Double Fine just announced a new game today titled Headlander. It is a science fiction comedy game that is in the Metroid style of gamplay. This is the game that Double Fine is making in conjunction with Adult Swim Games. You can see the announcement trailer embedded below, or here if the embedding doesn't work for you.
Fancy yourself some Manny Calavera toys? Of course you possibly do, and now you can get some without paying for them. Cubeecraft has this.… cut-out… thingie for your cut-and-assemble pleasure, for those looking for paper toys on the cheap.
Make today a Grim Fandango arts and crafts day!
Source: Super Punch
Double Fine was founded in July 2000 - on Tim's birthday - to create its first game. That game was released in 2005. Naturally, a project in development for that long is gonna have some production tales worth writing about, which Gamasutra's Game Developer Magazine (discontinued) did when they published a postmortem for Psychonauts, scribed by then Double Fine producer Caroline Esmurdoc, back in August 2005.
I can remember reading it, but apparently a full version has never been thrown online before, or so Gamaustra says in the convenient web version they published yesterday in honor of the game's tenth (!!) anniversary. Check it out!
Source: Gamasutra
You can find them over at the Double Fine forums. We haven't gotten any audio/visual of Day of the Tentacle: Special Edition just yet, but some of these responses - a combination of reflections about the original game and details about the remaster, will whet your appetite and then some. My personal favorites:
Are there uncompressed voice recordings from the original game? Will they be used? - d_Stilgar
Matt: Yes. There are. We found the original DAT tapes from the recording session and we’ve painstakingly gone through and re-edited the sessions to pull out high quality audio for the voice, which is what we will be using for the special edition!
Any cool discoveries (that you can talk about) this time [regarding interesting things found in the game’s data files]? Maybe Grossman nonchalantly revealing the Secret of Monkey Island somewhere? Remnants of lost puzzles? - Alfred J
Matt: We did find out one interesting thing actually, about Ben!
Spaff: Oh yeah! Whilst reading through Tim’s DOTT notebooks I spotted reference to one ‘Ruben Throttle’ - Was this Ben Throttle’s full name? I asked Tim and he confirmed it was. That’s a fun fact in and of itself, but it gets better. in 2001 or so my friend Jake and I asked Tim if Hoagie was Ben’s brother, and he said something along the lines of “how did you know that!?”. When I asked him about the Ruben Throttle thing, Tim brought up his relationship with Hoagie again and said “their mom named them both after sandwiches”. So there you go!
Eddie Riggs is clearly related to them somehow too, but maybe as a cousin or something seeing as he doesn’t have a sandwich name? Unless Eddie Riggs is a stage name, hmmmm.
I don't know about related, but Hoagie definitely namedrops "my friend Eddie" at some point...I think when looking at the horse in hallway? Oh, and I'm jazzed to hear they uncovered the original recordings. It was possibly my biggest concern, because that MONSTER.SOU file doesn't leave a lot of breathing room.
Now stop consuming everything Buzzfeed-style and go read all of the team's responses. Spaff spent a lot of time on it. >:
Source: Double Fine Forums
With the Day of the Tentacle: Special Edition just around the corner, it might be time for you to familiarize yourself with the commonly held American history myths that DOTT makes reference to.
With this in mind, Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker has stepped in, and created a helpful Day of the Tentacle History Lesson for non-Americans to help you appreciate the American folklore and jokes (and puzzles) in the game.
Get reading now (although don't necessarily use what you learn in a history exam -- Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman weren't big on historical accuracy!)
Campo Santo proves that it's good for more than making absurdly promising games; it's also positioning itself as Mojo's replacement by recently siphoning Full Throttle reflections out of Tim Schafer. Those memories combined with perspectives from folks you might recognize make for an insightful retrospective on the game and its impact on Schafer's career thereafter.
Acknowledgement is also made of Tim's good fortune to see both of the game's unsanctioned sequels die on the vine, quelled threats that nonetheless motivated his departure:
One day, deep into production on Grim Fandango, Schafer noticed that the project leads on the third Monkey Island game were at work on a new project, and asked somebody what they were up to. “Someone said, ‘Oh, I think they’re working on a Full Throttle sequel. And I was like, ‘They’re wh-wh-what? Nobody told me about that!” I went and asked them, and they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, man!’ ‘And no one even asked me?” ‘Um, I don’t know… yeah…’
“I was upset about that. I was horrified. I felt so personally attached to that game; those are my characters. The idea that someone else could make a sequel to it… I was so horrified that I didn’t own it.” It was one of the reasons Schafer would leave LucasArts after making Grim Fandango. “It was fair,” he acknowledges, “I mean, they did pay me for the time. I’m not saying they stole it from me.
