While Disney may have sunk its new Pirates of the Caribbean film, Tales of Melee Island, a lovely little Monkey Island fan-film helmed by Montreal-based Julian Stamboulieh, is happy to be flying its flag:
Source: YouTube
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If you don’t keep at least semi-regular track of the LucasArts posters thread, you’re missing out. Just over the last few months, Laserschwert has gifted to the world dazzling new versions of Peter Chan’s Day of the Tentacle Star Wars parody, Zak McKracken’s cover art, and, in a direct valentine to mine own heart, some marriage-threateningly seductive Maniac Mansion alternatives. Freshly endowed with some superior Outlaws source material, he’s promising to bring that one to similar heights in the future as well.
It’s all there for the taking in the internet’s finest forum thread. Sleep on it at your own peril.
You might not consider Hitman 3 fertile ground for a Monkey Island easter egg, but with the launch of the new extra-piratey location, Ambrose Island, that has very much changed.
Eurogamer reports of a gravestone in the level, for one "G Threepwood, Mighty Pirate," and not only that, an associated treasure hunt you can engage in to dig up some treasure from our favourite swashbuckler's grave.
Apparently they do it in this very long video, but I took literally minutes to look through it and couldn't find it, so I'll leave that as a little challenge for YOU, the reader.
Source: Eurogamer
The British quiz show "The Chase" had a Monkey Island question the other night, and someone on Twitter has the proof:
Source: Twitter
Max, the adorable anthropomorphic rabbity thing you may remember being featured in a comic once in 1987 has been stuffed with fluff and is available for you to purchase, specifically if you have been unable to acquire one in the last year or so as they come in and out of stock.
What was new to me this time around with them coming back in stock is perhaps a new comic done by Steve Purcell, whom you might remember being the screenplay writer for Pixar's Brave.
I love that they were able to pick on the scarcity of the Max plushie they've encountered. I hope no one has to ever give in to the high prices being asked for on eBay.
Source: Uncute
Did you enjoy the writing in the Curse of Monkey Island? If so you might enjoy the debut novel by of the people responsible for that writing, Jonathan Ackley. It's called Off By One: Serious Games and is available to buy this very second.
The plot centers around the leak of a video games's source code and a mysterious government project that takes the protagonist into the heart of the post-Soviet underworld. The video game company in the novel is called "Coliseum Arts", which surely must be a wink to LucasArts. Right? (And if not, why not?)
So why not treat yourself? At $4 you can't go wrong supporting Ackley's latest endeavor!
Off By One: Serious Games on Amazon US and Amazon UK
Source: Jonathan Ackley's Facebook
It wouldn't be Halloween in a week if Dave Grossman wasn't carving a pumpkin up into something delightfully grotesque, would it? Take a look at the latest addition to the Pumpkin House of Horrors.
Update: Turns out Mixnmojo's already covered this news item, making this a scenic route towards that obligatory second link.
Source: Phrenopolis
On Tuesday, the passing of prolific voice actor Jack Angel was reported by multiple outlets. Among his many roles across film, television and video games, Angel contributed voice work to a number of LucasArts titles, including Star Wars: Dark Forces, Full Throttle, Outlaws, and most notably Grim Fandango, where he played the roles of Bruno Martinez, Seaman Naranja, and ol' Chepito, whose substandard sense of direction and undying love for the "Lil' Chipper" were legendary.
Happily, Angel's talent is eternalized via these classics. Now lift those knees, stay close to his light, and try to sing in key:
Source: Legacy
Dave Grossman's unflappable tradition of pumpkin desecration enters what I think might be its twenty-fifth year with his latest installment, dubbed "Brain Worm".
Indulge your sick curiosity and enjoy the past entries all over again while you're over there.
Cartoonist extraordinaire Graham Annable, whose Grickle was adapted into the Puzzle Agent universe, will be releasing his “first ever doodle collection” next month. Here’s the product description:
The first ever Graham Annable Doodle Collection puts on paper a carefully chosen selection of some of the best Graham Annable cartoons to appear on Instagram from the past 6 years of over 2000 illustrations by Mr. Annable. With out-of-control frogs, pug-chefs, alien-dogs, to murdering-muppets, you will not want to miss this opportunity to hold in your hands such a gem of cartooning lunacy. Hurry now while supplies last!
And here’s the pre-order link.
