The International House of Mojo

Endy of the ScummVM team posted a note in our forums letting everyone know that a new version of ScummVM is out.

The new release contains mostly bug fixes (including fixing the bulk of the sound problems in Curse of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and The Dig), as well as adds support for 64-bit processors. You should go download the latest version today. Don't know what ScummVM is? Ask in the comments and someone will explain.

Surely this news will cause at least one person somewhere to wet themselves. According to Music4Games, music from the Monkey Island series will be performed as part of an eclectic live orchestral game music concert August 18th at the GC - Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.

The music will be performed by the "FILMharmonic Orchestra" (featuring members of the Prague Symphony Orchestra). For a bit more info check out the article at M4G, or the GC 2004 program info and ticket page.

A new interview reveals that Ron Gilbert is going back to mainstream gaming and that a publishing deal is about to be signed.

The Austrian radio channel FM4 is airing a series of programs on "the renaissance of graphic adventures", which today will consist of an interview with Ron Gilbert. A German transcript of it is available here. In it, Ron says he's going to make a game for adults (i.e. not a kids game), though implied that it won't be an adventure game.

Besides that, no one can honestly say what's going on. Ron Gilbert continued doing children's games (together with Dave Grossman) for some time. The website of Hulabee Entertainment hadn't been updated for ages though, and recently changed back to just a logo.

Besides a selection from the usual topics (violence in games, whether Myst killed adventure games, comparisons between games and other media) the interview contains a few other tidbits of note. Ron attributes the best dialog in any adventure game to Tim Schafer for Grim Fandango. Also, when asked to "explain the tentacles" from Maniac Mansion, he said: "because they're so phallic."

To be continued, no doubt. (On his new game, that is.)

Source: Adventure-Treff

Pay attention, this pertains to you.

While LucasArts has made it more than abundantly clear that they're not interested in making adventure games anymore, you can't say the same for their ex-employees.

By our count, there are in fact three small teams of developers, all composed of ex-adventuremakers at LucasArts, each working on brand new adventure games. Let's take a look:<:MORENEWS:>

First, there's Telltale Games. Formed by three members of the Sam & Max 2 team, Telltale is working on... well, we don't know really, except that it's an adventure game, and we know they'll be revealing all in the next couple months. For now, keep an eye on their staff blog.

Second, we have the 2D, clearly CMI-inspired, A Vampyre Story. A Vampyre Story is sort of in the opposite boat from the Telltale and Pileated (see below) guys, in that we know quite a bit about this team's game, but we don't officially know much about the team itself (other than its ex-LEC guys, and looks a bit like CMI). Click that link for samples of the game's background art, and some music tracks, because they rule.

From a recent writeup about the game: "A Vampyre Story is a point-and-click-styled outing with considerable technological advancements, and is described by its maker as 'Monkey Island meets Dracula.' It's a humorous, supernatural adventure that pays homage to the old Universal monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Gamers control an unwilling opera singer turned vampire, as she bids to seek eternal peace (as well as making a starring role in a Parisian show) ... Gameplay will be controlled through a 'coin interface' similar to Curse Of Monkey Island, which is expandable like the one featured in BioWare's PC RPG Neverwinter Nights."

And third, there's Pileated Pictures. What are they working on? Again, we haven't got a clue! We do know, however, that a decent group of ex-DOTT team members are on board with Pileated's game brainstorm team.

So, that totally rules. We'll keep you updated on all three of these groups in the coming months, and for now we simply wish them the best of luck.

Over at the AGS website, an AGS gamemaker, "LucasFan Games," has put up a really nice 256 color remake of Maniac Mansion. The game doesn't offer a new visual style or anything - it still has the full spirit of the original 16 (and 8?) color versions, just slightly more colorful and with a less annoying interface. If you haven't played Maniac Mansion because you were put off by its archaic interface or dated colors, now's your chance to put things right. Thanks to skullkid in the forums for the tip.

Update: For more about the team behind this remake, check here. You might spot a couple Mojo readers of yore in there.

Gamespot has recently added Day of the Tentacle to their list of Greatest Games of All Time. They love it.

LucasArts pioneered a brand of adventure game in which you could never die--you would just get stuck for a while if you couldn't figure out a puzzle--and Day of the Tentacle is a perfect example of this carefree, frustration-free style of gaming. This is a genuine classic--very few games have matched or exceeded the quality of Day of the Tentacle's production.

Check out the whole writeup as well as some cutscenes and other screenshot type goodies here. They also included Grim in the Best Evar list a few weeks back.

In the style of proper Mojo excess, reader ATMachine has, erm, dug up quite a few notable pieces of concept art, mockups, and screenshots from really early versions of The Dig. Some of the art is from early versions of Sean Clark's take on The Dig (which ended up eventually being the one which shipped), while some are from Brian Moriarty's version (Brian Moriarty, mostly known to LucasArts fans for the creation of Loom, worked on one of the many versions of The Dig as its development progressed over the span of the mid-90s).<:MORENEWS:>

Included in ATMachines most recent finds are some interesting things including an alternate version of The Dig's notorious "bone puzzle," some odd user interface concepts, and many rooms completely cut from the final game.

