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Rightly fearful of a world where Escape from Monkey Island magazine coverage gets lost to the Mysts o'Tyme, our own Scummbuddy blew the dust bunnies off the scanner and preserved the feature story that graced the Sept. 2000 issue of Computer Games Magazine.

You may already be familiar with the cover of this issue, as it’s been universally acknowledged since the game came out to be objectively superior to the actual box art the geniuses in Marketing saw fit to approve in the end, but the preview itself by Cindy Yans is some proper journalism, and the pre-release quotes from Mike Stemmle and Sean Clark will take you back to those innocent, anticipatory days when we thought we had another classic coming our way.

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Source: Mojo Forums

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There’s a lot going on, at far too rapid a clip, when it comes to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle for the front page to really keep up, but that’s why you’re such a devout follower of the forum thread. Let’s cover the highlights though, starting with a fifteen minute “gameplay deep dive” video Bethesda put out earlier in the week.

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And if you thought the spared-no-expense marketing madness could only have peaked, the game’s latest promotional partner is here to say, “Hold my chemically-sweetened syrup.”

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”I see your taste in friends remains consistent.”

Further info on the IHOP tie-in, inclusive of a collectable drinking glass and a sweepstakes for Exclusive Prizes™, can be found here. I know what you're thinking: Where the heck was the ReMI-inspired breakfast menu?

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You’ve probably seen the news pop into your inbox already, but in case you haven’t – GOG has launched a certification program of sorts that promises to, and I quote:

The GOG Preservation Program ensures classic games remain playable on modern systems, even after their developers stopped supporting them. By maintaining these iconic titles, GOG helps you protect and relive the memories that shaped you, DRM-free and with dedicated tech support.

Well, then! I think we can all get behind the sentiment, though exactly what it means on a practical level is a bit foggy to me. I.e., will classic LucasArts titles still rely on the baked-in version of ScummVM?

Either way, included in the first batch of titles are Indiana Jones® and the Fate of Atlantis™, The Curse of Monkey Island™, and The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition.

News of EGA versions and – most importantly – Amiga games forthcoming, I’m sure.

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Another Tech Talk has arrived, this time with multifaceted audio engineer Larry the O, who worked at LucasArts around 1995-2003 on a bunch of Star Wars titles as well as Escape from Monkey Island. When you’re done listening to his stories, you might also check out his web site, Toys in the Attic.

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Source: Tech Talk with Daniel Albu

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“I do see what causes some people to rate Grim Fandango so highly, and I definitely don’t think any less of them for doing so."

This sporting sentiment from Jimmy Maher gives you a decent idea of what you're in for in his latest entry at The Digital Antiquarian, dedicated to Tim Schafer’s 1998 classic. Fans of hot takes rejoice -- or does he speak for the silent majority? Whether you read it in outrage or validation, you know you’re always getting the good stuff over there.

Our CEO, who just happens to be the webmaster of The Grim Fandango Network, was last observed sharpening knives, but we’re sure it’s perfectly innocent.ceo

Source: The Digital Antiquarian

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In the SCUMM catalog, there are three early games that found themselves produced during a transitional era of graphics cards, where VGA (256-color) was most definitely around, but EGA (16-color) still had the dominant install base.

As a result, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Loom, and The Secret of Monkey Island initially shipped as EGA versions, but had their art retroactively redone (often within a year) in elitist fancy VGA form by other artists.

Over the years, the argument from purists that the EGA originals should be privileged has grown louder -- and also more tragic, as those most definitely don’t tend to be the versions offered by Lucasfilm. Regardless of individual preferences, for which there can be no right answer, the comparison is always interesting, and a typically Norwegian hero has made this inspection easier than ever.

Though he hasn’t gotten to Monkey 1 yet, you’ll have a lot of fun hovering your mouse over backgrounds from Indy 3 and Loom. Check out how much bigger that Sam & Max totem pole got in Indy’s office (and is that a subtle ode to the Great Monkey Head added to the top shelf there?), or how superior Loom was in its original form in every way. Above all, bow down before the one true Cobb:

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Source: SuperRune

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As promised, the month draws to a close with a whole bunch of new hands-on impressions of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. No really, there’s a lot of them. Too many, frankly. We’re a little insulted.

