Well, it took some time, but we brought back Huz -- remember him?! -- to review A House Divided! Run, don't walk to read his analytical musings on the latest Walking Dead episode!
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Back on March 20, six LucasFilm Games alumni (Steve Arnold, Noah Falstein, David Fox, Ron Gilbert, Peter Langston and Chip Morningstar) gathered together and took the stage at the Game Developers Conference to discuss the early days of LucasFilm Games.
There were also several early (and early-ish) games, including the word's first MMO Habitat, plus Afterlife, Ballblazer, Loom, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Maniac Mansion available to play, plus the Star Wars games Episode 1: Racer, Rebel Assault, X-Wing, and TIE Fighter. There is an hour long video of proceedings here on Gamespot and embedded below for your convenience.
There were also several early (and early-ish) games, including the word's first MMO Habitat, plus Afterlife, Ballblazer, Loom, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Maniac Mansion available to play, plus the Star Wars games Episode 1: Racer, Rebel Assault, X-Wing, and TIE Fighter. There is an hour long video of proceedings here on Gamespot and embedded below for your convenience.
Or if you prefer your information delivered in old-school text form, you can read the summary articles on Gamasutra, Polygon, The Escapist, and Joystiq.
Source: GDC
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!
Fans of the acclaimed HBO series True Detective should get a kick out of this video. Heck, I got a kick out of it, and I haven't even watched True Detective, so your odds are pretty good.
Source: Kotaku
Double Fine Productions has developed games for a publisher before. It has developed games that it self-publishes (happily, that's often the case at this point). But what it hasn't done is publish a game developed by someone else.
That changes with today's news that Tim Schafer's studio has assisted with the release of indie puzzle platformer Escape Goat 2 by developer MagicalTimeBean. You'll find it available right now.
And don't expect this to be a one time thing, either. Reports Wired:
Double Fine, meanwhile, is looking to expand its publishing and has put the call out for other indies interested in working with the company to get in touch.
"I guess that IS pretty cool," said Tim Schafer of the plans in an accompanying press release. "I get to take credit for everything though, right?"
Our request to Double Fine for their support of a remake of LEC Killer remains unanswered. We're confident there's just something wrong with their SMTP servers right now.
Source: Wired
About a week ago, Bill posted on the A Vampyre Story Facebook page with this:
The game was on hold for a few good reasons, which I can't talk about - yet, but one of those possibilities fell through, so now I'm back working on it as of today.
"The game" must be A Vampyre Story: Year One, but what fell through? Will we ever know?
Grim Mouse, the modification of Grim Fandango and ResidualVM that allows you to play through Grim Fandango with just a mouse, has been updated to 0.4. All of the bugs that kept it from being played through with just the mouse should now be fixed. I've played through all parts of Grim Fandango with Grim Mouse (albeit, in separate playthroughs), so Grim Fandango should be completeable with just a mouse now.
If you get a crash in year 3 when entering the engine room, you might have to compile Grim Mouse from source, as it is caused by a bug that was fixed in ResidualVM, but isn't in the new Grim Mouse build (although it is in its source tree). The author said he'd release a new version of Grim Mouse with the fix for this problem. It only seems to affect a small amount of people (which did include myself, so I can confirm it plays fine when compiling it yourself from source), so you can try playing through 0.4 now, since it's possible this bug won't affect your playthrough.
Campo Santo's first game is called Firewatch. They've only been working on it since January, so there's not much revealed yet. All that is known is it's a single player first person mystery game set in the Wyoming wilderness, where your only emotional lifeline is the person on the other end of a handheld radio. There is no release date set yet, but Campo Santo announced that it will be released on Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Brandon Boyer is a video game journalist and video game developer who was denied coverage for his surgery to remove his cancer by his medical provider Humana (leaving him with over $100,000 in medical bills).
There's a humble bundle going on now that will donate all proceeds to the Brandon Boyer Cancer Relief Fund (with any excess funds from this promotion being donated to a select cancer research organization). The minimum purchase price for the bundle is $25, and will get you 27 indie games and 18 game soundtracks (both of which include Double Fine's Stacking).
