The International House of Mojo

Seeing as your life quite properly consists of watching long-form video interviews with occasional interruptions to touch grass in the form of Amiga Monkey Island playthroughs (Footnote: Such allusions constitute a practice known as “Remi-baiting” on the street.) you’ll be only too happy to learn that Steve Purcell was the latest guest on Pencil to Pencil, a web series in which comic artists interview comic artists.

Purcell can trace a decent line and all, but personally I’m awaiting an interview with the visionary behind MojoComics himself, Gabez. Maybe they don’t want to frontload the obvious guests.

Special thanks to Jake for taking time out of not inviting us to Skunkape events to give us a heads up on this one.

For PC and Xbox, that is. Despite speculation that this could be a Microsoft exclusive, a Playstation version is promised for Spring 2025. Celebrate the release date announcement with this new trailer:

Source: Bethesda Softworks

And The Devil’s Playhouse keeps on rolling, this time with some updates to Benzo’s Quick & Easy software. Specifically, Telltale Explorer, Music Extractor and Speech Extractor.

Putting on his patented Mojo Cynic hat, the post caps off with, “This is a slightly bittersweet update as Devil’s Playhouse will probably be the last game ever released using the old Telltale engine.” I mean, OK, that is probably true, but one can always hope that more is on the horizon.

… we have the choice to cry into the pillow over getting old or celebrate a stellar game. And, since we finished the former, you can now reap the benefits from the latter: Enjoy yourself with these newly unearthed 2009 SCUMM Bar reviews of Tales of Monkey Island.

OK, so not the grandest of gestures, but we probably will do more, maybe. Because the game truly deserves it. Check out the Mojo review, too.

Fifteen years, seriously…

Last month saw another welcome entry in the “Lucasfilm Games Rewind” series over in the blog section of Lucasfilm.com, this one being a tribute to Loom.

It’s indeed a nice little writeup on the 1990 classic, but the irony of its devout tone might be a bit too rich for some to digest, considering that Lucasfilm only offers the VGA version of the game - drastically re-written compared to the EGA original, the artwork for which is a high water mark of the 16 color era - through Steam and GOG. It also happens to be a version of the game loathed by creator Brian Moriarty, who is solicitously quoted throughout the piece.

But some things in life just must be accepted, and we should all humble ourselves to the reality that this issue is literally impossible to address.

Source: Lucasfilm.com

Release day has come and gone, and whether you binged your way through Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse: Remastered or you’re making a point of savoring it (or you’re merely employed), the game is pretty much the only purpose your life serves at the moment. And rightly so.

While Remi’s review is really the only one you need to consider, I guess we should point out that critics everywhere are taking the necessary steps to not make fools of themselves by aggressively loving the game. Meanwhile, Skunkape has published its traditional Steam post that goes deep into exactly what they changed in their fastidious remastering efforts. Some of it May Surprise You.

Additionally, they assure that the usual sack of archival content, along with the soundtrack release you’ve all been awaiting since, oh, let’s say 2010, is forthcoming. Where the former is concerned, followers of Skunkape’s social media presence have already gotten a taste, and quite the nourishing one at that for proper connoisseurs of vintage web announcement ephemera:

Speaking of social media, I was happy to see that Chuck Jordan, whose last big contribution (his greatest to adventure games, if I might suggest?) at Telltale was The Devil's Playhouse, registered his thoughts for the occasion:

The three-years-in-the-making revamp of Telltale’s masterpiece (Footnote: Which, not to mention, marks the triumphant conclusion of a damn near five-year saga to remaster the trilogy) is what is termed in esoteric Mixnmojo parlance A Big Deal, and we can naturally be expected to keep squeezing juice out of it for weeks years an appropriate and judicious length of time to come. So get ready to relish every second of it.

They said it couldn’t be done and they were mostly right. But, this one time, you get a review on time: Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered, right here, right now.

Do we like the game? We do! And so will you, because you presumably don’t suck. Go read, just to whet your appetite.

Got your plans set for the weekend? Cancel them, as your next few days will be spent traversing Mojo’s recently resurfaced podcast archive. Forty-two nuggets of gold from 2008 through 2019.

If you follow MojoCast in your favorite podcast software, you already have the updated feed, including a dozen episodes that were, until now, lost to time. And you can, of course, find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Podcast Index, through RSS, and so on. It’s even on YouTube if that’s your jam.

As for new podcasts? You got 20-odd hours to go through as it is, stop bothering me until you’ve listened to them all. >:

You’ve read our article on the subject, sure, but as you’ve confessed to many a psychiatrist, you’ll never truly know a night’s sleep until you can hear Aric Wilmunder talk about Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix – that’s the would-be SCUMM Indy game planned after Fate of Atlantis – for four-and-a-half hours.

Well, Daniel Albu's got you covered in his latest upload. Eat well:

Source: Tech Talk with Daniel Albu

Our favourite Lucasarts game emulator DREAMM has reached another milestone. Earlier this week Aaron Giles released DREAMM 3 further cementing his place in the Mojo pantheon. (Footnote: other members include DJG and whoever made the cookchase midi)

This version adds support for a bunch more games, supports add on packs and adds an excellent CRT filter that adapts and changes to suit the video mode of the game you're playing. There's much more of course and full details can be found in the readme.

