The International House of Mojo

The Domino bricks keep falling after the “missing” Sea Monkey dialogue saga, and here’s one many of us have missed.

Over on Mastodon, Lars Sundström mentions that The Secret of Monkey Island wasn’t just going to be translated into Swedish – the work was fully done. And should you think that’s just hearsay – cue Spiffy close-up – this time, there’s actual proof.

(Your browser should translate the article for you, should you not know the dulcet tones of the Swedish language.)

There’s a bunch of interesting information in there. Guybrush Threepwood, for example, would be known as Kajbjörn Trahnved (no DPaint guy.brush brush reference in sight). The Secret of Monkey Island? Hemligheten om Apornas ö. If you haven’t already – or just feel like reminiscing about what could’ve been – go check it out.

During one of his (seemingly frequent) ScummVM-related dives into The Secret of Monkey Island, Erik Torbjorn made an interesting discovery: A set of dialogue lines were, because of a bug, never triggered when Guybrush enters the Sea Monkey’s hull. After some ScummVM hacking, he was able to insert the lines again to see what it would look like.

We did a quick dig into the Special Edition and, as tends to be the case, the lines were recorded but, again, never used. This is all a roundabout way to say: We took the screenshots from Erik Torbjorn, ripped the audio, and created this video.

That we in 2025 are still finding new stuff in The Secret of Monkey Island truly is sad fascinating. Good job, Erik Torbjorn!

A Few Updates (Apr 8th): First, Torbjorn posted the video of his actual playthrough, so check it out for the real deal.

He has also gotten some feedback from people who claim to have seen the lines within the game, probably right after Spiffy’s closeup.

And, Ron weighed in, saying there never was a coding error, but rather just a few cut lines.

This is, indeed, getting sweaty.

As expected, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will hit the PS5 next month, specifically on April 17th.

The game garnered a bunch of positive Xbox and PC reviews, most notably from Mojo, so check out the latest Indy caper this April if you already haven’t.

Until he let the domain expire, Wilmunder.com was the longstanding web presence of SCUMM Lord Aric Wilmunder. Today, the URL will finally work for you again…as somebody’s World of Warcraft site. That’s like a guy coming along and exhuming your loved one’s grave just so they could fill the hole with pog slammers instead.

Around ten years ago, Aric had started using his site to make the most constructive contribution to humanity since penicillin: uploading his irreplaceable treasure trove of LucasArts design documents. Fortunately, the stuff he did get around to posting seems to be preserved by snapshots, but he had so much more to offer that was meant to be on the way, like the Forge pitch documents (Footnote: Yes, there were apparently two separate ones.), a proposed Star Trek SCUMM game, and even a Maniac Mansion II that was not Day of the Tentacle, which he held up at one point for Daniel Albu during their last interview:

Aric, come back to us. Continue your noble work. Light a candle, rather than curse our darkness. ‘Cause I really wanna know how pissed the Meteor is.

Much has been written and said about the sadly abandoned Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix from the mid-90s. In all that recorded history, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of Dave Grossman’s involvement.

Well, Daniel Albu has invited Dave for another round of Tech Talk, and it turns out that Dave was indeed briefly affiliated with – if not outright helming - Iron Phoenix during a transitional moment when an attempt was made to utilize FMV for the character animation, a gambit which you may remember Mike Levine speaking to Daniel about in a past interview. Anyway, the Iron Phoenix talk begins at 33:36, but why not enjoy the whole thing? There’s even a bit of Cavedog talk toward the end.

Source: Tech Talk

As recently mentioned, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is basically all about Monkey Island, something StarWars.com has decided to double down on in a brand-spanking new story:

Well then! Go read the whole story.

Source: StarWars.com

Despite what Remi would have you think, 2024 hasn’t quite come to an end, and neither has its collection of Daniel Albu interviews.

Two await your viewership. Below is a conversation with Greg Hammond, producer at LucasArts in the early 90s, followed by another with Yves Borckmans, a programmer whose principal LucasArts credit is Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II.

At nearly five hours, Daniel boasts the latter to be his longest interview yet, but frankly, I don’t think he’s showing enough deference to the possibility that we are all merely subjects in the ongoing Daniel interview called life.

It’s been a surprisingly vibrant year for Monkey Island fan games, but we can’t forget our history, so it’s nice timing that a complete playthrough of The Fate of Monkey Island has been uploaded to YouTube.