If you stretch your memory back to 2006-2007, you might recall that Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings was supposed to be a big deal. Billed as a next-gen/AAA/Xtreme title, it was promoted as the character’s grand, interactive comeback from LucasArts following a long drought of non-casual Indy games since Emperor’s Tomb (2003).
Well, that drought never actually ended, because Staff of Kings wound up being a victim of that classic LucasArts pitfall: a transition at the upper level. The end result was that the studio felt it had to choose between putting its resources either toward a Star Wars game or a Not Star Wars game – another LucasArts signature – and the right to live predictably went to The Force Unleashed, which reputedly shared some of the same tech that was meant to power Indy.
Staff of Kings – in its original form, anyway – was thus cancelled, leaving some low-end third party adaptations for the Wii and handhelds to be burned off after the fact. There was an additional, unexpected casualty amidst all this: a fully completed novelization of Staff of Kings by go-to Indy author Rob MacGregor. What happened exactly to this unpublished tie-in gets kinda complicated, so let me just steal this excellent overview provided by “throwmethewhip”, who also reveals the happy ending that I’m really trying to report here:In 2008, as merchandising efforts kicked up to coincide with the release of Indy4, one long-teased piece of media, a next gen video game with exciting new physics technology, was conspicuously absent. Behind the scenes of that project, there was production trouble. The next gen versions were canceled and production shifted focus toward the Wii. Ultimately on June 9th, 2009, with very little fanfare, Staff of Kings released for the Wii, PS2, DS and PSP. It was not well-received.
Meanwhile, veteran Indiana Jones author, Rob MacGregor was confused. Rob had written 6 of the prequel novels in the 90s and had been contracted to make his triumphant return to the world of our favorite adventurer with a novelization of Staff of Kings. But his book had not released alongside the game.
Rob has recounted this story at length on an old blog, but in short— the publisher, Bantam, forgot due to the year long delay of the game. Initially, they blamed Rob for not getting the manuscript submitted on time, but he reminded them that he had it in well ahead of the original deadline back in 2008. They did admit their error, but ultimately decided against publishing it; the game after all was not a commercial or critical success. And with that Rob’s novel was lost to the sands of time…
Or was it?
Fast forward several years and Dale Dassel convinced Rob to allow him to format the book. @cg_illus was commissioned to provide artwork. The hope was to persuade Bantam to release the manuscript as an ebook as all the work was done. Ultimately this too failed.
To my knowledge, seven copies of that manuscript were made. This is one of those copies! Fully formatted!
For years now, I have heard people say that the book was leaked and available. It has not been. It has never been sold to anyone and NEVER will be. I know where all seven copies are.
And so now, an announcement:
The book will make its public debut as a month by month, chapter by chapter reading completely free on Rob’s podcast starting in July! Rob has graciously asked me to make this announcement!
So there you have it! I don’t know the actual name of said podcast right this second, but I have until July to figure it out.
Source: Instagram
Onetime friends of Mojo (and of the seminal Remi and Stefan Do Spokane podcast), Panic, is getting close to open preorders for their bizarrely fun-looking Playdate. The $179 handheld console will also have an optional stereo dock. More importantly, one of its twenty-four titles is Sasquatchers, which is being developed by – no introduction needed – Chuck Jordan and Jared Emerson-Johnson (music and sound, natch). Additionally, Jared is involved with DemonQuest 85, in addition to familiar names like Alex Ashby, Lawrence Bishop, and Duncan Fyfe. (And also Belinda Leung – I don’t recognize the name, but based on the company she keeps, I will assume she is awesome.)
So: Playdate. Next month. Mojo-relevant games. What’s not to love?
Update! salty-horse points out that a game about "Forrest Byrnes," the Firewatch mascot is also under development. I'm now officially excited!
Source: The Verge
Following IGN, Kotaku, and Gamespot, Mixnmojo is making an appeal to anyone reading this to consider donating blood to Palestinian humanitarian groups or money to the following charities.
This is not a political post. It is an exceptional humanitarian appeal. Palestinian resistance to an ethnic cleansing campaign to “forcibly remove” them from their homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood escalated to mobs of Israeli settlers chanting “Death to Arabs” through the city and, now, to Israeli Air Force missiles bombing Gaza.
It is impossible to watch the situation on the ground and not want to help. Please watch that video.
Yesterday, Israel destroyed the Associated Press and Al Jazeera offices in the city. Entire families are killed. Images of children or children with thousand-yard stares cleaning bloody floors fill Arab media outlets, even as Facebook and Twitter independently claim that “glitches” have prevented posts on the situation spreading on their social media platforms.