Stop putting your lips on that and go read the whole thing, but don't enjoy it so much that you forget that we too used to generate decent content about these games. :(
Source: The Camp Santo Quarterly Revie
Double Fine's Broken Age Kickstarter received plenty of attention during and after its lifespan due to being what was at the time the most successful project on the crowdfunding site, video game or otherwise.
Some of that attention proved to be negative, with scrutiny becoming particularly fashionable when the scope of the game, and therefore its schedule and cost, began to inflate. I always saw it as a weird sense of entitlement that required the willful misunderstanding of what a donor is (versus an investor), but at any rate there was, at one point, in some circles, what you might call a controversy.
But it doesn't seem to be a controversy the studio has profited from. Reports Schafer:
"My expectation with Broken Age in the end was just to break even," Schafer said. "With Kickstarter, the risk is gone of losing money on it, so you know you've broken even if you just make the game to that amount of money. But we made it [for], like, twice as much almost as we got in. Or more. So we will just about make that back."
Tim clarifies that the purpose of crowdfunding from his perspective is to remove the categorical dependence on publishers, and by that criteria, the Broken Age experience was very successful.
Source: gamesindustry.biz
I always try to do a news post of Mojo related tidbits after our downtime. This one's going to be a long one. At least, with the new server, it'll likely be the last.
Christian Adam has found a solution to allow the people who have graphics hardware below the requirements of Grim Fandango Remastered to play the game in classic mode.
Double Fine is making games in conjunction with Adult Swim Games, as well as Zoink Games.
On the subject of Double Fine, Massive Chalice went out of early access and received it's full release, and Iron Brigade has had Game for Windows Live replaced with Steamworks, fixing matchmaking. The latter was possible thanks to the fact that Double Fine has regained the rights to Iron Brigade from Microsoft.
At E3, it was revealed that ex-Mojoer and former Telltale developer extraordinaire, Jake Rodkin's company Campo Santo will have the console debut of their first game Firewatch on PS4. It is also going to be released on PC, Mac, and Linux. No release date has been set, but Campo Santo is aiming for release by the end of 2015.
Telltale is making a three episode miniseries that will be DLC for The Walking Dead: Season Two called The Walking Dead: Michonne, set during the period of the comics when Michonne is absent from the group. They also finally showed a little bit of what their Minecraft: Story Mode will look like.Lucasfilm is working on a fully interactive 3D virtual Star Wars world, via their ILM experience lab.
Humongous Entertainment games are starting to make their way to GOG.com. The Pajama Sam series made its way to the service earlier this month.
The co-creator of Maniac Mansion and Thimbleweed Park, Gary Winnick, had his best selling comic, Bad Dreams, released in trade paperback format on the 17th of June.
While we're on the subject of Thimbleweed Park, be sure to check out the Thimbleweed Park development blog, as lots of good inside information about the development process of that game is being posted regularly.
In his capacity as the illustrious guest on the latest episode of the Playstation Blogcast, Tim discusses all kinds of topical Double Fine things, including Broken Age, Grim Fandango, and his favorite text adventure game.
And there's a shoutout for Spaff as well!
Source: Playstation.Blog
But still, it's nice to see Spaff is still working.
Tim sort of recently announced that our very own forefather James "Spaff" Spafford has joined Double Fine to be Community Manager, meaning he'll be banning people for bad behavior the same way Remi bans people here for failing to pay him not to. Dude's clearly been busy, so it's no wonder he hasn't been able to help us regain access to the Mojo domain.
But no, Spaff, seriously. We need access to our domain. :~
Source: Double Fine Action News
The release date of Broken Age Act 2 has been announced. It will release on April 28, 2015 in North America and April 29 in Europe. It will be released for Windows, Linux, Mac, and will be available for cross-buy on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. It's unknown if the separate release dates for regions relate to the computer versions as well, since the IGN article makes it seem this way. This is unlikely though since Steam and GOG.com don't have any region blocking for ordering (unless, presumably, required by law), as far as I know. However, even if that ends up to be the case, at least it's only a day.
While you're at IGN, if you don't mind spoilers for Act I and the first part of Act II, they have a video up where they play through the same 12 minutes of the game that was previously revealed, but this time they play through it with Tim Schafer. They discuss what has transpired in the three years since the Kickstarter was announced, the decision to split the game in half and what to expect from the rest of Act 2.
