latest blog post hosts a bunch of snapshots that the guys took when they went down to the "E for All" convention. Check out that Flint Paper poster! The blog also lists a couple of new previews for Season 2, and the one from The Inquirer has an episode 2 screenshot!

Okay, so maybe I'm leaping to my most wanted conclusion, but...

In case you don't know, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is out on November 9th for all platforms. It's the Wii version you should all be getting excited about though, and this new preview at GameSpot tells you why. Apparently Jonathan Smith of TT Games appeared at Nottingham's GameCity event alongside a number of Stormtroopers to promote the game.

However, what prompted the headline was this quote where Mr. Smith hinted at the possibility of more Lego Star Wars games:

"We've made games that encompass the six movies, but the Star Wars universe is so big, and there is lots of stuff that could be done, particularly in a Lego way."

So, Lego Republic Commando? Lego KOTOR? Lego Yoda Stories? You heard it here first!

For those of you determined to scrounge every little bit of information you can about it, IGN have posted a small preview of Sam & Max Season Two.

I don't think it spoils anything, but then again I haven't read it. I want to remain pure and unsullied thank you. No spoilers for me. Oh, there's a trailer? Well watching that can't hurt, can it? ... There's a robot? Aargh!

The Pumpkin Post have scribbled out a new Interview, this time with Will Holland, a student programmer working on A Vampyre Story. He has lots of interesting things to say about the game:

"Working on A Vampyre Story has been different from other projects because of the 2.5-d perspective. On the art side, it's an ideal situation for our team because we have a lot of talent in both 3-d character animation and the 2-d environments. For the programmers however, it's quite a pain! Always projecting from 3-d world coordinates to 2-d screen coordinates, tweaking strange perspective and scaling issues, or whatever. As Froderick says: "It's tough bein a 3D model in a 2D world". Concerned fans needn't fret though, this game's gonna look amazing, and we're gonna type til our fingers bleed and debug til our eyes pop out to make sure of that!"

Read it all here, and then drink a yummy glass of milk (?)

Personally I'm doubtful as to whether this means anything, but if a site as big as CVG jumps to this conclusion then we're duty-bound to report it. Even if there's a minimal chance it may be true, it's still a chance.

Since Br?tal Legend's official announcement on Double Fine's site their long awaited Projects Page also went up... with a little surprise. Under the fully-available Br?tal Legend project site is a banner for Psychonauts, but instead of being available as the game is it's merely 'Coming Soon'.

CVG have leapt to the conclusion that this might mean a new Psychonauts-based project in the works, if so most likely a port of the game for the DS, PSP or the Wii. We here at Mojo would love this to be true - more Psychonauts means more good in the world - but we're a bit skeptical of CVG's deduction. It's most likely just a Psychonauts-branded version of the site like the Br?tal Legend project page. Still, wouldn't it be great if it were true?

Update by Jason: As if it was really necessary, Tim Schafer debunked the rumors and confirmed that the "Coming Soon" image was simply for a new Psychonauts product page.

Telltale went to "E for All" (you know, that other new convention that's filling in the shoes of E3) and showed off some of Sam & Max's new season to eager attendees and press goons. While Telltale ran into a mite of trouble getting their photos from the convention uploaded, several previews from other sites are already popping up.

See! Some brief thoughts on the season by Wired, who've got a few details on episode 2 as well. View! This Preview/Interview by Aeropause. Collate! That textbook you're fixing to publish while you read a chat with Dan Connors by Ripten.

Preheat! Your oven for twenty minutes before cooking pizza.

Update: I forgot! About a video interview with Dan at Gametrailers.

Good news, everybody: The World of Monkey Island has turned ten years old! The International House of Mojo extends an electronic hand shake through cyber-ether to the site, despite us being a mere footnote in their history, or something.

Warm wishes to the site, and here's to another ten years.

Dalixam has promised us lots of exciting new features to hit our screens soon, and in the mean time we have this Paco Vink image to mull over. What could it mean?!

Check out the latest trailer for the DS version of Insecticide which has a good deal of new footage mixed in it. The end of the trailer also reveals that the DS version of the game is scheduled for a January 8th, 2008 release and shows off a box cover which, real or not, is pretty nice. And as the official site notes, you can now pre-order the DS version from Gamestop. I don't hate Insecticide coverage anymore!

Sierra has launched their Br?tal Legend page. Highlights include a higher res version of the trailer and a screenshots gallery, but it all rocks.

Update: Not to mention Double Fine itself has put up its own page!

Update plus update minus zero: As pointed out by Thunderpeel, Tim has written his thoughts on the matter up on the Double Fine news page, including the tidbit that you can pre-order the game here in an hour.

