It’s catch-up month here at Mojo, and some of you may (or may not) find interest in Double Fine-regular Jack Black’s new video series, "Jablinski." Edited by his son, the videos have a charmingly lo-fi quality, with content more sincere than most of the gaming dreck out there. (Naturally, fans of the latter have taken to their regular channels to whine about . . . I don’t even know what.) Anyway, give it a watch.
I'll let Jason explain this one himself:
Jason noticed that more than the average number of folks were logged into the Mojo admin Slack channel at once, so he seized the opportunity to revive a time-honored, zero-effort manner of generating feature content that had long fallen out of fashion: reprinted chat logs!
This time, join Jason, Remi, Zaarin, Bennyboy(!), and elTee as they talk about the Psychonauts 2 trailer.
42 hours, 50 minutes, and 24 seconds. At the time of writing, that's how much time you've got to grab Full Throttle for free from GOG. Already own it? Gift it! 'tis the season.
Psychonauts 2 is scheduled for 2019 and will come to PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, and Linux.
The game's Fig campaign is still open, if you want to pitch in.
I'd forgotten how funny the Ford Cruller reveal was in the original, including that dumb joke about bacon. Also, I'd somehow never noticed that his appearance seems to be based on Kurt Vonnegut. Is that just me? Things to muse on as you take the opportunity to revisit Peter McConnell's beautiful Psychonauts soundtrack. I've never been out in a cabin without having "Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp" in my head.
Alternatively, revisit the work of Scott C., who was largely responsible for the look of the original game. His art's harder to emulate than it looks, I've come to learn.
Source: YouTube
Microsoft, Majesco, and now Starbreeze… The publisher of the forthcoming Psychonauts-sequel has hit its own version of "marketplace realities," after Overkill’s The Walking Dead tanked. That’s right. The Walking Dead. You can’t even make this up.
Exactly how this economic face-slap will affect Psychonauts 2 is currently unknown, but as operations are under review and courts are involved with the reconstruction, things could probably be looking rosier.
Meanwhile, Al Lowe is auctioning off his Sierra memorabilia!
Have you ever wanted to see Tim present eight inspirations for Grim Fandango? Of course you have, and if you use Twitter, you probably actually have already done so, but in case you haven’t… Here ya go:
I might have missed . . . something, seeing I can’t find an announcement from Double Fine . . . but Costume Quest, quite possibly the most charming games in the Mojo-verse, is being turned into an animated series for Amazon. There’s even a trailer:
Yeah, I don’t really know -- it looks nice enough, but I can’t help but feel some of the charm was lost in translation. Either way, the show is scheduled for 2019 release.
OK, I was a bit quick on the trigger last time, but Grim is officially out on Switch now, unless Double Fine is lying to all of us. Don’t have a Switch? No worries -- iam8bit has your back, with a boxed PS4 20th Anniversary Edition for $30, and also a soundtrack on vinyl for $40. Go shell out.
There are also "more announcements coming real soon!" so we’re pretty sure Grim 2 will be announced in the next few hours.
Look, I don't know what this whole Discord thing really is -- we use it for podcast recording (two more have been recorded -- start bugging Zaarin to finish editing them) -- but apparently they've built a store. Because we need another one? Either way, Psychonauts and Brütal Legend are available for free with "Nitro" (I don't even know), so go grab them if that's your thing. Discord, that is. Double Fine obviously already is.
Limited Run Games announced on Twitter that a physical Broken Age release will be available for pre-order on the 12th of October, and will only be available for two weeks. The Limited Run Switch release of Broken Age joins its PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita brethren, as the latter had physical versions released by Limited Run Games back in 2017.
Switch cartridge production takes a while and once the cartridges are finished, they need to be shipped from Japan to the United States, where Limited Run Games will pack the cartridge in a standard Switch case. The cool thing about these Limited Run Switch releases is that each game comes with a complete byte-sized manual, which is a really rare thing nowadays.
Because of the long production time, it's likely that the Limited Run physical release of Broken Age for Switch won't ship until January.
Late night host Conan O'Brien maintains a pretty active online presence, and one of the things his digital wing sometimes does is post video game live streams to the Conan Youtube channel. These streams are hosted by the Conan team's resident gamer Aaron Bleyaert.
