A few weeks back over at Nintendojo, a place of "Nintendo news, analysis and musings," a few paragraphs were devoted to Maniac Manson for the NES. Read them, won't you?
Last week (hey, shut up) brought specifics about the retail release of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, which is due out for release in Europe - and Europe only - on August 26th. Lace Mamba, the same folks who handled the boxed UK releases of Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island and Tales of Monkey Island, will be putting out both a Plain Jane version and a collector's edition of Sam & Max's third season. Here's what you get with the leaded:
Additionally to the full game, including all five episodes, the box will include five collectible Sam & Max badges as well as an artwork poster by Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell. The recommended retail price is set at £24.99
You've heard the commentary on Monkey Island 2 SE, now be prepared to watch it (or at least some of it)! Videos courtesy of gen16.com's Youtube channel.
Pretty cool news for UK gamers - a bundle package of the two Monkey Island special editions will be released on September 9th for PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Naturally, the publisher on this is LEC's European distribution arm Activision - I'm pretty sure the last time LucasArts itself ever shipped a retail product with the Monkey Island name on it was that compilation of the first three games from 2001, and there's no reason for them to blemish their record.
What's cool about this release is that it's going to include some exclusive bonus material. To quote the press release:
Monkey Island Special Edition Collection will also include never-before seen content including environment and character concept art from both the Special Edition versions of both games. Music fans can also tap their toes along to the remastered and re-recorded soundtracks for both games. And most exciting, players will also receive storyboards and concept art from an Industrial Light & Magic exploration of a Monkey Island™ animated movie that was never released.
The accumulation of Steve Purcell and Tony Stacchi concept art from the Monkey Island movie has gotten quite formidable over the years - it would be cool if LEC really had anything never-before-seen to share.
Anywho, hopefully this makes some new fans for the Monkey Island series. Although I wonder what LucasArts' response will be when the newly christened crew of Threepwood devotees wants to buy installments 3 and 4?
There's only 50 minutes left at the time of writing, but the special editions of Monkey Island 1 and 2 are in today's steam summer sale with 50% off. Thats £3.49 each or £5.24 for both.
[Edit]
The sale has now rolled over to the next day. Both games are still on sale but there's only 33% off this time.
A Maniac Mansion fan by the name of Joseph Flatt decided to sit down and write four instrumental tracks inspired by the game. That's right - bucking the tradition of producing covers of actual tracks from Maniac Mansion, Flatts has obliterated expectations like a microwaved rodent and composed music that might have been heard in the game.
But rather than mail his mp3s off to Mark Eeter or parlay them into an audition for Green Tentacle's band, he's decided to share them with us, and us with you.
So on the subject of lovingly detailed replicas of iconic artifacts from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis...wait, WHAT?!
The gifted craftsman known as Fedora Smith - whose replicas of props from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies had already weltered his Flickr account in fame - was even selling some of his excellence before his stock was depleted earlier today by eager folks who understand the value of a dollar. (That is, they understand that it's irrelevant in the face of OWNING YOUR OWN WORLDSTONE.)
Not content to rest on my laurels after finding a long-lost room from Loom, I've delved further into the realm of old French computer gaming magazines. This has yielded interesting results, such as this early version of the Monkey Island 1 title screen: Early version of the MI1 title screen
I also found an early stab at Guybrush's MI1 VGA sprite.
And here's a scan of Kate Capsize's ship from MI2, which was later almost entirely redesigned. The waterfall on Phatt Island, also seen here, was likewise redrawn to look more realistic. An early version of Kate Capsize's ship and the Phatt Island waterfall
Speaking of MI2, here's some long-lost original background art: Original background art for MI2
A joke from Last Crusade, sadly cut out: A joke (probably by Ron Gilbert) that was cut from the Last Crusade adventure game Fate of Atlantis with prototype inventory icons. Pictures of Fate of Atlantis with early inventory iconsPictures of Fate of Atlantis with early inventory icons
I've also got a nice scan from Joystick magazine showing Fate with its initial MI1-style GUI: Pictures of early Fate of Atlantis with a WIP GUI
(That early GUI was also seen in this scan from Génération 4 magazine already shown on Mojo.)
