The International House of Mojo

YouGamers sat down with Kevin Bruner of Telltale and Matias Myllyrinne of Remedy Entertainment to discuss the perks and challenges of being a small developer in today's climate:

Kevin Bruner acknowledges the changing playing patterns and audience expectations, and has a solution. "One of the things that is great about episodic games is that pretty much everybody finishes the game." This is rewarding for not just the customers but the developer as well: "Every customer sees all the content that you built for them, so it's really satisfying from the developer's point of view." In traditional game design, "the worst position in the gaming business is being the second to last level designer." Games are so big that most people only see one-third or half the game before running out of time or interest. The few that finish the game plow through the last levels just to get to the end.

Read the rest, and you gain the right to comment.

Back when the release of Abe Lincoln Must Die! was imminent, we learned that Chuck Jordan, writer/programmer on The Curse of Monkey Island, was contributing dialog on episodes 4-6 of Sam & Max: Season 1.

Now, as his blog reports, Jordan's work for Telltale will no longer be merely on a contractual basis. He now works for Telltale Games in a full-time position, adding yet another LucasArts alumni to the company's impressive team. He implies that he's working on the second season of Sam & Max, which is as unsurprising as it is awesome.

Source: HieroHero

According to the rather surprisingly source of Formula1.com, George Lucas (who regularly frequents the Monaco Grand Prix) let slip that he is set to start shooting Indiana Jones 4 within the next week. However, he's worried that it might cut into his Indianapolis time.

"I plan to go to Indianapolis as well - if my schedule permits it, as I start shooting Indiana Jones IV next week. If the production is running as planned you will find me there."

That's okay George, you take your time.

...

(Psst! Mr. Darabont? The coast's clear!)

Source: Formula1.com

Gamasutra has a few new details on Crackpot Entertainment's upcoming Insecticide, including that a DS version of the game will be released alongside the PC release (previously we'd only heard that Crackpot and Gamecock were pursuing handhelds), and that this version will include unspecified multiplayer functionality. The tiny picture that decorates page also looks to be new to me.

Stay tuned for more news on Insecticide, which is still on track for release by the year's end. As was revealed upon its announcement, the game will be released for PC in two downloadable parts before being packaged as a retail product later.

Quite a few, actually. Enough to make the movie the Memorial weekend record holder, even. Though it didn't set the opening weekend record like its predecessor did (which was recently surpassed by Spider-Man 3), the amount of loot that the film managed to pull in over four days might be described by King Andre as, an awful lot of money.

Let me be the first to say that I couldn't be more proud of LucasArts for resisting the urge to take advantage of the public's peak-high excitement for supernatural piratey adventures with a sense humor by repackaging a certain beloved and out-of-print franchise of theirs. That kind of stunt is beneath them, and it's time for the company to move beyond the IP they have.

They just won't stop! These five come from German site PC Games Online:

- Mona talking to some gypsy lady
- Mona in the castle (maybe?)
- Mona and Froderick studying a map
- Mona examining a mirror
- Mona checking out a horse

It's like, just when you thought the game couldn't look any more gorgeous, this happens.

Source: PC Games

To celebrate the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World?s End, due to hit cinemas tomorrow, we?ve put a review of The Curse of the Black Pearl, with a review of the next two films to follow presently.

Contained within is a rant about Escape from Monkey Island, and gratuitous and self-indulgent excerpts from Treasure Island.

Update: page two has now been uploaded, with a look back at Dead Man's Chest. Yargh.

Update 2: Our review of At World's End has now been uploaded.

See here, as well. The man has excellent taste.

Forget At World?s End ? there?s really only one pirate film you need to see this weekend!

Mojo reader ScummBuddy (who also filmed the Monkey Island play) has uploaded a student film he made, based on Tim Powers' novel On Stranger Tides ? a novel that was an influence on both Pirates of the Caribbean and the Secret of Monkey Island.

You can see it here, on Youtube.