Too young to remember The Fate of Monkey Island? Built in 1999 (Footnote: Jesus Christ) by “Scurvyliver” using the then-ubiquitous Klik & Play game-making tool, it was considered the criterion example of fan games, mostly based on the following unique features:

• It got finished

One-a dem dere “sidequels,” the game takes place during the events of Monkey Island 2 and helps fill in some backstory for Curse by depicting what the monkeys had to go through when LeChuck went into the amusement park business. Yes, the game sees you playing not as Guybrush, but as a monkey named Squinky. (Spielberg would approve.)

The success of the game led Survyliver to embark on a more ambitious sequel, complete with a SCUMM-like interface, but progress was halted when LucasArts cried copyright infringement. Obviously, it wasn’t the best look for the studio, but it’s impressive that they could take some time out of not bug-testing Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles to fire off the cease-and-desist. The scandal even reached the awareness of print media:

While you can still download Fate (and for that matter, the abandoned sequel) and hope your modern operating system can fathom its charms, the following video may satisfy the requirements of those who wish to know their history without necessarily getting it stuck on their shoes.

Source: YouTube

And that's because Harrison Ford made a special effort to praise the newest and shiniest Indy imitator, Troy Baker, for the voice actor's well-received performance in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

It all went down at the Game Awards a few days ago. You weren't cool enough to get an invitation, so let's set the coordinates on the Dial of Destiny...

If it's justice for Doug Lee you want...talk to Sternhart and Costa.

Source: Lucasfilm.com

Vince Lee, whom even those practicing Star Wars ostracism probably know as the principal behind the pioneering Rebel Assault and its FMV engine, INSANE (leveraged also by such games as Full Throttle and Outlaws) is Daniel Albu’s latest subject:

While Remi is still waiting for ChatGPT to spin up that Mojo review (it takes a lot of quarters these days), everyone else in the world has registered their thoughts, and there does seem to be a consensus that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the goods.

Accepting that as a given, I am pleased to see the property get the long-awaited comeback it has deserved after twenty-five baffling years serving an apparent agenda to strive for the ideal of being perfectly functional Tomb Raider/Uncharted knockoffs.

As you await the only judgment that Microsoft is worried about, you might care to follow the enthusiastic reaction on the forums or experience the superb soundtrack by the always dependable Gordy Haab. Walt Disney Records has made it available through Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and probably everywhere else you don’t prefer.

You, and definitely not us, probably need to catch up on the two Tech Talk interviews since the session with Larry the O. First up is James ‘Purple’ Hamilton, playtester extraordinaire from LucasArts’ olden days:

Then there’s Elaine Marley herself, Alexandra Boyd, whose long-form chat with Cressup only awakened her appetite for streamed interviews rather than bedded it down.

We should also point out that Daniel’s past interviews with Mike Levine and Aric Wilmunder, which uncovered a number of new anecdotes about Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, have done much to inspire a new article about the cancelled game by the folks at Time Extension.

Staying faithful to the theme of occasions gone unmarked, how about Steve Purcell busting out some hugely justifiable re-runs in honor of Thanksgiving, and now the yuletide season?

You may recall that Limited Run Games threw in a plush hamster as part of their big honking collector’s package for Day of the Tentacle Remastered, but do you really think hamster perfection happens in the first iteration? Literally millions of hamsters had to be rejected to achieve what wound up in the hands of over-salaried fanatics, and one of those valuable hamsters-that-weren't is now up for auction on eBay.

It's part of the annual Winter Fundraiser for the Video Game History Foundation, so don’t be motivated only by the fact that owning this prototype with marginally different colors is absolutely essential to any well-appointed home – know also that it’s downright conscientious as well.

Source: eBay

It's been a race car, a blimp, and a breakfast menu item, but this time they've really gone round the bend and saw fit to try to adapt Indiana Jones and the Great Circle into a video game.

Look, I'm fresh out of commentary for all the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle marketing profligacy. It finally broke me. Take this and leave in peace:

Source: Twitter

Wait, you think you’ve dived deep into Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, just because that last promotional video called itself a deep dive? Well, that makes you an idiot, because now there’s an episode of the Official Xbox Podcast called “Diving Deeper Into Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.” We’re hanging with the goddamned benthic organisms over here.

Source: Xbox Podcast

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. (Footnote: And we were right. Don’t want to hear it.)

Keep Reading

Source: Mojo Forums

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.

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.”

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?

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:

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.

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.

Source: Tech Talk with Daniel Albu