Here’s what I rounded up before my hand fell off. People seem to be liking it.

The game is out December 9th. Two weeks before you finish reading all of these, in other words.

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I’m not sure why you’d look for the latest Indiana Jones and the Great Circle news here on the front page when the forum coverage by “Threepwood4life” is far more dependable, but perhaps the time has come to play catch-up, if only to keep up appearances and maintain our eligibility for government subsidies.

The last non-LEGO Indy title back in 2009 was, shall we say, a furtive affair, and I think we’re starting to bear witness to what unrelieved repression ultimately leads to. Wanting to project a show of force in marketing gimmick game, Microsoft is offering up an exclusive, Indy-themed Xbox Series X console to the lucky few who want that thing in their home. What you do is haul yourself over to one of three metropolitan hubs (London, Sydney, and New York) starting November 12th. At these “Microsoft Experience Centers” you will find an Indy display that will challenge your ego with some sort of puzzle. Use your background in adventure games to solve it, and you’ve done and gone and entered for your chance to win. It’s all terribly cute. Full details of the sweepstakes are here, and below is a look at the hardware you’ll be publicly debasing yourself for:

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Not exhibitionist enough for you? Then try on for size the four-wheeled promotional consideration the game will be enjoying at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in Austin this weekend:

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Somewhere in all of this you might have maintained some curiosity about the game itself. As we are drawing closer to release, more hands-on impressions are fixing to emerge. Fans are already photo-journaling extravagant Great Circle events that Bethesda is putting on, and word is that we can expect previews to turn up before the month’s out.

Indiana Jones and the Middling Parallelogram releases December 9, 2024 on the Xbox Series S|X and on PC, with a Playstation 5 version to follow in 2025.
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Remi must have missed this interview with Dan Connors and Jonathon Sgro of Skunkape Games last week, and it’s too bad, because it’s quite good. Most of the discussion focuses on what went into the development of the Sam & Max remasters, including throwing Jake under the bus at one point. But if I know you, you probably want to know what they said about The Future™:

Time Extension: With the Sam & Max games done, it would be interesting to hear what's next for the studio — what have the conversations been like internally regarding Skunkape's future? Do you anticipate working on more remasters like this or do you envision yourselves making something else entirely?

Connors: Well, we've developed something that's really powerful, which is the ability to remaster games in the Telltale engine, and there's a lot of stuff there, but they all have tricky situations around them because it's not like four years ago.

Now there's different ownership around a whole bunch of it, so we're trying to develop the right relationships there, because that's super interesting to us, and we're the right people to do it. I think the Sam & Max stuff has shown that. You know, aside from that, that's something we've got to figure out because everybody's too talented to not be working on something cool. So we just gotta figure out what it is.

Time Extension: A big thing that I've seen people say online in terms of Skunkape's future is, 'I hope they do this for Tales of Monkey Island' or 'I hope they do this for another Telltale game'. We definitely think Tales, in particular, is a game that definitely could benefit from this kind of treatment, with new lighting and things like that. It would look amazing. And I guess Disney has kind of shown some interest in doing stuff with Monkey Island again: reuniting with Ron and letting him kind of do his thing with Return to Monkey Island, but then also like doing the Sea of Thieves' crossover as well.

Connors: Yeah like we would love that. That would be amazing.

Time Extension: Yeah, I think it would definitely help introduce those games to a new audience and get the message out, 'Hey, you know these Telltale Monkey Island games are fun to play'. What do you think?

Connors: Yeah, there are things in Tales that I think we might have rushed or concepts that we thought were gonna work, that we got to a certain point, and then kind of failed before we had fully executed them. And even on Sam and Max, there were a couple of those, and when we do this process, we can say, 'Those two or three last things that we wanted to do to make this sing, we can do now.' And I think that's one of the subtle things that makes these remasters so great.

Sgro: Yeah. I love working on these things because back at Telltale — like I worked at every game on Telltale — there were always things that we couldn't have done because of the technology or the budget or time or all of that stuff combined.

You look at the final result and it's like, 'Yeah, it's great, it could be better.' So now it's just been fun taking the Sam & Max games and trying to make them the best that they could possibly be and improve all those things that we didn't have a chance to do originally. So, personally, I'd love to do that to any Telltale product pretty much. But it's limited on what we could do.

