The International House of Mojo

The latest batch of 6 (out of 28) Humongous Entertainment games that Night Dive and Tommo are re-releasing have just hit Steam, although without the launch sale that the first batch had. These titles are Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon, Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse, Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren’t so Frightening, Spy Fox 2: Some Assembly Required, Putt-Putt and Pep’s Dog on a Stick, and Freddi Fish and Luther’s Water Worries.

The next three batches will be released on May 15th, May 26th, and June 6th. If you don't want to wait, you can have all the games now by purchasing packs, which are available by series, or in the Humongous Entertainment pack which will get you all 28 Humongous Entertainment games now for just under $100 USD.

Turns out one of the teases that Night Dive has been making has come to fruition. Night Dive and Tommo are bringing 28 classic titles from Humongous Entertainment, the educational software company founded by Ron Gilbert and Shelly Day, to Steam.

Today sees six releases on Steam: Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, Freddi Fish and The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds, Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside, Spy Fox in: Dry Cereal, Putt-Putt and Pep’s Balloon-o-Rama, and Freddi Fish and Luther’s Maze Madness. On May 1st those games will be joined by Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon, Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse, Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren’t so Frightening, Spy Fox 2: Some Assembly Required, Putt-Putt and Pep’s Dog on a Stick, and Freddi Fish and Luther’s Water Worries. May 15th will see the release of Putt-Putt Travels through Time, Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell, Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat from Your Head to Your Feet, Spy Fox 3: Operation Ozone, and Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear’s Activity Pack. Then on May 29th Steam will receive Putt-Putt Enters the Race, Putt-Putt Joins the Circus, Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch, Pajama Sam 4: Life Is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff!, and Spy Fox in: Cheese Chase. Finally, on June 6th, the final releases will come out, including Putt-Putt: Pep’s Birthday Surprise, Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove, Pajama Sam’s Sock Works, Spy Fox in: Hold the Mustard, and Pajama Sam’s Lost & Found.

Here's hoping that these games get released on GOG.com as well. And now that this humongous rumor has become reality, hopefully the other one will come to fruition as well.

If you have ever wanted to see behind-the-scene details from the first Monkey Island designs, then Ronzo "Ron" Gilbert has your back. Recently posted on his blog is not one, but two entries filled with design-notebook photos from way back when.

Will we see more? Who knows! But if you nag him incessantly on Twitter, I'm sure he'll totally give you what you want! Go read!

Tommo purchased Humongous Entertainment in Atari's bankruptcy auction last July (except for the Backyard Sports franchise, which went to The Evergreen Group, and Moonbase Commander, which went to Rebellion).

They've been doing all the right things with their acquisition so far. They renamed the company back to Humongous Entertainment, brought back the Humongous website, brought Putt-Putt Joins the Circus to Android, and they're looking for more avenues to re-release the junior adventures produced by the company that Ron Gilbert and Shelly Day built in 1992.

Humongous Entertainment just re-tweeted a message from twitter user George Q. Greg: "Night Dive. That gives me hope." In addition, last month Night Dive asked their Facebook followers if there was any children's games that they remember fondly.

This is just as much of a rumour as the Night Dive/LucasArts situation. However, this one probably holds more weight, as Tommo actually has proven they want to do the sensible thing and sell the games they own through digital distribution to get some of their money back. As usual with rumours like these, we'll just have to take them with a grain of salt, and see how they pan out.

If you've been holding out, waiting to play The Cave on an iOS device, you need wait no longer. There's even a shiny new trailer to watch, look...

Get spelunking!

Source: App Store

Touch Gen is reporting that yet another platform is in for a release of Ron Gilbert's The Cave adventure game. This time it's heading for iOS. The controls have been converted to swipe and gesture based rather than the more cumbersome virtual joystick favored by many iOS ports, and the hands-on report from E3 say they work well.

The game is due to hit the App Store this Summer sometime.

Source: Touch Gen

Who doesn't love a good game from Ronzo? And Scurvy Scallywags is good, but how good is it? We give it a look.

Cheese, who helps out running the Double Fine Game Club, interviewed Ron Gilbert back in January before their first playthrough if The Cave. Mojo, which always is on the ball about such things, reports on this today and tells you to go here posthaste to read it!

The same month, he also talked to Greg Rice and Nathan Martz from Double Fine and you can read that interview by visiting this page!

Our favourite grumpy video game creator has written up a post about this possibility right over here.

Read it!

