The International House of Mojo

Cliqist has an interview up with Bill Tiller about Duke Grabowski, including the hows and whys of choosing to go to Kickstarter, why they chose to make another pirate themed game, and a fine selection of haikus, including this gem:

Duke, red with fury
Terrifies men and women

No one sees his heart

There is also an update on the Kickstarter where Bill Tiller draws an Inn with no name and is holding a contest to find the best name for it. It should be something piratey and fun, probably incorporating the word "Inn". For more details about the contest, see the above link to the update.

The sequel to Tasha Sounart's Costume Quest, developed by Double Fine and published by Midnight City (Tasha is now at Pixar, so she's not involved in the sequel, beyond some ideas that she came up for a sequel to Grubbins on Ice while she was still at Double Fine), will be arriving just in time for Halloween on October 7, 2014. If you pre-order on Steam (for Windows, Linux, and Mac) now for $14.99, you will also get four classic costumes to use in the game: Robot, Unicorn, Eyeball and Pumpkin – each featuring their signature moves. A gameplay trailer has also been released, which contains enough awesomeness that it should make your decision to pre-order the game that much easier. What are you waiting for? Pre-order the game today!

Update: August 28: It's now out on XBLA and PS3 in Europe and on iOS. The European Vita release has been delayed to September 3rd.

Update: August 26: It's out now for PC and Mac through the Telltale store, as well as Steam. It's available now on PS3 and Vita in North America too.

The Walking Dead: Season Two finale is almost here, and Telltale has released a 5 minute trailer, with no spoilers for the upcoming episode. They have also revealed when the game is going to be released, and it's soon. It will be released on PC, Mac, and on PS3 and Vita in North America on August 26th, 2014, on Xbox 360 and on PS3 and Vita in Europe on August 27th, and on iOS on August 28th, 2014. Release dates for Android versions have not yet been revealed.

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.

In an effort to raise awareness for their adventure game Kickstarter, Bill Tiller and two of his Autumn Moon cohorts, operating under the label Venture Moon Industries, have set up a Steam Greenlight page for Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler!, which has garnered a little attention.

As for the Kickstarter itself, after quickly raising $15,000 of its $40,000 goal, things seem to have stalled a bit, but there's still 46 days to go. This should be far more achievable than last summer's A Vampyre Story: Year One Kickstarter, which rang up $77,000 despite the recurring complaint that it was not an original adventure. With that issue addressed and with a much more modest goal, I'd like to think this one should have a happy ending. Unless you snatch it away, ya penny-pinchers!

Source: Steam

Double Fine has announced the fourth game in their indie publishing program, Double Fine Presents. Gang Beasts is a multiplayer brawler by the UK-based studio Boneloaf that is made in the style of Streets of Rage or Double Dragon. It includes both cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes. It is described as a game that is "a jolly good time full of silly procedural animation and ragdoll physics that will no doubt insight giggles and guffaws".

If you are going to PAX Prime, Double Fine and Boneleaf will have a demo of the game available to play at booth #117. It will also be playable at Fantastic Arcade, along with seven other spotlight games, including one of Double Fine's other spotlight games, Mountain.

Double Fine is going to be holding a panel at this year's Penny Arcade Expo, entitled Grim Fandango: Bringing the Dead Back to Life! The panel will be jam packed full of people who worked on the game, including creator Tim Schafer, artist Peter Chan, musician Peter McConnell, Double Fine Productions executive producer Matt Hansen and Sony’s Gio Corsi as moderator.

They will discuss development of both the original game and the new remastered version. They will also be unveiling a new development documentary episode from 2 Player Productions. If you are going to PAX this year, you won't want to miss the panel. It is happening on Saturday, August 30th at 4:30 in the Main Theater.

Since we're always on top of things (this forum post from last month and this comment from Rum Rogers telling us about the project totally don't count), Mojo is here to let you know about a fan project to re-create the SCUMM Bar in Lego form. If 10,000 people vote on the project, it could become an official Lego project, assuming Disney gives the OK to use their IP. I guess it's worth a shot to give it your vote, as Disney does seem to be at least aware now that they own the LucasArts adventure game catalog, and not just Star Wars.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Mike Stemmle (co-creator of Sam & Max Hit the Road and Escape from Monkey Island) left Telltale Games back in May. His credits list the first version of The Wolf Among Us, before it was redesigned, and Tales from the Borderlands. So, we'll likely see a little bit of Michael Stemmle's work in the next few months when Telltale's Borderlands series starts.