Connors: If we had a time machine, we would go back to when we got Sam & Max and try to do more but you know it is what it is.

Well, that all sounds rather definitively…ambiguous. Check out the whole thing, and buy The Devil’s Playhouse eight more times.

Source: Time Extension

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For PC and Xbox, that is. Despite speculation that this could be a Microsoft exclusive, a Playstation version is promised for Spring 2025. Celebrate the release date announcement with this new trailer:

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Source: Bethesda Softworks

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Last month saw another welcome entry in the “Lucasfilm Games Rewind” series over in the blog section of Lucasfilm.com, this one being a tribute to Loom.

It’s indeed a nice little writeup on the 1990 classic, but the irony of its devout tone might be a bit too rich for some to digest, considering that Lucasfilm only offers the VGA version of the game - drastically re-written compared to the EGA original, the artwork for which is a high water mark of the 16 color era - through Steam and GOG. It also happens to be a version of the game loathed by creator Brian Moriarty, who is solicitously quoted throughout the piece.

But some things in life just must be accepted, and we should all humble ourselves to the reality that this issue is literally impossible to address.

Source: Lucasfilm.com

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You’ve read our article on the subject, sure, but as you’ve confessed to many a psychiatrist, you’ll never truly know a night’s sleep until you can hear Aric Wilmunder talk about Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix – that’s the would-be SCUMM Indy game planned after Fate of Atlantis – for four-and-a-half hours.

Well, Daniel Albu's got you covered in his latest upload. Eat well:

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Source: Tech Talk with Daniel Albu

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Our favourite Lucasarts game emulator DREAMM has reached another milestone. Earlier this week Aaron Giles released DREAMM 3 further cementing his place in the Mojo pantheon.

This version adds support for a bunch more games, supports add on packs and adds an excellent CRT filter that adapts and changes to suit the video mode of the game you're playing. There's much more of course and full details can be found in the readme.

Grab it here.

Source: Our forums

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I mean...

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Still, we always support Loom love, so we salute you, Eurogamer.

Image Credit: The Point and Click Store.

Source: Eurogamer

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Mojo continues its laudably recessive approach to journalism by letting those desperate, needier outlets get first dibs since they’re in such a damned hurry. But now that all the carrying on has blown over, we’re ready to calmy and safely catch up on the latest bits and bobs surrounding Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, while signaling all turns and obeying the speed limit within a generous margin of error.

Since the Xbox showcase, a few new gameplay clips have emerged. We really have to give the credit on this one to reader Threepwood4life, whose unthinkable willingness to look at social media platforms made the discoveries possible:

Lost in the shuffle of the showcase was this podcast (also fully transcribed) by Xbox Wire, which featured as guests the Game Director and Production Director of Great Circle, Jerk Gustafsson and John Jennings, who both do a pretty credible job at Telling People What We Imagine They Want To Hear game:

XBOX WIRE: Obviously, this is an IP that has been around for decades at this point, so you obviously want to make sure you get it right. Can you talk a little bit about the prep and research that went into making sure that you were bringing an authentic experience?

JERK GUSTAFSSON: In this case, of course, we had a lot of materials to go through, and we spent countless of hours just rewatching the films, especially the two movies, I think, that are closest to the game, which is Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. And looking at the movies both from a broad stroke perspective to get into the mood and why, but also to some extent, scrutinizing them for details and the small hooks that are key to the identity of everything that is Indiana Jones.

And in addition, then, we have one of the best resources through our partnership with Lucasfilm games, and working together with them on this project has been invaluable, just this cave of knowledge about the character, which has been fantastic. And Lucasfilm has been excited about the project from day one and have been incredibly supportive and helpful in bringing the story and the character in Indiana Jones to life through not just our story, but also through gameplay.

JOHN JENNINGS: Yeah. It's been great having access to writers, directors from Lucasfilm, and people who've worked with the Indiana Jones property for decades, having their input. I mean, some of these people know everything that has ever been written about Indy, and having them to bounce ideas off and get some of their own input has been hugely, hugely invaluable. I mean, our writers are huge Indy fans as well and just been scouring all of the countless wikis that are out there written about everything, all of the comics, additional books, and so forth, just to build up their knowledge.