Update Six Six Six by The Tingler: Now available to pre-order from GameStop (hey, the 360 version might work on European consoles). Worth it for the T-Shirt... and what's this? Don't know how accurate GS's info is, but they've got the release date down as 11/03/08! That's only 5 months from now! Woo! ... Oh, wait, it's the stupid American way of writing dates, isn't it? So it's actually coming out 3rd November 2008. Which is a waaaay off and will undoubtedly slip. Sob.

You can head on over to Telltale's Sam & Max Season 2 page to check out their trailer for Ice Station Santa. Also gracing the net are some new screenshots from the episode, available for viewing at Adventure Gamers and other fine web sites. Gametap has decided to revamp their Season 2 web site and they've put up a trailer of their own, so load up your client or wait for the leak to see it.

Ice Station Santa is due out on November 8th (three weeks from today!) on Gametap and the day after for the world. Telltale hasn't start taking pre-orders yet but you gotta think it will be soon.

Piping hot and smelling of yeast, fresh from the Mojo bread ovens - that is to say, out from the forums ? comes news of The Exchange Student Episode 2.

I'd heard of this adventure game before, due to the good reception of Episode 1 ? but Mojo readers will take particular interest in The Exchange Student when they hear that Bill Eaken, LucasArts artist from the days of yore, created the backgrounds for the game using a magical device known as a "computer."

Episodes one and two are available for eight haypny and a silver sickle (or two pieces o' eight, in pirate money) from the web-source.

People looking for cheap adventure games made by very small independent teams should also see Wadjet Eye Games, headed by one Dave Gilbert, the festive congregation of Dave Grossman and Ron Gilbert.

It's worth noting that Graham Annable, the Telltale web-site cartoonist, has one of his videos featured on the main page of YouTübe. I didn't know that he made videos, but he does ? there?s a lot on there ? and if you like his web illustrations, it's well worth seeing his videos as well.

And it's not like there's anything else worth watching on Youtübe. Probably.

That's all.

Update: If you're worried this might be pulled down any minute now, you can download it from GameTrailers as of now.

"One Sunday when I was working, it was all quiet upstairs when I heard this huge bang that scared the? stuffing out of me! I jumped right out my seat and yelled, "That?s too loud!" I thought some guys were moving furniture around upstairs because that is what is sounded like. Anyway, it turned out that Leo was doing his show and was sitting on a big exercise ball and it popped, sending him crashing to floor while he was broadcasting on the air! And all his listeners heard me shout. I felt very embarrassed for being so scared..."

- From Yonder Interview

How did we miss this? This is like missing International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Last Saturday, October 13th, was International Monkey Island Music Day. Kotaku remembered, as did the founder of the feast Ron Gilbert, but Mojo forgot.

We promise we will never ever let you down ever again. Well, for at least a year anyway.

The Escapist online magazine has just posted a new interview with Tim Schafer. Unfortunately there isn't any mention of Br?tal Legend or indeed any game beyond Psychonauts, but Psychonauts is still an Excellent Game too remember? Here's a clip:

"During the pitching (and re-pitching) of Psychonauts, the word "creative" was oftentimes said as a slur. "People would just kinda be like, 'Oh, it's very creative.' And it really seemed like the more you could make your game seem more like something else or more derivative of something else, the more comfortable they would be with it."

It's only a short interview, but quite interesting. There's definitely info in there I didn't know about before. Check it out.

And if you enjoyed that, why not check The Escapist's resident pessimist Yahtzee's entertaining review of the Excellent Game, if you haven't already.

Interestingly, Tïm Schäfër still has not made an official announcement about Brütal Legend, hinting on his web-site that he isn't allowed to yet. This no doubt refers to some shady clause in the small-print of his publishing contract, and is therefore all part of

But no matter: we fans are allowed to talk about the game, even if Tim isn't ? and if you want to wax lyrical about the screenshots and design concept, please do so in tonight's #monkey-island chat on irc.gamesurge.net at 8pm GMT (connect using miRC)

The scans are here!

Check them out at the Double Fine forums. And then buy the magazine, if you can.

Does the game look good? Shit yes.

Details from the scans include:

Online multiplayer

Third person action adventure with an RPG flavour

One large world peppered with a variety of missions

Jack Black as Riggs the protagonist - and a sneeze of heavy metal rock stars playing other characters and contributing music

Story centers around Riggs in the Rock & Roll universe (rather like Halloween-land in The Nightmare Before Christmas, but centered on music) - and not a journey from heaven to hell as previously rumored.

Due for release on the PS3 and Xbox 360 - no word on a PC port.

Jake Rodkin confirmed as "Little Daddy" who follows Riggs around and offers helpful comments on game design. Remi Olsen has so far not been contacted with the offer of a role.

