The International House of Mojo

... this:

That's the Spanish board game called 'Trench', which is a trademark. According to Eurogamer that trademark covers both board games and video games in Europe. Consequently unless Microsoft either finds a way around the trademark, retitles the game, or points out "look they're completely separate words, you wouldn't ban Nancy Drew: The Mystery of the Clue Bender Society because it has the word 'Clue' in it would you?" the game will remain unreleased.

I just want to play a tower assault game with mechanized trenches against a race of vicious TV monsters in a World War One scenario, is that so much to ask??

Source: Eurogamer

A Maniac Mansion fan by the name of Joseph Flatt decided to sit down and write four instrumental tracks inspired by the game. That's right - bucking the tradition of producing covers of actual tracks from Maniac Mansion, Flatts has obliterated expectations like a microwaved rodent and composed music that might have been heard in the game.

But rather than mail his mp3s off to Mark Eeter or parlay them into an audition for Green Tentacle's band, he's decided to share them with us, and us with you.

So on the subject of lovingly detailed replicas of iconic artifacts from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis...wait, WHAT?!

The gifted craftsman known as Fedora Smith - whose replicas of props from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies had already weltered his Flickr account in fame - was even selling some of his excellence before his stock was depleted earlier today by eager folks who understand the value of a dollar. (That is, they understand that it's irrelevant in the face of OWNING YOUR OWN WORLDSTONE.)

Source: Kotaku

Yesterday, popular website Hardcore Gaming 101 posted an article on Lucidity, a flawed but nevertheless important LucasArts game from 2009. The article, which contains the phrase "somber twilight farm", gives you a brief overview of the game and examines its flaws. It also makes several tracks from the Jesse Harlin-composed soundtrack available for download, and they are a treat.

You may be wondering why I consider Lucidity to be "important". All I can say is this:

• Other LucasArts games weren't as frowned upon nor as praised as Lucidity, but that's because they don't exist.

• Lucidity never had Clint Hocking or any other internationally acclaimed designer helming it; but unlike other LucasArts games, Lucidity actually exists.

• It's true that it's easier to make licensed games if you just want profit; however, unlike original LucasArts games, licensed LucasArts games developed in-house or Democratic ballsiness in a congressional hearing, Lucidity brought in some money because Lucidity actually exists.

Source: Hardcore Gaming 101

Not content to rest on my laurels after finding a long-lost room from Loom, I've delved further into the realm of old French computer gaming magazines. This has yielded interesting results, such as this early version of the Monkey Island 1 title screen:

I also found an early stab at Guybrush's MI1 VGA sprite.
And here's a scan of Kate Capsize's ship from MI2, which was later almost entirely redesigned. The waterfall on Phatt Island, also seen here, was likewise redrawn to look more realistic.

Speaking of MI2, here's some long-lost original background art:

A joke from Last Crusade, sadly cut out:

Fate of Atlantis with prototype inventory icons.

I've also got a nice scan from Joystick magazine showing Fate with its initial MI1-style GUI:

(That early GUI was also seen in this scan from Génération 4 magazine already shown on Mojo.)
Finally, some scans featuring Brian Moriarty's The Dig from Génération 4 and Joystick, covering CES of summer 1993.

Among other things, these articles show off the gory death scene of Toshi Olema (the fourth Dig astronaut later removed by Sean Clark), who tried to cross a lake of acid, with predictable results.
Also check out this translated description of the original Dig script Steven Spielberg intended for the Amazing Stories TV show:
"It was about a team of future archaeologists who unearth a statue of Mickey Mouse, then Sleeping Beauty's castle, etc., ultimately discovering that they have located Disneyland."

I think we can all be thankful Disneyland is not in the final game.

No Cook Chase Podcast this week, due to 'technical difficulties', and the fact that Dan took the week off to 'research' the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge. But! We can now release episode three of the B-series (also called the 'B-side'), which was recorded on February 14th 2010, and then locked inside a time-capsule for sixteen months. The hope was that the podcast, originally too controversial for this site, would receive a more understanding audience in the far-away future utopia known as 'June 2011'.

