The International House of Mojo

As 2024 stumbles into 2025, Remi takes a look at the year that passed and also reveals the winner of our Double Fine Extravaganza.

Objectively, from a global perspective, 2024 was a pretty bad year, and the less said about that, the better. Within Mojo’s microcosm, though? I gotta say, it’s been a while since things looked quite as bright. The year might have been a slow-and-steady drip (which is more than what we had in, say, 2013), but within the context of the rest of the 2020s? It’s not a bad time to be alive here in Mojo’s warm, loving embrace. Pair recent games like Psychonauts 2 and Return to Monkey Island with the wide array we saw this year, from the latest Indy to a surprisingly well-made Monkey Island fan game, and there is little to complain about.

Hell, even Psychonauts 2 kept on giving, with a PsychOdyssey SteelBook and a new ninety-minute-long episode to go with it.

It seems likely that more is set to come from Double Fine very soon, at least if their socials are anything to go by. Some speculate that a Brütal Legend sequel is imminent, which I wouldn’t say no to, but it also looks like that is based on posts pertaining to the original’s fifteenth anniversary. Still, never say never – and do make sure to read Jason’s relitigation for more on the original’s rocky journey.

Further down the timeline, we have A Vampyre Story: A Bat’s Tale which was announced with pomp and circumstance:

In my mind, it might be a little too much too soon, seeing the game is two years out, but hey… it’s still a checkmark in the “good news” column.

And Ronzo’s much-talked-about RPG? A Little Something was unceremoniously put on ice with a different game scheduled for the next few months. With some luck, 2025 could kick off with a bang.

Home on the Range

Here on the homefront – Mojo proper that is – things are… Well, really not too different from 2023, 2013, or even 2003. We have, of course, self-hosted our site for a while, which has resulted in fewer prolonged downtimes, but fear not: The moment our Bluesky game started to pick up, some weird bug has prevented our posts from showing up in the timeline. Thanks, Bluesky, for keeping us firmly cemented in 2003! (While their premium-tier support works on fixing our issues, you can follow The SCUMM Bar’s Bluesky for Mojo updates. That’s right. That’s what we’re reduced to.)

MojoDB, meanwhile, is slowly becoming a “thing” – see the “Database” menu item in the nav bar – and the odds of us having a proper LEC+ database by 2029 seem… not good, but somewhat plausible. (Speaking of navigation, I also fixed our news section’s basic pagination. You’re welcome!)

Now, for those interested in facts and figures, our partners at Google have dug up some data for us:

The top referring sites are, for the most part, not overly surprising. MojoDB contains only sub-sections of Mojo Proper, and the two sites are really one. I doubt most even notice they’re on MojoDB when browsing trivia. And, as far as Double Fine goes, well, we’re rightfully placed as one of their eight “Fantastic Friends.” (The love is mutual!)

Frankly, the only real question mark is Tripod. Is Tripod still a thing? Are people going there regularly? Is there a huge Tripod community we’re not aware of? We could keep digging into it, but you know? I kind of like my headcanon. Keep it to yourself if there is not a gigantic Tripod following out there. Tripod, Angelfire, and Geocities, that was the good stuff when we came to be, the latter even hosting Spaff’s early incarnation of Mojo.

Over to the search queries: While I’d love to say the world is going crazy for our word puzzle, Mojole, there is, in fact, a Mojole region in No Man’s Sky. (I’m not linking to them because those bastards don’t need any further SEO.) I can only assume our Mojole, at best, causes confusion, if not outright disgust.

Moving on.

More than two years after its release, we’re still seeing a steady stream of ReMI traffic, and particularly our Cogg Island article attracts readers. At this point, we can safely say ReMI is here to stay in Monkey Island fans’ hearts and minds, deservedly so. It’s a great game.

“I’m selling these fine letter jackets?” I guess some of The Great Circle’s younger players came across a scene similar to this…

… and weren’t sure what to make of it. Luckily, we held the answer. Presumably, The Iron Phoenix searches came from people digging further into Indy’s less-than-illustrious video game history.

Finally, Zak? That we, in the year of our lord, 2024, see Zak McKracken right there at number four speaks volumes about Germany. Vielen Dank, Deutschland, für deine hits!

Next: Who won Mojo’s coveted “Game of the Year” award? And we reveal the winner of the Double Fine Extravaganza.