Update: 1954: Alcatraz is now available on Steam as well, at the same limited time $2 discount as GOG.com.
Two new adventure games co-developed by Gene Mocsy, the co-writer of Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island, have been released today!
The first release is 1954: Alcatraz, the first game by Gene Mocsy's studio Irresponsible Games (and co-developed by German adventure game developer Daedalic). The game has two lead characters, a man who must escape Alcatraz prison in 1954, and his wife, who is trying to avoid gangsters who are after the money that her husband stole. The game has multiple solutions to puzzles, which will affect the characters in different ways. 1954: Alcatraz is out now on GOG.com (currently discounted at $2 off it's usual $19.99 price tag), and will also be released in a few hours on Steam.
The second game is Perils of Man: Chapter One, the first chapter of a seven chapter adventure game about risks and consequences developed by IF Games with a game design by Gene Mocsy and Bill Tiller of Autumn Moon. Chapter One is currently available for free from iTunes for iPad and will be updated soon for support for iPhone and iPod touch devices as well. They also have expressed interest in releasing the game for Android and Windows, OS X, and Linux, and ask for people to post on their forums to express their interest in the game for these platforms.
Update by Jennifer Also, Telltale updated their Twitter with news that The Walking Dead Season Two episode 2 will release on PSN for PS3 in Europe on Wednesday, March 12th.
What the hell, the world keeps moving even though we don't pay attention. Odd. Very odd.
So! To start with our little catch-up:
Costume Quest 2 is coming! The first game (and its expansion pack) was pretty awesome, so hey… Coolness! Check out the announcement at will..
In other news, the Mojo-headed Campo Santo will announce a game on Thursday. That's… all there is to that I suppose.
And Tales from the Borderlands has of course already been announced, but for those of you who (for whatever reason) are interested, you can check out its SXSW panel. You know. For giggles.
What else did we miss? Probably lots of things! Feel free to tweet us to let us know!
Lucasfilm's LucasArts page has been updated with their recent published hits such as Tiny Death Star and Angry Birds Star Wars, but also remembers (but doesn't mention that they once developed) adventure games such as Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Full Throttle.
Oh, and Sam & Max also gets a mention via a screenshot at the bottom of the page. Except it's the same screenshot from Sam & Max Season One that was erroneously printed as a Freelance Police screenshot in the Rogue Leaders book.
I'd email LucasArts and let them know about the mistake, but I'm not sure if anyone even works there anymore.
It seems that March will be full of games developed by Gene Mocsy. According to Steam, 1954: Alcatraz, the adventure game co-developed by his studio Irresponsible Games and German adventure game developer Daedalic, which was originally scheduled to release in 2012, is finally coming out on the 11th of March.
The game will have two player characters: a man who attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison, and his wife who is trying to avoid gangsters who are seeking the money that her husband stole from an armored truck. The puzzles will have multiple solutions, which will lead to different consequences for the characters. If this sounds interesting to you, check out this interview from December that GamingLives conducted with Gene Mocsy to find out more about this intriguing sounding adventure game.
The official Perils of Man facebook page has been updated with news that The Perils of Man, the upcoming iOS adventure game developed by IF Games with a game design by Autumn Moon's Bill Tiller and Gene Mocsy, will be getting a demo release on the 11th of March. The full version has not yet received a release date.
They have also stated that they intend to release some teaser tracks of music from Perils of Man from composer Paul Shapera soon, and hint at a possible full soundtrack album release. To see some of his previous work, you can check out his bandcamp page here.
Update 2: iOS has apparently gotten the release one day early, as episode 2 is now available on iTunes as well. The European PSN for PlayStation 3 release date has not yet been announced. It is also scheduled to be released some time at the end of March for PlayStation Vita (along with episode 1).
Update: It's out now on Xbox 360 through the Xbox Live Arcade.The Walking Dead: Season Two - Episode 2: A House Divided is out now for PC and Mac through Steam and the Telltale store and on PSN for PlayStation 3 in North America. It will be released later today for XBLA on Xbox 360 and tomorrow on iOS.