Dave Grossman's annual gnarling of a hapless pumpkin continues. Visit the Pumpkin House of Horrors and scroll down for this year's entry, "Tooth Decay."
They build cages for people like you, Dave.
Source: The Pumpkin House of Horrors
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For awhile it seemed like Telltale's excellent re-release of the excellent Sam & Max compendium Surfin' the Highway had gone out-of-print and had joined the original 1995 printing as a regrettably elusive comic book gem synonymous with eBay gougers and gnashing of teeth.
We're happy to report that this isn't the case! The collection is available at its reasonable original list price ($19.99) courtesy of the Cartoon Art Museum, a lovely institution with whom former Telltale marketing guru Joel Dreskin is known to collaborate. He was involved, for instance, with the Sam & Max exhibit that was set up at the physical museum for the characters' 25th anniversary.
You want more? The museum is also selling a holiday card set which includes one of Purcell's Sam & Max classics. So go buy cool stuff and support the museum in the process. Surfin' the Highway is the Christmas gift your mom secretly wants but was too afraid to ask for. She shook me awake to tell me so. Cut her a break!
Source: Cartoon Art Museum
Double Fine's former COO, Justin Bailey, founded a new crowdfunding site focused solely on video games, entitled Fig.
Fig is different in the other crowdfunding sites, in that not only is it focused on just video game projects, but that it will have expert curation, so only a few projects will be showcased at once to prevent over saturation. It will also allow both crowdfunding and the ability for investors to invest in the project as well. So, the fact that investors are involved in these projects is known up front.
Even though Justin Bailey is no longer with Double Fine, Tim Schafer is on the board of directors, along with Feargus Urquhart and Brian Fargo. The only project on the service right now is Outer Wilds, which is currently at 118,000 of it's $125,000 goal with 3 days left to go.
Sad news today as we learn that character actor Irwin Keyes has passed away at the age of 63. Check IMDB for a list of the actor's many credits, the most famous probably being his roles as bodyguard Hugo Mojelewski on "The Jeffersons" as well as the inhaler-dependent assassin Wheezy Joe in the Coen Brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty.
Here at Mojo though, he will always be remembered as the voice of Bruno the Bigfoot, whose rescue is the primary concern of the 1993 classic adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road.
Source: The AV Club
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.
The GOG and Steam releases of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream included an enhanced version of the soundtrack.
With the help of ScummVM developers, two fans by the names of SirAlastor and Alpheon, went through the game and found all the music cues, and Alpheon posted instructions tto change the music from the included soundtrack to tracks that ScummVM would read, so the music could be played within the game itself. He also posted a video showing the enhanced music in action, compared to the music from the original game, which you can view embedded below or here if the embedding doesn't work for you. The difference is quite striking.
Oxenfree has been announced by Night School Studio, a game development studio founded by Telltale and Disney alumni. It is described as "a supernatural teen thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift. Players control Alex, who brings her new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight party gone wrong off the coast of their hometown."
You can view the trailer embedded below, and if the Mojo embedding doesn't work for you, you can see the video here.
If you're on Instagram, you probably should follow Seinfeld2000 for many reasons. One of which is this picture…
Now imagine a Michael Land version of the Seinfeld theme, and ask yourself how that crossover could go wrong!
The Humble Star Wars Bundle is going on. Pay what you want for Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy, and Dark Forces. There are also 6 other Star Wars games if you pay $12 or more: Empire at War: Gold Pack, The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition, The Force Unleashed II, Battlefront II, Knights of the Old Republic II, and Republic Commando. The site says that there's more yet to be announced.
If Star Wars isn't your thing, the Humble Weekly Bundle is an adventure bundle this week. Pay whatever you like for Detective Grimoire, Broken Sword 1 & 2, and The Whispered World Special Edition. If you pay more than the average, you'll also get The Detail: Episode 1, A Golden Wake, and Cognition: Game of the Year Edition. If you pay $10 or more, you'll also get Broken Sword 5.
Graham Annable, former lead animator at LucasArts and former creative director at Telltale Games, has been nominated for an oscar for Best Animated Picture for The Boxtrolls, which he co-directed with Anthony Stacchi, the concept artist for the cancelled animated film, The Curse of Monkey Island.