The film makes interesting use of sound and colour, and does a good job of keeping tension throughout. It?s worth watching even if you haven?t read the book.

Update: By the powers! The gnarled talons of Hollywood, no doubt acting on a tip-off from LucasArts, have taken the video off Youtube. Apparently having it on there would have taken away a studio's profits when they eventually decide to turn the novel into a film (or something).

Source: Scummbuddy

LucasArts has announced Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga this fall for Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, and DS. As you might have guessed this is a compilation package of the two immensely popular Lego Star Wars games.

According to Traveller's Tales, the guys who are responsible for the compilation, there will be some extra features in these versions to make them more than just the two games repackaged. This includes "new characters, features, and levels," and the DS version is said to be a new game altogether, done from scratch. I know even some of you "I hope LucasArts gets cancer" folk dug the Lego games, so maybe this is news that doesn't suck.

This weekend is the 30th birthday of Star Wars, and the 25th birthday of LucasArts is also happening (or possibly: has happened ? nobody really knows).

To celebrate, IGN?s weekly "AFK" podcast is all about the films and the history of LucasArts. They spend a lot of time being nostalgic about Star Wars, but get onto adventure games at the 29 minute mark.

"Oh God, yeah, I do love this genre," says a woman. "And I know it?s dead right now, but, uh, but I love um... Grim Fandango, has to be, hands down, the BEST LucasArts adventure game..."

"Glottis rules," interrupts a husky male voice.

"I?m sorry!?"

"Glottis. Glottis rules."

"Oh yeah, I know," drools the woman. "I love Glottis.?

She then goes on to to describe Manny as a "half-dead detective."

If you want to give the whole thing a listen, head over to the IGN AFK page.

Source: Glo-Kidd

As we reported awhile back, localized retail versions of Bone are being released throughout Europe. The French publisher, Anuman Interactive, has launched an official web site for their Out from Boneville release, with all sorts of French goodies, which are in French. Check out the French demo to hear the game in French, or just visit the character pages to hear voice samples.

They're going to be releasing two versions, a "standard" and a "collector's edition," the latter including the book. It looks to have a pretty nice box, too.

Source: Telltale forums

Nighlight Productions, the site with all the Star Wars and Grim Fandango Tierra De Los Meurtos radio plays, has relaunched today sporting a fresh new design and the continued promise of real content coming soon (honestly!)

Metallus is the man behind the design, which looks very nice, and, he tells me, is all done with cutting edge web 2.0 CSS. Just look at that source code ? nay so much as a <tr> or <td> in sight!

Hopefully we?ll be listening to some new Nightlight content soon. Keep your ears peeled.

In the mean-time, you can always listen to an excellent Curse of Monkey Island radio play from the Waterpipe theatre, which I forgot to post about here previously. (Source: World of MI.

Also on the topic of stuff I forgot to post about before: this interview with Bill Tiller is very cool, and new to at least me.

Also also: I found a visual history of LeChuck whilst aimlessly googling my life away, which you might be interested to look at. Update: that page is part of ATMachine's LucasArts Miscellany site, which for some reason I had missed seeing previously. It's impressive stuff!

When it was announced that Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson would not be reprising their roles as the voices of Sam and Max for Telltale's season, a lot of people were pretty upset, at least at first, but it would appear that German-speaking fans of the characters will not be sharing that disappointment.

Our own Laserschwert, by way of Telltale's forums, reports that the localized version of the upcoming retail release of Sam & Max: Season 1 will feature Sandra Schwittau doing the voice of Max in the German dub as she did for Hit the Road. It's not yet known if Sam's German counterpart, Hans-Gerd Kilbinger, will also be on board, but it wouldn't be surprising if JoWood (the European publisher) was able to nab him too.

Update They were! The German dubbers of Sam and Max for Season 1 will be the same as those for Hit the Road.