Now, IGN is reporting that Dave Grossman (co-creator of Monkey Island 1+2 and Day of the Tentacle) has left Telltale too. Now, more than even before, it feels like the end of an era. We at Mojo wish Mr. Stemmle and Mr. Grossman the best of luck in their future endeavors.

The Sierra website is back online because Activision is bringing Sierra back as their indie label. They have also announced that The Odd Gentlemen, the developers of the puzzle game The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, are developing a new King's Quest title. When Telltale Games announced that their King's Quest title was cancelled because Activision revoked the license, the article that announced the cancellation stated that Activision had their own plans for the series. Hopefully, this time King's Quest IX actually comes into being, as fans have been waiting patiently to discover what the Graham clan have been up to after all these years. We'll soon find out if King Graham and his family will have better luck this time, as the game is scheduled to be released in 2015.

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the classic point-and-click adventure game Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb. The Wormkeep Entertainment Company is developing a sequel to the game named Inherit the Earth: Sand and Shadows.

There is a Kickstarter for the sequel, which will once again be set in the world of humanoid anthropomorphic animals and will follow Rif the fox as he tries to confirm the rumors that an important relic of the legendary humans has survived, discovers who is responsible for the relic's recovery, and deals with the sinister forces behind the rumors that endanger Rif, his friends, and his society.

You can watch a video demo of the game at the game's website and back the game at the back the game at the Inherit the Earth: Sand and Shadows Kickstarter.

It was with justifiable outrage that avid Mojo groupie Rum Rogers seethed the following rebuke at us in the comments of the prior news post:

We stand chastened. Or do we? Can you really prove that we haven't been sitting on this intel deliberately in an attempt to spur a gesture of your pledged love for us? Seems it's you who had the wool pulled over his eyes! Also: we're pregnant.

In all seriousness, we apologize for not being on top of this. But you've got to expect this kind of lassitude now that Mojo is a publicly-funded entity. Oh, you heard me. Yeah, might want to pay closer attention to those little amendments that get tacked on to the highway bill before you pull the lever next time, ya saps!

Source: Grumpy Gamer

So apparently Dan Adelman, former "Indie Lead" of Nintendo, had the idea of bringing back Grim Fandango a long time ago!

I suppose we can guess why it didn't work out. Adelman could have petitioned Tim all he wanted, but it was LucasLegal he would have had to strike a deal with. Maybe Sony just screams louder?

I think it's kind of awesome that Nintendo was pursuing this. It also potentially just goes to show how much of a massive asshole you apparently had to be to score a job as a gatekeeper for Lucas-owned licenses.

Source: IGN

Bill Tiller, Jeremiah Grant, and Gene Moscy started a new company (Venture Moon Industries) and a new kickstarter to fund a pirate themed adventure game inspired by Monkey Island. It's called Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler, and will be set in the Azurbbean, the fictional version of the Caribbean from Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.

The three created a tech demo for an homage and spoof of The Secret of Monkey Island, but liked it so much they decided to extend it into a full, small adventure game. The game puts a twist on the concept, as the main character is a big, dim, angry man who turns out to be a man of honor. Bill Tiller is going to be the project lead and art director, Gene Mocsy is going to design, produce, and write for it, and Jeremiah Grant is going to be the programmer. They founded a new company to produce the game because the three wanted to be equal partners and since Autumn Moon Entertainment belonged solely to Bill Tiller, a new company was decided the best way to do so. Because of this, Autumn Moon Entertainment will be licensing the Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island intellectual property to Venture Moon Industries for this game.

They're looking for $40,000 which will fund the game, which will have about ten to twelve rooms and be a quarter of the size of A Vampyre Story. So, if this interests you, what are you waiting for? Pick a tier and back it now.

Typos aside (and the fact that I can't figure the site out -- is the shirt even for sale?), this Monkey Island-themed tee should possibly interest some. It's designed by crade.one, who we only can assume will receive a cease and desist letter from some obscure Disney department sooner or later.

Run and browse, and see if you are less lazy than me and can figure out the site.