So, enjoy. Or don't. Whatever you choose. You could just check out this eerily accurate representation of Europe's relationship with Monkey Island.
New Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion games 30 Nov, 2009, 13:18 / 7 comments
So, enjoy. Or don't. Whatever you choose. You could just check out this eerily accurate representation of Europe's relationship with Monkey Island.
POTC 4 Script Leaked 27 Nov, 2009, 19:29 / 10 comments

"Why just the pirates of the Caribbean?" I thought. "Much more impressive to make it the Pirates of America."
"And why should the pirates be the heroes? Much better to follow the good guys, the English" (I was quite racist when I was younger).
The result stands before us:

The script appears to be written in Anglo-Saxon. A transcription runs thus:
The Sowders of Einlad.
One day there wher sum solders they wher cold The Solders of Enlad. the names wher Jon Chip Dog Willf and Tim Tom Gabriel and Mark. they wher goto have a whor an gets the pirats of ameraker. the solders had milians and farsns of dums gold and hudruds of siver quawts cups neckdiees brawtes.
chapeh two on the solders of Enlud. bay two they are haveing the wher hoo will win!
wac UP SPLLOS AHHHH.... BANG
we won the wor we won! the wor
On the back is taped the top of a cardboard shoebox, and the following words, written in the same handwriting:
Try a different nickname
(Im) I (neeld) need a short top
you - type a name with:
- 8 characters or less
letters or numbers
No spaces or punctuation
The meaning of the last part is lost to me now.
Sam and Max Season Three rumors, bunnies 27 Nov, 2009, 13:25 / 18 comments
I think that Season Three will launch in either December of this year, or January
It wasn't unreasonable to conclude it was Sam and Max. I didn't want to post my admittedly weak speculation until I had some confirmation; Dan Connors confirmed (see 8:30, although the entire interview is worth watching).
I should remind you that they'll be dropping the point-n-click interface of Seasons One and Two, and instead will be adapting something else. Possibly click-n-drag?
So there you go. Speculation, rumor, speculation, reported. I feel like I should be on Fox News. Anyways, you're probably excited and so am I; even if you're not, remember that Mixnmojo is the Citizen Kane of speculation. Or the Citizen Kane of being Fox News. And that people who claim to hate things really feel otherwise, like self-hating Jews or internalized homophobes. So if you hate Sam and Max, I can only assume you hate-but-actually-like bunnies, because you couldn't be one when you were always limited to playing as Sam. So much for wish fulfillment. Are you a self-hating bunny lover? I implore you look at this photo and relax. We can both put our dog/bunny differences aside and look at the photo. I can relax looking at the girl, whereas you can relax looking at the bunny.
TMI recap trailer and interview with Elaine 26 Nov, 2009, 08:11 / 5 comments
In other Monkey Island voice actor news, the Tales of MI Blog has scored an interview with Alexandra Boyd, voice of Elaine in TMI, CMI, and the recent remake of the original game. Apparently she's been recording all of her work from London as she's moved out of LA since the CMI days. This and other tidbits can be discovered by reading the full interview.
Sale! Sale! Sale! 25 Nov, 2009, 22:53 / 7 comments
Telltale are having a sale. There's new bundles, and free shipping for orders over $25. I'd like to stress the "free shipping" part, which you may not know to equal $0.00. Which is exactly what your brain is worth if you don't go with this; if you want to support adventure or story-driven games, anyways. It's worth mentioning that anyone who's subscribed to the Telltale Interloper gets an extra little deal. You can still sign-up and get in on it.
LucasArts are doing

Brutal Legend is going for, oh, less than $40 this Friday (America only). It's in celebration of Black Friday, which, according to the internet (and I quote), is "the day the United States was freed from the oppression of the British, and led into freedom and then betrayal by the leader of the rebellion, a turkey named Turkey[citation needed]." You can increase Double Fine money by buying from their store.
New Monkey Island game announced 25 Nov, 2009, 22:14 / 1 comment
And speaking of Tales, Telltale have re-cut and added footage to this here recently updated fan trailer (much to said fan's delight), adding in stuff from Chapter 5 (so, spoilers), and (I kid you not) re-recording the relevant lines from Chapter One with that dude who appeared in Chapter Four. Spoilers: I'm talking about Earl Boen.
Finally, some insane people are doing a Monkey Island animated movie, which Steve Purcell is not doing concept art for. If you think you could lend a hand, go for it.
