The International House of Mojo

LucasArts' latest PC hit, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, has gained quite a following among the mod community since it's release in the spring. A lot of high-quality maps and player models have been made and released by fans, but we haven't heard much from the larger projects, those teams aiming to make whole new games and missions for JK2. Finally, gamers are starting to see the results from some of the more ambitious modification projects.

One of these projects is a total conversion mod, which is an attempt to bring the LEC classic Dark Forces into the three-dimensional world. Darth_Linux, the project leader for the "Dark Forces" mod, has announced that a playable demo, featuring the first level of Dark Forces, "Secret Base", is now available for download from their site.

I just got through playing it, and I'm very impressed with the quality! If you've got Jedi Knight 2, be sure to check it out here.

Source: JediKnightii.net

Paco Vink of World of MI has created an all-animated guaranteed-authentic outtake from Monkey Island 1, which you can download here as a DIVX AVI file. It's one of the first fan-video's that I've seen, though World of MI does have one other posted.

Many of you should remember that a while back, a group of people decided to build a sequel to the much loved Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. That project was awash with beautiful screenshots, ideas and promise. The site sadly became a lost myth rather like the plot behind the games themselves.

But now, They Return! No longer called 'Indy Project' but 'Amberfish Arts', they have re-surfaced to take on the world once more

"We have renamed the team following an important decision to extend our range of possible projects beyond a single Indy-related fan game. Amberfish Arts may quite possibly become the label for an entire series of fan games and other projects. Right now, however, we are fully concentrating on FoA2.

There are some new screenshots and some news of progress. Here are a selection of background pictures from the game, with more sketches, renders, old art and new on The Amberfish Arts website! w00t!

Source: Ultimate Indiana Jones site

Everyone's very least favorite site, Listen To Me has interviewed Remi, webmaster of the SCUMM Bar. If you want to know what Remi realllly thinks about things (allegedly), you should go Listen To Remi. Strikethrough is comedy always.

Like the whole MMORPG scene? It seems that network site SWGalaxies.net was named the Exceptional Fan Site of the Month by the November Issue of the official Star Wars Galaxies Newsletter. (deep breath)

The staff at SWG.net has been adding a steady flow of content as they await the launch of Galaxies. If you are interesting in getting involved with the community early on, there are several opportunities available including the Player Association system, site registration, and the Community forums. If you are already a member of LucasForums via this web site, you are already registered!

[ Visit Star Wars Galaxies.net ]

It's October 31st, and what does that mean? Halloween! No! Don't be stupid! It's Jake's birthday today! In honor of this holy day we've redecorated the BluesNews Mojo logo. That's right our very own Jake Rodkin has aged yet another year so wish him a happy birthday in the comments or we'll delete your account! Happy Birthday Jake!

JBRAA's Mojo Art site, a large gallery of Lucas-related fan art and some other goodies, has put up their October gallery which featuers 12 new images. Some of the new art is Monkey Island related, while some is Star Wars. Give it a look.

Captain Mystery has returned to rouse your rabble, or whatever, in his latest editorial, "Why the Onslaught of Star Wars Games Ain't a Bad Thing." As usual, the Cap'n is telling all of you to shut up because you are all stupid, so you'd better go read the article and start posting angry comments at him!

The editorial is actually about how hating on LucasArts for making lots of Star Wars games is a fairly self-defeating thing to do. M. Mystery claims that the heaps of money generated from the heaps of Star Wars titles is what gives you the small pile of riskier, not-Star Wars titles, like Grim Fandango. Again, it's here! Click!

Our friends over at World of Monkey Island have provided the fan community with more artistic goodness. Page 18 and 19 of Paco Vink's The secret of Monkey Island online comic book have been posted in the past week. In case you're unfamiliar with the comic, read our previous news post... because I'm too lazy to repeat myself.

The wishfully controversial Church of Tim (no longer unnamed), has uploaded a wide variety of AIM Buddy Icons (or forum avatars if that's more your thing).

The icons are themed around Tim Schafer's games at LucasArts (DOTT, Full Throttle, Grim), Psychonauts, Double Fine jokes (dead and living rats, insane manatees), and some other things you might like. Fun times.

After all the talk of Quick & Easy, ScummVM, VDMSound, and other obscurely familiar names "guaranteed" to help you play your old SCUMM games, some people are wondering if anyone can actually figure any of that stuff out!

Fortunately everyone's favorite SCUMM Bar, The SCUMM Bar, has written an article called "Get Those Old Games Working Again!" describing just how all of the recent SCUMM tools work and how they can benefit you! Confused people go read now.

Also, has anyone noticed that the SCUMM Bar guys use that image of Guybrush chained up in his underwear a little too frequently?

Corny headlines aside, anyone who misses the excellent art gallery/site, the Monkey Island Art Connection, will be pleased to hear that in the coming weeks it will be brought back to life! Again!

The MIAC is merging with World of Monkey Island and will hopefully stay online there and continue its old job as the community hub for all the fan artists around here. Read about it at World of MI.

The World of Monkey Island has posted page 17 of Paco Vink's The Secret of Monkey Island comic book adaption. If you haven't been keeping up with this, the comic is drawn in a Curse of Monkey Island vein with a bit of Paco's own artistic style mixed in. It's really worth reading, so go here! Now!

The World of Monkey Island, the extraordinary Monkey Island news/features/fun site, turned five years old today! That's an outstanding feat for any web site, and we're very happy for them. They've announced a week's worth of festivities to celebrate their anniversary, so be sure to check out the details!

The time is upon us once again when you, the loving monkey community, get to vote for your favourite sites in a number of catagories from a list of nominees.

The catagories are as follows:
-Best Monkey Island Coverage
-Best International Site
-Best LucasArts Coverage
-Most Creative Design (& Features)
-SITE OF THE YEAR

In the nominee listings you will see many of our esteemed friends along with mojo itself. Go to http://www.mia2002.cjb.net and make your choices!

The notorious unnamed Tim Schafer shrine is holding a poll to choose a name for themselves... because they're unnamed (see word #3). Help our local religion along by signing up on their forums and voting in the poll, blessed readers.

Though it has nothing to do with us at all besides being about Lucas fandom and artwork, and sharing the name "Mojo," we've finally buckled and given JBRAA's always-improving Mojo Art - the unofficial lucasgallery hosting here at Mixnmojo. Check out their collection of fan art, Lucas company-inspired work, and some art from LucasArts/Film creations themselves. Again, that's Mojo Art.

The SCUMM Bar staff has put up another brilliant section on the site: Interactive Islands. This section features and has shots of virtually every location on every island in the entire Monkey Island series.

Warning: May cause mild to intense nostalgia. Please consult a physician before viewing.

...Just the way you like it. It's time once again for you to go vote on the excellent new poll: How Involved in the LucasArts Community Are You? We're curious as to how many of our readers have an LEC fan site tucked away somewhere. Feel free to let us know about it in the comments section!

Here's the run-down of the previous poll, Has Mixnmojo sold out?: 43% of you don't care, as long as we keep making with the news. 37% of voters love us dearly and would never accuse us of selling out. And what of the other 20%? Well, we made sure to delete their accounts as a precautionary measure. Democracy wins again.

The prolific Nightlight Productions, creators of the Grim Fandango-esque radio drama Tierra de los Muertos, has sold out big time begun a new radio drama series which is an outright parody of Star Wars. The first installment of Lost Cause I: There's No Hope! is available here. Listen...and learn!