In this episode, called 'The Telltale Tirade', Gabriel phones in from prison, and Dan and Roger have been in hiding since the last podcast (when Gabriel recorded in the bath, in Skywalker Ranch, until he was arrested by burly guards). The main discussion topic is Telltale Games, and whether they have become too powerful, or too beloved, and whether it is justifiable to have a small group of people questioning and criticising them, in order to maintain a balance of opinion. Also discussed: screenshot leaks, Telltale job listings, and 'Poetry Wars' -- a segment in which games-related poetry fight each other (metaphorically).

The previous two B-side podcasts can be listened to here, and the ghastly album cover can be viewed here. Thanks a lot to Roger/Zaarin for editing these podcasts together.

This week's selection from the video archives is an excellent sit-down that 1up arranged with seven LEC ex-developers: Tony Hsieh, Larry Ahern, Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, Bill Tiller, Noah Falstein, and Mike Levine. This was recorded in 2008, and supposedly a lot of material ended up on the cutting room floor. Not sure what role a cutting room floor needs to ever play when it comes to footage of these guys reminiscing about the olden days, but you'll have to take that up with 1up.

Lucasarts historian ATMachine has unearthed several screenshots and some video footage from older games early in their development. First up is a missing room from Loom mentioned on the Lucasforums years ago, but never seen by anyone else but French people that happened to buy Tilt magazine issue 81 in September 1990:

The hour glasses appear in the background of the glassmakers city in the EGA version of Loom, but they were painted out in the VGA version.

We now have a better version of the Dig preview, also from Tilt magazine, and below is a video showing early footage from the game taken from the CD-ROM based Interactive Entertainment Magazine (issue 5, September 1994):

You want more stuff? How about three magazine scans of early screenshots from Fate of Atlantis and some crazy text in French? Talking of Indiana Jones, here are two screenshots from an early version of Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures, also from Interative Entertainment Magazine. The same publication also gave us two screenshots of an early Dark Forces version as well as the following video covering LucasArts at CES 1994:

You should also check out ATMachine's own site for a lot more LucasArts oddities as well as titbits on Sierra.

Say what you will about how Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels was looking - with a score by Peter McConnell, we were most certainly going to be getting a righteous soundtrack. The maestro seemed pretty excited about his work when we did an interview with him back in 2003 (not that I can link to it). Oh well.

But McConnell wasn't the only composer on the project - contributions were also being made by LEC regular Gordy Haab, and four lovely background tracks that he did for the game have been found online. They're now on Mojo. Here, let me help you with that.

It's been a long time coming, and I'll bet most people thought it was already dead. Star Wars Galaxies, the ill-thought out MMO collaboration between LucasArts and Sony, finally comes to an end on December 15th, 2011. Mourn it do not, miss it do not. This is actually the first Sony Online MMO to close, as even Everquest is still going. The main reason appears to be that their licence to use Star Wars expires in 2012 and they didn't feel it was worth renewing. A smart choice in my opinion, especially with The Old Republic around the corner.

Oh well, there's always Clone Wars Adventures right? Right?

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun

The authors of two "Top 10" lists to appear on the internet recently have betrayed a certain degree of education by including various LucasArts adventure games. Comic Book Resources has pegged Sam & Max Hit the Road as one of the "Ten Best Comic Book Video Games Ever Made." Hit the Road also appeared in the "Ten PC Games Games That Had Great Voice Acting", where it is joined by Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.

Hell, even [the intern who logs into] the LucasArts Twitter page could not help but do some fist-pumping in response to the distinction earned by their old graphic adventures. To be fair, the company really does support their back catalog so long as you don't count making it available as an expression of support. They've got to draw the line somewhere.

So even though we acknowledged the release of Double Fine's latest game purely by pointing out its delay in European territories, the fact is that Trenched has been out since Tuesday for at least one subset of the populace. They are quite grateful, or at least that's the conclusion I've arrived at after viewing the influx of positive reviews.

Those who, like me, are waiting for an Xbox to drop from the sky can still pass the time by checking out Tim's Twitter. Where else would I have learned about such things as the Trenched newsletter, the photographic proof of the team's launch day revelries, and the E3 Game Critics nominations that Double Fine has earned?

Run over to Telltale right now to download the (I hope) last episode of Back to the Future, "Outatime". The guy from Stuart Little is in it you know!

... and Monkey Island Tales 2 HD through Monkey Island Tales 5 HD (rearrange!) will be available tomorrow. (Though not for free.) Run and download and speculate wildly about the crazy titles.

