The International House of Mojo

The folks behind Kotaku's Split Screen podcast paid a visit to Double Fine's studio to gab with Tim about the remaster of Day of the Tentacle (reminder: March 22nd!) and various other things Double Fine. A text excerpt is available, if you're ridiculous. If you're not, go listen to the hour-long conversation.

Toward the end Tim gets asked a question many of us had, which is whether Double Fine has plans to pursue additional remasters after Full Throttle. His take is that the other LEC adventures should only get restored by their respective project leaders. But since Double Fine has established the all-important relationship with Disney, I'm thinking any Moriarty or Fox or Clark or Stemmle or Ackley or Ahern who might be interested may want to start by reaching out to the two-headed baby. Won't you, guys? For Mojo?

Source: Kotaku

ScummVM, the project that allows multiple point and click adventure games to be played on modern (and some not so modern) architectures, has been updated to 1.8.0. New in this release is support for ten new games:

• Amazon: Guardians of Eden
• Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity
• Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars
• Labyrinth of Time
• Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender
• Sfinx
• The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo
• The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel
• Zork: Grand Inquisitor
• Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands

Additionally, there are new ports for GCW-Zero and Raspberry Pi. The graphics subsystem for the Sierra AGI engine has been overhauled, and the SCUMM engine has also received some love. The original Maniac Mansion walking code for the V0 and V1 version of the game has been implemented, Maniac Mansion can now be played from within Day of the Tentacle, and lip sync animation has been improved in later Humongous Entertainment games.

There's a whole lot more new with this release, as it's been a long time coming, so head over to the ScummVM site and give it a spin.

You can now pre-order Day of the Tentacle Remastered for Windows from GOG.com at the pre-order price of 10% off its regular rate of $15. It's also going to be released for Mac and Linux, but this isn't yet reflected in the GOG game info.

It's scheduled to be released on March 22, 2016. It will be released for PlayStation 4 and Vita as well.

USgamer has published a big heaving cover story on Day of the Tentacle ahead of the game's special edition, due for release sometime this month. The article is essentially a giant interview with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman about the production of the original game as well as the effort of restoring the old assets:

Sensing correctly that we can never have enough DOTT retrospectives, USgamer supplemented that article with another sizable one about the game's artwork with Peter Chan and Larry Ahern, and a third about the music with Peter McConnell. I bow to everyone involved.

Source: USgamer

Ron has posted a new trailer for Thimbleweed Park. It's narrated by the character of Ray, one of the detectives investigating the murder that kicks off the game's story. At least, I think. I know next to nothing of what the game's about and kind of like it that way.

It turns out that the quick release schedule of Minecraft: Story Mode isn't a fluke after all. Their three episode Walking Dead: Michonne miniseries will be released on a monthly schedule.

The first episode is coming out for computer platforms (no Linux yet though, but hopefully their Linux testing period yields results soon) and consoles (except for Wii U) on the 23rd of February, and the iOS and Android versions will be following, two days later, on the 25th.

Beyond that, they've already announced the release months for episodes two and three. Episode two will be releasing in March, followed by episode three in April. Hopefully this is a sign that their future releases, from Batman and beyond, will be released on a similar schedule.

Firewatch is now out for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Steam and PlayStation 4 on PSN.

I've played through the first day, and it's lovely so far. We'll have a review up on it soon (so within the next year or so in Mojo Time™).

Campo Santo updated their blog with news that their debut game, Firewatch, is now available to pre-order on Steam. It's currently available for a pre-order discount of 10% off it's usual price of $20. It can also be purchased at Steam in a bundle with the soundtrack, also for 10% off.

It will be released for Windows, Mac, Linux, and PlayStation 4 on February 9. PlayStation Plus members will be able to purchase it on PlayStation 4 on launch day for 10% off as well!

The good folks at Electric Playground paid a visit to Double Fine and played a whole bunch of Day of the Tentacle: Remastered while Tim talked about it. Oh, and it's on video:

Source: Electric Playground

Most of you are enjoying the latest resurgence of the LucasArts adventures, courtesy of Double Fine. However, for those of you who are interested in their biggest competitor during their adventure heyday, Sierra has been having a bit of a resurgence of its own.

Today, it finally continues with the release of the second chapter of The Odd Gentlemen's King's Quest, Rubble Without A Cause. The first chapter was inspired by the original King's Quest. This chapter is said to be inspired by King's Quest III.

Although, the gameplay in King's Quest itself is heavily inspired by Telltale Games. However, it bests their current games as it manages to blend choices and consequences together with traditional inventory based puzzles in a way that we all wish Telltale would manage.

A Block and a Hard Place, the fourth and penultimate episode of Telltale's Minecraft: Story Mode, will arrive on all platforms on December 22nd.

The episode will be see the end of the story of the Wither Storm, which is the season wide monster that was unleashed back in episode one. Because of this, Telltale is referring to the episode as the "Wither Storm Finale". When the fifth episode is released, things will be much different for the members of Jesse's crew, and Telltale is remaining mum on what those changes will be. The finale of Minecraft: Story Mode will be released in 2016.

Is Psychonauts 2 not enough Double Fine news for you? You want more? Mojo has you covered.

Hot on the heels of this year's excellent Grim Fandango Remastered, and next year's fantastic looking Day of the Tentacle Remastered, Tim Schafer took the stage at the PlayStation Experience to announce that Full Throttle is also getting the remastered treatment.

