The International House of Mojo

Much has been written and said about the sadly abandoned Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix from the mid-90s. In all that recorded history, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of Dave Grossman’s involvement.

Well, Daniel Albu has invited Dave for another round of Tech Talk, and it turns out that Dave was indeed briefly affiliated with – if not outright helming - Iron Phoenix during a transitional moment when an attempt was made to utilize FMV for the character animation, a gambit which you may remember Mike Levine speaking to Daniel about in a past interview. Anyway, the Iron Phoenix talk begins at 33:36, but why not enjoy the whole thing? There’s even a bit of Cavedog talk toward the end.

Source: Tech Talk

The A Vampyre Story: A Bat’s Tale team has been using the game’s Steam page to keep the faithful abreast of their progress on the long (Footnote: Move aside, Psychonauts 2. A new record is being set.)-awaited sequel. In their latest post, they offer a glimpse into the process of bringing Bill’s 2D illustrations into a 3D world, opening the door to such fancy effects as parallax scrolling and dynamic lighting/shadows.

Be sure to read the full update, which includes more animated GIF action.

You have undoubtedly heard of the catastrophic California wildfires and the toll they have taken on LA in particular. A whole host of disaster relief funds have been set up, and, not surprisingly, Double Fine has joined in on supporting them with a Double Fine Action Auction:

Signed Stacking dolls? Brütal Legend LP test pressing? “Psychonauts 2 Launch Party Assorted Tchotchkes?” Those are just a few of the items you can bid on. So, run over to the auction, support a good cause, and get some cool stuff while you’re at it.

Ron Gilbert has officially unveiled his new game today, called Death by Scrolling, a title decidedly not commentary on internet surfing habits. You may recognise it if you've seen the screenshots and gameplay videos he's been posting on Mastodon and (previously) Twitter. More details on its journey to realisation are in his blog post.

No platforms or details exist yet, although a different blog post (on text sizes) suggests it's "basically an action game" where "players shouldn’t get too deep into stat management for a character that is going to last a few minutes."

Death by Scrolling emerged after his "RPGTBD," an open world RPG made by three people which didn't have the resources to be fully realised, was put on ice last year.

More details as they come.