The International House of Mojo

Substantiating earlier rumors, Disney plans to premiere Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the Cannes Film Festival in May. While Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was also unveiled to the world at Cannes (not to mention last year’s Top Gun: Maverick -- a release that Disney would surely love to replicate in more ways than one), the June 30th release date for Dial of Destiny means an entire month will separate this debut and the general release.

It’s hard not to view this as a vote of confidence on the studio’s part given how much soaking that allows the word of mouth out of that screening to do. Imagine the render quality they must have achieved with the prairie dogs this time.

Source: Variety

In moments of moral uncertainty, the enlightened among us are usually able to grope our way out of the quandary by applying this simple test, verifying that it comes out negative: “Am I patterning my behavior after Nintendo of America’s 1990 censorship board?”

As per usual, however, Florida has gone in a different direction.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the best Aprils non-fools schtick in recent memory, we’re seeing some more “lessons learned”-type information making its way to the public. Take producer Jenn Sandercock’s recent GDC talk, The Production Secrets of 'Return to Monkey Island', from which you can download the presentation deck. I haven’t read it myself, but couldn’t help but notice this tidbit while skimming through it.

According to one David Fox, Return’s musicians also held a talk called Thirty Years Later: Scoring 'Return to Monkey Island'. We haven’t gotten our grubby hands or eyes on that one yet—if you can help us track it down, we’ll pay in hugs and love. Not a bad little soundtrack, that.

Download PDF

• RTMI_ProductionSecrets_GDC2023.pdf From jennsand.com

Statements by Bob Iger and Kevin Feige last month sent the signal that Disney has sailed past the honeymoon phase of torching kajillions of dollars at a time on streaming content, and they will consequently be rolling back their production of Star Wars programming for Disney Plus to a mere surfeit.

It hardly needs to be said aloud that a belt-tightening policy of somewhat-less Star Wars at Lucasfilm means an absolute banishment of anything else. Historically, Lucasfilm has never required having Disney as a parent company to satisfy that expectation all by its lonesome, but it’s been an unusual last few years in this regard between the ill-fated revival of Willow on Disney Plus and an incoming finale for Indiana Jones that was said to be spawning a live action television project on the same service. Well, about that:

I’d be telling quite the whopper if I acted like I lament whatever that Indy show was gonna be, but Mojo’s memory is long enough to recognize that this strategy of Daring To Consider A Slate Consisting Of Half A Percent Of Not-Star Wars Before Abruptly Coming To Our Senses is…well, a classic.

Source: DiscussingFilm

Whether you know him from his animation career at LucasArts, his stint as Creative Director of Telltale Games in its earliest days, his comic strip Grickle (whose universe the Puzzle Agent series occupies), or his movie credits (Coraline, The Boxtrolls), Graham Annable is definitely One Of The Principals, so there was no escape for him as the latest subject of Daniel Albu’s “A Conversation with…” series.

Don’t let your unseemly, targeted lust for the Sam & Max: Freelance Police juice (29:28) get in the way of watching the whole thing.

Source: YouTube

I often forget that I gave Fallen Order a shot, but I did and it wasn’t exactly “my thing.” That said, the 2019 Star Wars game was well-received by many, and I will admit—the sequel is looking pretty good.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor releases on April 28th for Xbox S/X and PS5. PC “coming soon.”

Being that I’m the guy who repeatedly, and only somewhat sarcastically, used the front page to hype up the approach of the Willow television show, it might have been noticeable that I fell silent when the thing actually arrived. Well, Mom always said that if you don’t have anything nice to say…

But hey, just ‘cause the show’s aggressively tropey Young Adult vision wasn’t for me, doesn’t mean it wasn’t for somebody. Plus, you gotta cherish when Lucasfilm puts anything non-Star Wars on its docket. It’s sorta Mojo’s raison d’etre, if I might invoke a little…Portuguese?

So I stand with the bereaved in reporting that Disney/Lucasfilm has given the show the axe rather than allow Jon Kasdan to make good on his outstandingly presumptuous post-credit implications, presumably on the grounds that it didn’t have lightsabers in it. On the plus side, you’re effectively left with an eight hour, live action Willow 2 quasi-starring Warwick Davis, which few people over the past thirty-five years would have called possible.