Well, it looks like the latest one of these deals was for Grim Fandango. The stream just ended, but it is available on Youtube for posterity. I kinda skimmed through it, and it looks like Aaron liked the game, without getting very far. Check it out below:
Got an old Xbox 360 Brütal Legend disc laying around? Well, for god's sake, pick it up and put it in your Xbox One, which now is backward compatible with the game. And then play the damn thing.
(That's all I got.)
First, Grim Fandango and Broken Age are out on the Switch, so go grab them if you can’t get enough Tim and/or beauty in your life. The latter (and I assume the former) is available for $14.99.
Poker Night 2, meanwhile, is not available anymore. In an unusually un-cheerful message, Telltale states: "Poker Night 2 has been withdrawn from sale on digital platforms due to the expiration of our digital distribution agreement. We currently do not have any plans to renew this agreement." You can still download the game if you already own it.
(I have no clue which license expired, but I like to pretend it’s Sam & Max.)
Finally, for more Tim, check out (in the sage words of AlfredJ, our exclusive source) "this Reddit biography video thing." I haven’t watched it, but apparently there is a shot of Curse of Monkey Island forty-four seconds in, so consider that official word of Double Fine’s next re-master. Watch.
Update! OK, so Grim isn't technically out yet, but it will be. Someday.
So here’s a story that literally opens with the name "James Spafford," our benevolent founder who embarrassingly forgets to mention Mojo in it. We aren’t bitter, though, and will gladly link to Polygon’s write-up on the Double Fine summer camp, where the $10,000-Psychonauts 2-backers, company employees, and Double Fine forum moderators rubbed shoulders for three days. We can only assume our invitation got lost in the mail, although one of our infrequent collaborators did attend as a member of the latter group.
(Wait, am I coming across as bitter?)
Every Double Fine and Psychonauts fan should run over and read the story right now, because why the hell not?
Source: Polygon
LEGO builder Pepa Quinn reveals a brütally accurate Eddie Riggs sculpture. Let the pictures do the talking - enjoy the full gallery here.
Source: flickr
First and (probably) foremost: Grim Fandango and Broken Age are hitting the Switch. Yes, you already own multiple versions of both, but why stop now? Look forward to re-buying them "in the coming months."
And if you want to watch yesterday's Grim Fandango live event, here you go . . .
They probably released some stuff about Psychonauts 2, as well, but I can't find that.
Source: DoubleFine
Nor will he, until he can snag the rights to make Zak McKracken 2. But that is Tim's cross to bear. All you need to worry about is reading the full and rather encompassing interview he gave with GamesIndustry.biz.
Looking back on his portfolio, it's easy to see why he has been added to the ranks of Fellowship winners, alongside Shigeru Miyamoto, Gabe Newell, Peter Molyneux, Nolan Bushnell and more. Although not in name, the Fellowship is viewed by many as a 'lifetime achievement' award - does that mean it's time for Schafer to think about retirement?
"I see it more as a challenge," he laughs, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at EGX Rezzed. "This sort of award feels like something you get when you're done, but I still feel like I'm working towards figuring out how to make games. Slowly, over time. I don't think I've made my best game yet, and I feel like that's something I want to work towards.
"I don't know what it is yet. I've always wanted to try new things with experimental stuff. I'm trying to structure things at [Double Fine] where I have time to mess about on my own with prototypes. Because most of my days are spent writing Psychonauts 2 or creative directing and helping with someone else's project. But I still like to set aside a little R&D time, just trying new ideas."
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
From the incorrigible Mojo Slack channel:
jason [19:04]
Anyone wanna take this one? Artist Scott Campbell Talks Gaming Trends, Double Fine, & Psychonauts 2
Oh, and this! Reboot Develop 2018: Tim Schafer Talks Psychonauts 2, FIG & Esports
I guess we’ll take that one, then, Jason. ¬
Of course you do. And you're in luck, because that's just what was recorded at something called "EGX Rezzed 2018." I assume that's the name of an expo, though it may also be the model of dirt bike my nephew got for Christmas. For those of us who happened to be washing our hair during Tim's panel, here's a handy Youtube embed of the whole interview:
I haven't watched it myself yet, but reportedly Tim mentions the possibility of further LucasArts remasters, iterating once again that he'd insist on the original creators being involved. Hasn't Brian Moriarty been pretty upfront about wanting revisit Loom? Anyway, Tim evidently talks a bunch about Psychonauts as well, so it's sure to be a worthy listen all the way around.