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About six hours from now, at 12 p.m. PST / 3 p.m. EST / 9 p.m. CET, the Xbox Developer Direct event will be streaming at the YouTube video embedded below. As you know, the broadcast will include the first look at the new Indiana Jones title by MachineGames (among about seventy other studios, it sounds like):

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Of course, for you sensible people without FOMO, you can always just wait for the highlights after the fact.

Source: Xbox YouTube Channel

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

(That’s all I got.)

Source: The Forums—Read them daily!

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It was an impressive trick on the part of the upcoming Indy game, getting itself announced prior to the fifth movie going before cameras and managing to stay a committed no-show all the way up to the present, on the other side of Dial of Destiny’s home video release.

But that is scheduled to change later this month, as Eurogamer reports:

Wolfenstein developer MachineGames will showcase more than "more than 10 minutes of game and developer insights" including the first gameplay trailer. Expect to hear details about when the game will be set, what its story will be about, and "how fans will actually play as Indy". (Using a video game controller? An actual whip?! The mind boggles.)

Bethesda announced it had an Indiana Jones game in the works all the way back in January 2021, and warned at the time that it would be some time before the project was given a full reveal. Now, that time is finally here. In the meantime, we did at least get confirmation via an FTC hearing that it'll be releasing exclusively on Xbox and PC.

It’s all part of the Xbox Developer Direct showcase, which “will be broadcast on 18th January at 8pm UK time - that's 3pm Eastern or midday Pacific.” We’ll be here to point you to that stream when the time comes. I mean, probably.

Source: Eurogamer

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Did you know that Michael Land composed The Secret of Monkey Island theme in fifteen minutes? Or that LeChuck’s theme was conceived at a urinal? These are just some of the crazy facts you’ll learn in the latest entry of the “Conversation” series:

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Almost three hours long, so buckle down!

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If you’re an avid Wireframe reader, this article should already be familiar to you. If not, get ready to dig into the many towns of the Monkey Island universe, from Secret to Return in a scholarly essay. An excerpt—and as this is The Year of “Escape from Monkey Island”, it seems like an appropriate example:

We wanted it to feel well-manicured and inviting. This is where all the ill-gotten pirate booty got laundered, and the banks, lawyers, etc. became a thriving society. While it looks bright, shiny, and happy, to Mike [Stemmle, co-director] and I, it was more of a cynical statement about ‘professional pirates’. We used images from tropical seaports and a lot of organic shapes and brighter colours. The idea wasn’t necessarily that it was an amazing paradise, but it wanted to look like one.

That’s from Sean Clark, speaking about Lucre Town. In fact, almost all the familiars are quoted in the article: Gilbert, Grossman, Fox, and so on and so forth. As far as Monkey Island architecture goes, it’s a must-read .

Author Konstantinos Dimopoulos might be familiar to some of you—he co-wrote Virtual Cities: An Atlas & Exploration of Video Game Cities which covered Grim Fandango’s Rubacava among other things. It got stellar reviews around these parts:

“DON’T BE SUCKED IN” — The CEO

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But Escape from Monkey Island’s 25th anniversary isn’t until next year, you cry, and right you are. What needs to be taken into consideration is Mojo’s track record with anniversaries, which is... less than stellar. In that sense, it only makes sense to start a year earlier, and when we finally hit the actual date, we may or may not match up. It’s all more or less logical.

So, to start it off, we have videos. Many, many videos.

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And if you don’t want Mojo’s fake(-ish) EMI trailer, you can spend your day comparing the PS2 cutscenes to the PC ones. Dig through all the EMI videos to find official trailers and who knows what else?! (And for those who are YouTube averse, we’re in the process of putting all of this up on Mojo proper.)

More to come! And if you followed us on Mastodon or Bluesky you would have seen most of these, as we often provide exclusive previews there.

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So, you’ve already downloaded DREAMM to play all those classic LEC games—that’s just the connoisseur you are. But, instead of going through Zak for the umpteenth time, you want to see something different. Something weirder. You want more.

Enter our collection of LucasArts demos.

During the nineties, there were a bunch of chunk-sized samples to try, ranging from the bizarre to pre-release bugfests. And we have collected them all for you to load into DREAMM. (Or, as it is, features editor elTee has—his Christmas bonus looks pretty sweet this year.)