Finally, some scans featuring Brian Moriarty's The Dig from Génération 4 and Joystick, covering CES of summer 1993. The Dig article from Generation 4 magazine, 1993The Dig article from Joystick magazine, 1993 (page 1)The Dig article from Joystick magazine, 1993 (page 2)
Among other things, these articles show off the gory death scene of Toshi Olema (the fourth Dig astronaut later removed by Sean Clark), who tried to cross a lake of acid, with predictable results.
Also check out this translated description of the original Dig script Steven Spielberg intended for the Amazing Stories TV show: "It was about a team of future archaeologists who unearth a statue of Mickey Mouse, then Sleeping Beauty's castle, etc., ultimately discovering that they have located Disneyland."
I think we can all be thankful Disneyland is not in the final game.
The authors of two "Top 10" lists to appear on the internet recently have betrayed a certain degree of education by including various LucasArts adventure games. Comic Book Resources has pegged Sam & Max Hit the Road as one of the "Ten Best Comic Book Video Games Ever Made." Hit the Road also appeared in the "Ten PC Games Games That Had Great Voice Acting", where it is joined by Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.
Hell, even [the intern who logs into] the LucasArts Twitter page could not help but do some fist-pumping in response to the distinction earned by their old graphic adventures. To be fair, the company really does support their back catalog so long as you don't count making it available as an expression of support. They've got to draw the line somewhere.
As promised, both Jurassic Park and The Walking Dead were accounted for during Telltale's E3 presence. Naturally, there was considerably more to show off with regard to the Universal license, a non-playable demo of which was on display for attendees. Here's some video coverage of the presentation by G4, thrown to by a lady with seventy-five percent of a shirt.
In the case of The Walking Dead, Telltale didn't seem to have much more than some concept art and a bit of information on their two main characters, neither of which appear in the comics: an escaped convict named Lee Everett and seven-year-old girl he meets up with named Clementine. The best report I found on the project was this video interview with an unfamiliar Telltale face identified only as "Rich," which among other things touches a bit on how the games may connect with the source material:
Reader and understandably fervent Maniac Mansion fan BionicBoots has alerted me to a music video he made where he adds lyrics to Dave's theme music from the NES version of the game (the only version where there was music for the kids). I think his effort was commendable and certainly no less misguided than the "Raiders March With Lyrics" Youtube video we pimped some time back, so here it is. Oh, and believing that two is more than one, BionicBoots went ahead and made a "rock remix" version of his own music video; you'll find both achievements below.
Global superpower Telltale Games continues its growth with news that it just secured $7 million in private investment - not too shabby for a studio founded on the vision of an unproven model for games that have almost exclusively been, for goodness sake, straight-up graphic adventures.
Dan Connors states that the financing will be used to "aggressively launch" its announced high-profile franchises simultaneously on multiple release platforms, although one hopes that at least a few of the zeroes at the now seven year old company's disposal may go toward an original IP to keep Puzzle Agent company.
There's another Telltale-related bit of news worth mentioning. About a month ago, former Mojo staffer and present Telltale programmer Andrew Langley (aka telarium) Tweeted that he would be directing his first Telltale episode, and is thus now eligible for the distinction already attained by Jake, namely: One Prolific Bastard.
Whenever a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie comes out, it's customary for the community to share what they see as blatant plagiarism of the Monkey Island games on the part of the writers. While such observations almost assuredly amount to coincidence, there's no doubt that even the most casual Monkey Island fans can point to some downright uncanny "reminders" of favorite moments from Guybrush's exploits in this mega-grossing Disney franchise.
Well, last weekend's On Stranger Tides was surely no exception, and I've given everyone a head start on the ongoing compilation of Totally Not Ridiculous MI Connections in this forum thread. Come play along, and of course, spoilers ahoy!