Double Fine's latest exciting-looking digital title, mech/tower assault game Trenched, was supposed to come out in Europe today but has been delayed.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Eurogamer: "Distribution of Trenched in select European regions will be slightly delayed. We're working to resolve the matter as soon as possible."

However, on Twitter Daniel Maher of Xbox UK said: "Official line on Trenched's delay is, 'Unexpected challenges with distribution in some European regions.' Shouldn't take long!"

"Challenges with distribution"? What, has the Big Red Release Button got some dirt stuck underneath it? I didn't realise non-physical items could be distributed.

Probably the Vile Hun's fault.

Source: Eurogamer (via Twitter)

GameSpot's latest episode of Sound Byte features a Q&A with AJ Locascio who voices Marty McFly in Back to the Future: The Game:

Source: TTG blog

Another pair of questions from Telltale's forum dwellers to the creator of Grickle and Puzzle Agent:

Still haven't played it? If you pre-order the sequel, you can get the original Puzzle Agent for free. Just follow this link.

Source: TTG blog

To quote Crow T. Robot, there's no tradition like a new tradition, and why not one to raise awareness of the newly launched video archive that Zaarin unveiled a single news post ago? Every Sunday, we'll fish a video from the ever-growing collection to award the front page treatment. Like, remember this Armed & Dangerous trailer?

What a fun-looking game! I'm sure it will sell like hotcakes. Anyhow, I think you get the idea. Check back next week for another selection, which will be no difficult investment being that you visit us every day for the general wealth of quality gunk we always have on tap for you!

"When will Mojo's video and audio files be available?" Many psychics have asked themselves this question over the past year, but none have conjured up an answer. Well, I can finally tell you that the answer is: NOW. Check out our archive of trailers, including the very first Sam & Max footage from Telltale, or some animation tests from the cancelled Sam & Max: Freelance Police!

Want something for your ears? The audio section is not as populous, but it still has the complete Cook Chase archive!

We'll be adding more stuff over the Summer, so check back here or our Twitter feed for updates!

Alan over a Telltale has assembled questions for Graham Annable from their forums and Annable's answered them in video form. The first part of this Q&A has now gone up and can be watched below:

Source: TTG blog

Telltale wants to know a few things about your gaming habits and in return, they're giving away free copies of episode four and five of Tales of Monkey Island on WiiWare. Just follow this link to answer their questions and get your free episodes!

Update: This is only for Canadian and USA gamers, of course.

Hello! The new Cook Chase podcast, which attempts to round up all the LucasArts news from the past week, has been released, and you can listen by pointing your mouse to the blob on the right. Thanks to Zaarin for editing it together.

This week, Dan is back from e3 and there is a long rambling introduction about the comments from last week. Then there is a brief round-up of news, followed by a long rambling conclusion, mainly about the 'album covers' released below.

If you are insane enough to save these podcasts, and maybe have them in something like iTunes, then you might want to have album covers to distinguish them from the other podcasts released on Mixnmojo and other gaming web-sites! If so, see below for the B-series (two 30 minute episodes released last year) and the Cook Chase. Open them in a new tab, to download the images directly, if you have trouble saving them to disk.

We also have a HOT TOPIC in this week's 'cast -- what do you do when you listen to the podcast? Answers in the comments or by e-mail please!

It only took, what, six months, but Pocket Gamer has word that "The Siege of Spinner Cay" is heading to the iPad like right now. Apparently New Zealanders should already have it, so it's assumable lesser markets won't be far behind.

Monkey Island Tales 2 HD (as we all know it as) should cost around $7/£4/€6.

Source: Pocket Gamer

Here's a story I'm surprised to see Gamasutra pick up on - the publishing rights to Psychonauts have reverted from Majesco to Double Fine. Since Double Fine always owned the IP itself, all this really means is that the studio will eventually be able to reap the full financial benefit from all future sales of the game. Nonetheless, Tim said this:

There's really very little Tim can be referring to here other than a re-release of some sort. Since the game's already available from Steam, XBLA, and other digital outlets, are we looking at Psychonauts Kinect, Psychonauts Wii, or perhaps some sort of deluxe edition that actually includes a place to find rebrained Benny? We'll know as soon as the necessary dotted lines are stained, I guess.

