Bill has published a holiday update on the Duke Grabowski Kickstarter page, unveiling the title ("Debonair Corsair") and the status of Episode 2. Hey, I'm just glad it's still happening.
There's more, like a peek at one of the backgrounds and a status on the remaining backer rewards, but why listen to my descriptions of what you can live yourself.
Source: Kickstarter
You probably remember watching Brian Moriarty's superb Loom post-mortem which debuted at GDC 2015. If you haven't seen it, you're encouraged to do so. At the end, Moriarty threw out the names of a few studios (including Double Fine and Telltale) he considered ideal collaborators for a Loom sequel, essentially extending an invitation to them to get him on the horn.
Moriarty has given his talk a few more times since, including at an expo in Argentina this past March. At the end of that talk, he mentioned that some discussions took place with some of those studios. When pressed for details, he offered this. Watch it before proceeding.
I'm dubious of the claim that Double Fine had specifically optioned Loom along with the Tim Schafer relevant IPs, and more so of the idea that Double Fine ever actually committed resources toward a Loom project before learning that this supposed option had expired. And if Brian's got the facts right, and Disney's claiming someone else has an exclusive on Loom, who the hell could it possibly be? Of the precious few studios likely to be interested in the property, I can't think of one that would wish to shut Moriarty out. Sounds to me like someone's getting the runaround here, or maybe there's just some miscommunication.
Moriarty also gets probed a little bit about The Dig, but the Q&A - the online version, anyway - gets suspiciously interrupted just before he can detail how his version would have ended. Can't wait to hear ATM's take on this and how it might fit in with your post-war commie conspiracy.
Update: Mild correction. It seems the Argentina talk actually happened in late 2015, rather than this year.
Source: Youtube
Why can't you people make content like this?
ATMachine has reappeared in order to publish his career best - a deeply researched, legacy-defining thesis that Guybrush Threepwood is in fact a woman in men's clothes.
Source: ATM's site
It was almost a year ago that Full Throttle Remastered was announced, and since then we've known we could look forward to a developer commentary just as Day of the Tentacle had.
Well apparently that commentary was recorded this past week. Check out the photo Double Fine posted on Facebook:
Hopefully media from the game is soon to follow.
Source: Facebook
This release brings support for six new games: Myst, Myst: Masterpiece Edition, U.F.O.s (also known as Gnap), and Sierra's Hi-Res adventure games #0: Mission Asteroid, #1: Mystery House, and #2: The Wizard and the Princess.
There's also been a lot of bugfixes for Sierra's SCI games, the addition of Hercules rendering and font for the AGI games, an enhanced Sherlock games experience, and the addition of AmiUpdate on the Amiga port.
I debated mentioning this, but no mortal could resist. You all remember Bad Brain Entertainment, the German-based adventure studio that sprang from nowhere in 2004? It produced zero games but riled up a lot of adventure fans, first by claiming it would finance A Vampyre Story (it couldn't), and then by intimating that it would purchase and finish Sam & Max 2 (it couldn't).
Jason Some said the whole debacle was just a sleazy tactic for an opportunistic start-up to get publicity in the absence of a track record, while others assert the infant studio meant well and simply got carried away by enthusiasm. One thing's for sure, the young brain behind Bad Brain, Wolfgang Kierdorf, became an instant celebrity in the Mojo culture (though to be fair, news was slow at the time), and I think most of us have a special place in our hearts for Bad Brain even today.
But wait! You might recall that Bad Brain's suspiciously large slate of planned games included more than AVS and Sam & Max. Another was The Whispered Word, which ultimately escaped Kierdorf and wound up safely published by another studio in 2009. Then there was The Orgastic 4, an R-rated spin on The A-Team with animals. It was roundly mocked at the time.
Well who's laughing now? Bad Brain and The Orgastic 4 are back, and Adventure Gamers has a preview. Sure, the team is quick to concede that "funding for the game isn't resolved yet," but quit getting hung up on details. Here's to ten more years of Kierdorf, whom in all seriousness we wish nothing but success.
Source: Adventure Gamers
Finished Duke Grabowski and looking for more? Steam is selling Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island at 90% off right now. The deal lasts for another 42 hours. Don't be ridiculous.
Source: Steam
Avast! Two years ago it was but a humble Kickstarter pitch, and today it is a real life computer game. See, not all video game Kickstarters are scams just because ours will be! (There's nothing in the pipeline, but with Remi around it's a foregone conclusion.)
Backers received their Steam keys yesterday, but the rest of you can get it now for a measly $6.99. There is no reason to wait for my review, which is nevertheless coming shortly. Now go forth and help ensure the subsequent episodes get finished.
Source: Steam
We've been a bit laggard in our Thimbleweed Park coverage, so here's a preview of the game by the good and qualified folks at Destructoid. Their time with the game exposed at least one Maniac Mansion reference, so let's go ahead and raise our expectations. January is closing in!