This is actually the second batch of screenshots from ATMachine. His first thread containing the other finds is here.

LucasArts veteran David Fox (known mostly for Zak McKracken, but also worked on Last Crusade, Maniac Mansion and Labyrinth) recently gave a talk at The Gathering (some sort of Norse geek get-together), and was interviewed by them. He talks about Zak, Sam & Max 2, dying in adventure games, and what he's been up to recently, all while wearing a Zak sweatshirt.

Have you in any way influenced the fact that it usually is almost impossible to die in most Lucas Arts adventure games?
Probably not much. I'd give most of the credit for this to fellow Lucas designer Ron Gilbert. He spent a lot of time playing Sierra adventure games and really disliked the way they used death as a way to impede the player and prolong the game... worse, you could die from doing simple things that in real life would never kill you. For example, while playing one of their games I remember picking up a piece of a broken mirror, cutting myself and dying. It felt like the designer had either taken the lazy way out by coming up with lots of silly ways to die so you'd have to waste time going back to an earlier saved game and trying again. All this rather than spending more time coming up with creative, challenging, yet solvable puzzles.

Thanks to Slashdot Games for the link. For more about David Fox, check out this website he runs with his wife, which lists many of their previous projects.

Thanks to Evan of Adventure Gamers for pointing this out: SoftwareOutlet.com is selling boxed copies of the original Full Throttle for a low low price of $7.99. That's totally cheap.

It is, however, the Macintosh version. But wait, fear not! With these instructions, you can play the Mac version in Windows with ScummVM! (MacOS X users can play it with ScummVM using these instructions) So you have no choice but to buy, buy, buy.

Update: If you're looking to save 9 cents, GoGamer has it listed for $9.90. Thanks to loonyboi for the link.

Thanks to hierohero and his site, savesamandmax.com, for providing a scan from the latest ("May") issue of GamePro, which features yet another first look at the "upcoming" adventure game Sam & Max 2.

Like all the other excellent, positive-sounding interview-ridden previews that have run lately, this one has four new never-before seen screenshots of the cancelled title, including a shot of Sam and Max waving their guns around, and a shot of their next door neighbor, Flint Paper. Of course, there's no real reason to look at the screenshots since the game's been cancelled and everything, but we all love the pain.

We at Mojo think its exceptionally brilliant of LucasArts to cancel the game right before all these magazines run screenshot-laden articles about it, instead of, say, waiting until after they run and people can actually learn the game exists, then see what the reaction to the writeups were, but maybe that's just us.

I suspect the minority of us managed to actually attend the Game Developers Conference, and therefore most or all of us didn't get to attend Tim Schafer's presentation on character design. Fortunately, GameSpy was there, and summarized the talk:

So, exactly what helps define a great videogame character? "People want to be a hero." Schafer argues that the main character should be "the coolest." S/he should have all the best lines, the most active role, and "have other [NPCs] respond to their awesomeness." If ultra-famous, superstar, Hollywood actors wouldn't kill to play the role, then more work is necessary.

Hopefully in the next couple of days we'll be running some photos taken by Marek of Adventure Gamers, who was fortunate enough to attend. For now check out the report over at GameSpy

Somehow, this German Adventure Website got their hands on quite a few screenshots from the devastatingly cancelled Sam and Max Freelance Police. Some of the screenshots are new. Some we've seen before, only here, they're in much higher quality and not scanned from a magazine.

Weep openly.

Source: AG Forums

You're probably aware that Grim Fandango was defeated by both Chrono Trigger and Knights of the Old Republic in the title fight thing over at GameSpy. In retrospect, it's a bit of an odd matchup to say the least, but hey, GF managed to get slightly more than a quarter of the votes. However, congratulations are in order for KOTOR as it advances to the final round of the Hyrule bracket, also known as "the contest to see who loses to Zelda: OoT by a lot."

Naturally, there's a new and highly amusing update at Double Fine Action News in response to these results. In addition, you ought to check out the new ACTION comic, because you love doing that.

PS: Someone stole my car. God damn.

Everybody rejoice, a new ScummVM is here, and it is full of classic adventurey goodness. Who needs Sam & Max 2 anyway, eh? We've got all these other games that LucasArts decided to actually publish instead of unceremoniously can, so we might as well enjoy them properly with our modern computers and up-to-date operating systems.

New LucasArts stuff in the latest ScummVM release:<:MORENEWS:>

• Full Throttle is now actually supported, including the Old Mine Road fighting sequences, and the destruction derby sequence.


• The original, really blocky and ugly versions of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken are now properly supported. This means that you can now play the version of Maniac Mansion that was included with Day of the Tentacle. However, you can't play it from within DOTT yet, you have to add it to ScummVM as a separate game.