Source: black_sheep

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Brian Crecente from Kotaku was sent a mystery music record today that contained the following poem on its sleeve:

Since the beginning of time 'twas written in stone, that the mystery to The Age of Metal would surface from the unknown. As the recipient of the ancient tools within, you have the power to unlock this riddle with a simple spin.

Rock must run through your veins, else solving this puzzle will be met with head pains. With primeval secrets at your fingertips, you possess the gift to propagate the fidelity from your mortal lips.

Escape the clutches of convention and let yourself travel to another dimension. Find your destiny and protect your soul, but for now it is time to Rock 'N Roll."

Crecente urges readers to help him work out the lyrics in this video. I myself find them almost as hard to decipher as one of Dingy?s songs, but here goes:

"Oh yeah:
We are the sheath of black yeah
We explode the night year
To every moment of the night
Trip on us: let us twist and turn
The night gets divine
We are the sin of the shark yeah...
Let?s explode the ark yeah"

BUT ? and here's the ticket ? if you keep watching the video past the UPS lady, Crecente plays the record backwards and you can distinctly hear:

"Br?tal Legends Coming Soon"

Either that or: "Brandy Leeking on the moon." One thing we can be sure of is that it is Jack Black singing. This has been confirmed by our resident Rock expert, Remi Olsen, and is therefore scientific fact.

Update: IGN got sent one too although those lazy swines didn't get so far as bothering to record it so we could hear it or anything. Apparently though they checked with FedEx and the record & player was sent by Vivendi/Sierra, publishers of the new DF game...

Source: DeadKyle

Brutal what now? CSI is obviously where it's at!

If you were thinking of buying Telltale Game's latest Crime Scene Investigation adventure, don't. That is, don't until you've read our review.

And for the record that homeless man died after he left my house. Don't dig up my patio!!

If you know what's good for you.

One hundred dollars* to the first person who scans in the preview for us.

* money paid in Monkey Bucks^TM

Update by The Tingler: Ok, I'm getting worried I might have to eat my scepticism soon.

Source: Idle Thumbs forums

The International House of Mojo wishes THE MR TINGLER a very happy birthday and WONDERFUL RETURNS on this his twenty-fifth year of his anniversary of his birth.

Fireworks and celebrations are also sent to Dawn French, Young Indiana Jones, and Princess Luisa Maria of Belgium, Archduchess of Austria-Este.

First up is a podcast called The Bobby Blackwolf show, the latest episode of which contained an interview with Dave Grossman and Jonathan Sgro (Telltale's Technical Director) recorded at PAX. Give it a listen!

Next in line is a pretty great article by bit-tech.net called "How to write... an Adventure Game," which only naturally contains some input by Dave Grossman. So do that too.

Moving right along, there's another podcast with a Dave Grossman interview. He sure gets around! And you should follow.

Finally, Graham Annable's Dank the Caveman web comic received its latest update yesterday. Not sure where you were then, but we both know where you're going now.

Oh, and most importantly, LucasArts has shipped Stars Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron for the PSP and next week they'll be blessing store shelves with Thrillville: Off the Rails. Let the good times roll!

I know it's not strictly game related, but honestly, does anyone care when the subject is Indiana Jones? Well, it's sort of game-related, too.

You see, several different websites are reporting the confirmation that Steven Spielberg gave today that them pesky Russians will be replacing the Nazis in the upcoming Indy KOCS, aka Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Much like they did (as you remember, right?) in the very-good-well-I-liked-it-nuts-to-you-guys Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. This news has been pretty much guessed before, but this is the first time it's actually been confirmed by The Directing Beard himself.

Spielberg also suggests that The Producing Beard (for his own anonymity we'll refer to him as GL, and that's Mr. Star Wars and not Green Lantern) is once again causing trouble by trying to get Spielberg to start using digital cameras rather than film-based ones. Spielberg is holding out so far against his nagging spouse. Spielberg says that if it worked for directors before him, then it's good enough for Indy IV.

In other more exciting news, the Futurama movie trailer is now up on YouTube and is hilarious. What's that got to do with us? Well, um... Frank Welker does the voice of Nibbler and he played Megatron in the game version of Transformers which was made by Traveller's Tales who made Lego Star Wars. And he played some characters in Knights of the Old Republic 2. Look for god's sake, it's new Futurama, do I need a reason to be excited and start abusing my power here? Gimme a break guys!

Update: apparently those jerks in Fox can't take a joke, so the trailer's been pulled. Those jerks. Hey... is that a Fox Lawyer coming towards me rig-
Update2: Just managed to get away and find another YouTube link. Enjoy again!

