The International House of Mojo

Ron Gilbert hates April Fool's Day. His dislike of the day is something that his blog celebrates every year by acknowledging the lack of an April Fool's Day joke on it. He's done this 18 years in a row. This year, however, he decided to mix things up a little by announcing a new Monkey Island game.

Has he decided to do a deal with Disney, or did he just become a bit less grumpy this year?

Make of it what you will! ;)

Update: Reader Sopabuena has done some detective work in the forums and uncovered this ancient Tweet:

An April Fool's Joke 18 years in the making or the most "Ronzo" game announcement of all time? Join the discussion!

Source: Grumpy Gamer

Or your Limited Run Games pre-order, if you prefer to look at it that way. Check it out:

You can read a few more words about Ron's sorrowful passion here.

It is tough to be a living legend. Ron's got that mysterious new game to make, but right now his hands are literally too busy signing four trillion certificates of authenticity (huge mistake), so the auteur has no choice but to consent to help. To this end, a few new job opportunities have appeared on the Terrible Toybox web site.

Do you have what it takes to drag limestone blocks across a desert's expanse in order to construct the great pyramid that is the next Gilbert/Winnick joint? Cast your name into the bowl, qualified game developer, and be judged.

Source: Terrible Toybox

Being cool and popular, we recently received the following email:

Do I need to draw you a road map? Go download those digitally liberated soundtracks right now!

Source: Bandcamp

If you were a person of good taste, you'd already know this from reading our forums, but if for whatever reason you're not...

Terrible Toybox are looking for an art director, and as you will see in the description, the studio is working on an "unannounced 2D pixel art adventure game." That's pretty much it. But Ronzo and Winnick and new adventure game are words you want to hear together.

Excited? Go to the forums and giddy your heart out there!

Source: Rum Rogers on the forums

The Thimbleweed Park interface-turned-free video game Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure is now DRM-free on GOG, following its release on Epic and Steam last month.

Speaking of GOG, their summer sale (which ends June 15) is on, including a selection of Double Fine games and other adventure game stuff outside Mojo's sphere of influence, but which you should look into anyway. In my opinion, works like Primordia and Technobabylon stand comfortably shoulder-to-shoulder with the best LucasArts and its alumni ever swung-out.

Source: GOG

We mentioned this on Twitter (which we intend on using until the White House shuts it down) but seeing Rum_Rogers threatened to break up with us, we'll mention it here, too: Ronzo has released Delores's source code. For free. On GitHub. If that means anything to you, then great. If not, then go about your life like the rest of us, and enjoy your freedoms while you have them.

Well, here's one for the quarantine dwellers: Ronzo's prototype for a new adventure game interface has all of a sudden morphed into a small adventure game: Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure. Read all about it, then get it from Steam or Epic Store. For free. How can you lose?

Always nice to see Humongous get some love. The good folks over at Vice have put together a lovely history of the studio that brought SCUMM to kids with the likes of Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish and Putt Putt. The article contains new quotes from Ron as well as Humongous designer Tami Borowick, so do check it out.

And don't forget that the old Humongous titles are readily available these days, just like all the other SCUMM games, now that I mention it. And no matter how jaded you've become about this world we live in, that's a pretty rad thing.

Source: Vice

Look, I don't know what this is all about. el "LucasTones" Tee came running in, screaming about a new Monkey Island poster by Steve Purcell, and that it's for sale right here. That page turned out to be in French, so I'm out beyond that.

elTee mumbled something about some French book about the making of The Secret of Monkey Island, and that's where the painting is from, but, really, who cares? You can get a poster by Steve Purcell, and that's more than you deserve. Run and spend €40, cold, hard, cash right now.

Update! Doug "Mojo 9" Tabacco brings word of an English language ordering page.

Humble Bundle, the pay what you want/some money goes to charity bundle maker, are currently selling every Humongous Games release in a single bundle.

If you fancy seeing what Ron Gilbert (and sometimes Dave Grossman) got up to in the 1990s after they left LucasArts, get the Humongous Entertainment Humble Bundle.

Thanks to reader Call me Squinky for alerting us to this.

Source: Humble Bundle

Remember Humongous Entertainment? I know at least one guy who plays adventure games as a result of Ron Gilbert's ultimately doomed but memorable foray into children's adventure games, and the Pajama Sam games—created by Gilbert, Richard Moe, and Rhonda Conley, and centred on a kid named Sam and his cape, facing the scary things that children do—are on sale to prove why. They really are very good.