Grab it here.

Source: Our forums

That Double Fine’s PsychOdyssey was a goddamn classic goes without saying—a raw 30+ episode journey through Psychonauts 2’s development, free of charge. And now the latter can be rectified, as LRG has launched a Blu-ray SteelBook set for a cool $75.

The 2,000-copy limited run includes:

• Double Fine PsychOdyssey 33-Episode Series in 1080p HD* on 6 Blu-ray Discs

• SteelBook® Packaging with Transparent Slipcover

• Digipak with 2 Bonus Blu-ray Discs of Archival and Previously Unreleased Material

• 80-page Color Perfect Bound Behind-the-Scenes Booklet

• Individually Numbered Limited Edition Rigid Slipcase

• All Discs are Region Free and include English Subtitles

Not bad. And what’s this? A new hour-and-a-half-long episode up on the 'tube?

I haven’t watched it yet, but by all accounts, it’s another great view.

LucasArts soundtracks: You love them, you listen to them, and Mojo has hosted an unseemly amount of them over the years. Some, like the straight rip of The Secret of Monkey Island CD-ROM, are classics in their own right, but the real gems are the ones painstakingly mixed and/or recorded by sites like Highland Productions and Soundtrack Island (RIP (for now?)). And so, we’re trying to collect both types of soundtracks and make them accessible through our new YouTube list: The LucasArts+ Soundtrack Collection.

We’ve only put up fourteen videos so far, but the number should slowly but surely rise (unless another shiny object is dangled in front of us). And we hope some small details will make these soundtracks stand out just a little bit. For example, we’re trying to gather proper credits for the compositions—who wrote what for Escape from Monkey Island? We got a scoop of the scoop. On the flip side, who created those lovely MT-32 recordings of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge and Sam & Max Hit the Road? Mojo’s very own server admin: Zaarin! (Seriously, those Woodtick synth pads are true chef’s kisses.) To top it off, we’ve tried to up the nostalgia factor for at least some of the albums by adding screenshots and concept art for the various tracks.

It’s all a work in progress. But it’s a start.

Do you have any information pertinent to any of the albums? Credits? Anything? Sound off. We’re agile around these parts.

Now go browse the collection.

“The soundtrack uploads on Youtube are quality work. I really like the diverse mixes, and every thumbnail design” —Marius, giving his stamp of approval.

We’re just a tick behind schedule on this—what’s a year or four amongst friends?—but MojoDB is starting to come together. Sort of. At least enough so we can give you, our privileged core readership, an exclusive preview of the MojoDB Trivia section. Enjoy a mix of ancient content from our current not-at-all-outdated trivia section as well as gems from the excellent SCUMM Bar. Hey, it’s a bit more readable than what we currently have, at least. And you can rediscover gems like this—Raz appearing in Alice: Madness Returns.

This is all to whet your appetite and expect practically everything to change as we move along. But, for now, enjoy our new Trivia section—just another bespoke service from your friends at Mojo.

Who reads anymore, right? Luckily, RETURN Magazin's latest issue is packed with glorious screenshots and custom character art from classic point-and-click adventure games. This special edition, touting no less than 154 pages, dives deep into the golden era of adventure gaming, featuring per-game-stylized articles, reviews, and retrospectives on iconic titles that shaped the genre.

You can expect lots of games covered here, including the Monkey Islands, Indiana Jones 3 and 4, Full Throttle and the others. And for the point-and-click connoisseur, feast your eyes on more exotic titles of the era such as Gabriel Knight and Phantasmagoria. To get a sneak peek, check out the review flip-through video below!

Reading in German might be a challenge for some, but nostalgia is universal and pricing is modest!

Sure, he might have pointedly kept Mojo out of the loop when it came to that furtive GDC showing back in April, and you’re right to challenge the morality of that, but the fact is, Jake (Footnote: And the rest of Skunkape Games, presumably) looks to have achieved something pretty darned special with Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse: Remastered: The Omen II, so I say why let his pettiness dominate the discussion?

We’ve got ourselves a release date of August 14th , and that’ll be a simultaneous PC, Switch, Xbox and Playstation launch. You probably wouldn’t be wrong to keep your eye on the official site for more. One assumes that, as with the other seasons, Skunkape will eventually prepare an album release, and in so doing, a historical wrong would be righted. I’ll let our 2021 interview with Bay Area Sound do the explaining for me:

Physical or no, the arrival of an official soundtrack of any persuasion would be redemption. The gears of justice turn slowly, my friends, but oh do they turn. (Footnote: Well, except in the case of Thrik’s unbelievably brazen LFN embezzlement scandal, but you can’t expect cosmic judgment to score a perfect bowl.) Now that the third, final, and best of Telltale’s Sam & Max seasons (and/or entire damned library) has been tarted up for the ball and will soon be in your grubby hands, the question remains: What does the future hold for Skunkape? And would they bother telling us if they knew? You’d hate for them to put themselves out.

Source: Skunkape

I mean...

Still, we always support Loom love, so we salute you, Eurogamer.

Image Credit: The Point and Click Store.

Source: Eurogamer