I’ll also take this time to point out that the show’s soundtrack, featuring compositions by James Newton Howard and Xander Rodzinski when it wasn’t going in for horrific rock covers, is available from all the Mickey-approved platforms in a three-volume digital release from Walt Disney Records. It’s another important precedent for those of us who have our fingers crossed for more official soundtrack releases for certain non-obvious Lucasfilm properties.

Now, dry those tears and let’s get that throwback graphic adventure continuation up and running. May I suggest David Fox?

Source: Deadline

At least for consoles, that is.

As pointed out by Jn, you can now pick up a boxed version of ReMI for $35.

Let’s be honest, you can never own too many copies of the game. Run to Amazon and buy, buy, buy!

Did “springing forward” this morning leave you feeling bitter, outraged, and dispossessed? Then it may be time to revisit Dave Grossman’s time-honored, Pulitzer-dodging rant against the institutional handsiness your clock is subjected to twice a year by participating countries.

Those who want to take it to the next level might even try placing an order for Dave’s attendant schwag, to see if that old Cafepress store can still phone home. Report back with your results!

Source: Phrenopolis

And we’re all privileged enough to witness it:

So he’s making feverish progress on his newest game, interrupted only to hang out with Dom? Ron is living his best life right now.

Source: Ronzo

The latest DREAMM build from Aaron Giles is meant to be the final beta before the release of DREAMM 2.0 and the start of world peace. Download away and replay your favorite LucasArts classics all over again for the good of mankind.

Aaron’s apparently made of sterner-than-average stuff, as he hasn’t yet been scared away from the Mojo Forums (we’ll get there), so share your findings with the mad scientist himself in the DREAMM thread if Bernard starts talking like Dr. Fred or The Dig starts acting like a good game (Footnote: Low blow. I like The Dig.) or something. And remember, DREAMM is beginning to expand to support a broader LucasArts catalog, so you can give titles like Afterlife, X-Wing, and Dark Forces a whirl on it these days. Don’t bother getting your beloved copy of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game out of hock just yet, though.

Source: DREAMM

We’re not at our best when we’re acknowledging deaths two years past, but punctually or not we must give a proper salute to voice actor Doug Boyd, who passed away in 2021. Boyd was a go-to talent for Telltale Games, a relationship that stretched all the way back to the dawn of the studio, when he nailed the role of Smiley Bone in Out from Boneville and The Great Cow Race. Anchoring a game wasn’t beyond his talents either, as he went on to voice Nelson Tethers himself in that gem of a series Puzzle Agent. And when it comes to all the roles he played in the Sam & Max games, they’re almost too numerous to list. Fortunately, as it often does, the Sam & Max Wiki has us covered:

• Specs
• Drivers
• Puppet President
• Slushie
• Maimtron 9000 (Beyond Time and Space)
• Red Elf
• Documentary Narrator
• WARP Announcer
• Train Conductor

Reading that list makes me feel all the more grateful for the work that Skunkape and Bay Area Sound do on the remasters, as the higher sample quality they achieve by going back to the original recordings preserves these wonderful performances.

Boyd’s game voiceover reel (which, in a Small World moment, was put together by fellow Telltale regular Adam Harrington) remains online, and offers a nice encapsulation of his resume:

You think Musk is a character? You should get a glimpse of what the Mojo workplace is like under the brutal thumb of our Chief Executive Officer. No, really - visuals get the message across in ways that words could never hope to.

There are those who would contend that a cultural mismatch was to some degree inevitable, what with a top-down management style being imposed upon an environment that traditionally thrived under a bottom-up approach that came to be seen as signature, but even still.

A few hours before Tim had his chest pinned with that aforementioned award over in Las Vegas, IGN took advantage of his vulnerable state by talking with him extensively about all things Double Fine.

A lot more ground than that is covered, so hear all of what Tim had to say in the final moments of his pre-Hall of Fame life. And savor it, because from now on you’ll only be hearing from him through an elaborate network of limo drivers and bodyguards, what with him being, formally speaking, a Big Shot.

