Wow, 2012. What a mix of unexpected and way-too-expected happenings. On one hand the world came together and named Walking Dead game of the year. Who could have seen that coming after that whole Universal fiasco? Then Mojo had its annual downtime. Of course. And just as we were about to publish our annual end of the year polls too. Whoops.
Take Double Fine's Kickstarter campaign. Here Tim and company defied marketplace realities by breaking all kinds of records and shooting past its $400,000 goal in a matter of hours. The final tally was close to three and a half million dollars, largely thanks to Mojo, where we doled out rewards like re-published Secret History articles and dramatic poetry readings. We treat you so fine!
At the same time, rumors of a Ronzo "Ron" Gilbert powered The Cave started swishing about, a game that has steadily made us more excited. The game is set to be released in January, kicking off a year that is sure to be a great one for Double Fine.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The first episode of The Walking Dead was released to glowing reviews at the end of April, not just from Mojo (after one of our short downtimes, would you believe?) but the media in general. Game of the Year awards from VGA, Eurogamer, Game Front, and so on and so forth. Is it any wonder Telltale stopped returning our calls?
In a sense, all these accolades did make our best of a lot simpler, and our downtime didn't really matter too much. The odds of any other game than The Walking Dead wandering off as game of the year would have been miniscule. It was just a great game, we all loved it, and with plenty of ex-Mojo-ers having worked on it, we can just say "you're welcome"! We're glad we could make that game for you.
(Yes, we're taking credit for both the Double Fine Kickstarter and The Walking Dead! That's what we do.)
But screw Double Fine and Telltale. LucasArts, too, were making games. Actually, strike "screw", and insert "fuck"; Star Wars 1313 is apparently so very, very mature we don't think we'll be able to handle it... And with LucasArts and its parents and siblings being sold to Disney, who knows what the future will hold for the (somewhat) venerable studio? Maybe they'll toss some crumbs to those of us who'd like to see their old, childish IPs in some form or other again. (Haha, no, we don't believe that either.)
Double Fine announced Middle Manager of Justice toward the end of August. Had it not been for our downtime -- are you spotting a theme here? -- we would have reviewed it too, but suffices to say: Download this game if you have an iPad. It's free -- minus the (truly) optional in-game micro-payments -- and it's a lot of fun. 2012 might have been the year of Telltale and The Walking Dead, but it's hard to beat Middle Manager of Justice for casual, 90's-style fun. I'm sure we'll review it... you know... sometime...
Really, though: 2012 kind of was a fun year, particularly when you look back at 2011.
The aforementioned games aside, we could even enjoy a couple of Double Fine Kinect party titles, the first good Star Wars game in a while -- it was an Angry Birds title, but tomato/tomat-oh -- and ResidualVM even reached a point where we could properly replay Grim Fandango.
2013 looks like it could be even brighter. We're mere days away from being able to play The Cave. Bill Tiller might just finally make his Vampyre Story Kickstarter go live. Telltale has been teasing us with Fables.
Then there's Mojo. Good old Mojo which turned fifteen this year, and is hopping around on its virtual walker. We're hearing mumblings about the return of podcasts -- eT is finally coming down after a year of uppers and downers -- and we might just finish all the sections, who knows? Maybe a few more surprises will come jumping at you too?
But here's to the year that flew past us. It was a good one, and 2013 should be even better. Pray for Mojo, and remember... Mojo loves you. ;-*