Israel has been supported in this by the US and UK. As such, we urge anyone reading this to call their democratic representatives and ask them to pressure Israel to end its campaigns in Gaza and Jerusalem, even if they think it’s pointless. You can find your representatives here: The USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The following charities are apolitical and do humanitarian work in a place that badly needs it:
Mojo will resume its dog and bunny adventure game coverage after this.
As long as we're on the subject of Laserschwert, did you know that he recently gave his frame-ready poster download of the Monkey Island 2 cover art a material upgrade? You better give your eyeballs a head-up on this one.
You see, a 1991 issue of the UK-based magazine "The One" contained a large, fold-out poster of Purcell's artwork, making it a superior scanning source to the box, or for that matter anything else known to exist. A generous fan in possession of that particular issue heard the call of duty and sent the precious reference material to the pre-eminent authority in this field, who then worked his arts:
Read more and collect your upgrade in Laserschwert's stickied poster thread, where the latest version of his offerings can always be found.
Boy, it's almost like reading the forums is a good idea or something.
Source: The Forums
You've seen the tease. Now see Scuba Max vs. Octopus and the Rubber Pants Commandos in their full glory:
You want to read such news hot off the presses, you go to samandmax.co.uk. You want to read it with a purple background, you wait for Mojo's artisanal approach.
Source: Boss Fight Studio
We all know and love Laserschwert for his important contributions to the art of LucasArts postercraft, and have for some time now. But while Mojo recognizes greatness on sight, the mainstream media, typically dazzled by the distracting rather than the first rate, has been slow to kiss the ring.
Are they starting to wise up? That's the signal being put out by the latest issue of Retro Gamer. Operating under the preposterous alias of Jan Hofmeister, Laserschwert sat for an interview that appears in their March issue. You can buy your very own copy below.
Source: Retro Gamer
You’ve already borrowed against your mortgage to afford those terrific Sam & Max action figures from Boss Fight Studio, so what’s another overextension to afford the next batch? Behold this new tease for “Wave 2”:
It’s been a while since the design for Wave 2 was unveiled, so to refresh your memory its two offerings are supposed to consist of the Rubber Pants Commandos and “Scuba Max” fighting an octopus. This is shaping up to be quite a year for Sam & Max stuff!
Source: Boss Fight Studio
After taking last year off, The Pumpkin House of Horrors has made its diabolical return. This year's carving is topical, yet in the same grisly tradition you know and love. Check it out, and revisit the legacy collection while you're there.
Don't scare us like that again, Dave.
Source: Phrenopolis
Being cool and popular, we recently received the following email:
Hi Mixnmojo,
My name’s Tim. I worked with George “The Fat Man” Sanger for a long time to release his master recordings from the Humongous Entertainment games he worked on. We worked really hard on the albums, restoring and remixing a lot of lost content, and taking them from raw ADATs to excellent listener-ready spreads. Now they’re finally out.
They sound fantastic, missing the 11025Hz distortion so characteristic of SCUMM games with digital music, and I thought your readers might be interested.
They can be found at thefatmanandteamfat.bandcamp.com
I run the Curator YouTube channel, too, which has some fun Putt-Putt related interviews and other content you might like.
Thanks for the great coverage over the years!
Do I need to draw you a road map? Go download those digitally liberated soundtracks right now!
Source: Bandcamp
A release date has been announced for a new book featuring some classic LucasArts locations. Virtual Cities: An Atlas & Exploration of Video Game Cities by Konstantinos Dimopoulos (illustrated by Maria Kallikaki) is a fascinating-looking hardback that takes a detailed look at some of the digital environments that video games have thrown at us over the years, and of course no such book would be complete without a few adventure games. Here's the official word:
Virtual cities are places of often-fractured geographies, impossible physics, outrageous assumptions and almost untamed imaginations given digital structure. This book, the first atlas of its kind, aims to explore, map, study and celebrate them. To imagine what they would be like in reality. To paint a lasting picture of their domes, arches and walls. From metropolitan sci-fi open worlds and medieval fantasy towns to contemporary cities and glimpses of gothic horror, author and urban planner Konstantinos Dimopoulos and visual artist Maria Kallikaki have brought to life over forty game cities.
The book is released on November 12 2020 and I've pre-ordered my copy, because this is about as close as I'll get to visiting Rubacava. Well, until I'm dead, anyway.
Source: Konstantinos Dimopoulos