The International House of Mojo

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.

Source: Residual website

Could this scandalously obscene neglect have been the impetus for some LEC vets jumping ship to form a new studio? Unlikely!

Gamasutra reports that four veterans from LucasArts and EA have founded November Software in the Bay Area. Apparently the folks in question were involved in the tech for both Force Unleashed titles. Jumping on the lucrative social gaming craze, the company "aims to bring streaming 3D content to web and mobile-based social games."

Their first project will be called Inemeri: A Familiar World, which will be "coming to the web as well as iOS devices," and will have a closed beta during the summer. And so concludes The International House of Mojo's coverage of this company. Best of luck, you guys!

Update: Sorry if any of you witnessed a code blow-up in this news post earlier. I ran into a "divide by number of new LEC Steam releases" error that had to be fixed.

Source: Gamasutra

Do you keep up with David Fox on Twitter? It's too late to apologize now - you already missed his reveal that he and his wife Annie (yes, the namesake of the heroine in Zak McKracken), who constitute Electric Eggplant, have submitted their first "story app" in a series for the iPad! I guess it's going around!

This release, currently in the Apple approval process, is called Middle School Confidential Book 1: Be Confident Who You Are, and is an interactive adaptation of the first graphic novel in a series scribed by Annie Fox and illustrated by one Matt Kindt. This appears to be less of a game than a spruced up reader for an existent graphic novel, but I point it out because, well, David Fox!

Source: Electric Eggplant

The full text of Brian Moriarty's lecture at GDC 2011 is now available for your reading pleasure.

Which is all well and good, but where's the apology for not making Loom 2?

Source: Gamasutra

So GDC has come and gone, and with the dust having settled, there are two panels from the conference to point out to you that we did not report on at the time.

The first is Video Games as Art: An Apology for Roger Ebert. This was a lecture delivered by none other than Brian Moriarty (of Loom and, in an alternate universe, The Dig fame), the subject of which you could probably guess. By all accounts the talk was worth hearing, but unfortunately there are nothing but a few quotes reprinted online. Keep an eye out for the content of the speech to appear on Moriarty's official site someday.

Then there was a panel by Clint Hocking, LEC's big profile hire from last year and the studio's current Creative Director, whose creativity we hope to see imbued in an LEC game should the day come that they choose to make games again - but let's not get greedy. He gave a presentation about meaning in games, and this is the best write-up I found on it.

Ron Gilbert apparently also spoke about Maniac Mansion, but from what I know it was a repeat at most of the talk he gave in Germany (which, need I remind you, is fully streamable online!).

Here's a big thank you to reader/veteran Laserschwert for this: Ron Gilbert's recent talk for Game Forum Germany, entitled "The Making of Maniac Mansion", is available to be viewed online. Just click on "2011" and then on the link that does not not have "Ron Gilbert" in the title. You should be able to find similarly-educational videos elsewhere: one by noneother than LucasArts VP Mary Bihr herself, and, in the 2009 section, one by Noah Falstein (Fate of Atlantis) and one by Telltale CTO Kevin Bruner.

I must say, though, that I deeply admire the dubbing in those videos. It doesn't look like they're actually speaking German - the native language of 90% of the world's adventure gamers - at all!

Source: Nordmedia

Earlier this year we brought you the astonishing news that a company had made it possible to play Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition in a web browser. That company was Instant Action, who sadly are now shutting down.

In a comment to Kotaku, a spokesman said that the developer was closed because "it was operating in a highly competitive industry, and the business didn't scale profitably in the manner we had expected."

The engine Instant Action used to power Monkey Island, Torque, is now being sold off, along with the dream of playing MI2 in a browser as well. Sad news indeed.

Source: Torque Powered (via Kotaku)

Having recently departed from LucasArts after over ten years as a writer and producer for all manner of Star Wars games, Haden Blackman has revealed that he has founded his own game development company, Fearless Studios, in Marin County with fellow LEC alumnus Cedrick Collomb, engineering director on The Force Unleashed series. Check this:

Emphasis mine. Whatever type of game Fearless ends up producing, it's a safe bet it's going to be worth keeping an eye out for. Read the whole interview with Blackman about the studio's genesis and his vision for it. The Mixers of all things Mojo wish them the best of fortunes.