Source: Gamasutra

No Star Wars game would be complete without a trip to Tatooine. It's where Luke grew up and by consequence where every game has to make a stop. The Old Republic is no different and Bioware released a developer walkthrough showing a Sith Sorcerer making his way through the planet ripped off from Dune.

Source: Swtor.com blog

Making good on the pledge to not let anything too interesting happen under his watch, LEC president Paul Meegan has guided his studio through perhaps its leanest E3 to date. There were exactly two games on the show floor they could claim a kinship to - Star Wars: The Old Republic, which they're so uninvolved with at this point that they're not even publishing, and Kinect Star Wars, which is apparently more Microsoft and Terminal Reality's production than LEC's.

But you keep your cynical remarks to yourselves, you buncha Negative Nancys. So what if those secret projects remain unannounced? There's no drive-thru at Commander's Palace - these things take time! And who cares if the Steam re-release effort from two years ago suffered a stroke after four graphic adventures with no progress in sight? Digital distribution of SCUMM games is a multi-billion dollar investment. And quit your whining about Indiana Jones' 30th anniversary being left thoroughly unexploited - can't you be happy that Star Wars fans are going to finally have their day after years of neglect?

Besides, the company's got bigger fish to fry here. That's right, bitches: there are Old Republic peripherals to put out!

Boy, do you look like a fool. I hope now you'll consider the bigger picture before rushing to judgment about a company's commitment to innovation. Feel free to apologize to LEC at your earliest convenience.

Source: GameGuru

The new cock chase is here! I mean the new cook chase is here! This is the podcast that burps all the news from the past week into your face.

This week Dan phones in from e3, where he's reporting on 'games'. Meanwhile, in the studio, Gabriel and Roger are joined by a special guest. Maybe it's Tim Schafer! (It's not Tim Schafer. It's clone2727).

Main topics: e3, Sesame Street, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Puzzle Agent 2, Comment of the Week (awarded to The Tingler), Virginity.

Listen by clicking on the button to the right.

... and therefore they wrote up a preview of Puzzle Agent 2.

While we might have turned Telltale's franchise-obsession into kind of a punchline here, this is a game that has some of us excited. Seeing that Chuck Jordan -- the lead behind The Devil's Playhouse -- wrote the script based on a story by Graham Annable, Sean Vanaman, and the Jake Rodkin, this has the making of a good sequel.

Go read, damn it!

Source: Adventure Gamers

As promised, both Jurassic Park and The Walking Dead were accounted for during Telltale's E3 presence. Naturally, there was considerably more to show off with regard to the Universal license, a non-playable demo of which was on display for attendees. Here's some video coverage of the presentation by G4, thrown to by a lady with seventy-five percent of a shirt.

In the case of The Walking Dead, Telltale didn't seem to have much more than some concept art and a bit of information on their two main characters, neither of which appear in the comics: an escaped convict named Lee Everett and seven-year-old girl he meets up with named Clementine. The best report I found on the project was this video interview with an unfamiliar Telltale face identified only as "Rich," which among other things touches a bit on how the games may connect with the source material:

Oh, and a according to IGN, Telltale will also be putting out a The Walking Dead Facebook game like they did with Back to the Future. Testing the waters for a more ambitious Facebook project in the future, perhaps?

Reader and understandably fervent Maniac Mansion fan BionicBoots has alerted me to a music video he made where he adds lyrics to Dave's theme music from the NES version of the game (the only version where there was music for the kids). I think his effort was commendable and certainly no less misguided than the "Raiders March With Lyrics" Youtube video we pimped some time back, so here it is. Oh, and believing that two is more than one, BionicBoots went ahead and made a "rock remix" version of his own music video; you'll find both achievements below.

It probably won't be deemed the most exciting headline to come out of this week, but there ya go.

Source: Gamasutra

Enough about the Star Wars Kinect game that Craig Derrick's producing just to confuse the management while secretly advancing that lofty goal of rejuvenating adventure games...let's talk about Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, the Double Fine Kinect game headed by Nathan Martz. There was a demo on display at E3 and a bit more info on how the game is going to play.