New Ghost Pirates trailer 24 Nov, 2009, 04:38 / 22 comments
Dtp entertainment has released a new teaser for Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.
This is I believe the first available sample of the English voice work, and judging from the above trailer, which tells us little else, this area was well done.
Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island is currently available in Germany, and will expand to other territories with full English voices in early 2010. Between this and Tales, 'tis a fine time to be a fan of swashbucklin' graphic adventures, and in both cases brought to you by LEC veterans.
Update by Zaarin: You may be interested in this here totally unrelated, but awesome, tribute to Monkey Island by Miquel Montllo.
A giant monkey you won't go into a fanboyish rant over 24 Nov, 2009, 02:41 / 2 comments
Deadly Intents Review 22 Nov, 2009, 17:00 / 4 comments
It seems that Jason must have played the game before he was tragically lost in 199 AD, because we found a review of Deadly Intent chiselled onto the side of Hadrian's Wall.
Long a mystery to historians, its significance is unveiled for the first time, transcribed in article form on this web-site.
Battlefront developer ceases to be 19 Nov, 2009, 23:31 / 6 comments
Electronic Arts has confirmed rumours regarding the closure of Mercenaries and Saboteur developer Pandemic Studios.This makes for a sucky situation for all those developers, and a fuzzy situation as far as who is developing the elusive Battlefront III. In 2006, the game's development was associated with UK studio Free Radical Design before it too closed its doors.
The majority of the Los Angeles-based studio’s 200 staff have been let go, including founders Josh Resnick, Andrew Goldman and Greg Borrud, who served as president, CEO and vice president of product development respectively, the publisher told Joystiq.
Following that, the game was said to be transferred to the hands of Rebellion, developer of the two handheld entries in the series, Renegade Squadron and, earlier this month, Elite Squadron. It was later suggested though that the company was only working on a PS2 port of the game, and that the franchise's original developer Pandemic was back at the wheel. That Pandemic would have been developing for LEC despite being owned by EA isn't out of the question given that LEC is partnering with Bioware for The Old Republic.
Of course, that's all moot now. I wonder who's next on the list?
The pirate god will rise next month! 18 Nov, 2009, 20:33 / 18 comments
It's official, Rise of the Pirate God will be coming to your poxed computers next month. December 8th to be exact.
Update by Kroms: You can now buy individual chapters off the Telltale store. Also, notice the "Tales of Monkey Island Season One". One. Like the number preceding five in 2015.
Call Tim Schafer in, oh, two hours 18 Nov, 2009, 16:05 / 1 comment
We expect a high volume of calls during this show, so it's probably a good idea to start calling in to (347) 857-3782 the second we kick the show off at 1 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. Remember, you can always use Skype to call a land line if you're international or local.Good luck to everyone wanting to get a call in. Thanks to Giygas, who mentioned this ages ago, and Custard, who told me just now.
LEGO Indiana Jones II: The Adventure Continues released! 18 Nov, 2009, 03:59 / 8 comments
In addition to containing levels from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the game also sports new levels from the original trilogy distinct from those of the first game. Most attractively, the game features a full fledged level builder and a rather promising co-op mode that looks to be a substantial improvement over the already fun The Original Adventures.
Developed by Traveller's Tales and published by LucasArts, the game is available for PC, Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and PSP. Grab it while it's hot or risk betraying Shiva.
Surely he's got to be running out of these 18 Nov, 2009, 03:48 / 0 comments
Dave Grossman reveals that Jeff Smith fans are Boned 18 Nov, 2009, 03:43 / 5 comments
DEN: What about some of the other franchises, I know you have announced the next Sam and Max, but what about future installments of Bone, or Strong Bad?I guess if the Bone movie ever leaves the conceptual phase there's a possibility that the tides could change, but for now it's looking like the Bone cousins are stuck in the Valley evermore, at least as told within a Telltale game.
DG: There won’t be any more Bone games, our agreement ended. But Strong Bad, we liked working with the Brothers Chap. We worked very closely with them.
Brütal Soundtrack Released... no, not that one, the one Gabez might actually like 17 Nov, 2009, 04:44 / 10 comments
It's available from most versions of Amazon (UK, US, German) and is also in the iTunes Store.
It may be incomplete as it "only" seems to be 39 minutes long, but it's also only $8.99/£7.99, so I think you can afford that... can't you?
Update by Remster: For those of you already paying for eMusic, you can download it for 12 credits. A good deal for sure.