Other things as well. I mean, we managed to get access into some of the Lucasfilm archives as well, which has been-- for Indy fans, has been an absolute dream come true to get access to some of these things that perhaps not so many people have seen, but our artists have been wanting to make sure everything is authentic as possible. We bought replicas of Indy's famous fedora made by the original hat makers who made the original prop from the first film, proper recreations of his iconic jacket, and so forth, just to make sure everything is absolutely spot on.

Lastly, we took the opportunity to update our gallery with the latest screenshots that came out of all the recent hubbub.

The tortoise and the hare, my friends. The tortoise and the hare.

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It’s been politely noticed by our dear readers that we’ve arguably fallen a bit delinquent in highlighting Daniel Albu’s latest interviews, always trackable in that dedicated forum thread, despite their objective status as The Most Mojo Things Ever. I guess it never occurred to our constituents that we might still be watching them.

But the point is made, and it’s high time we catch up on the LucasArts developer interviews that have come along after Annie Fox got her due February. Since then, Daniel invited Aaron Giles over for a third session, to discuss the features introduced in DREAMM 3.0…

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…before pulling Noah Falstein back into the virtual studio for some further Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis commentary…

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…which was in turn followed by a conversation with voice director extraordinaire Khris Brown…

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…and then, in keeping with the theme, by a chat with that other legendary voice director, Darragh O'Farrell…

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…which might have felt pretty darn lonely if it hadn’t been chased down with a session with Mike Levine:

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This latest one has been generating quite a bit of buzz, as Levine used the opportunity to debut rare footage: some fairly unbelievable tests for Indiana Jones FMV sequences using live action, filmed at ILM. Though things didn’t pan out for Indy, the techniques would be leveraged to published success in Rebel Assault 2. It’s unclear if this bit of R&D was part of the cancelled Iron Phoenix adventure game (which is said to have undergone experiments along those lines when a contractor failed to deliver on more traditional animation) or some other project altogether, but regardless of the exact origin you get a decent George Lucas anecdote, so why complain?

Mojo will soon return to cover the upcoming release of Afterlife.

Source: Tech Talk with Daniel Albu

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This weekend was The Xbox Showcase, and it was a natural venue for showing off more of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. That’s probably why they up and did it:

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The release date remains merely “2024”, so the odds seem good that this will be dropped just before the ball in Times Square does.

Source: Bethesda Softworks

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You don’t pass the twenty-five year milestone in the fan site business without learning a few tricks of the trade. One of them is to maintain a “rainy-day fund” of news items that have an evergreen quality, unburdened by topicality. And on a fine, quiet Sunday like today, why not fish one out of the sack?

Back in 1991, a gamer wrote in to Nintendo Power magazine to report an exploit involving Nurse Edna in the NES version of Maniac Mansion, getting his finding published in the May issue. Today, and by today I mean five years ago, “Agent #912” took to Reddit to claim credit for his five minutes of fame, and he brought along the receipts:

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Now then: what have you done?

Source: Reddit

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A bunch of Gary Winnick’s concept art from his Lucasfilm Games days is up for sale over at Heritage Auctions. I don’t know how this came to pass or how that site works, but you’re still going to want to browse the lot. Probably the most intriguing item is this early set of character designs for The Secret of Monkey Island. Who knew Gary did concept art for that game?

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I couldn’t even tell you what characters those are supposed to represent. The leftmost one is presumably an early take on Guybrush, and the guy on the right is a credible match for that Governor Phatt-esque character who was found in the resource files but didn’t make it into the final game:

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Anyway, you’ll want to check all of it out, and to pass judgment on the mislabeling of Maniac Mansion pieces as belonging to Day of the Tentacle. Such humiliations are the sort any business runs the risk of when they’re too cheap to spring for The Mojo Audit.

Source: Heritage Auctions

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Return to Monkey Island—more commonly known as ReMI on various Discords—is set to hit Apple’s subscription service this June. Or, more specifically, Return to Monkey Island+ will. My guess is that the + indicates the game will be playable on both Mac and i[Pad]OS.

Everybody needs more ReMI in their lives, so check it out on June 6th.

Update: The CEO has bestowed upon his wisdom and informed us that the + indicates that downloadable content was included. That could mean that a) the Mac version includes the horse armor or b) as the iOS version has a sandboxed demo, the full game could be the +.

Source: The Verge

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