The International House of Mojo

Telltale managed to meet its projected dates for two of its series, as today sees a double release from the studio. Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 5 sets up the scenario for the upcoming three downloadable content episodes, while The Walking Dead: Michonne is the penultimate chapter of the three episode mini-series, furthering the danger and setting up the finale.

Both episodes are available to download today across all all available platforms, except for the Wii U version of Minecraft: Story Mode. Also, due to an unexpected delay, the PlayStation versions of The Walking Dead: Michonne Episode 2 will be delayed until the 31st of March.

Also, Telltale now has a dedicated page available for the Adventure Pass, which will be available as downloadable content and will encompass episodes 6, 7, and 8 of Minecraft: Story Mode, continuing the story from the cliffhanger at the end of episode 5. Episode 6 will be available Summer 2016, and the other two episodes will follow shortly afterward.

Update March 25th: The video in this post just became more relevant as Shrmargin pointed out in our comments section that The Wolf Among Us will be free in its entirety to Xbox Gold subscribers on Xbox One in April.

Telltale updated their blog with Minecraft: Story Mode news. Episode 5 will be releasing on February 29th. Then three new episodes will be released as downloadable content that can be purchased on the platforms supported by the game. The DLC episodes will be released over the course of this year.

Also, Mashable revealed, in an article with Telltale's CEO Kevin Bruner, that The Walking Dead: Season Three will begin releasing some time this year. More news will be revealed about Telltale's third season of The Walking Dead when Comic Con International occurs between July 21st and July 24th.

Finally, did you ever notice that Prince Lawrence's television displayed Night Court in The Wolf Among Us? Did you ever wonder what the two would look like mashed up? I made a video to answer that question, so you don't have to wonder anymore.

Well, tie me down and call me Betty—our Day of the Tentacle Remastered review was published in a timely manner, much thanks to Zaarin who buckled down and took one for the team. Yes, we’ve reached the point where playing a game ”on the clock” is considered something of a chore, which means we’re old and grumpy.

Anyway!

Not surprisingly Zaarin gives the game some love, and… Just read the damn thing. We bled to get this thing out on time.

Telltale's South by Southwest Batman panel is now online for all to see.

Some interesting things have emerged from that panel. Players will play as Bruce Wayne more than usual in a Batman game. In many situations, there will also be a choice between confronting a situation as Bruce Wayne, or going all in as Batman. As Batman, you'll also be given a choice to physically harm a suspect or take a more diplomatic approach through interrogation to get the information you're seeking. You won't be able to play the whole game without becoming Batman, but the developer's have stated you should be able to play a large portion of it as Bruce if that's the way you wish to play.

It is going to be similar in approach to their The Wolf Among Us series in terms of artistic presentation. It will be set in its own universe. Although it will draw from the 77 years of comic lore that already exists, the team will be able to make their own mark on the iconic characters.

It will have an art style inspired by DC artists such as Jim Lee, Greg Capullo and Neal Adams. It will have an M for mature rating, will consist of five episodes, and will begin releasing this summer.

Thimbleweed Park has evidently been making the rounds at GDC, a conference in desperate need of a vowel, and consequently a few new previews have sprung up, including this one by USGamer and another from Pocket Gamer.

Looks like there could be a new screenshot or two to be found in those articles, but I'll be damned if I've been keeping close enough track of all the media released to date in order to declare that with any authority. Get off my lawn!

It's official, and it ain't gonna be no reboot neither. This will be a proper fifth installment with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg.

I know many will be dubious, but I say bring it on. The oddly lethargic Crystal Skull is all the more reason to do this - the Ford era deserves a better send off. Age isn't an issue; Ford looked great in the new Star Wars and walked away from a freaking plane crash recently.

My suggestion? Keep Indy overseas for the whole movie a la Temple of Doom. And if they take The Godfather Part II approach where they do parallel narratives with a 30s era Indy (to smooth the transition to the inevitable recast), one hopes they favor the "Michael Corleone" plot line by a ratio of like 90/10.

Oh, and somehow I knew this would happen before another Indy video game showed up.

Source: Variety

For those waiting for Day of the Tentacle Remastered to show up on Steam, it can now be pre-ordered there as well.

Like GOG.com's Day of the Tentacle store page, Steam only lists Windows as a supported platform. Mac and Linux versions are coming, but they won't be available at launch.

That odd, faint sound you just heard? That would ATMachine's brain exploding.

LucasArts programmer of yore Aric Wilmunder has decided to make a very convincing argument for why he should be given Mojo's coveted Favorite Person Of All Time Award. From his web site:

That's right. Aric is in the process of making design documents for several old LucasArts games going as far back as 1983 - including some unreleased ones like Forge and Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix - available on his web site. Go check out the ten he has already made public, and once they're all safely downloaded you're going to want to scroll down to see the remaining six he's about to share.

Then change your pants, which I'm sure are useless now.

Source: Aric's World

The folks behind Kotaku's Split Screen podcast paid a visit to Double Fine's studio to gab with Tim about the remaster of Day of the Tentacle (reminder: March 22nd!) and various other things Double Fine. A text excerpt is available, if you're ridiculous. If you're not, go listen to the hour-long conversation.

Toward the end Tim gets asked a question many of us had, which is whether Double Fine has plans to pursue additional remasters after Full Throttle. His take is that the other LEC adventures should only get restored by their respective project leaders. But since Double Fine has established the all-important relationship with Disney, I'm thinking any Moriarty or Fox or Clark or Stemmle or Ackley or Ahern who might be interested may want to start by reaching out to the two-headed baby. Won't you, guys? For Mojo?

Source: Kotaku

ScummVM, the project that allows multiple point and click adventure games to be played on modern (and some not so modern) architectures, has been updated to 1.8.0. New in this release is support for ten new games:

• Amazon: Guardians of Eden
• Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity
• Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars
• Labyrinth of Time
• Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender
• Sfinx
• The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo
• The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel
• Zork: Grand Inquisitor
• Zork Nemesis: The Forbidden Lands

Additionally, there are new ports for GCW-Zero and Raspberry Pi. The graphics subsystem for the Sierra AGI engine has been overhauled, and the SCUMM engine has also received some love. The original Maniac Mansion walking code for the V0 and V1 version of the game has been implemented, Maniac Mansion can now be played from within Day of the Tentacle, and lip sync animation has been improved in later Humongous Entertainment games.

There's a whole lot more new with this release, as it's been a long time coming, so head over to the ScummVM site and give it a spin.

You can now pre-order Day of the Tentacle Remastered for Windows from GOG.com at the pre-order price of 10% off its regular rate of $15. It's also going to be released for Mac and Linux, but this isn't yet reflected in the GOG game info.

It's scheduled to be released on March 22, 2016. It will be released for PlayStation 4 and Vita as well.

USgamer has published a big heaving cover story on Day of the Tentacle ahead of the game's special edition, due for release sometime this month. The article is essentially a giant interview with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman about the production of the original game as well as the effort of restoring the old assets:

Sensing correctly that we can never have enough DOTT retrospectives, USgamer supplemented that article with another sizable one about the game's artwork with Peter Chan and Larry Ahern, and a third about the music with Peter McConnell. I bow to everyone involved.

Source: USgamer

Ron has posted a new trailer for Thimbleweed Park. It's narrated by the character of Ray, one of the detectives investigating the murder that kicks off the game's story. At least, I think. I know next to nothing of what the game's about and kind of like it that way.