And don't forget to check out the new month old trailer centered around the character of Dolores. Because we certainly didn't forget:
Source: Destructoid
Right before a major release they do a public testing phase for new and improved games, which helps them iron out any remaining bugs. This testing cycle includes two new games: Myst (and Myst: Masterpiece Edition) and U.F.O.s (also known as Gnap). There also have been a lot of improvements in the SCI engine as of late, so they are also testing Conquests of the Longbow, Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, King's Quest V, King's Quest VI, Quest for Glory 1 VGA, Quest for Glory 3, Space Quest 1 VGA, and Space Quest 4. Other games that have seen recent improvements and are undergoing testing include Beneath a Steel Sky, the Commodore-64 version of Maniac Mansion, Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo, and Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel.
So, if you have any of those games, play them through in a daily build of ScummVM on your platform of choice, and report any bugs you find at the new and improved ScummVM bug tracker. Then tell the team about your experience, and any bugs you filed (or if you didn't spot any bugs at all) in this thread on the ScummVM forum.
Read the press release, if that's your thing, but the point is Bill's newest game is finally upon us. I'm also noticing that some new screenshots have popped up in a few places, so do check those out.
I'll have a review of the first episode in as few as seventeen months, guaranteed.
Source: Gamasutra
Josh "Cheeseness" Bush, the man behind the recent port of Double Fine's Day of the Tentacle Remastered to Linux, has posted an excellent retrospective on his experience in porting the game. He has also shared the sourcecode of the Coming Soon app that was live on Steam before the Linux port was released.
Be sure to check it out, if you're a fan of Day of the Tentacle (who here isn't?), as it's quite an informative and interesting read.
Always nice to see this game get some exposure outside of this site, with its global rank of 918,640.
The preview is positive, although I must politely disagree with HardcoreGamer's memory of The Curse of Monkey Island as a "3D game." They also note that we still don't know for sure how many episodes Duke Grabowski will consist of:
The game is poised to be episodic, with the potential for three to five episodes. Why is there a range of chapters? Well, the team obviously would love to bring Duke’s tale to completion, but they simply do not know for certain how much interest there will be in the game post-launch. Right now Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler Episode 1 is prepping for launch this fall, and Episode 2 should follow shortly thereafter. Beyond that, though, Duke’s fate is in the hands of players. If a fanbase appears around the series then we’ll be sure to see how many more episodes appear down the line.
Source: HardcoreGamer
Playing catch-up in the aftermath of the Iron Phoenix madness...Aric Wilmunder made a few other uploads a few days ago. The new design docs are:
- Rebel AssaultIt looks like he also meant to make Shadows of the Empire available, but that one doesn't appear to be selectable yet. Anyway, find the above and all the rest on Aric's site, as always.
Source: Aric's World
It's a terrific listen courtesy of the Dev Game Club podcast. Day of the Tentacle is the primary subject, but a broader discussion about adventure games emerges.
What makes the interview particularly worthwhile is that the hosts are Brett Douville and Tim Longo, who worked at LucasArts around the turn of the century, when a developer's assignment was pretty much guaranteed to be a Star Wars title. It's interesting to hear the different perspectives from the four alumni who were involved in different eras and concentrations of the studio. More crucially, Jake gets namechecked.
Source: Dev Game Club
Here at Mojo, we’ve always been particularly interested in the near-misses, the might-have-beens, the ones that didn’t make it. After all, we cheekily referred to all the released LucasArts adventure games as “Secret History,” so you can imagine how piqued the cancelled games must get us. And the loss of Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, the would-be follow-up to the seminal Fate of Atlantis, probably registers second only to Sam & Max 2 on the Gnashing-Of-Teeth-O-Meter.
The game isn’t completely unknown, thanks to a comic adaptation, a few stray details and a much-circulated Anson Jew animation of Hitler’s face blowing up. But what this doomed title always lacked in my eyes was a definitive chronicle. And if Mojo wasn't going to do it, who the heck would?
Thus I reached out to all members of the team who were willing to share their memories (oh, and design documents) of the game, from its conception to its collapse. I do believe you’ll find the big honking article I pieced together from the results of minor interest.
Huge thanks go to Aric Wilmunder, who unearthed the materials that made this article possible and offered to time their release with our publication. Remi, as always, bailed me out with the header image. Enjoy!
That and more is revealed as part of the latest update on the game's progress from Bill. Sound like they're wrapping up on the first episode.
I have confused feelings about this, since I was rather hoping Pedro would be invited back to do the new music, in keeping with tradition. But who the hell can complain about Jared doing the soundtrack to anything? Sounds like some of Pedro's music from Ghost Pirates - which Duke Grabowski is technically a spinoff of - will be reprised to complement Jared's original work.
Source: Kickstarter
Day of the Tentacle Remastered is now available on Linux, thanks to the porting efforts of J Bush Productions. It's now live on Steam and the Humble Store.