A Sackboy costume was advertised to be included in the PlayStation versions of Costume Quest 2. For undisclosed reasons, its release was delayed. It appears that whatever has been causing that delay is no longer an issue, as Costume Quest has finally received an update on PlayStation platforms which makes the Sackboy costume available to purchase in-game from Costume Quest's black market dealer, Shady.
I doubt you're going to be watching this if you haven't played the first act yet, since it's going to be spoiling a bit of Act 2 for you, but just in case, it should be noted that the video does contain spoilers from Act 1.
Since they are in the final stretch, the promotion period will begin, which will consist of IGN dedicating a week of coverage to the game beginning on Monday. They will also be announcing the release date as part of that coverage, as well as including an interview with preview footage of Act 2.
Since the game is at release candidate stage, 2 Player Productions has nearly finished filming the next episode of the Double Fine Adventure documentary about the project, except for a few interviews. They are going to be working on making a final cut of the episode and making a final audio pass, and then the next episode of the documentary will be released as well. The project is truly reaching the home stretch now.
Two Player Productions announced that the Double Fine Adventure Documentary is going public starting today. The press release follows:
The collaboration between 2 Player Productions and Double Fine Productions that launched a historic Kickstarter campaign is nearing its conclusion! In anticipation of the release of Act 2 of “Broken Age”, episodes of “The Double Fine Adventure!” will be released to Youtube every Tuesday and Thursday starting today - March 3rd.
A three-year journey spanning eighteen (and counting) episodes, “The Double Fine Adventure!” chronicles the creation of “Broken Age” from a germ of an idea in Tim Schafer’s notebook, to a finished game and beyond. Along the way, the team confronts production delays, internal strife, and outside controversy in what is the most honest, in-depth look at video game development ever created. Previously exclusive to Double Fine’s Kickstarter backers, now everyone can share in the passion, humor, and heartbreak of this landmark documentary series, for free!
“The Double Fine Adventure!” is also viewable in full via online distribution platform VHX.com. It is currently available at an early bird price which gives viewers immediate access to the whole series in 1080p, plus a host of free bonus features which will become available once the series is complete.
Purchase The Double Fine Adventure! -
http://adventure.doublefine.com
The Double Fine Adventure! Youtube Playlist -
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd7F6pU2ByRRb0igiI-WKk3DYoutube Release info-
On March 3rd, the series will launch with the first three episodes of the documentary. After that, new episodes will be air every Tuesday and Thursday in 720p. Major “Broken Age” story points are blurred or obscured to allow for spoiler-free viewing!
VHX Release info-
Currently available at the Early Bird pricing of $10 for the whole series, including all extra content. DRM-free 1080p downloads and streaming. Automatic upgrade as new material becomes available. Features coming at completion of the series include closed captions, removal of spoiler blurs, deleted scenes, commentary tracks, and bonus videos.
The Early Bird pricing will end on the day Act 2 of “Broken Age” is released. After that, the price of the documentary will increase to $15 for the basic series and $20 for the series and bonus features.
Remember that Day of the Tentacle remake that was being created by LucasArts Singapore and was cancelled when it was estimated to be 80% complete?
A lot of people were wondering if this cancelled remake really existed and if Double Fine might use some of the assets in their Day of the Tentacle Special Edition. Well, we now have the answers to those questions, and they are yes, and maybe.
Double Fine's Vice President of Development, Matt Hansen, had this to say on the Double Fine forums:
I have to be careful with being too open since it isn’t our license, but I will say that I am very happy with the stuff from Singapore so far.
They're understandably cryptic about whether the material will be used, but it's good to finally have confirmation that it existed, and that it was apparently pretty good. Hopefully they do use these assets, as this would be the perfect game to become the last released project that was co-developed by LucasArts. Unless of course anyone is bidding to complete Sam & Max: Freelance Police.
Tim took to Twitter to turn the implicit into the explicit:
Stoked for Day of the Tentacle Special Edition? Want to see Full Throttle & more? Show folks adventure gamers exist and grab a copy of Grim!
So buy Grim Fandango Remastered, in other words. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, and you've already bought the game. But have you bought enough? What if you break the very bytes of the game by playing it too hard? Wouldn't you want a backup copy in such an event?
Did you buy a copy for your Mom? Sibling? The child you're pregnant with? The dog you own? To be clear, I'm not saying not buying your dog Grim Fandango makes you a bad pet owner. I'm saying it makes you a terrible one.
Source: Double Fine's Twitter
We had to pay Jennifer double for working the graveyard shift, and I'll be damned -- she got the review up on time.
Is the remastered version of Grim Fandango a classic or a turd? You already know the answer, but go read the review anyway.
¡Viva la yada yada yada!