I sort of figured the U.S. would find Bin Laden before A Bat's Tale found funding. On Facebook, Bill Tiller volunteered status updates on A Vampyre Story 2: A Bat's Tale and A Vampyre Story: Year One, respectively. The prospects of the latter are way better than the former:
Currently A Vampyre Story 2 production is controlled by Crimson Cow and they don't plan to fund it anytime soon due to lack of investment in their company. The game is 40% done and just needs investment to be completed. I will make announcement when or if that happens.
A Vampyre Story: Year One we hope to have done this year, and I'll post here any new information on that here when we have some new news about it.
The reasons for AVS2's predicament would appear to be contractual. As they do with the first game, Crimson Cow owns the worldwide publishing rights to AVS2. While the Germany based publisher doesn't appear unwilling to fund the game, they are financially incapable of doing so (with their web site consisting entirely of this for years now), and since the rights remain theirs for however long the agreement states, Autumn Moon isn't free to shop elsewhere. The episodic Year One, which Autumn Moon is self-publishing, is apparently entrenched in no such red tape.
Good news for fans of Grim Fandango. ScummVM's errant cousin Residual has broken its two year silence with news that Grim Fandango is now "completable with a few minor glitches".
Grim is notoriously badly-behaved on modern systems; anyone for whom the various tools and tweaks don't work would do well to give it a try.
Of the large amount of Bay Area vocal talent Telltale has tapped over the years, perhaps the most distinctive and recurring has been Andrew Chaikin, possibly better known by his beat-boxing stage name Kid Beyond. They guy's been voicing Telltale characters since the Boneville days, and can be heard in pretty much all of their series. (The two exceptions are Strong Bad and Wallace & Gromit, for obvious reasons.) I want to stop short of describing him as the De Niro of Telltale Games, because that would imply De Niro's made a good movie at any point in the last several years.
Perhaps because they recognize how much impact this talented voice actor's collaborations with the studio has had on their titles, Telltale saw fit to interview the man themselves, just outside of their offices. What resulted is pretty cool stuff. Excitingly, it looks like there's a possibility Chaikin could find a role to play in Puzzle Agent 2, which might be my most anticipated of all of the games Telltale's brewing this year. (At latest count, this amount was calculated to be: "a lot to the third power."
So...how's it going? =) Thanks to everyone here for keeping the love for Monkey Island going! Great things come to those that wait.
What could he be referring to? Does he simply speak retrospectively of the Monkey Island special editions in an unintentionally cryptic way, or is he teasing something for the future? We circulate this with the irresponsible desire to see you invest emotionally in the assumption of the latter. What the hell else to you think this site is for? Promoting LSD?
One physician-approved substitute for routine cardio is keeping up with the latest on Telltale Games, whose bevy of high-profile licenses keeps the web a-buzzing and my heart a-murmuring.
You've got an interview with The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman at Collider. The artist behind Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors delves into everything from the comic to the show's second season and the Telltale project. Here's the game-related bit:
What is your level of involvement with The Walking Dead video game that is being developed?
I just had a meeting with them yesterday. I’m not writing the video game myself just because I don’t have time. I can say that I picked Frank Darabont for the show and I picked Telltale Games because they are very familiar with the comic book and they know what makes the comic book good and what makes the comic book “The Walking Dead” as opposed to just as, you know, zombies running around and cutting people’s heads off and stuff. If you want to buy a game where you run around and kill zombies with an uzi – that game exists and there are more of those games coming out. They are fun games and everybody likes them, but we are not going to try and compete with those games. We are going to try to do something a little different that is a little more true to The Walking Dead. Knowing that they are that invested in changing what you might expect from a zombie game and really bringing the emotion and drama of The Walking Dead to video games makes me trust them. But I’m overseeing everything.
What kind of genre is the game going to be?
I don’t know what the technical name is. I know what the game is, but I don’t know if I can talk about it yet. I don’t know what the technical name for it is and I don’t know if I can say if it is. I do know that the game will have shooting. It just won’t be the focus of the game.
Telltale also reports that Joe Pinney will be on Gamespot's "On the Spot" show tomorrow to promote Jurassic Park, where no expense is likely to be spared.