This week's glorious MONKEY MEETING is well under way on #monkey-island (irc.gamesurge.net) but if you want to swim in the memories of last week's birthday chat, then by all means do so with a log of the event.

There's also a few peices of music that came to light last week. Here they are:

The MOST annoying midi ever (made by myself)

Monkey Island (and Remix ) - (Can anyone follow the lyrics to this? I can't understand a word - anyway, I believe Dingy made these and I definitely don't have permission to publish them, but ssh)

The Maniac Mansion TV theme! (And you thought you'd lost it forever)

And the best for last:

The #monkey-island song by Darth_Phenom (Lyrics)

Thanks to Zaarin for most of these songs!

Highlights of the log include Spaff being a massive racist:

[Spaff makes racist joke]
[22:02] <+Magrat> wahay!
[22:02] <@telarium> Wow.
[22:02] <+Spaff|TF2> BAD TASTE COMES
[22:02] <@Murray-Mint> Unexpected Racism!
01[22:02] <+Gabez> Hee
[22:02] <@telarium> Spaff is drunk again.

And also all the jokes about marrying SarahS (the result of which is that I'm ostensibly married to her on Facebook)



Update: Thanks a lot to Zaarin for posting the lyrics of the Dingy song in the comments!

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Fellow LucasArts Fan Network site Adventure Developers have a new feature up called "Just like Monkey Island," where freetime designer Deirdra Kiai describes how the Monkey Island games inspired her to write, animate, draw, design and dance. I think we can all testify to how those games inspired us to become the animators, artists and dancers that we are today. If you haven?t played Monkey Island, then download it today!

Also on the news is Haggis? excellent Vampyre Story blog, where he scooped an interview with Bill Von Tiller:

"One Sunday when I was working, it was all quiet upstairs when I heard this huge bang that scared the? stuffing out of me! I jumped right out my seat and yelled, "That?s too loud!" I thought some guys were moving furniture around upstairs because that is what is sounded like. Anyway, it turned out that Leo was doing his show and was sitting on a big exercise ball and it popped, sending him crashing to floor while he was broadcasting on the air! And all his listeners heard me shout. I felt very embarrassed for being so scared..."

Read the whole story here, with a brand new screenshot to boot.

To fill the void in your life before the second season of Sam & Max becomes available, how about listening to music from the first series? Or better yet, read The Tingler's review of the Sam & Max Season One Soundtrack instead!

I know what you're thinking. "Since when has Mojo ever done a music review?" Well, if we can do a poetry review I don't see why we can't have CD reviews too!

Update: Like what you read? Good, then help support your local musician by buying the soundtrack here today! Remember, if there isn't a Season Two soundtrack, I'm blaming you guys for not buying the first one!

Adventure Gamers has added a brand spankin' new interview with Bill Tiller who's preparing to unleash his beautiful looking graphic adventure on the world.

Well, we designed so much of the game and then the story became so big that we realized we are probably going to have to make three games to tell the whole story. The budget and the time we have are also much shorter than we had at LucasArts, so we have to do it that way. It isn't episodic like the Bone or Sam & Max games. I think A Vampyre Story is probably a good size, about Full Throttle size. And it'll feel more like how The Lord of the Rings had been divided up into three books, or like Star Wars. It's an epic story so it just makes more sense to tell it in three games.

Take a look for yourself.

Source: Adventure Gamers

What the hey? Awesome!

For those with a hazy memory, Justin Chin is the former LucasArts employee (best known for Jedi Knight/Dark Forces) who founded his own company, Infinite Machine, with some fellow Lucas vets around 2000. The company went bankrupt following the release of its first and last game, New Legends, taking the largely mysterious Sam & Max Xbox space game with it while it was still being conceptualized.

Now Chin is an Executive Producer at Telltale, and what could be more appropriate? Happy days indeed.

Think Lego Indiana Jones won't be playable until sometime next year?

Think again. Looks like we'll be whippin' Lego-style come 6th (US) & 9th (Europe) November as Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga has Lego Indy as an unlockable character! Check out GameTrailers' two movies for proof, here and here.

And we thought a whip would be no match for Droidekas...

John 'Log' Blythe, writer for UK gaming magazine PC Zone, got into an argument with a woman who it seems is "a bit of a character." He recorded it, and then a friend put it on their iPod. Whilst out jogging one morning, the argument came on in random shuffle mode ? and then afterwards the Monkey Island theme music.

Inspiration struck, and the resulting magic is this video, created by one "Raz" (no relation). As Simon Jeffery once said: "very, very very... funny."

Note: the original argument blog post and the video both contain strong language. Not to be viewed by anyone under the age of 25.

Source: Batsphinx