We’ve possibly become a bit entitled, having been delivered superb Sam & Max remasters two Decembers in a row. The third and final – and, let’s face it, best – season from the Telltale archives is obviously requiring a bit more elbow grease, but Skunkape has offered official assurances today that it’s most definitely on its way:
Just as Mojo was ready to embrace the sweet release of death, it’s condemned to afforded another welcome lifeline.
Source: Youtube
Don’t start spending those Christmas cheques yet—Sam & Max Hit the Road is running Limited on January 6th:
$100 will get you... Well, a bunch of stuff. Thrik is looking at getting a good dozen copies as Mojo’s Christmas bonus was a decree making each of us give him a cool hundy. For the rest of you:
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director Jim Mangold has some teases and a new production still for Entertainment Weekly, but only because the Webmonkey address bounced.
"I'm always interested in this idea of a hero at sunset," the director says. "What does the hero do when the world no longer has a place for him? I find it really interesting to try to look at classical heroes through the prism of our jaundiced contemporary attitudes."
However, whereas Logan was a "very purposefully and intentionally grim adventure, very dramatic, and very serious," Mangold says Dial of Destiny will be very different.
"I am under no illusions that my job making an Indiana Jones film was to suddenly beat the humor out of it and turn it into some kind of dirge," he says. "I think that what we're trying to do is balance both an accurate and realistic appraisal of where this character would be at this time in his life, and do that honestly, and at the same time, try and carry forward what the very title of our movie promises, which is a romp and a wonderful adventure with action and chivalry and escapes by the skin of your nose and ingenious solutions to diabolical problems. This is an Indiana Jones film."
He also confirms that Mutt will be unseen but acknowledged, while Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character is the daughter of “a friend of Indy’s, who we will also meet in the movie.” That’s gotta be Toby Jones. Anyway, you’ll need to read the article for the rest.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
While we were on a CEO-mandated furlough, no less than two stories passed Mojo by. And if you subscribed to our newsletter, you would have known what those stories were.
...
Fine, I’ll post them here, too:
I’m fairly certain NME—née New Musical Express—was my dad’s magazine of choice during the sixties, so it only makes sense that this grand old magazine sits down with the grand old game developer, which subsequently is being “reported” on by the grand old Mojo. That is to say, NME has a lengthy interview with Tim Schafer. There might not be a lot of new information to be found, but it is an interesting read nonetheless. Not least because of this:
On the subject of other games, Schafer says that he still finds the time to play plenty – this year, his favourites have included Ron Gilbert’s Return to Monkey Island, BlueTwelve’s feline adventure Stray, and Zelda-inspired adventure Tunic.
ReMI tops his list—that’s just heartwarming!
Doing a one-eighty, The Force Engine has hit 1.0. What is The Force Engine, you may ask? Have a gander at the trailer:
Those of us of “a certain age” may remember the original reviews of Dark Forces complained about the lack of lightsabers. Now, it feels downright refreshing.
Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders have been irreversibly tied together ever since that can of chainsaw gasoline was found on Mars, but a new fan game is taking it to a whole other level. Below is the spiel for Zak the Maniac - An Interactive Music Video:
Zak McKracken finds himself exploring the haunted mansion of the Edison family. Something has gone seriously wrong -- and if ghostly hauntings weren't bad enough, a band is using the dungeon as their rehearsal space.
This game is released as an "interactive music video" for Error 47's cover/mash-up of the Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion theme tunes. The song is included in the download.
You can download the game and the cover tune that suggested it right here.
Source: Error 47
If you've read our big 25th anniversary interview with the Curse of Monkey Island project leaders (and if you haven't, there's still time to do so fashionably), you're well aware of the legend of Bear Pig -- a classic example of programmer art that Jonathan Ackley cooked up to occupy "room zero" to the satisfaction of SCUMM's inviolate laws.
But just as everyone sees a different statue in the marble, BearPig represents different themes to different interpreters. In his latest blog post, CMI programmer/writer Chuck Jordan casts BearPig as his inspiration for some brief reflections on the concept of art that is "good enough." Read it, and lament Ron's delinquency in reprising the series' most indelible character.
Source: Spectre Collie
Sure, only the first and last words of “Best Puzzle Game” properly describe Return to Monkey Island, but any nomination is a worthwhile nomination.
Somewhat more awesome, in my not-so-humble mind, is “Best Performance in a Game,” where Dom received a well-deserved nomination. Says IGN:
It’s a consistent performance full of smart timing that makes sure the adventure’s many jokes hit right, as well as delivering an unexpected amount of pathos in the right moments. It’s a pitch-perfect return that provides all the warmth and humor we’ve come to expect from Guybrush, but should never take for granted.
Sounds about right to me. The results are set to be delivered on December 12th.
Source: IGN
By all accounts, George Lucas had virtually no creative role in the development or production of the new Indiana Jones, but a story is circulating that, having been shown a cut of the movie, Lucas requested to be onboarded as an Executive Producer. You can see his name among the EPs listed in Lucasfilm’s press release for this week’s trailer, whereas it was notably absent from previous issuances.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a departure from tradition in that Steven Spielberg has ceded the director’s chair and assumed more or less the George Lucas role, while Lucas himself seemingly removed himself from the equation altogether in his embrace of retirement. With the movie essentially finished, his name being lent as a producer at this late date would seem to function as a vote of confidence. When asked for comment, Willow responded as follows on formal letterhead:
:~
Source: The Raven
Attendees of D23 got to see it in September (sans title). Attendees of CCXP22 - that would be Brazil's Comic-Con, for those who find unintuitive acronyms to be unintuitive - got to see it today. And now, so do you.
A lot to discuss here. And if you're Too Cool to carry it on in the comments, take it to the forum thread why don't you.
Big-budget video games take something like seventy-five years development on average these days, dwarfing the investments represented by a tentpole movie or joining America's coasts by high speed rail. So you can probably expect next year's Indiana Jones movie to be celebrating at least its first birthday before you'll be playing the upcoming Indy game by MachineGames on whatever space-age platforms the average zero-gravity household will boast by then.
That we're still a ways out is endorsed by the fact that details on the title remain thin on the ground. However, a few comments were extracted out of Todd Howard of Bethesda (that would be the game's publisher, albeit one that also functions as a studio itself and which happens to share the same parent company as MachineGames, just to confuse matters) in a new interview with said Executive Producer:
... Howard says a game starring the character was always on his "bucket list" of things to do: to the extent he first pitched it 13 years ago.
"I had pitched Lucas," said Howard. "Met some people there and pitched them back in '09 this Indiana Jones concept, and kinda the deal fell apart". LucasArts wanted to publish any Indiana Jones game: Bethesda saw itself as the publisher. "I didn't really have the team to do [it] and you know we made Skyrim so I guess it worked out."
[...]
"I mean you can talk about the world of Indiana Jones but it's him, it's the character," said Howard. "I would just say it is a mashup, it is unique, it isn't one thing intentionally. So it does a lot of different things that we've wanted to do in a game. It's a unique game."
Pretty useless. But hey, at least the project is still trucking along. And if we know one thing about long-in-development Indiana Jones games, it's that it all works out in the end.
Source: PC Gamer