Ex-LucasArts employee Doug Smith shared a game and the story behind it on reddit.

He's been working nights and weekends on a game for his three year old daughter who likes trains and bugs, and decided to put it up on iTunes for $1.99 USD. Called ChuggaBugga, it's a game for children about a train full of bugs hauling four boxcars. Kids can poke the various interactive elements, and watch the bugs have fun on the items found on the various box cars.

Doug said he's encouraged by the support he's gotten from the game so far, and it has been a silver lining to his LucasArts troubles.

Telltale has made available another Poker Night 2 video. This one focuses on the various things you can unlock, from changing the look of The Inventory to various items for games like Borderlands 2 and Team Fortress 2.

Our favourite grumpy video game creator has written up a post about this possibility right over here.

Read it!

Update: Chuck Jordan, credited as a script writer and designer of Curse of Monkey Island (the real or fake Monkey Island 3 depending on your point of view), countered with a tweet:

And so it goes.

Update 2: Ron responded to the criticism by offering some clarification:

Our coverage of an upcoming three-minute video continues into month twelve with this latest update from Bill Tiller: The Kickstarter for A Vampyre Story: Year One is coming, guys. Potentially this month. And it needs your support in the absence of support from the puppet makers, which, just to offer a bit of general advice, you should be wary of trusting anyway.

I don't know, felt like a good headline. Here are Chuck Jordan's feelings on the closure of LucasArts from his blog. It's a pointed and honest reflection on LEC's legacy from an ex-employee's perspective that somewhat takes to task the gushing sentiments around the web. What do you think?

Saying that he hopes to have the awards for the AVS: Year One Kickstarter "set" this week, Bill reveals via photograph what one of them will be: a physical box for the game.

Judging by his referencing the CMI box's dimensions, it looks like we're in for a classic big box as opposed to the modern miniature flavor, a resort which is, needless to say, making me all sensitive beneath the skirt.

There's been lots of reports about LucasArt's demise, but here are a few you may have missed:

• The PA Report on the human side
• Former LucasArts employee Jesse Harlin posts a eulogy on Facebook
• A photo essay by Joel Aron, showing LucasArts staff on one of their final days
• A BBC News article on LucasArts' closure, focusing on The Secret of Monkey Island (thanks to Michael Smith for the tip)

I'm sure there's many more out there -- so if you know of any more good ones please post them in the comments.

Also, we're planning to make a LucasArts Memorial podcast. Please e-mail comments, thoughts, memories etc. to podcast [at] mixnmojo.com either as a sound file or a text message! If it's a sound file we will include it directly in the podcast. Thanks.

In the May issue of Game Informer (available now in their digital issue), the first screenshots of The Wolf Among Us have been revealed. The art design enhances the playable comic book feel of Telltale's The Walking Dead tenfold.

The issue also reveals more of the "Fables" that we'll be encountering in the game. There's the ones we already know: Bigby Wolf (the big bad wolf), who's the sheriff of Fabletown, and the person we'll be controlling, Mr. Toad (who is a carjacking thief, and who is able to keep himself and his family in human form to keep from getting sent to the farm), one of the three little pigs (named Colin, the one who built his house out of straw, is a professional mooch who lives on the farm with his cousins, but sneaks into the city since he's bored with farm life). There's also Ichabod Crane (deputy mayor of Fabletown for nearly 115 years), Snow White (the assistant to the deputy mayor of Fabletown) Beauty and the Beast (she's dependent on him (but is still said to have genuine care and concern for him), and he works two and a half jobs in order to keep up their lavish lifestyle now that they don't have servants), and Buffin (a talking, winged monkey from the land of Oz who is Fabletown's librarian, and prone to mischief).

There's some more information on how Telltale has evolved the gameplay from The Walking Dead as well. The action has improved. It will still be motivated by the game's narrative, and it will still be presented in a cinematic style, but players will have more control over the action (which in this game involve bigby throwing punches). And since Bigby is a Fable, the action will be more over the top than The Walking Dead since Bigby can take more punches than Lee ever could (and the amount of damage you take is shown in your appearance, and is noticed by the other characters in the game). There will still be quick time events (involving Bigby making a decision in the middle of a fight to decide the game's outcome). However, it seems the QTE's this time will be just the decision making ones and not the button pressing ones.

The relationship building in The Walking Dead will also be expanded in The Wolf Among Us, as it's said to contain a lot more of that, and there will be a powerful emotional connection to the characters like Telltale did with The Walking Dead.