Jedi Knight and Yoda Stories? They’re right there. That weird standalone Secret of Monkey Island? We got you covered. Outlaws? Grim Fandango in French? All there.

There were, of course, a million different demo bundles through the years, but seventy-one different picks should be enough to get you started. We even provided a handy little filter for a smoother search.

Run download to your heart’s content, if only to summon your inner elTee!

(Oh, we added demos for non-PC platforms, too. Give ’em a try in ScummVM, too!)

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By now you should recognize Cressup as the UK task force in this internationally bustling Interviewing Adventure Game Adjacent Humans For A Long Time genre. She has notched another great interview, this time with voice actor Bill Farmer. Best known generally as the voice of Goofy for Disney, Farmer is most treasured by us as the original voice of Sam in the multimedia debut of Steve Purcell’s characters, Sam & Max Hit the Road. It stands as the only published instance of Farmer voicing the character, though as we all know he was reprising his role in LucasArts’ ill-fated sequel before the assassin’s bullet found its mark.

Farmer discusses both of his Sam & Max experiences as well as his broader career in the enjoyable conversation, available in full below. We're above giving Cressup any grief over the misleading choice to put the Telltale/Skunkape version of Sam's model in her video's preview image, so that's why I'm not even gonna bring it up.

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Source: Cressup

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I don’t know how many times we have to stress that Laserschwert’s poster thread is basically the nexus of all that makes the internet esteemable -- a status aided by the fact that it’s pretty much the only example of it.

Why just this week, none other than legendary illustrator Ken Macklin decided to serve the cause by offering up three gorgeous pieces he did for Lucasfilm Games during the 80s. Behold some truly mindblowing, never-before-seen art for The Eidolon and Maniac Mansion, along with some context by Laser:

These are scanned from 35mm slides he made prior to sending them off to Lucasfilm, and while the resolution is very high, the quality isn't the best. Still, the Eidolon scan will work as a great source for a complete version of the art.

The Maniac Mansion artworks are so weird, though, especially since Ken stated these were commissioned by Lucasfilm AFTER he had already done the MM key artwork. Why further art uses these strange characters is unclear.

Weird, yes, but it makes them especially noteworthy that the Maniac Mansion pieces are artifacts of an earlier phase of the game’s conception, when Weird Ed was imagined as a far friendlier character and even the villainous meteor had a decidedly cuddlier demeanor. (Well, a demeanor period.) Naturally we’ve welcomed these images into our concept art gallery, where you can find some Gary Winnick sketches from that same trimester of the eventual classic’s incubating identity.

Source: The Forums

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As part of Grim Fandango's 25th Anniversary, DoubleFine put on a wonderful live concert of Peter McConnell's amazing soundtrack, and now you can watch it in the comfort of your own home. Just turn down the lights, get yourself a cocktail, and pretend you were there:

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And if you want to feel extra film noir vibes, there's a "Black & Bone" edition, too.

Thanks to TimeGentleman and Sopabuena for alerting us to this wonderful thing in the forums!

Source: The Forums

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Largely considered the best Sam & Max game by those who count, The Devil’s Playhouse is set for its remastered “spring“ release.

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And sweet it looks! Go wishlist the censored on Steam. The game will also be available for Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 4.

Addendum! There’s also a contest:

If you could make a Christmas gift for Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell, what would it be? This is the theme of Skunkape's first-ever "Oops, We Missed Halloween So Let's Do a Holiday Contest Instead" contest, launching today!

Steam has more.

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Those who follow Ron on Mastodon have likely seen a steady trickle of information for his upcoming RPG (more than likely named “A Little Something”). Recently, he solicited his followers’ favorite quests from other RPGs, a collection of which you can find on his blog. All this undoubtedly serves as inspiration for his new game.

Want to contribute and go down in history as someone who worked as Ron’s muse? Read the aforementioned post, then @ him with your ideas.

Tell him @mixnmojo sent you—we carry a lot of clout..