Indy Jones wiips his way to Virtual Console 16 Nov, 2009, 22:32 / 19 comments
[LucasArts] gave Factor 5, most well-known for their Turrican games on SNES and Mega Drive exclusive rights to develop a game based on all three movies in the Indiana Jones trilogy. We don't know what led them to this choice, but it was definitely the right one, as Indy's Greatest Adventures still live up to its name as one of his best action-based games.
Check Nintendo Life for their review of the game.
Also, as a side note, Wiiware in Europe / Australasia now has demos for some games, with US no doubt following close behind, so hopefully we'll see some Mojo-friendly titles being demoed on Wiiware in the future.
Three remixes for remixes post three 16 Nov, 2009, 14:21 / 3 comments
Reader robearth sent-in this very interesting and original remix of the main theme. It's pretty great.
This insane person continues to be very resourceful and very original, and has added Chapter Two's "Swordfight Theme" to
Tell me if I've missed anything!
Here are mega suites of the Chapter Two and Chapter Four soundtracks, compiled and strung together by Telltale forumer Trenchfoot. Should you want to extract your own tracks, our resident monkeys can give you the keys to bgbennyboy's Telltale Music Extractor. Click here to beg the monkeys for the keys.
A special month for special people 15 Nov, 2009, 05:35 / 21 comments
As for the future, that will depend on how the current projects perform. But with The Secret of Monkey Island topping the Steam and XBLA charts, and Tales proving to be Telltale's most popular game in its history, we're confident that the story hasn't finished yet. Monkey Island 2 Special Edition is inevitable, and we're told by our friends at LucasArts that next March might be a special month for fans.So then.
Monkey Island makes magazine cover, LEC makes MI2 Special Edition? 15 Nov, 2009, 03:16 / 14 comments
But that's not the end of the news. The same thread contains the following post of boundless intrigue by our own Laserschwert, whom Retro Gamer contacted for the use of his cleaned-up version of the MI2 cover:
Interesting side note: The Retro Gamer guys told me that when they went to get the okay from LucasArts to use the MI2-artwork, LucasArts was actually concerned about that, because - as the put it - "they haven't released Monkey Island 2 yet". Sounds like it's going to get a definite re-relase... question is: will it be an SE?Hopefully (depending on your school of thought on this), that's the slip-up on LEC's part that it sounds like, and we can expect a special edition of LeChuck's Revenge on the horizon.
Not that we've been particularly diligent with keeping tabs on all the great TMI coverage, but you might also want to check out this informative interview with Mike Stemmle.
English Ghost Pirates has a publisher 15 Nov, 2009, 02:55 / 2 comments
Fearfully Brütal Tees 12 Nov, 2009, 05:12 / 1 comment
Look upon Mishka's works, ye mighty, and despair... for you can't buy them. They're for competition purposes only, with Kotaku (in the link) suggesting they'll be one of those offering them. The game's Twitter should also be another good place to look.
Don't bother entering though, Kroms will beat us all to them.
Bill Tiller discovers Ghost Pirates is out 11 Nov, 2009, 04:03 / 13 comments
I was looking at my new iPhone today, a birthday present from my family, and I saw an email about Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island coming out in Germany today. I am so happy it finally made the shelves. If someone over in Germany could take a picture of it on the shelves I would appreciate it. I want to congratulate my awesome team for all the hard work they put into it.Kinda lame that he is as in the dark as we are about the game's release and availability details. Hopefully hard news on the English version comes soon, and hopefully we start hearing about A Vampyre Story 2: A Bat's Tale again now that Ghost Pirates is (partially) out the door.
I also heard there was a new trailer, but that some people didn't like the FMV animation. To meet our deadline I decided that we should focus on the programming and in game animation, and if we had to make cuts we would do it in the FMVs (full motion videos). The FMVs only make up 15 minutes of a ten hour game. I was talking with Ron Gilbert one day and he said “cut scenes are the least important part of an adventure game," and that I should "keep them to a minimum and focus on the game. Players are just going to skip them anyway.” Coming from a background in traditional character animation I was a bit bummed to hear that, but I reluctantly agreed that what he said made sense, so that is what we did. Not to say all the in game animations are perfect but we definitely put more time and effort on those.
Also we learned a lot from making our first game, A Vampyre Story. We improved the in game dialog, voice acting, the puzzles, the programming and scripting. Although not perfect, Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island is, in my opinion, a much more ambitious and improved product over our first one. I hope you agree.
