The International House of Mojo

You've all probably been too busy playing Sam & Max to notice that 1UP has gotten some information about Double Fine's new game. And it is -- drum roll -- a multiplayer action game! Maybe. Allegedly. Possibly.

See, they don't have any actual true information to base it one, so read and judge for yourself.

Tim Schafer has updated the Double Fine Action News to remind everyone that Psychonauts is now available for purchase from Steam for just $19.95.

For those who don't know, Steam is the downloadable games service built by Valve Software to distribute their popular Half-Life series of first person shooters. Valve has slowly been expanding out the service to include other interesting PC titles, including great games like Defcon, Rag Doll Kung Fu, X3 Reunion, and of course things like Counter-Strike.

In celebration of Psychonauts being available through digital distribution, Double Fine artist Scott Campbell drew an awesome special edition of his Action Comic featuring Raz, the Two-Headed Baby, and Half-Life's Gordon Freeman and the G-Man exchanging gifts. It's available right here.

If you don't yet own the Excellent Game Psychonauts you have no excuses left. Go get it on Steam right now.

A big congratulations from Mixnmojo to Tim Schafer, Erik Wolpaw and the whole team at Double Fine for Psychonauts' bringing home the BAFTA for best screenplay in a video game. Awesome!

Double Fine Action News has announced something quite unexpected today: Psychonauts, the excellent game you should all probably own already, will soon be available for download on Steam! Majesco, publisher of Psychonauts, has posted a press release stating that the first two Bloodrayne titles, as well as Advent Rising, are already available for purchase through Steam, and that P'nauts should be up on Valve's distribution program sometime in "early October".

While no price information is given for Schafer's title, Bloodrayne 2 and Advent Rising are currently going for $19.99 through Steam. Hopefully, this will turn out to be an excellent business decision for an excellent and overlooked game. Yes, I'm talking about Psychonauts.

As mentioned earlier, Double Fine is shacking up with Vivendi for its next game, and great news that is. Now slightly more interesting is the fact that the game, a "brand new creation", will be published under the Sierra banner. Back in the Monkey Island days there was, of course, quite the LucasArts VS Sierra debate rolling. In fact, look at certain forums and it will seem that it is still alive and well.

So ironic indeed. Read more.

There's absolutely no new information other than that, including about whatever Double Fine is working on, but read the news. Vivendi? Well, we'll see! And please, let the outrageous speculation begin right now.

Oh, and I might as well mention that, as DFAN and Razputin's Domain have pointed out, Psychonauts can be purchased for some rather ridiculous prices at Amazon. Not sure what kind of loser you'd be to still lack this game, but there it is.

Here is a Telltale interview about the Bone games from Adventure Island that, yes, may be a month old, but I bet it's new to you. And you know, I don't think we've ever really given the Dank online comic the coverage that we probably should have, so let's start now at a nice round number: The 17th Edition is up!

You've probably read Tim's post from last week, asking fans to spam the Microsoft emulation team until they add Psychonauts to the XBOX 360 backwards compatibility list. You've also probably noticed that it actually got quite a bit of attention, and that some response emails have been interpreted as proof that the game is actually being worked on. Assuming the "Emulation Ninjas" don't send this sort of reply to every game request, it's pretty cool to think that Double Fine managed to get their game supported by stirring a rabid fan email campaign.

Issue one hundred and sixty-nine (??) of PC Zone is out in the UK, and contains much that will be of interest to readers of the Mojo.

Like, for instance, their belated Bone review! Sixty seven per cent they gave it, though it should be noted that their rating system is more harsh than most; fifty per cent is average, not mediocre, and a score of sixty seven is thus not embarrassing in the least. In fact, Dreamfall got the very same score on the opposite page.

Also included is a piece about the LucasArts logo, though writer Will Porter seems to have been overcome with nostalgia before he?d had a chance to say anything meaningful. Marry me!

Oh, and before I forget: the most interesting piece of news from the magazine! Psychonauts won "funniest game ever" with a landslide victory. Check out their forum post and have your say with a vote.



Also: Telltale's CSI game was given 62%, and is reportedly at number 12 on the sales charts.