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Afterlife may not be something we (for whatever reason) talk much about here at Mojo, but child-of-Kotaku, Aftermath, has a lot to say about it. One Mike Stemmle, in particular, gets downright confessional:

At the time I built Afterlife, I was not a very religious guy. I clung to the last vestiges of my Roman Catholic upbringing, even though I increasingly found it (and most religions) to be very silly (if not downright dangerous) exercises. Even so, I still held on to the notion that something/one must be responsible for this beautiful universe. I mean, it's too damned cool to have come about by chance, right? So, when scribbling up a note for the Shak, I blurted out the classic bit about finding a watch on a beach, and knowing there had to be a watchmaker out there. I'm sure I thought it was very profound at the time, but the years have made me a mite more rigorous in assessing metaphorical wisdom. These days you'll find me comfortably on Team Atheist - sometimes obnoxiously so.

Go read.

Meanwhile, over at YouTube, Daniel Albu has yet another brief conversation, this time with Steve Purcell.

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Longtime fan site The Legend of Monkey Island is still busting out jams. To celebrate the 26th anniversary of The Curse of Monkey Island, they’ve published an ambitious new article detailing the differences between the game’s demo and the shipped final product. There are even some fresh quotes from Bill Tiller to give it that extra prestige. Read it and remind yourself that great Monkey Island content isn’t exclusively hosted on or by Mojo. Even though it's basically a rounding error.

Source: legendofmi.com

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It’s award season over at Apple again, and nominated for “Mac Game of the Year” is Return to Monkey Island. The game is up against ELEX II and Lies of P, which, let’s be honest, are fake, so consider this another win for ReMI. The official results will be released “later this month.”

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Daniel Albu’s interviews continue to deploy at a rapid clip, and his latest is with Mike Stemmle. On the Freelance Police front, the designer acknowledges that the source is “floating around” (oh really?), and as far as I know reveals for the first time that the Gytgo stood for Genial Yet Troubling Gaming Organism. It’s all but a taste of the full interview, which explores Stemmle’s whole thirty year plus career:

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We’re barreling headlong toward the 20th anniversary of Sam & Max: Freelance Police’s cancellation now, yet there always somehow seems to be a few drops more blood to squeeze out of the stone.

Karen Purdy, who worked as an environment artist on the game, was the source of the last bits of known media, through her online portfolio. Reader Emma T has alerted us to the fact that Purdy has since revamped said portfolio with some additional art from her LucasArts projects, including Sam & Max 2.

We’ve dutifully made both our screenshot gallery and preposterous feature-length Feature current in accordance with this development. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for our attempts to contextualize the latest additions.

Need more Freelance Police autopsying to bring your day to its fullest potential? Daniel Albu’s ongoing series of developer interviews, which you can always keep track of in the dedicated forum thread, has included a recent chat with Dan Connors. This timestamped link will drag the needle to where most of the Freelance Police talk is.

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Last we reported, Bill Tiller was putting together a demo for A Vampyre Story 2: A Bat’s Tale to pitch out to publishers in the hopes of restarting production. In a quick update, Bill says, “Still working on the AVS2 publisher demo, but it is rapidly winding up and looks fantastic! My team has done a tremendous job.” So, know that. While waiting, he encourages you to pre-order that pop-up board game he worked on, Shivers.

’Course, nobody was exactly expecting that A Vampyre Story 2 was imminent. On the other hand, Skunkape’s much-anticipated remaster of Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse had openly targeted a 2023 release, and December has traditionally been the release window for these. Yes, I’d say it’s high time that Jake guy explains himself. And so he has, in that globally recognized confessional that the guilty are always free to avail themselves of, the Mojo forums:

Season 3 has been a significantly more rude game to remaster, technically. It did things with the Telltale Tool that are basically unsupported in modern versions that use a more modern rendering pipeline. We have conscripted three ex-Telltale engine/graphics programmers to help bend the modern engine to our will, but it has taken a lot of annoying and uncertain experimentation.

So it’s coming, you just gotta wait a little longer. You can handle it. Heck, you probably won’t even be sobered up from all those no-holds-barred Grim Fandango 25th anniversary bacchanals (they’ve been sweeping the nation) by the time it hits the streets. I’m here to tell ya, the one my grandma hosted did not spare the hookah water in those coffin shooters.

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We’re a little late to acknowledging Dave Grossman’s tradition this year, but nevermind that and behold what the 21st century Picasso of pumpkin mistreatement hath wrought for 2023: “Eye Infection”.

Source: Phrenopolis

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Our fantastic friend, Double Fine (their words!), has thrown together a nice little look-back at Grim Fandango. Specifically, it dives into the fans’ memories of the game (which probably are foggy, seeing we’re basically past expiration at this point). Go read!

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