The International House of Mojo

We already knew that Duke Grabowski had landed a publisher, but there's something comforting about getting the actual corporate screed to back it up. Today comes that very press release your heart so coveted:

Note the launch platforms, as well as a release date of November for the first episode. Congrats once again to the team! Now give Pedro a call.

Source: PR Newswire

This seems to happen every once in awhile. Ron will make some overture, like this tweet, about wanting to buy the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion IP from Disney, dozens of sites will seize upon it, fans will work themselves into a tizzy, and then nothing happens.

And nothing happens because nothing will happen. Big companies do not sell their properties pretty much as a matter of policy, and even if they did it's not like Ron would ever be able to meet their quote. It took having the right friends at Sony for Double Fine to get licenses for their recent remakes from Disney, and Ron has made it clear that licensing isn't good enough for him. So what motive is there to beat this drum?

The last time Ron made sure to pump some oxygen into the flame of that mythical creator-sanctioned "Monkey Island 3a" was last fall:

So guys, please, don't bug Ron about making another Monkey Island until Disney sells the IP to him first. Be reasonable here. I mean, gosh, why were you guys even bringing it up in the first place?! Wait...

Maybe I'm just a jerk, and Ron is shrewdly trying to build enough interest to get himself invited to a negotiating table. Maybe that is somehow something that's actually possible in the real world. Show me the light in the comments if you've got any to shine.

Source: Ron's Twitter

You'll recall that the Fig campaign for Psychonauts 2 was an immense success, raising $3.8 million to produce the long-awaited sequel, currently due out in 2018. However, according to Polygon, Double Fine is unable to actually collect about $1.8 of that dough, for the moment.

You might be aware that the main thing distinguishing Fig from Kickstarter - and indeed its primary mission statement - is that it offers the option for backers to invest invest in the project (which means potential, eventual profit participation) along with the usual donation choice, which often gets you fun rewards.

However, allowing investments from unaccredited investors (like you or me) requires a review process with the SEC, a process Fig obviously intended to get through by now. The Psychonauts 2 campaign was the first of its kind in offering an investment opportunity from pretty much anybody, and I suppose when you're the vanguard you get to be the first to learn certain painful lessons like these delays.

Per the article, Fig is hopeful to have the matter resolved soon, though technically there's no guarantee that every backer who's been waiting these months for their money to get collected will hold to their commitment until the gates finally open. It'll likely all end the way everyone wants, but it will still have been another interesting challenge faced by Double Fine, a studio continuing to tighten its commitment to the constantly expanding landscape of game crowdsourcing, a landscape they played a pretty direct part in paving.

Source: Polygon

It's easy to forget that Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick's retro adventure game and fated masterpiece Thimbleweed Park is less than a year from release. We haven't been particularly good about keeping on top of the coverage, but our laziness isn't the only factor - the game's really been getting around lately.

Still, it's mostly the laziness thing, so to make amends for being lax in our duties, here's a handy compilation of just a few of the previews from the past two months:

-Hands-on Preview + Interview: Thimbleweed Park and Ron Gilbert
-How Thimbleweed Park recreates the glory days of graphic adventure games
-Thimbleweed Park Is the Adventure of 'A Total A**hole'
-PAX East 2015 Preview: 'Thimbleweed Park'
-How Thimbleweed Park updates classic adventure games for a modern audience
-Ron Gilbert on Thimbleweed Park, what made adventure games great, and VR skepticism
-Hands-on: Thimbleweed Park is like a long-lost LucasArts adventure for the modern era
-Thimbleweed Park preview: Welcome Home
-If Ron Gilbert made Twin Peaks, it would be Thimbleweed Park
-‘Thimbleweed Park’ Is A Fantastic-Looking Mashup Of ‘The X-Files’ And ‘Maniac Mansion’

Those oughta hold you for awhile.

You've really got to admire this kind of stubbornness.

A fan-made remake of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis has been incubating for over two years now. I'm not clear on how far along the project is - indeed I've lost track of the Fate of Atlantis fan projects over the years - but the Facebook page has screenshots.