It will feature updated graphics and sound, director's commentary, and new control options that will make the game more accessible to today's gaming audiences.

Full Throttle Remastered will be coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Windows, Mac, and Linux in 2017.

I finally got myself familiarized with ScummGen, the compiler that takes C-style code and compiles it into resources used by the actual SCUMM engine (used by LucasArts for all of their adventure games from Maniac Mansion to The Curse of Monkey Island, and by Humongous Entertainment in most of their games until 2003). I polished up the ScummGen test game, Indiana Jones and the Call of Thunder.

The original team (Dominik Haslinger, Jens Doblies and Sebastien Ronsse) did the majority of the work. It was originally intended to be a much longer game, but it was cancelled. I finished up the ice cavern sequence so that it could be released as a completely playable game as I thought it would be a shame if no one got to play it. Their sourcecode was playable up to the point where you complete the mechanism in the cavern.

Here are the changes and fixes that I made to that source code:

• Replaced LucasArts logo with a ScummGen logo.
• Made a few grammar corrections to the original script.
• Created icons for inventory items that lacked them (all instances of the stones and the gas can).
• Programmed an if/then statement regarding the gas can that was referenced but not implemented in the source.
• Fixed the mechanism puzzle to require both objects, as before it was possible to complete it with only one object.
• Added dialog to facilitate the change in the mechanism puzzle.
• Fixed the lighting so that the cavern stays lit when you move to the cavern entrance and back.
• Enabled the usage of the item used to exit the cavern, as referenced but not implemented in the source.
• Changed description of the macguffin as it was originally used as a joke related to the game being unfinished (but kept it humourous to suit the tone of the original).
• Added dialog necessary for the ending sequence.
• Added end screen.

You can download it at my itch.io page if you want to try it out. It includes the sourcecode. It doesn't include an executable though, as it needs ScummVM in order to run (and I figured I'd cut out the middle man and just let people run ScummVM on whatever system they wish to run it on). It's detected in ScummVM as Day of the Tentacle.

In their ongoing mission to make releases on a schedule more in-line with their puzzle based adventure games, Telltale's Minecraft: Story Mode has received its third episode. It will be released on all platforms that have already received the game today, worldwide. They've also released a launch trailer, which you can view here.

In other Telltale news, they are continuing their mission to release their game on every platform known to man and beast, as they are currently testing a Linux/SteamOS port. Hopefully the ColecoVision version of the Telltale Tool won't be too far around the corner.

Telltale's Game of Thrones finale will be released tomorrow for all platforms, worldwide. The entire season will also be available at retail tomorrow, as well.

For awhile it seemed like Telltale's excellent re-release of the excellent Sam & Max compendium Surfin' the Highway had gone out-of-print and had joined the original 1995 printing as a regrettably elusive comic book gem synonymous with eBay gougers and gnashing of teeth.

We're happy to report that this isn't the case! The collection is available at its reasonable original list price ($19.99) courtesy of the Cartoon Art Museum, a lovely institution with whom former Telltale marketing guru Joel Dreskin is known to collaborate. He was involved, for instance, with the Sam & Max exhibit that was set up at the physical museum for the characters' 25th anniversary.

You want more? The museum is also selling a holiday card set which includes one of Purcell's Sam & Max classics. So go buy cool stuff and support the museum in the process. Surfin' the Highway is the Christmas gift your mom secretly wants but was too afraid to ask for. She shook me awake to tell me so. Cut her a break!

Source: Cartoon Art Museum

I mean, sure, you've seen everything that's on there, but it's the principle of the thing! An official web site for an official Day of the Tentacle upgrade exists, and damn it you're gonna go, and you're gonna LIKE IT!

STOP CRYING, I AM NOT YELLING!

In a very surprise release, the second episode of Minecraft: Story Mode is out already. It's available now for Xbox 360 and Xbox One and will be out for most other platforms later today. It will be released for Android and iOS devices on Thursday.

The season pass disc, a retail disc for consoles that includes the first episode on the disc and the ability to download the other episodes as DLC as they're released, is also in stores today.

Oh boy oh boy! Double Fine's released six high-resolution screenshots from Day of the Tentacle: Remastered, which you may recall as the sole remaining justification for this web site. Just look at all this justification, fans!

Day of the Tentacle: Remastered (Screenshots)

The following features had been hinted at, but are now confirmed:

• Upgraded audio (details are faint)

- Commentary that includes Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, Larry Ahern, Peter Chan, Peter McConnell and Clint Bajakian.
- Toggle feature to switch back and forth between classic and remastered mode.
- The inclusion of Maniac Mansion as a game-within-a-game will be preserved.
- Maybe more!

The release platforms are PC, Mac, PS4 and Vita. The release window is early 2016. So we'll be around until then.

Is this what Day of the Tentacle: Remastered (note the name change) really looks like:?

Probably. The attendees of Indiecade will find out for sure tomorrow, and the internet seven seconds after. For now, OH MY GOD!

Day of the Tentacle: Remastered, the reason Mojo even bothers paying for the domain and reason Gabez stubbornly refuses to bite down on the cyanide capsule under his molar*, will be improving your lives sometime in the near future. We will do our best to cover the imminent media and information dispersal, though our best isn't usually that impressive.

*Just kidding, he died in agony long ago.