The Art of Brütal Legend will rock your bookshelves next month 10 Nov, 2009, 17:24 / 2 comments
Go get your pre-order on. Or wait for it to be released. The choice... is yours.
Thanks to elTee on IRC for the tip!
Zombies Review 09 Nov, 2009, 22:11 / 4 comments
Only later did we realise that he had been accidentally sent to 199 AD, which, even by our confused reckoning, is some way out.
As a result, Jason is regrettably locked forever in the stubborn clutches of time. Before being consigned to this terrible fate, he did, however, write us a review of Zombies, which was mostly the point in sending him to the past in the first instance.
Deleted Secret of Monkey Island dialogue posted, fanboys deem it better than porn 09 Nov, 2009, 19:14 / 6 comments
Conversationally: Should these extra lines have been included in the SE?
LucasArts company store stocks something worthwhile 09 Nov, 2009, 01:56 / 9 comments
And get me one while you're at it.
Update: Symbiote is offering a deal when ordering from their web site: buy the Monkey Island statue and get the Sam & Max one 50% off. Tempting.
Ghost Pirates haunt Germany 06 Nov, 2009, 18:12 / 11 comments
Unfortunately, the game has been released with neither English voices nor subtitles. But there's a new trailer on the website, as well as
An announcement on an English version is forthcoming. In the meantime, comments from anyone who bought the game are appreciated.
jp update: The german version is confirmed to have english subtitles... but it looks like you need to do a little poking around with the game files to enable them.
Muzzled! free, children happy (update: as are the poor) 05 Nov, 2009, 21:37 / 9 comments
The series as a whole is going for $20 this week. Any purchase of the game will mean £1, or almost $1.60, donated by Telltale to one of two charities: the UK's Wallace and Gromit Children's Foundation, or the United States's Penny Arcade Child's Play.
Muzzled! was directed by Sean Vanaman, who you may know as the writer of Chapter Three of Tales of Monkey Island, Lair of the Leviathan. From what I can tell, Muzzled! seems to be the best of the lot. I wanted to consult the fourth review written by our W&G critic, Zaarin, to compare but couldn't, because - to my shock and horror - he had not written one.

(Special thanks to Giygas, who mentioned this before but, because I couldn't verify it when the store was temporarily inaccessible, did not get any credit. Thanks again!)
Ten year olds for sale, $10 each 05 Nov, 2009, 17:11 / 3 comments
Although, in order to maximize Double Fine money, you should try buying it from the Double Fine Shop, which is also selling signed copies of Brutal Legend.
Finally, I wanted to point you to this excellent interview Tim did with Tom Chick. I've linked to it before, and I'll link to it again: although, do beware of spoilers, since there's plenty of them even before the all-caps SPOILERS tag. I think I'll start doing something like that, now, when I put the warning labels on the inside of the pills bottles in my drug rehab volunteer work. Thanks, guys.
A Brutal Mojocast! 05 Nov, 2009, 01:23 / 6 comments
In typical Mojo style, however, Brutal Legend was not discussed. We didn't want to let this ruin a perfectly good podcast, and fortunately there's a new episode of Tales of Monkey Island available, so the guys focused on that instead.
As we've sent The Tingler to explore new Mojo opportunities in the land of China, Jason and Peter are joined this time by our resident Tim Schafer/Heavy Metal expert Karim (otherwise known as Kroms.) The bad news for kroms is that we hired him to analyse Ozzy Osbourne's contribution to Brutal Legend, and as he refused to do this, he will not be getting paid for his time.
Nevertheless, enjoy the Mojocast my friends!
Tim Schafer shouldn't make another game (Updated) 03 Nov, 2009, 00:42 / 23 comments
No one ever plays a Schafer game for their rewarding and exciting gameplay but it seems like he's taking his work in a much more twitch-based direction, which unfortunately conflicts with his strengths as a writer of stories.You can read it all right here. What do you think, are Tim's games as much fun to play as they are to unravel the story?
Update by Kroms: Yahtzee (from The Escapist) writes that Tim's worlds seem to be consistently great, but the gameplay, stretching all the way back to Day of the Tentacle, hasn't been. Tom Chick offers Tim some similar questions in this spectacular interview, and Tim responds. Beware that there are some serious Brutal Legend spoilers in there, even before the all-caps SPOILERS warning. I'm not kidding.