Source: Laserschwert

The author of the blog Mystery Man on Film put up a history of the fourth Indiana Jones movie, specifically documenting all the reports of scripts over the past thirteen years, leading up to the one that actually happened. Remember the Noah's Ark foolishness, for example? It's a really interesting read, and includes a handful of real and not so real drafts for your entertainment.

Even though it's concluded, the first season of Sam & Max just can't stop getting attention. Take for example an article about episodic gaming by The Hollywood Reporter which cites Sam & Max as really the only series to get the model right. There's also this blog writeup which takes a look back at the season as a whole with admiration. And finally Yahoo! Games sits down with Brendan Ferguson to discuss the highs and lows of the season.

Sometime you might also want to check out the Telltale Games web site, which is where I got all of these links from.

The often sometimes accurate CHUD has got a few rumors on the next Indiana Jones film. (If they're true they're definitely spoilers, so be warned.) Take everything that's said about the movie with a grain of salt, but there's also this:

Interestingly, there have been rumors of a video game tie in being released next year with the title Indiana Jones and the Staff of Moses; I checked with other sources and while I can?t confirm anything, this seems to be a stand-alone adventure and does not reflect the title or storyline of Indiana Jones IV.

This is the first we've heard of a title for the new game, but it does at least correlate with the extremely limited info we have on the story, which will feature a mystery of "biblical proportions." I don't know where he got the title from, but I'd say it's only probably fake, rather than assuredly.

Update: I've learned that Indiana Jones and the Staff of Moses is the name of an old work of fan fiction (notable enough, apparently, to be adapted into a fan comic) which kind of throws doubt on the veracity of this leak. Still though!

So, okay, you've finally learned our sinister secret, which is that we intentionally hold back news items from you so that we can opportunely "discover" them on subsequent slow news days.

When Fracture was announced, more than just Gamespot previewed the demo that LucasArts had to show off. There was also this one by Atomic, which is an informatively frank look at the game and is, if you get perverse pleasure out of it, somewhat critical.

When you're done with that, head on over to Gamespy's impressions. And I guess you could check out what IGN has to say as well. And GameShark. And 1up. And what have you got against ActionTrip anyway? I hope you're a little more civil toward TeamXbox and GameInformer. All of these are potentially worth reading and contain classic quotes by Mojo favorites Jim Ward and Peter Hirschman.

While it seems pretty unlikely that Fracture is going to actually deliver on the "depth" of storyline and characters that LucasArts refuses to stop boasting of it, it's pretty obvious that the game will be, at the very least, fun to play. At this point having anything lower than an apathetic stance toward it is considered gratuitous.

Since we're having a smidgen of trouble scrounging up news as of late (at least until someone else changes their name), I did some digging and found a nice Telltale interview from April, conducted by the lovable gents at Custom PC. Here's an enticing snippet from the five page beast, which features responses from Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner and Brendan Ferguson:

CPC: On his blog, [Ron] Gilbert says that 'Some people will tell you that Adventure Games aren't really dead, they have just morphed into other forms, or that other genres have absorbed Adventure Games. If this is true, they've done a pretty bad job of it.' Would you agree with this, and do you think that Telltale is doing adventure games correctly by going back to the roots?

Brendan: I think many games have captured that feeling of being transported to another world, but most games still give you a pretty narrow set of ways to interact with that world. If you want the feeling of being an action star, you've got a healthy number of choices, but other kinds of stories haven't been remotely as well explored. At Telltale, we take the view that interactive stories are fundamentally a very powerful medium, and we want to give players that experience in the simplest, most direct way possible. With luck, we'll see many more types of stories and experiences in the days to come.

You read now. A free subscription is apparently required if you linger on the site too long, so don't dawdle.

It should be noted that "Jason" (seen posting news below) is actually just Udvarnoky, who has decided to change his Mojo username after being repeatedly teased by Gabez. Given that I thought "Gabez" was pronounced "Gabe Z" for years (considering that Gabez's real name is in fact Gabe, and not Gab, that is a reasonable thing to think) I find this slightly reprehensible, but what can you do? You are now all informed.