Also in this release is a new and improved user interface which, while still ugly and green, allows you to change the graphics settings and things without manually editing the config file, or resorting to a program like the excellent Quick & Easy. ScummVM 0.6.0 also supports both Broken Sword 1 and Broken Sword 2 now, and on their downloads page they've provided alternate versions of the games' video cutscenes, which are recompressed to work with ScummVM.

Lately, major ScummVM releases have included bonuses, and this release is no different. As a special treat, the classic adventure game Flight of the Amazon Queen has been released as freeware, and is fully supported by the new versions of ScummVM. So, if you've been looking for something to fill the hole left by the loss of Sam & Max 2, want a new classic graphic adventure to get your hands on, or if you just loved the original and haven't played it forever, get it today.

Download the ScummVM 0.6.0 release binary for your operating system of choice, as well as the games Flight of the Amazon Queen, and Beneath a Steel Sky from the ScummVM downloads page.

If you don't know what ScummVM is, read more at the official website, or have someone in the comments explain it to you, because I've repeated it here enough times already.

Source: ScummVM.org

Wooo. The poll is up! You'd better go and vote for Grim now. It's currently losing to both Chrono Grigger, and the KOTOR. Vote.

Today's the 15th, so you're supposed to vote for Grim Fandango in today's GameSpy title fight thing. Of course, the GameSpy guys haven't updated the site yet, so at the moment you can't actually vote for the game, but now that you've remembered its happening, you can add that page to your list of comulsive page reloads for the day.

Community outrage over the Sam and Max 2 cancellation continues. Let's take a look at what you might have missed over the weekend in the wild world of angry fan uprisings...<:MORENEWS:>

Several online petitions have sprung up, the most noteworthy being this one. It has gained over 8,700 signatures at the time of this writing and is the most active petition over at www.PetitionOnline.com. Oddly enough, the third most active petition on the site is also for Sam and Max 2.

While we at Mixnmojo feel that writing an e-mail to LucasArts is a far more effective way to let the company know your feelings, signing a petition doesn't hurt either. Just don't get your hopes up.

Adventure Gamers has published an excellent editorial on the subject of Sam and Max 2 and re-published its review of the original game. As usual, we recommend reading what they have to say, since their stuff is, for lack of a better word, fantabulous.

Also, in the new LucasArts Technical Support Forums, it seems that most of the support is of the moral variety. A thread sprang up over the weekend with more than 100 posts expressing their feelings about the cancellation. The replies to this thread far exceeded any of the other discussions you would find on the site. Not surprisingly, the entire thread was deleted this morning by the forum administrators.

Sure, none of this will probably bring the game back... but hey, screw 'em.

A quick note from Jake: Just to let everyone know, barring any major announcements from LucasArts, this is really going to be the last of our "Save Sam & Max 2" coverage. We think everyone's got the message by now who's going to.

Just got this note in my inbox from Sam & Max's creator, Steve Purcell. He said I could share it so here's the note in its entirety:

LucasArts' sudden decision to stop production on Sam & Max is mystifying. ?Sam & Max was on schedule and coming together beautifully.

I couldn't have been more pleased with the quality of the writing, gameplay, hilarious animation and the gorgeous 3D world that Mike Stemmle's team has created. The rug has been pulled out from under this brilliant team who've so expertly retooled Sam & Max for the 21st century.

I'm extremely frustrated and disappointed especially for the team who have devoted so much effort and creativity to Sam & Max. It's a shame to think that their accomplishments, as well as the goodwill that has been growing in the gaming press toward this project, will all go to waste due to this shortsighted decision.

Thanks everyone, for continuing to make your feelings known.

--Steve Purcell

If you haven't yet, as before we're encouraging everyone to send LucasArts a letter letting them know how you feel (please limit swearing to around 10% of your letter so they might actually read it).

Though unrelated, its worth noting that on Gamespot today, Freelance Police is listed as number nine on the list of top 10 most popular games of the day (at the bottom of the page). On the Gamespot PC page, they're number four.

In the interest of returning to normalcy (or at least pretending to), here's a bit of trivia on The Secret of Monkey Island. In the february issue of industry magazine GameDeveloper, LucasArts veteran Noah Falstein talks about localisation issues and cultural differences. Here's a possibly interesting bit:

I discovered another clue working with some Japanese experts to translate the insult-swordfighting episode from The Secret of Monkey Island, where characters trade insults and rejoinders to gain advantage in fights. Although this went over well in America and Germany, our Japanese experts were detectably horrified (even though they politely veiled their reactions). They were amazed that we thought it was funny to insult each other, and they found two insults involving farmers and ancestors particularly offensive.

Ultimately the translators suggested to keep the swordfighting in, but remove the most potentially offensive references.

So, yeah ... Sam & Max 2.

Gamespot is currently running a poll that reads "Are you sad LucasArts has canceled the Sam & Max sequel?" Currently 39% has voted yes, with 47% going "Sam and who?!" This is a good way to make your voice heard on a large site, so go vote "yes" now.