We at Mojo wish them both luck, which they won't need because The Boxtrolls was awesome.
ResidualVM, the interpreter for playing Grim Fandango and Myst III on modern platforms, has been updated with a bug fix release. Version 0.2.1 fixes a crash when using subtitles in the Polish version of Myst III. In addition, a new port has been added. In addition to Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Amiga OS 4, ResidualVM is now available on SGI IRIX workstations.
We've already told you about the crazy Disney World motion-sensor card-collecting treasure hunt game known as Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, being that it was worked on by CMI bigwigs Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern and all.
But now their work is being covered by Fortune, so you can finally take it seriously. Ackley gets interviewed as part of an examination of this growing ambition theme parks seem to be having to become video games. And you'd never forgive me if I kept it secret.
Source: Fortune
You know him from LucasArts, you know him from Telltale, and you might even know him from Humongous Entertainment. And now you'll also know Dave Grossman from Reactive Studios, where he's the chief creative officer.
"Who the hell does this Reactive think it is?", you may ask, and a good question it is. The studio is known for its Codename Cygnus, a Kickstarted "interactive radio drama." Apparently it uses "speech recognition," which means it's perfectly suited for playing on the bus.
(Yeah, I don't know, I never tried it; it could be awesome for all I know.)
Anyway! Good luck to Mr Grossman on his new gig. We're looking forward to see where this is headed.
You can find Reactive Studios website here.
Source: IGN
The Brutal Legend Limited Edition Indiebox has shipped to those who ordered it in October, full of items using concept art from the game. If you missed it, but would like to order it, there's still time. You can pick it up at the indiebox store for $25 USD.
The Massive Chalice beta is now available to all via Steam Early Access. Everyone who backed it at $20 or more should get a Steam code for this version. Oh, and even though it's on Early Access, it is fully funded, so there's no worry about it not becoming fully realized. The 1.0 release is scheduled for Spring 2015, and the game has full funding to make it up to that point.
Game of Thrones is now more than just a title image and a string of cryptic clues. Telltale has revealed the first concrete information about their series based on the HBO show based on the novels. It will consist of six episodes, and will feature five different playable protagonists all from the same house, in this case, the House of Forrester. Some of the people may be blood relatives of the Forrester clan, others may be people who work for the house, but every decision that you make will have consequences that will affect the entire house. The first episode will be called Iron From Ice and is set to arrive for download soon on PC/Mac, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and iOS, with additional platforms to be announced.
After taking a sabbatical from pumpkin slaughter last year, beloved game designer Dave Grossman has resumed his almost as beloved annual tradition. Visit the Pumpkin House of Horrors and scroll to the bottom for this year's victim.
And on your way down, relive the hideous triumphs of previous years.
Source: The Pumpkin House of Horrors
Gamasutra released an article detailing the effort to rebuild and preserve the world's first commercial graphical massively multiplayer online game, Lucasfilm's Habitat.
The original Habitat, which had an interface and graphics similar to the adventure game Labyrinth, was released in beta form by Lucasfilm Games (now LucasArts) for the Quantum Link online service for Commodore 64 from 1986 until it was shut down in 1988. A sized down version was released as Club Caribe on Quantum link in January 1988. Fujitsu later licensed the code and released Fujitsu Habitat in Japan in 1990. Habitat and Club Caribe was highly influential, and it's code still lives on through WorldsAway, which premiered on CompuServe in 1995, and moved to the public internet in 1997. WorldsAway had multiple worlds, two of which survive today and are now known as Dreamscape and NewHorizone. Dreamscape was Fujitsu's first virtual world, and appeared when WorldsAway premiered in 1995. NewHorizone was originally Club Connect when it was launched by Fujitsu in 1998 and New Radio World when the WorldsAway worlds were sold and became part of an online world known as VZones in December 1998. New Radio World was renamed VZConnections in December 1999, and then newHorizone in September 2001. These two worlds are still a part of vZones, and the WorldsAway software has also recently been licensed for use in MetroWorlds.
