It was a fight to the end, but you have spoken, and we now know the games the majority of you like! Some predictable results, some surprising ones, and… Well, go read for yourself!
The whole list will be published in a later article, and yes, we will do a poll with proper scoring, too. Your whining was heard. ;
In a surprising move, some sort of LucasArts remnant's social media manger posted a photo on facebook and the "company" are apparently hiring given a comment on one of the replies.
If the next game after their alleged Star Wars: Commander and Star Wars: Rivals appeals... Star Wars: Aenemia maybe (!?), get in there and apply for a position!
Source: Facebook
Oh, we might give Telltale some goodnatured ribbing now and again, but really, we consider them a BFF.
However! As far as non-linear gaming where choices have consequences, we feel there are those who take that concept to a whole different level. During a particularly tense seminar, the Mojo Editorial Board™ voted that two games should be presented as what we consider proof of said statement: Life Is Strange and Until Dawn.
So here they are, and now you should run and read our take on them, as well as what differentiates them from Telltale.
Mark the calendar: Presumably in celebration of the recent Thimbleweed Park release, the Nintendo Switch subreddit will feature an ask me anything session with Messrs. Ron Gilbert and David Fox. That's tomorrow, September 26th, 11am ET, 8am PST, 3pm GMT, which I'm pretty sure are the only three time zones of any importance.
This is the perfect opportunity to ask Ron what the secret of Monkey Island is, because, let's be honest, the only reason we don't know is that nobody bothered to ask.
Remember 2003? I don't either, but apparently, over at the ol' SCUMM Bar I wrote an article on the Monkey Island 2 demo during that August. I also remember we made huge claims about moving our content over here in 2006, and yada yada yada: Here you go: Hacking the Monkey Island 2 Demo is now on Mojo!
How can you find undiscovered dialogue and music? We‘ll tell you how, and you do not even have to do it yourself; just read all about it! Yes, we wasted time writing this so go read it!
The adventure that was featured on our forums (when we had them), The Journey Down, sees the release of its third chapter today. With this release, SkyGoblin's excellent adventure inspired by LucasArts adventures like Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 2 is finally concluded. Find out what happens to Bwana and Kito, as they finally manage to journey down to the Underland on Steam,
Got a Switch? Don't be a butt; be a completionist and grab Thimbleweed Park from their eShop. It's available today.
Speaking of, you can vote for the game in the Golden Joystick awards -- best indie game, no less. You probably should go and do so, because really, if you're reading this, it's not like you have that much going on today.
Thimbleweed Park is now available to purchase for iOS devices, so you can now be a clown in a gritty town while moving around.
Oh, and one of Ron Gilbert's other iOS games, co-created by Clayton Kauzlaric, is now optimised for iOS 11 and is permanently free! I'm talking, of course, about the sadly oft-neglected match-3 RPG puzzle game with a long name, Scurvy Scallywags in the Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty. It's fun and it's now free, so grab it on iTunes now.
Was I too hard on Firewatch? Does the world we live in make me think differently about things? What's up with that hateful dude on YouTube?
A lot of questions! And I thought about them, and I started rambling. As one would. Here are my thoughts about it all; read them if you want. Or don't. Or do! Here they are, at any rate.
So here's one I didn't see coming, probably because I wasn't looking: Dan Connors is following in co-founder Kevin Bruner's footsteps, right out the door from his current CEO seat. Bruner resigned a few months ago, with Connors stepping in to temporarily (as I just learned) fill the position. He will now stay on as an "advisor", much like when he stepped down the last time, in 2015.
The new president and CEO is Pete Hawley, the former GM and a senior VP at Zynga.
What does it all mean? Who knows, but with Zynga's reputation -- their Wikipedia page reads like a crime blotter -- my head isn't exactly spinning with excitement.
Godspeed, Dan!
Update: I assumed you would know we were talking about Telltale here, but as Twitter is ABLAZE pointing out the omission… well, now you know!
Source: IGN
That's right, as I type this you have 1 day, 23 hours, 30 minutes, and 22 seconds to grab your free copy of Psychonauts from GOG Steam! So I had a few sips from the flask this morning; sue me. Because, can you really ever have too many copies? Of course you can't.
Tim is the subject of a new article on Medium in which he speaks about the oft-documented strain - and, perhaps, the needlessness - of crunch mode, a period at the end (or sometimes throughout) of a game development cycle when teams work around the clock to meet looming deadlines.
Speaking about his experiences at both LucasArts and Double Fine, Tim's thoughts on the subject are sobering and even personal, such as when he relates how the passionate and relentless climate at LucasArts during his early days at the studio brought consequences at home:
Schafer saw the crunch periods become more demanding as time went on, and it wasn’t long before he experienced the heavy price of that kind of working culture. His first marriage, he said, collapsed after just a year.
“You don’t realize until it has happened that you’re doing all this damage to your personal life by staying at work all the time,” he said. “You can mentally put the rest of the world on hold, but the rest of the world can’t necessarily be put on hold by you. I was so gung-ho about it. If you think someone will wait for you and tolerate you not being around… people move on.”