Source: Gamasutra

I like lists almost as much as the English like the World Cup; and, like the English in the World Cup, I'm invariably disappointed at the end result.

Empire have compiled a list of the top 50 game characters. You'll find Guybrush Threepwood on number 7. In a display of scientific research unparalled since the last time Jenny McCarthy said vaccines caused autism, Empire have listed the character as debuting 1996's The Secret of Monkey Island, a year which you may know as being a year where The Secret of Monkey Island neither debuted nor got a sequel.

Guybrush was beaten by brilliantly-written multidimensional characters like Gordon Freeman and Mario.

Sam and Max appear at a respectable 42, Dr. Fred Edison at 40, and Manny Calavera at 30.

Source: Empire

So our erstwhile staff member Kroms has found a brand new DeathSpank trailer. However, someone else had to post about it, because the other staffers unanimously voted to exile him forever from our Ultra Tippity Top Secret Mojo Newsroom after the incident with the giraffe, three melons, and a snorkel.

More linkage.

UPDATE: Kroms says, "Be sure to check out these four gameplay videos on the same site. Plus this video, and this other one, and this one too, on 1UP."

To which I say, "Man, we never should've exiled you. More work for us."

Telltale is now selling a new adventure game bundle: the Sam and Max Complete Collection, which includes all three game seasons produced so far (Save the World, Beyond Time and Space, and the currently-ongoing The Devil's Playhouse).

The bundle is selling at $49.95 until midnight PDT on June 2, when its price will go up, likely to $95. So if you haven't played a single episode of Sam and Max (you crazy person), be sure to remedy this deficiency right now while you have the chance to save a good chunk of change.

Source: Telltale's blog

Mac users rejoice! The Macintosh port of Sam and Max Season Two, AKA Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space, is now available for download from Telltale's website. If you've already purchased the PC version, the Mac port is free, and if not, it'll cost you $29.95, for which you get both the PC and Mac releases.

When you head over to Telltale, don't forget to take advantage of their pre-order offer on Puzzle Agent, if you haven't already: buying it in advance will save you 50% off the price of just about everything else in the store, including Beyond Time and Space.

Some sad news: Heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, who as you may remember was the first choice to play arch-villain Doviculus in Brütal Legend, has died of stomach cancer at age 67.

Dio is most famous for replacing Ozzy Osbourne as lead singer of the band Black Sabbath after the latter left rather acrimoniously.

Ultimately Dio was dropped, somewhat suddenly and unceremoniously, from Brütal Legend, and his character was recast with Tim Curry. Speculation that this was done to get Ozzy to agree to appear in the game remains unsubstantiated.

Our most heartfelt Mojo condolences go out to Mr. Dio's widow and other family members. He will be forever remembered as "that guy who was almost in a really awesome Tim Schafer game." (You're fired. -Ed)

Source: CNN

Legendary rock god, err, fantasy/SF artist Frank Frazetta died on Monday. Frazetta's work, full of savage ur-beasts, highly be-muscled heroes and scantily-clad ladies, was one of the major influences behind the art style of Double Fine's Bru(e)tal Legend.

So what did Double Fine's posse of artists do to pay their respects? Why, draw bitchin' Frazetta-style art in tribute to him, of course!

Kotaku has established a gallery of Frazetta memorial art sent in by various developer studios. The first three submissions in the gallery are from Double Fine.

Source: Kotaku

Here are some tidbits:

• The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is now available on the PSN store for $9.99.

• Sean Vanaman ("Lair of the Leviathan", "Muzzled!") has launched a website.

• Here's a behind-the-looks video at the combat in the upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. See it in naughts-style Standard Definition, or in hip High Definition. If you are blind, you can hear the video if you can find the link. To make things a little more Monkey Island 2 level difficult for you, I've now moved the link here. Let's see if you can catch a moving target.

• If you're interested in reading about The Force Unleashed II, buy the June edition of GamePro magazine or wait for illegal scans later if you're too lazy. You should already have the issue if you're a subscriber, should be able to pick it up on May 4th otherwise, or find it on the internet later.

• You have not been called idiots for preferring Lost to Futurama in this entire post (nor should you be). But anyone who says they don't watch television because they prefer reading books about watching television is just asking for it.