The preservation project was spearheaded by Alex Handy, founder and director of the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment. The project has official permission from Fujitsu, the company that purchased Habitat from Lucasfilm, to get the Habitat software working again. In order to get the project off the ground, Handy enlisted the help of the creators of Habitat, Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer, and Stratus, the company who made the Nimbus servers that Habitat ran on. They were given a Stratus computer, manufactured in 1989, and upgraded to use a 1999 era TCP/IP protocol.
On September 25, 2014, Morningstar and Farmer, and over a dozen hackathon attendees at the MADE video game museum, as well as people working remotely through IRC, set out to get Habitat running again. The hardest part was the Quantum Link code, so they utilized the Quantum Link Reloaded open source project.
There is still a ways to go, as they don't have access to all the support libraries that are needed for the Quantum Link server, so those need to be emulated in order to work properly. But, they have come a long way, and still intend to finish. Once the project is complete, anyone will be able to log in using a C64 emulator.
You can read more about the effort, and donate to the cause if you so desire, over at the Habitat Preservation Project page at the MADE website.
The final issue of Maniac Mansion co-creator Gary Winnick's five part comic book series, Bad Dreams, was released on Wednesday. The print issues are somewhat hard to come by (if you want to pick them up at regular price) since they sold out pretty quick, but you can pick up all issues digitally from Comixology.
Another Mojo-centric release is soon to be happening as well, since the Bill Tiller and Gene Mocsy designed The Perils of Man Episode 1 will be released on the Apple App Store in three days. Chapter One is out already. If you have an iOS device, make sure to pick it up, as it is excellent.
The latest daily builds of ResidualVM now officially support a game besides Grim Fandango, Myst III: Exile. In order for the game to be fully supported in the next stable release, they need your help to ind the last few rough edges by playing through the game in the latest daily build thoroughly and submitting any bugs that you find along the way to their issue tracker.
In other ResidualVM news, you might be wondering how ResidualVM's first Summer of Code went. Quite swimmingly, it seems, since Escape from Monkey Island is now completable with glitches in the latest daily builds. Unlike Myst III, this game isn't ready to be added to their supported list, but they are now accepting bug submissions for Escape from Monkey Island at their issue tracker if you want to give it a try.
This year's ScummVM Summer of Code went quite well too, as Sfinx is now completable in the latest daily builds (the English translation isn't yet up for public consumption though, so you'll have to use the Polish original to play). Galador: The Prince and the Coward is also completable, but you'll have to compile it from the sourcecode yourself if you want to try it at this point, since it hasn't yet been added to the main tree (and, likewise, the English translation isn't yet ready for public consumption).
Double Fine is hosting Devs & Bevs, which is a night of drinks and games with a quintet of game developers. The event will be held at the Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle, WA on Sunday, August 31st from 6:00 to 10:00. The lineup for the evening is extraordinary.
- 6:00—Fantasia from Harmonix
- 6:30—Firewatch from Campo Santo
- 7:00—Tharsis from Choice Provisions
- 7:30—Below from Capy
- 8:00—Massive Chalice from Double Fine
- 8:30—Costume Quest 2 from Double Fine
- 9:00—Gang Beasts from Boneloaf
If you are planning on going, you can find the Facebook event page here.
If you were wondering about Firewatch, the first game from Campo Santo, the studio co-founded by former Mojo staffer Jake Rodkin, you won't have to wait much longer. Campo Santo is going to be at Pax Prime this year, showing a live gameplay demonstration of Firewatch on August 30 at 10:30am in the Hedgehog Theatre.
Several members of the team will be present, including Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman (co-designers of Tales of Monkey Island, Puzzle Agent, The Walking Dead, and several other games at Telltale), Chris Remo (co-writer of Double Fine's The Cave), Jane Ng (environment artist for Double Fine's The Cave, Stacking, and Costume Quest, among others), Will Armstrong (programmer for games from LucasArts, Activision, and 2K Marin, among others), and James Benson (animator on Fable III by Lionhead Studios).
If you aren't able to make it to PAX Prime this year, don't worry, as Campo Santo will also be streaming the demonstration live on Twitch.