With the premiere tommorow, and its initial press screening a few days ago, the first reviews for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End are starting to trickle in, and they are quite positive. Check out this one, for instance. There are others too, I'm pretty sure, but you can look them up yourself.

The other day while at a bookstore I flipped enjoyably through this huge hardcover monstrosity called The Art of Pirates of the Caribbean, which contains concept art from all three films. The $50 price tag was prohibitively high, but it's pretty awesome and very much the kind of stuff you'd want to see if you somehow had access to a Monkey Island 5 pre-production meeting.

We?re a bit late with this (sorry), but yesterday was Bart Robert?s birthday.

In other news, we?ve been updating our galleries with some new magazine scans. The first is from Edge magazine, coming from the issue that had all the LucasArts characters on the front cover. I saw it in the library the other day and scanned it up. It?s a very pro-LucasArts piece, but does have some good information, and lots of coverage of the old days.



The second lots of scans are from the gamedeveloper magazine, from the issue that has Sam & Max on the cover. It was handed out for free at GDC. The article itself is very good, covering the Sam & Max episodes from an industry inside perspective.



Incidentally, can anyone remember reading this magazine scan? I found it in the magazines gallery, but I don't think it's been posted about before:



I also scanned in an advert for LucasArts employment that I got somewhere at GDC.

You know what's delicious? Cookies biscuits! And what makes them even more yummy is when they?re baked in the shape of two-headed babies. Kudos to Charlotte for that, who baked away for the University of Wales' Women In Games Conference last month.



In other university news, Linda dv Fliert is doing a study on fan-communities (especially the Monkey Island one), for the University of Amsterdam. If anyone could spare the time to answer some of her questions, I?m sure that she would find it very useful.

It would seem that the folks responsible for A Vampyre Story's retail presence in the UK have been selected.

93 Games have signed the UK publishing rights to "A Vampyre Story" from Crimson Cow, while Ascaron Entertainment have been appointed as the UK distribution partner. The collective agreement will see the adventure title on UK retail shelves in Q4 2007.

Read the full press release here.

Usually those seeking sexual stimulation would be better served by web sites other than Mojo, but today several new screenshots from Autumn Moon's A Vampyre Story have appeared on one of the game's many official pages. If you'd rather not view the beauties in clumsy Flash slideshow form, check them all out at Adventure Gamers.

What part of that screen displaying the interface doesn't look amazing? Hint: It was a trick question.

In a surprise move, LucasArts is to release a new game in 2007. A part of their ongoing Battlefront series. And you won't be playing it unless you're a PSP owner.

The new game is Star Wars Battlefront?: Renegade Squadron? and you can read the press release here.

Source: LucasArts

So, what's gonna be on Telltale's Sam & Max Season 1 CD release? You'd think the fact that its DVD case will feature cover art by Steve Purcell would be enough, but Telltale decided to completely abandon all reason by including this boatload of stuff as well:

• Hybrid DVD containing all six episodes on the data side, and hours of original video content on the video side!
  
  
• 10-20 minute cutscene reels from all six episodes, including over two hours of DVD commentary tracks by the game designers and production team!
  
  
• Reams of concept art!
  
  
• Sam & Max Season One blooper and outtake reel!
  
  
• All 15 machinima shorts, and the 3 IGF shorts!
  
  
• Trailers for the six episodes, and the E3 trailer!
  
  
• Surprise bonus content!

The disc will be available in the middle of June and, as you probably know, will be offered to full season customers for only the price of shipping. Read Telltale's full writeup for more information. It's hard for me to believe that Dreamcatcher's retail version could top this in content.

As Jake notes, four more tracks from Season 1 have been added to the soundtrack page for your listening enjoyment. They are of course awesome.