In other news, Americans, apparently, spell it "pajama." If you've ever wondered why the self-proclaimed "greatest country in the world" can't quite crack the literacy top 20, this might be a good place to start "analyzing".

Source: GOG

This is just a kind reminder by yours procrastinator truly that Thimbleweed Park is being given away for free today and until March 7 by the Epic Games Store, which, like Steam, GOG, and Origin, is a digital games platform. If, like me, you still haven't played this game, and if, unlike me, you haven't bought it yet, now's your chance. It should be available later today.

Thimbleweed Park is the latest from Maniac Mansion co-creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick. It should be a good way to send-off the winter (I find winter ideal for video games, especially adventure games; does anyone else?).

Source: Epic Games Store

Thanks to Jones Jr. for pointing this out in the comments to an earlier story:

Thimbleweed Park, the latest from Maniac "you microwave a hamster" Mansion co-creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, will be free for users of the Epic Games Store from February 21 through March 7. Remi was a big fan.

Epic Games is trying to compete with GOG, Steam, Origin, and one-to-two-platforms-for-my-games convenience to make a name for itself. It makes one game yours to keep for free every two weeks; the current pick is Axiom Verge, and Subnautica and What Remains of Edith Finch preceded it. It also makes exclusive offers, like the new Supergiant Games outing Hades (and Supergiant is a great developer to support: A+ games, writing, and storytelling, made by an indie team with real heart).

Anyway, this has apparently been known for a while, but we're not late! Technically. Mojo, immediately bringing you the latest news from last week!

Source: Epic Games

The GOG.com winter sale is in full swing, and features new, one-day only discounts daily. And lo, so it came to pass that on this December 27th, 2018, Thimbleweed Park featured a whopping 55% discount.

Personally, I have never seen Thimbleweed Park on sale, so now's a chance to buy the latest from that one guy that made one game about the monkeys. Mojo reviewed Thimbleweed Park and Remi liked it.

Source: GOG

ScummVM and its sister project, ResidualVM are participating in the Google Summer of Code once again.

This year, the students are working on the following games:

ScummVM:

Pink Panther: Passport to Peril and Pink Panther: Hokus Pokus Pink. Student: Andrii Prykhodko

The Immortal. Student: Joseph-Eugene Winzer

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgment Rites. Student: Matthew Stewart

ResdiualVM:

The Longest Journey (currently completable with missing features). Student: Liu Zhaosong

While we're on the subject of ScummVM and ResidualVM, both projects have had updates lately:

ResidualVM 0.31 has been released. This is a bugfix release that fixes a few bugs in Myst III, in preparation for Cyan's upcoming digital release of Myst III that will use ResidualVM to play the game.

ScummVM's addition of Xeen, the first RPG engine added after ScummVM changed their guidelines to allow RPG games alongside the adventure games, is now completable in the daily builds. There are five RPGs that are currently completable: Might and Magic IV, Might and Magic V, World of Xeen, World of Xeen 2 (CD Talkie), and Swords of Xeen. If you want to play these games in the daily builds, make sure that you place xeen.css in the same folder as your game files.

Over at his blog, Ronzo has announced A Little Something, and has downright promised it’ll be his next game:

“Currently, it's [..] a real project [..]” (Some words edited out for brevity.)

Described as an RPG with undertones of religion and a “choose-your-own-playstyle”, it certainly sounds like it could be interesting. Go check out the almost finished graphics, too!

The answer is, unlimited. So why not grab a PS4 and Switch one-year anniversary copy of the game from Limited Run Games on March 30th? They’re practically giving it away at $34.99, and the $64.99 collector’s edition is the equivalent of them paying you. Both Switch and PS4 versions are region-free, so no excuses. Ronzo probably needs a new car.

Relevant links: Switch, PS4; Switch big box edition, PS4 big box edition.

It's up to you to decide if it's worth the $1.99 they downright demand for it -- I mean, that is half a day without coffee -- but if you want to, Thimbleweed Park now has a "Ransome Unbeeped" patch on Steam and GOG. No longer will you have to suffer the clown's beep, but rather hear a naughty word. Grab it at your favorite service if you so like.

We have a good reputation of being "hep and with it" here at Mojo, and therefore we’re all about the vinyl. Just like the kids. Therefore I’m sure you, the discerning reader, as us, will be over the Thimbleweed Park double-LP, which you can purchase right now. I mean, right now!

Source: Ronzo