Even then, with a relationship falling apart around him, the work came first. The rewards were just big enough, and the aura of George Lucas radiant enough, that it felt impossible to leave. Schafer only met Lucas three times in the 10 years he worked for him, but says his presence was felt in the craftsmanship and artistry of the house and its grounds. The attention to detail exuded an air of quality that reminded everyone that things needed to be done right.
Source: Medum
When this latest (and hopefully soon to be obsolete) version of Mojo debuted in 2010 (I think), I was pretty cheesed off by the dinky font size. Seriously, what other site has fonts that obnoxiously small? Dumb ones, that's what.
And so I whined. I bellyached. And it fell on deaf ears, of course, but that was OK. I was playing a long game. I knew that, over time, the cumulative effect of my whining would be corrosive to Remi's whisper-thin will. And so I persisted, mostly in passive-aggressive ways, to register my righteous complaint in his direction. The day would eventually come, I reasoned, when Remi would be prevailed upon to bump up the font size.
Right on schedule, over seven years later, we've achieved this milestone, and now the sacred text of Mojo can be read without an electron microscope.
You're welcome, fans.
First, Thimbleweed Park now has official release dates for three new platforms: iOS on September 19; Switch on September 21; Android on October 3. When pressed, Mr. Gilbert admitted to it not being Apple TV compatible, but we will assume it and an Amiga versions will at least be released "later". (You can also pre-order a boxed copy if you didn't get one during the first run.)
If you are a fan of the Puzzle Agent games -- and if you're not, what the hell's the matter with you? -- you now have the chance to Kickstart Hidden People figurine, designed by Graham Annable and sculpted by Paul Lopes. For $50 you can have one of them, so run and buy!
Finally, I'm not sure if we've posted this video before, but J0j0 provided us with a link to a Michael Land and Clint Bajakian video interview. Set aside an hour to learn the dirt on their time at LEC.
That's right. 20. Twenty. That is either awesome or depressing depending on your point of view; quite probably both. And what better way to celebrate/mourn than to kick it off with The Most Liked Game Ever Poll?
This is a bit different than your typical favorite game survey. Here you get a curated list of games we cover, and you have three options for each one: like, dislike, or indifferent/haven't played. The goal is to find what games most of our three readers like. And dislike, because we're all about being as surly as we are expected to be.
So head over and vote! No Mojo account required, because that is how we roll now. Be part of history and decide what Mojo's most liked game is!
NB! No history will be written. But vote anyway.
Sean Vanaman -- a.k.a. one of the non-Mojo people behind Campo Santo -- made the announcement on Twitter yesterday, as a result of YouTube star PewLePepe's repeated use of racial slurs while playing video games on his channel. You know. Like one apparently does...
The gist of the filing is that Pew has to remove any and all Firewatch content from the channel (apparently the largest one on the site). Gamergate's finest has not surprisingly come crawling out of the woodwork, each and every one of them a self-proclaimed law expert, screaming "fair use" without having a lick of an idea of what that actually is.
If you're in need of raising your blood pressure we recommend reading the subsequent shitstorm, but really, don't do that.
Our sincerest kudos to Campo Santo for refusing to be associated in any way with this sad little boy.
I actually started reading this Eurogamer interview with Telltale's Job Stauffer when it was published. "Started" being the operative word -- how many "laughs" can you take in an article after all?
@fantasticleak16 is clearly a smarter person than I, as (s)he dug up some interesting information toward the end. Asked about doing another Monkey Island or Sam & Max, Stauffer gave a firm no, an explanation...
It is a proud part of Telltale's legacy, but not really part of Telltale's future.
... before he killed your puppy.
Dumping Monkey Island is not really much of a surprise -- I have no clue what DisneyArts's intentions are with the property -- but I'm surprised Sam & Max is off the table. The property pretty much launched Telltale (with all respect to Texas Hold'em and Bone).
The question now, I suppose, is if anybody else is circling around the Sam & Max property.
Laserschwert
Jul 31, 2017, 11:58pm
I'm part of the XWVM team, and regarding TIE Fighter: We know it's the better game. And that's exactly the reason why we are tackling X-Wing first, because it's in much more need of an update. Plus it's the less complex game of the two, with simpler mission structure, fewer different ships and smaller in scope altogether. It's just less work to update (which is still a LOT of work), so it makes sense to get all of that down first. As much as TIE Fighter is build upon the foundation of X-Wing, a theoretical TFVM would and should be built upon XWVM.
Source: Kotaku Australia
I mean, give us a break, we can‘t update when there‘s nothing to update about. But, for your pleasure:
If you haven‘t played the first season of The Walking Dead, then what the hell is wrong with you? Don‘t worry, though, Humble Bundle is here for you, and you can get the whole effin' season for Mac and Window right now!
And, if you want to play the first game in Batman: The Tellta… siiiigh for free on iOS, you now can. It‘s worth it as far as a free game goes I guess, but compared to the second season, it really is dour. Run to the App Store for some depressing fun.
Sidenote: Do anyone other than me update this site? Jason?!