As Telltale has said before, you'll be able to choose what decisions to make like The Walking Dead. The Wolf Among Us will also have the opportunity to choose when to go to different locations, making the events unfold in different ways. Two events will happen at the same time, and the other event will still unfold regardless of whether you've experienced it first-hand or not, giving the game an extra element of realism (and replay value).

Eurogamer managed to get their hands on Dropchord, the upcoming "rhythmic score action game" from the same people who brought you Kinect Party. The game is based off the Leap Motion Controller, which you can use without actually leaping. I'd tell the lazier among us to leap for joy at this revelation, but we're too lazy.

The article touches more on Leap than the actual game, but give it a read anyway, or watch a teaser for the game here.

Steam now has Telltale's Poker Night 2 up for pre-order for Mac and PC for $4.99 USD (and with a free copy of the original Poker Night, giftable to a friend if you already own it).

According to the Steam page, the game will be released on the 23rd of April. The game is also going to be coming out for XBLA on Xbox 360 and PSN on PlayStation 3, but no release dates for those platforms have yet been announced.

A lot of nostalgic sentiments about LucasArts have pervaded the web over the past few days, and perhaps we'll be acknowledging a few more of them, but you've really gotta read this gigantic and loving tribute by Gamasutra, devoted as it is entirely to the graphic adventure games, which I'm sure all of us would agree are the correct subset of the studio's catalog to center a proper eulogy around. Amidst the ongoing swirl of online LEC remembrances, it is the best piece to emerge so far.

The article is largely composed of quotes from folks throughout the industry, who recall the LEC adventures with relatable adoration and assert the influence they continue to have. Peter McConnell is among the voices, and the whole thing concludes with reflections by David Fox.

Absolutely essential Mojo reading, right here.

LucasArts Fans Starting To Lose Hope Of Ever Seeing 'Loom' Sequel

Raven Software expresses their grief in the best way possible.
Well, that's kind of neat! Grab Jedi Knight II here and Jedi Academy here.

Read the man reminisce.

It's just that his require more than 140 characters.

Well, you know they'll be coming all day. Figure we can collect the good ones as they are tweeted in one news post. Refresh furiously, we'll be adding more:

Read more...

Disney has shut down LucasArts and canceled any game in development.

We all saw this coming, but it's a bit sadder than I would like to admit.

Not so long ago, Hardcore Gaming 101 launched a terrific feature dedicated to Zombies Ate My Neighbors and its sequel, Ghoul Patrol. Because the two-part extravaganza is larded with quotes from Mike Ebert and Kalani Streicher (the games' respective project leaders), loads of great behind-the-scenes information is incorporated.

One such tidbit is that at one point LEC alumnus Dean Sharpe tried his darndest to get LEC to bless a GBA port of the original game. This heartfelt petition culminated in the predictable nothing at all, enabling LEC to dodge a dreaded Somebody Might Accidentally Still Like Us bullet.

Speaking of this franchise, do you know what's become of that Zombies Ate My Neighbors movie that was supposedly being written by this guy? No, I'm really asking you.

There's a new interview with Telltale CEO Dan Connors courtesy of Digital Trends, and you are encouraged to read it. Naturally, the tone is pretty upbeat considering the studio's soaring eagle status as of late, but this bit is liable to provoke one or two of you:

It certainly seems like Telltale wants the expectation that they're here to revive old adventure IP to be disposed of. Arguably, with the all-but-officially-announced cancellation of their King's Quest take, Tales of Monkey Island was their only true example of that (Sam & Max was the rejuvenation of a franchise as a whole, not specifically a PC graphic adventure) so Dan's comments don't signal the abandonment of roots some will surely insist they do.

In fact The Walking Dead was very much the culmination of an evolution you can cleary see from Out from Boneville on. Sure, it perfected a balance such that it resonated with players more so than any previous release, but anyone intimately familiar with the company's whole catalog would identify it as the latest phase of what has been a fairly natural evolution. Considering that evolution has almost always been in the direction of improvement, it's hard for me not to get stoked about the company's next projects regardless of my familiarity with the property.

I will say this though, the company's grand success is making the fact that Puzzle Agent remains their only entry in the non-licensing experiment more and more difficult to justify.

Something along those lines, at least.

Shacknews brings word Activision now wants to reboot King's Quest all by themselves.

We can only hope it'll be as good as Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. Thanks to reader Tom Sweeney for the news.

Update by Jason: Telltale confirms, making it official.