Like any other E3 story, a write-up can be found on like 500 game sites, but let's go with VentureBeat since they did a video interview with Nathan Martz and Tim that you can watch. And below from Youtube is the live presentation of the demo by guided by Schafer and co-played by some kid followed by a new trailer featuring gameplay:

Source: VentureBEat

Global superpower Telltale Games continues its growth with news that it just secured $7 million in private investment - not too shabby for a studio founded on the vision of an unproven model for games that have almost exclusively been, for goodness sake, straight-up graphic adventures.

Dan Connors states that the financing will be used to "aggressively launch" its announced high-profile franchises simultaneously on multiple release platforms, although one hopes that at least a few of the zeroes at the now seven year old company's disposal may go toward an original IP to keep Puzzle Agent company.

There's another Telltale-related bit of news worth mentioning. About a month ago, former Mojo staffer and present Telltale programmer Andrew Langley (aka telarium) Tweeted that he would be directing his first Telltale episode, and is thus now eligible for the distinction already attained by Jake, namely: One Prolific Bastard.

Source: Gamasutra

E3 is again upon us and Bioware has started revealing more of their upcoming Star Wars MMO. The latest is a new cinematic, called "Return", which you can view below.

The developers have also released a new page looking at the advanced classes of the game. Advanced classes are specializations you can pick when you reach level 10 with each base class letting you choose between two specializations. Principal lead combat designer Georg Zoeller wrote a blog post back in April covering this very subject. He's also been interviewed by MMORPG.com over here.

Yes, here's another trailer for the upcoming sequel to Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent!

Don't think LucasArts care about their past glories? Get ready to eat your words when you see Kinect Star Wars, a game similar to The Phantom Menace-titles in more ways than one. Except, of course, that you get to jump around like a fool with this game.

Run over to their website and look!

The popular hosted site Quick & Easy has had a facelift. Benny's page hosts several popular tools he's writen, including the Telltale Explorer, a replacement Grim Fandango installer, the USB Disk Ejector, and many more. Tools like the Telltale Music Extractor are updated often to support Telltale's latest games so make sure you stop by from time to time to check out the latest updates.

Telltale has set the release date for Puzzle Agent 2 to June 30th. The sequel to last year's Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent (reviewed by Mojo here) will see Nelson encounter new puzzles as he continues his investigations. Along with the release date, Telltale has opened up their store for pre-orders and if you order Puzzle Agent 2 before release, you will get the original for free. Just follow this link.

Can't wait for the 30th? Telltale is also running a contest where five people get the game two weeks early by writing funny captions to some pictures from the game. Full details on how to participate in the contest can be found in this blog post.

Telltale also released a teaser earlier this year which you can view below:

They think they're the developers behind the Hector games, that's who, and we took the time to ask them some further questions.

So You go to all the trouble of getting Michael J. Fox to cameo in the final Back To The Future episode, but you don't get him to voice a member of the McFly family.

What?

You can see one of his two characters in this clip.

The final episode drops for PC & Mac on June 23rd. Also Episode 1 is Free on the iPad until July 31.

Update: Good on you Telltale, though a bit odd that this didn't all come together earlier in the series.

Source: Telltale Games

This week, Dan is away, Gabriel gets caught up in a long unfunny, hellishly complicated joke that has no punch-line, bad impressions are made, and an attempt is made to give a 'shout out' to every single person on the web-site. Maybe you can hear your name!

We also discuss, as always, the week's news stories, including the (very latest!) comments from LucasArts President Paul 'Our Priority is Star Wars' Meegan.

Listen by pointing your mouse (and your ears) to the right.

Incidentally, this podcast is 11:11 minutes and seconds long. It just happened that I went to a talk by Uri Geller yesterday who told everyone that 11 11 would be significant. Amazing!

Before we begin, just take a deep breath.

The LucasArts president for this year, Paul Meegan, hasn't been very vocal since he took over. Then again, the whole of LucasArts has been pretty much under lockdown. Now MCV have finally got some details out of the man and... well... sigh.

Hmm, not as bad as I'd been expecting really. A few quibbling points to be raised, such as the need to cull those "bright and creative people" every couple of years, the fact that he's ignoring the want for re-releases, and that he's pretty much saying everything Jim Ward did and look where that got him. Still, not bad, don't know what the fuss is about rea-

Oh dear.

Source: MCV