The International House of Mojo

If you’re interested in where Tim found some of his inspiration for Psychonauts, set aside twelve minutes and thirty-nine seconds…

… as that is how long that video is. Pay close attention, and you might find Mojo represented somewhere in there, too. 🤔

Oh, we support emojis now – which means they’ll probably go out of fashion soon – so feel free to go crazy in the comments. I’m fairly certain it’ll enrage Jason in one way or another. 🥳

One of the primary complaints (Footnote: Second to using ReMI as an abbreviation for Return to Monkey Island.) we routinely hear around here is that you want to log in and comment on news, but have forgotten your credentials. A problem that has plagued humanity since creation.

Well, fear not, Mojo loves you and Mojo brings solutions, plural.

First, we’ve joined 2015 and added magic-link logins. Type in your email address, receive a link, tap it, and, boom, you’re good to go.

Still the old-fashioned type who prefers usernames and passwords, while routinely forgetting their password? Reset it, just like you did in (conservatively) 2002.

This does, of course, require a Mojo account, so sign up if you haven’t already.

(Also note that this is all beta (at best), so breakage is not only expected, it’s all but set in stone.)

Did you miss the initial run of PsychOdyssey? Fear not, 2 Player Production, Double Fine, and Fangamer have teamed up for a new release.

Two differences from the original: This is not a Steelbook, nor is it numbered. That aside, the content is the same and should be well worth the $65 price tag.

Run and buy.

You’ve already heard the whole three-hour album last night (how about the 20-minute “Dark Dimensions” suite?), but now it’s time to exercise your inalienable right (Footnote: Once the incredibly reasonable asking price is paid, of course.) to play it again and again in optimal quality, whether your vendor of choice be Steam or Bandcamp (Footnote: ”Tonight” – Jake).

And for God’s sake, that new Steve Purcell art serving as the album cover is what’s known in street lingo as: a really good album cover. At last, the trilogy is complete:

Update! Bandcamp version is now live.

Twenty years ago today, The Excellent Game Psychonauts arrived on Xbox, and as previously indicated, Double Fine intends to observe the anniversary of their debut title with great pomp and circumstance. This won’t include anything too seismic, as they’re quick to clarify in a paragraph obviously meant to take the mickey out of any Remi-fueled misinformation campaigns:

It nevertheless sounds like there’s going to be a bunch of cool art shared at the very least. Already, the studio is circulating photographs of cool Psychonauts themed pastries from parties you were left out of, so be assured there’s nothing Spaff won’t stoop to in the quest to make this a celebration for the ages.

Source: Double Fine

As promised, Skunkape will be celebrating tomorrow’s debut of the Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse soundtrack album with a live “listening party” on their YouTube channel tonight. Tune in to the embedded YouTube stream below at 5pm PT / 8pm ET, and as a result you will be able tell people that you have both “been there” and “done that.” Note also your first glimpse of the brand new artwork by Steve Purcell that will serve as the album cover.

It’s been typical of Skunkape to follow up each of their Sam & Max remasters with a re-release of the season’s soundtrack album, itself a remaster and expansion of the original disc release Telltale put out in the olden days.

The Devil’s Playhouse is a little different though, because it didn’t actually get a soundtrack pressing in its day -- the casualty of a shift in merchandising policy (specifically, from a policy of not sucking) that happened abruptly enough that it interrupted Jared Emerson-Johnson’s work putting the album together.

With that in mind, Skunkape’s announcement today of the The Devil’s Playhouse OST release next Thursday should be treated, roughly speaking, as humanity's salvation.

Update! As pointed out by Jason, edition was not part of Scott’s original post. So, never mind. Nothing to see here. Other than what probably will be some sweet sweet Scott C art.

The Original Fake News:

Scott C – you know and love him from Psychonauts, Psychonauts 2, and… for god’s sake, you know him – has pre-announced that a Psychonauts 20th anniversary release is on its way. Unless I’ve missed something, this is actually new news, as I’m not seeing anything on Double Fine’s website or Bluesky.

Anyway, from Scott’s post:

I’m having some issues embedding the post, so go directly to his Instagram to see a video of the man’s penciling.

Razputin.net editor and CEO is already musing about the possibilities of (and I quote) “a remaster of the entire game in the *Psychonauts 2* engine,” which would, indeed, be awesome. (And probably unlikely.)

The anniversary edition is coming April 19th. More to come, I’m sure.

The Domino bricks keep falling after the “missing” Sea Monkey dialogue saga, and here’s one many of us have missed.

Over on Mastodon, Lars Sundström mentions that The Secret of Monkey Island wasn’t just going to be translated into Swedish – the work was fully done. And should you think that’s just hearsay – cue Spiffy close-up – this time, there’s actual proof.

(Your browser should translate the article for you, should you not know the dulcet tones of the Swedish language.)

There’s a bunch of interesting information in there. Guybrush Threepwood, for example, would be known as Kajbjörn Trahnved (no DPaint guy.brush brush reference in sight). The Secret of Monkey Island? Hemligheten om Apornas ö. If you haven’t already – or just feel like reminiscing about what could’ve been – go check it out.