Update: Chuck Jordan, credited as a script writer and designer of Curse of Monkey Island (the real or fake Monkey Island 3 depending on your point of view), countered with a tweet:

And so it goes.

Update 2: Ron responded to the criticism by offering some clarification:

Interested in finding out more about Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty: A Musical Match-3 Pirate RPG, the upcoming iOS game by Ron Gilbert and Clayton Kauzlaric?

If so, you're in luck. Ron Gilbert made a post on his blog with screenshots and info about the upcoming pirate themed puzzler.

It's modeled after Realms of Gold, a previous puzzle game by Ron and Clayton that used to also have RPG elements before the publisher told them no one would be interested in an RPG puzzle game. In both games, you match up three puzzle pieces (like Bejeweled), but the new pieces don't just come from the top, but can come from the sides or bottom as well. However, the gameplay in Scurvy Scallywags has changed, as it's no longer the type of piece that dictates which direction the board collapses, but which direction you swipe your finger on the screen. Also, unlike other puzzle RPGs like Puzzle Quests, Scurvy Scallywags will also place your character right on the game board, and have him or her fight enemies in battle.

There are items to collect, such as hats, shirts, heads, and swords to dress up your pirate. There are also ships to build. Most interestingly, though, you can also collect a sea shanty which is sung by real life pirate singers.

The game is planned to be released "in the next month or so", and an Android port may be coming as well, if everything goes to plan with the compiler.

Source: Call me Squinky

Want the latest news on the development of Ron's new game? There's now a new twitter feed up for Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty: A Musical Match-3 Pirate RPG, or SSTVDUSS:AMMPRPG for short, available over here where all the latest development news (code-wise) is posted.

Ronzo "Ron" Gilbert announced yesterday on his blog that he's leaving Double Fine as The Cave is now completed. He also shared the image on the left of the complete map from the game.

His next project will be a game for iOS that he's developing with DeathSpank co-creator Clayton Kauzlaric called Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty: A Musical Match-3 Pirate RPG. We're supposed to see some screenshots appearing over the next few days.

You can finally play out your own adventures with the figurines based on the characters from The Cave! Just click here. Now, if they just made a figurine of the cave itself as well...

Source: Double Fine Company Store

Update (February 2, 2012): The Linux release of The Cave has been delayed a bit longer.

It's delayed another week according to a Steam forum post by Justin from Double Fine:

"The Linux version will be released for anyone on Linux. It's delayed another week unfortunately, due to some tricky driver/GL bugs we still have to resolve. Sorry for the delay guys =/"

Original Post:

Those of you who are waiting for the Linux version of The Cave won't have to wait very long.

Ron Gilbert has updated his blog with news that the Linux version of The Cave will be released next week.

Source: GozzoMan

2am last night, the Australians running Eight and a Half Bit interviewed Cave man Ronzo "Ron" Gilbert.. Listen and you may even find out what he thinks about Lost! iTunes users can go here.

Source: Eight and a Half Bit

Don't get used to this, but we actually published a review. on time. Of The Cave. Which you actually can read. So... you know... Read it!

Not that it's the only delight to avail yourself of in this new interview with Ron Gilbert slung by Digital Spy as The Cave expands its release today:

Ron no doubt means Jeff when he says "Jack," being that the latter isn't an actual character from the game. Check out the whole interview for quality insight into Ron's design for The Cave.

Source: Digital Spy

Update by Mr We Just Say Manager: Ronzo "Ron" Gilbert has confirmed a January 23rd release date for XBLA and Steam -- PSN and Wii U will see The Cave one day earlier. (That's the 22nd.) And, it will also hit Mac and Linux! What?!

Remember when Mojo almost shut down because we didn't have any new games to write about?

Original post: According to MyXboxLive, The Cave has appeared on the Xbox Live Marketplace with a release date of January 23rd! How much space will it use? Exactly 1010.70 MB according to Greg Rice at Double Fine!

Source: MyXboxLive

Ron Gilbert's "The Cave" is now available for pre-order on Steam, here. The pre-order price is between US$14.99 and US$19.99 depending where you live (thanks SEGA). There's no firm release date yet, still just "January 2013".
People who pre-order also get some Cave related Team Fortress items.
Update: Looks to be US$14.99 on Greenman Gaming, regardless of territory.

Source: Steam

Ron Gilbert was recently interviewed by games™ where he revealed that he still wanted to do a proper Monkey Island 3 and was wondering how to go about prying the IP from LucasArts:

Sounds good to us!

Source: games™