Labors of love like this traditionally just get put out at the risk of cease-and-desist orders, such as 2004's Maniac Mansion Deluxe, which as far as I know faced no legal repudiation, although the risk of getting the kibosh rises steeply when fans start dabbling in the big IPs, specifically Star Wars and Indy.

Whether for that reason or some other, the team has apparently sent a formal request to Disney to obtain a license for this remake. They even included some schwag! I find this admirable and crazy in roughly equal measure, but color me impressed.

I have a hard time imagining these good folks will get a response, much less approval, but I'm also a curmudgeon-y bastard without a sliver of optimism. At any rate, this has gotta be unprecedented, no? Correct me below if I'm wrong or at least join me in being awed by this team's hard work and indomitable spirit that's reminiscent of Indy himself.

Source: Facebook

The fan is Riccardo Faidutti, and his work is embedded below. Impressive stuff.

Source: Youtube

Keep a watchful eye on Aric Wilmunder's site, because he quietly adds to his LEC design document uploads. Unless I'm remembering wrong (entirely possible), I don't think the Forge design document was there originally.

Well, it's not the whole document, but rather the cover only ("at this time"), which nevertheless contains the synopsis for the unproduced game:

You might also be surprised to see that the game's project leaders are Kalani Steicher and Mike Ebert (who would go on to work on the likes of Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures) with Brian Moriarty's name nowhere in sight. This is because Moriarty fatefully chose to work on other, ill-fated projects as opposed to a sequel to his game, a decision he's recently indicated he regrets, but how was he to know?

Hopefully the full document gets posted at some point and we can pick over it together, as an exceedingly pathetic team.

Source: Aric's World

Yesterday, actor and voice actor Alan Young died of natural causes at the age of 96. A prolific performer, Young is best known and beloved worldwide as Wilbur Post - the human sidekick of Mister Ed - and of course as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in DuckTales, a role he continued to voice in work as recent as this year.

Here at Mojo, though, he will always be remembered as Haggis McMutton, one of Guybrush's amicably mutinous crewmen in The Curse of Monkey Island. We thank him for his characters and congratulate him on the immortality.

Source: CBS News

It feels like it is 2012 again. Disney has halted game production and will switch to a licensing model.

For those of you who have been waiting for more Lucasfilm figures for Disney Infinity, you're going to have to stop waiting as Disney Infinity will cease production as a result of this decision. Three characters from Alice Through the Looking Glass will release later this month, and a Finding Dory playset will be released in June. These will be the final figures released in the Disney Infinity line.

The primary developer of Disney Infinity, Avalanche Software, will also be closed. We at Mojo give our fondest well-wishes to the nearly 300 people who lost their jobs as a result of this decision.

As Jennifer reported this week, Duke Grabowski is no longer a bite-sized vanity project that the Autumn Moon guys (under the label "Venture Moon") will work on nights and weekends, but a full-length episodic adventure game with a publisher and everything. And episode one is out this summer!

To celebrate, we felt it would be useful to collect the media that the team has been trickling out over the last eighteen months. That's right, we've beaten the odds and updated the galleries. It hearkens back to the days when Mojo, if you can imagine, served as a resource for the games it covers.

Remember also to check out the Duke Grabowski Youtube Chanel for a collection of behind-the-scenes videos.

It's just our way of saying, "We don't think enough of you to trust that you can just Google this stuff."

Update: This Star Wars Day also brings another GOG.com LucasArts re-release. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire is now available on GOG.com, with a launch discount of 20% off.

Today is Star Wars Day, and Lucasfilm is celebrating with a bunch of deals on Star Wars games. You can grab these deals on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, the Windows Store, Steam, Humble Bundle, GOG.com, the PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Marketplace.

Duke Grabowski's Kickstarter updated with news that more Duke Grabowski is coming, as the game is now episodic and will now be published by Alliance Digital Media.

The game that backers will be getting will now be episode one out of five. Backers will get the game exactly as described in the Kickstarter, but the good news is that Duke's adventures will be larger than planned. The other good news is that the backing by a publisher means that the Duke Grabowski team can now work on the game full time. The first episode, the one that backers of the Kickstarter will be getting, is now planned to be finished in July.