Source: IGN

The MPAA has awarded Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny the traditional PG-13 rating, citing “sequences of violence and action, language and smoking.” Yah, you’re gonna want that TruCoat violence and action. Allegedly (Footnote: elTee’s alludes to “reliable sources” that he steadfastly refuses to identify), this was only achieved after the filmmakers cut out 40 solid minutes of unflinching sexual activity, Cruising-style, but as a commercial matter The Mouse needs this to reach the widest possible audience. You’re gonna want that widest possible audience.

A movie can only be rated after it has locked picture (unless the studio wants to pay for a resubmission), so the real news here is that this thing is in the birth canal, and there’s no turning back. Next on the horizon should be a proper trailer. That’s probably the one that’s going to give us our first look at Sophia Hapgood, or so elTee’s reliable sources (Footnote: Okay, it was just that adventure-gui.de guy) tell me.

Source: Screen-Connections

It was only a matter of time.

LRG has announced its next money sucker: Zak McKracken. What will $75 get you? Seemingly quite a bit:

Get ready to mortgage your house, sell a kidney, and/or get a second job, as sales start this Friday, March 10th. You got 'til April 23rd to cough up the dough. More information here.

Assuming you’re unemployed, you’ve survived the great voyeuristic chronicle that is Double Fine PsychOdyssey, be it on YouTube or by hauling down hundreds of gigabytes from Archive.org, where it’s been sportingly commended for your offlining needs.

Now we come to the time for post-mortems, victory laps and retrospective quarterbacking. Leading the vanguard is YouTube channel MinnMax, which has logged hours of virtual discussion on the documentary with no end in sight. Their panelists have included members of the 2 Player crew, members of the industry, and Maniac Mansion NES object tagger Tim Schafer.

I mean, there’s no bottom here.

Ronzo's next game, an RPG we've taken it upon ourselves to code name A Little Something, isn't as far away as we might have guessed:

Are we looking at the first screenshot? And just when can expect to traverse Ron's Hyrule, anyway?

That would be a rather swift turnaround considering Ron shipped a game six months ago. On the other hand, he's been percolating on this one since at least 2018, so maybe I shouldn't be so dubious. The point is, Ron's not done with you, and you're not done with Ron, and we're here to support the addiction.

The book tie-in to Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings has been on quite the journey. LucasArts commissioned established Indy novelist Rob MacGregor to write the literary adaptation, which was, naturally, supposed to come out alongside the game.

Somewhere along the way of the game slipping its schedule, getting quasi-cancelled, and finally being published in the form(s) that it was in 2009, the completed companion book fell between the cracks, while legal constraints prevented the author from releasing the work himself in the absence of interest from Lucasfilm and a publisher. There was some plain old weirdness surrounding the whole thing.

The book was quasi-liberated a year or so ago when MacGregor gave a chapter-by-chapter reading in podcast form. Now, finally, the thing can be read in its intended medium. The details come courtesy of “ThrowMeTheWhip” on TheRaider.net forums:

Good grief. But nice that the whole thing had a happy ending, eventually.

Source: The Raven forums

How about a making-of book for Day of the Tentacle? Well, you’re getting one from video game historian Bob Mackey, via publisher Boss Fight Books. Here’s the spiel:

So there you have it. The book is being Kickstarted now, and it looks like the goal has been comfortably exceeded, so get that space on the bookshelf ready.

Source: Boss Fight Books

These reminders feel a bit tawdry and perhaps even irresponsible, but the time is upon us. The pre-order window for Limited Run’s multitudinous Return to Monkey Island offerings closes this weekend.

Good luck?

Source: Limited Run Games

Next up in Daniel Albu’s mission to interview all SCUMM luminaries one at a time is his installment with David Fox. Noting that Ron and Gary didn’t seem to get one about the Maniac Mansion re-release, Fox mentions that he’d appreciate a holler from Limited Run Games if they should happen to like input on a hypothetical Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders box.

Of course, much more than that is discussed over the nearly two-hour conversation, so set aside the time, as challenging as that might be in a world where twenty-two hour Psychonauts 2 documentaries are a thing, and hear all the stories.

It’s worth noting that David Fox previously sat for an hour with this “Conversations with Curtis” YouTube channel just last year, chatting with the series’ other host, Paul Morgan Stetler, shortly before Return to Monkey Island came out. So if you didn’t get enough with this new one, rest assured that there’s more: