The International House of Mojo

Here.

Former long-time LucasArts' employee Ryan Kaufman (now at Planet Moon) writes up how the Jedi Knight expansion pack Mysteries of the Sith came into being in this two part entry on his starwars.com blog; Part 1 | Part 2

Mara finds and enters the ancient Sith temple and discovers that Kyle has gone a little bonkers with dark side power. She has to chase him to the center, but first--- ZOMBIES!

That's right. I don't know how we got this one past Licensing, but there is an area of the temple called The Catacombs, where the undead Sith will rise and fight you. Yep, Sith Zombies, people. It was great. They shot lightning from their hands and were generally pretty pesty. And it's canon. Zombies are canon...

We remembered how both Obi-Wan and Luke had dropped their defenses and sacrificed themselves in their conflict with Vader (who had been corrupted by the dark side, as Kyle had.) We realized that we had a great hook for our final battle-players would have to surrender to the possibility of utter defeat, power down their lightsabers, and draw on the goodness that was still within Kyle.

Nice to hear a bit more about that oft-overlooked Jedi Knight expansion pack.

Source: StarWars.com

Joystiq is reporting that George Lucas will receive the Entertainment Software Association?s 2005 Champions Award for the efforts of his gaming studio, LucasArts... Past recipients include Michael Goldstein (Toys ?R? Us), Howard Lincoln (Nintendo), Isao Ogawa (Sega), Will Wright (EA), Jeffrey Griffiths (Electronic Boutique), and Joel Hochberg Rare, and Bing Gordon (EA).

Here's a Ron Gilbert quote to restore Balance to the Force.

Did George Lucas ever pop his head around the door at LucasArts?
No, but Steven Spielberg did. Spielberg was a game fanatic, so every time he came up to the ranch to do business with George he was over at the games division, wanting to know what we were doing. He'd say: "Show me this! Show me that!" and grab the joystick away from us. He was great.

Anyway, good on ya LucasArts!

Source: Joystiq

Graham Annable, who as you probably know by now serves as Creative Director and Lead Animator at Telltale Games, has published a nice article about creating games over at Pop Thought. Annable discusses his history in games and comics and, of course, his time at Telltale and creating Out from Boneville. It's a great read, so check it out.

Also, for those who haven't noticed it yet the latest Telltale blog rather encouragingly invites all to send their comments on Bone. So send in your feedback!

When we know so little about Ron Gilbert's next game, one might as well make every tiny tidbit related to it seem more substantive than it is. So in that spirit check out Ron Gilbert's latest blog entry:

With any luck the Adventure/RPG game will be funded with private investors, allowing me full control over the strange little game. I'm not opposed to a main-stream publisher funding it, but they would have to understand where I am coming from with the game and allow me to retain the IP, which is unlikely. But you never know. Someone gets a little too drunk, embarrassing photos are taken and bingo, I have a deal.

Keep an eye out on the blog in case of further updates.

OK, so it's more of a ramble, but I had a lot of emotions that needed to come out about the first Bone game. It was given a score though, so I stand firm that it with some goodwill can be called a review. Anyway, read!

Top Mojo reader Scummbuddy has noticed that Autumn Moon Entertainment now have a general news page. Actually, this is probably really old, but whatever. It's news to me and that's all that matters.

Anyway, it's worth keeping an eye on that page because it'll probably be updated more and more from now on. Actually, probably not, but it's worth checking anyway just because Bill Tiller is cool.

Update: the news page itself isn't new, but it has been recently updated so go take a look!

Arrrrgh my hearties, Avast!! (What's that? Wrong day? Oh okay then...)

Ahem. Lots has been going on in the Mojo community whilst I've had my back turned tending my Daffodils, and to celebrate here's some kind of funky catch-up news post (tm).

Nightlight Productions (see interview) have released part two of their epic radio saga, Lost Cause II: There's Still No Hope. Download it for free here, and expect part three to come soon.

The illustrious bgbennyboy and his army of tiny tinker children have constructed a device by which we can all rip the music from Bone to listen on our portable cassette players. Furthermore we can also "dump" the game files, whatever that means. Download some of the good stuff here.

And lastly the Plunder 3D web-site has been updated with more two dimensional images of the three dimensional UT 2004 mod for you to lust over. We can now see what the exterior of the fort looks like (very nice) as well as the interior of the Barbers shop (ditto).

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Yar. That be all. Aye.

Hot on the heels of the Sam & Max news is another huge Telltale milestone! Check the Telltale Games website because, well, surprise, Bone is released, waiting for you to download!

A free demo is available, and the first episode is available for purchase for $19.99. More information on Bone is available at the all new Telltale site.

So, what do you guys think of it?

Despite two former aborted attempts to revive the Sam & Max licence in a computer game, Telltale games have done what fans had been hoping for since that infamous "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" press release.

Adventuregamers reports:

The deal was inked only days ago, and few details are available as of now. Telltale stresses that the game will not be Sam & Max: Freelance Police, the LucasArts title whose highly-publicized 2004 cancellation was widely mourned by fans. New content will be developed, and the game will be implemented in an episodic format similar to that of Telltale's Bone games. Purcell, who works at Pixar, says he will be as involved with the Sam & Max project as he can be.

So, where's the party at?

Source: Adventuregamers

You know what makes Mojo so God damn great!? Our glorious little hosted site children! Look at them there... they sing, they dance. They act and they cook. They?re our cute little baby children that we had together but it?s our little secret and don?t you dare tell anyone else about them or I?ll poke your little beady eyes out.

With that in mind I interviewed Mathew Smith about his web-site, Uncle Matt?s dead fish emporiam, otherwise known as Nightlight Productions. Don?t know what that is? For shame! Read the interview to top up your brain knowledge and then whip yourself mercilessly with a copy of the Bible.

Oh, and Indy Month is still charging forward full steam ahead. It?s just that it?s, well, a very long month. I think it ends in February and the reason for that is because Harison Ford is a very old man and so takes longer to complete his orbit around the sun. But two more spine-tingling articles will be coming eventually, I promise. That?s our little promise there and don?t you dare tell anyone about it.

Oh yeah, stuff is probably coming soon. Besides, it?s Autumn now. Stuff always comes in Autumn.

But in the mean-time: Kaz-zow! It?s some sort of wacky Unreal Tournament 2004 Plunder Island moddy thing! Don?t get too excited, though; you can?t actually play the dam thing yet. But you can look at the screenshots. And they?re very pretty. And Goblin is the team leader dude and he?s also the guy behind Blood Island 3D so you can be sure that the project is in safe hands. Keep your eyes peeled on plunder3d.net for more loveable shenanigans over the next few months!

Okay, not really. The site simply now allows you to click more links that lead to nothing. But, at least it means something's going on, and this makes me feel giddy.

Bone goodies are continuing to appear as the game nears completion. The Extras page of the official Bone site now has several more screenshots, both new and old. Also check out this net meeting a Norwegian newspaper had with Telltale (The Q&A itself is in english). And as always be sure to check out Telltale's latest blog, which among other things mentions Sam & Max.

Finally, those who have completed Telltale's Bone card quest might have noticed that the bottom corner of the wallpaper prize features what is apparently Telltale's company slogan: "Tales for your imagination." I thought it was interesting, anyway.

Still no word as to when this month the game will be released.

Those curious about how ScummVM looks running on a Nintendo DS might want to check out this thread over at Shacknews, where someone who has it up and running has posted a few screenshots and a video. Looks really tempting, but it's apparently still a big pain to get it all up and running.

Whoa check it out. What the hell is that little squiggly thing at the bottom there? Here, one sec:


A new LucasArts logo? I have to say, it just kind of looks like someone stepped on the old one. Anyway, maybe they have a new logo, and maybe it's that. I guess with no actual new games coming up, sales and marketing needed something to do to make them look busy to the boss.

Ah: Apparently this logo is one of a matching set that all Lucas companies have been given under the new "we're all under the same roof figuratively and literally" corporate structure. You can see them all here.

Eurogamer has put up a new interview with Telltale CEO Dan Connors as Bone nears completion:

Eurogamer: How do you educate the audience into getting excited about it?

Dan Connors: Well, sites like Eurogamer play a big role in this [smiles]. The Internet community continues to get bigger and bigger, and we're working actively to spread the word throughout the fan, gaming, and comic book communities. We're working with Scholastic to field programs that promote the game alongside of their Bone book series. We've also taken inspiration from initiatives like Firefox, which does excellent grassroots marketing. Visitors to the Telltale site can play a digital collectible card game while they're waiting for the game to come out, and we'll have more online initiatives coming soon.

There are mere weeks until the game's release, so keep that credit card handy.