During one of his (seemingly frequent) ScummVM-related dives into The Secret of Monkey Island, Erik Torbjorn made an interesting discovery: A set of dialogue lines were, because of a bug, never triggered when Guybrush enters the Sea Monkey’s hull. After some ScummVM hacking, he was able to insert the lines again to see what it would look like.

We did a quick dig into the Special Edition and, as tends to be the case, the lines were recorded but, again, never used. This is all a roundabout way to say: We took the screenshots from Erik Torbjorn, ripped the audio, and created this video.

That we in 2025 are still finding new stuff in The Secret of Monkey Island truly is sad fascinating. Good job, Erik Torbjorn!

A Few Updates (Apr 8th): First, Torbjorn posted the video of his actual playthrough, so check it out for the real deal.

He has also gotten some feedback from people who claim to have seen the lines within the game, probably right after Spiffy’s closeup.

And, Ron weighed in, saying there never was a coding error, but rather just a few cut lines.

This is, indeed, getting sweaty.

As expected, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will hit the PS5 next month, specifically on April 17th.

The game garnered a bunch of positive Xbox and PC reviews, most notably from Mojo, so check out the latest Indy caper this April if you already haven’t.

Until he let the domain expire, Wilmunder.com was the longstanding web presence of SCUMM Lord Aric Wilmunder. Today, the URL will finally work for you again…as somebody’s World of Warcraft site. That’s like a guy coming along and exhuming your loved one’s grave just so they could fill the hole with pog slammers instead.

Around ten years ago, Aric had started using his site to make the most constructive contribution to humanity since penicillin: uploading his irreplaceable treasure trove of LucasArts design documents. Fortunately, the stuff he did get around to posting seems to be preserved by snapshots, but he had so much more to offer that was meant to be on the way, like the Forge pitch documents (Footnote: Yes, there were apparently two separate ones.), a proposed Star Trek SCUMM game, and even a Maniac Mansion II that was not Day of the Tentacle, which he held up at one point for Daniel Albu during their last interview:

Aric, come back to us. Continue your noble work. Light a candle, rather than curse our darkness. ‘Cause I really wanna know how pissed the Meteor is.

Last evening, Huz benched himself in front of his television to enjoy a University Challenge that included a LucasArts round (Footnote: I think that’s what it’s called; I don’t get this British craziness.). And, of course, he recorded it for us.

“Mid,” I believe, is what the kids would call those attempts.

As posted on the forums, it looks like Ackley and Ahern – aka The Curse of Monkey Island leads – are cooking up a new adventure game. To quote Ackley’s Xwitter post:

Sounds like quite the thrill ride for Curse fans, though it’s probably some ways down the road. Still, imagine a world where it publishes alongside A Vampyre Story 2.

Much has been written and said about the sadly abandoned Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix from the mid-90s. In all that recorded history, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of Dave Grossman’s involvement.

Well, Daniel Albu has invited Dave for another round of Tech Talk, and it turns out that Dave was indeed briefly affiliated with – if not outright helming - Iron Phoenix during a transitional moment when an attempt was made to utilize FMV for the character animation, a gambit which you may remember Mike Levine speaking to Daniel about in a past interview. Anyway, the Iron Phoenix talk begins at 33:36, but why not enjoy the whole thing? There’s even a bit of Cavedog talk toward the end.

Source: Tech Talk

The A Vampyre Story: A Bat’s Tale team has been using the game’s Steam page to keep the faithful abreast of their progress on the long (Footnote: Move aside, Psychonauts 2. A new record is being set.)-awaited sequel. In their latest post, they offer a glimpse into the process of bringing Bill’s 2D illustrations into a 3D world, opening the door to such fancy effects as parallax scrolling and dynamic lighting/shadows.

Be sure to read the full update, which includes more animated GIF action.

You have undoubtedly heard of the catastrophic California wildfires and the toll they have taken on LA in particular. A whole host of disaster relief funds have been set up, and, not surprisingly, Double Fine has joined in on supporting them with a Double Fine Action Auction:

Signed Stacking dolls? Brütal Legend LP test pressing? “Psychonauts 2 Launch Party Assorted Tchotchkes?” Those are just a few of the items you can bid on. So, run over to the auction, support a good cause, and get some cool stuff while you’re at it.

Ron Gilbert has officially unveiled his new game today, called Death by Scrolling, a title decidedly not commentary on internet surfing habits. You may recognise it if you've seen the screenshots and gameplay videos he's been posting on Mastodon and (previously) Twitter. More details on its journey to realisation are in his blog post.

No platforms or details exist yet, although a different blog post (on text sizes) suggests it's "basically an action game" where "players shouldn’t get too deep into stat management for a character that is going to last a few minutes."

Death by Scrolling emerged after his "RPGTBD," an open world RPG made by three people which didn't have the resources to be fully realised, was put on ice last year.

More details as they come.