Read all about it! Penny Arcade's upcoming episodic adventure series will include Ron's input through some kind of "intense collaborative development process." I'm a bit hazy on exactly what his role in the game's development will be, but uh, he's apparently involved somehow.

No former LucasArts designer is safe from the rampant episodic fever!

Update: Gabe over at Penny Arcade has posted a short news blurb about Gilbert's involvement:

The press release covers all the basics about how Ron is a pioneer in the adventure game genre and how he was the co-creator of the Monkey Island series. I just wanted to share a quick personal note about the story.

We had our first meeting with Ron pretty early in the design process. Tycho and I were getting the story fleshed out and we had some ideas about the design and over all pace of the game. We laid it all out for Ron and then he picked up a whiteboard marker and started teaching class. I?m not sure how many people can say they got a game design 101 course taught by Ron Gilbert, but that?s exactly what Tycho and I got that day. His insights into the way you move the player through an interactive story so that they get to explore the world but don?t loose the narrative were incredible. He was drawing diagrams and helping us really visualize the game in a way that had never even occurred to us. We?re ridiculously lucky to have him on board and helping us with On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One.

Keeping with the tradition begun with episode 4, the finale is available a few days early for full season customers. Check your e-mail to get the game, or head to the usual spot.

The primary launch for episode 6 will be this Thursday, three days from now. Telltale also promises details on the season disc later this week.

Okay, not quite that earth-shattering. In reality (I hate living there, spoils all the fun), Capcom are bringing a game called Treasure Island Z to the console known as Wii. It's a humorous piratey point n' click adventure game. Sound familiar? Oh, and a monkey follows you around. And the main villain's a talking skull (just look at that picture with this playing in the background, you'll get the idea).

Of course it's also cel-shaded, which brings to mind Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker as well. Nevertheless, even without the Monkey Island/Zelda vibe it's still a point n' click adventure coming out on the Wii, which is a very good thing indeed. Let's hope Capcom make good on this promising beginning. Okay, vaguely possibly interesting beginning.

Well, to release Fracture, more accurately. As Mojo reported a month back the game takes place during a future US Civil War. West Coast vs East Coast. I'd have thought the 2 coasts would have teamed up against the middle States myself.

Here's the expected Big Jimming;

"Exciting new intellectual properties serve a vital role to the growth of LucasArts," said Jim Ward, president of LucasArts. "Fracture represents the next step in this company initiative, complete with the intriguing story and compelling characters audiences expect of a LucasArts release."

And for all the rest of the details and trailer and what-not, jump on over to the game's official website: terraindeformation.com

Update by Udvarnoky: Gamespot has a preview of the game up.

Source: LucasArts

Dave, Ron, Bill and LucasArts have all been busy with interviews, though some have been busier than others...



Meanwhile, Double Fine remain frustratingly tight-lipped about their new game...



And Ron Gilbert runs into difficulty while dining out in a fancy restaurant...

...Double Fine Action Buttons, available now from the company store! This set of four prominently features characters from Scott Campbell's excellent web comic. But it would be pretty rude to merely re-read the 400+ pages of that without also re-reading the other awesome Double Fine Action Comics, which on the whole we haven't pimped in far too long.

To check out the version of this news that has a Song of the South reference, click here, and also get ordering.

FiringSquad ran an interview with Dan Connors and Dave Grossman of Telltale Games this past Thursday at the close of Sam & Max's first season.

FiringSquad: In terms of gameplay, do you feel that you have stayed true to the original LucasArts game while also putting in Telltale's own touches?

Dave Grossman: Actually, I don't think we've stayed true to Hit the Road in terms of gameplay, nor were we really trying to. There are essential elements of puzzle philosophy, structure, and dialog mechanics that are quite different, and if I were going to compare the gameplay to an older game I would be more inclined towards Day of the Tentacle or Pajama Sam, or both. With, as you say, a certain essential Telltale style.

Other responses, including vague status reports on current and future projects can be found in the full article.