1up has reprinted a thrilling Tim Schafer interview that originally appeared in Official Playstation Magazine. Lots of good stuff, of course, though details on the new game are minimal. Still, stuff.

In other Double Fine news, the international version of Psychonauts is now available directly from Double Fine, so now you can get it signed. They've also got two new double-headed baby logo t-shirts.

Almost. IGN wonders about the state of the adventure genre while turning to Schafer and the likes of Cyan Studios' Rand Miller for answers. For instance, what significance do puzzles, pacing, and action elements have in an adventure game? If you don't find anything particularly enlightening about the results, you can at least amuse yourself by mocking IGN's ability to both correctly and incorrectly spell Schafer's name throughout the article.

While waiting for the article's promised continuation, you can also join in on the (potentially) heated debate on the subject going on at the AG forums. Be sure to claim that any game above 320X200 resolution is by default not a true adventure.

Last night the winners of the annual Game Developer Choice Awards were announced. If you shamefully hadn't kept up with this, our beloved Psychonauts received nominations in Character Design, Game Design, and Writing. Double Fine Productions was also nominated for best new studio (as was Telltale Games).

Well, Double Fine took home the awards for Writing and New Studio, and they sure looked happy about it! Check out the full awards list here and the Gamespot writeup over yonder. Hooray for Double Fine!

Well, mentions it is more like it. The folks at working-title have published a short interview with Tim discussing the aftermath of Psychonauts and The Future:

Are you impressed by the next-generation-consoles?

I finally managed to get hold of an XBOX 360 and I have to say yes. I mean, fancier graphics, yes of course. But the thing I?m really impressed by is more of the connectivity of the machine. I had no idea I?d enjoy downloading games, and playing my own music, and checking out my friend?s scores on Geometry War so much. But I do! I think it opens up a lot of exciting possibilites.

Read it all.

Its real this time. After a 10 month wait, a number of aborted release dates and lots of forum moaning Psychonauts has finally been released in the UK.

You can buy it online at Play, Game, or Amazon and Huz reports that Gamestation have the Xbox and PS2 versions in store right now, priced at ?30.00.

Update: The game is also apparently available in Norway. This review gave it a 6/6.

OK, so my German isn't what it used to be (and it wasn't that good in the first place,) but it looks to me like the German PAL version of the ausgezeichnete game Psychonauts is quite possibly to be found. Discuss, particularly if you know German.

While clicking around on Wikipedia one can find some strange things. Like the Max Rebo Band. Or that the leet speak page mentions a 1337 cheat for Psychonauts.

So what does that mean? Execute the cheat, and the subtitles will look 50//3th1ng l1k3 t|-|15. In addition the character names are replaced with those who worked on the game. Oleander, for example, turns into "Schafer." That's minutes of fun right there! So how do you activate it? Simply press this button combination for the Xbox version: "White," "A," "Left analog stick," "White," "White," "B."

A special prize will be given to those who get a good screenshot of this, and for anyone who can figure out how to do it on the PC or the PS2.Benzo figured it all out in the comments.

Can you get enough of Psychonauts? Because we sure can't! And neither can PC Zone!

The magazine has published a four page look at how the game was made in their one hundred and sixty-forth issue. Here's a quote:

"I made in-depth back-stories for all the kids, describing where they grew up, what their hobbies were, who their friends were, who they had crushes on and who they hated. I made Internet profiles for all of them as if they were members of an online social network..."

Rock on!

The next time you see the Remi walking down the street you might very well notice that he's sporting this Kochamara T-Shirt. Or possibly a Lily shirt. But not the Mr. Pokelope Baby One Piece, because that'd be silly. Yes, Double Fine has updated their store, and it is good.

In related news, there's a Schafer story in Southwest Airlines's current "in flight magazine" Spirit. I had the joy of reading it a few weeks back, and it's... Well, it's kind of dull, but there's a cool collage of Schafer's more famous characters in there.

Apparently Double Fine is also featured in this month's Play.

And that's today's Action News recap.

Gamespot has just put up a pretty good article that discusses why innovation in the games industry is met with so many problems. You are going to read this article because it mostly talks about Psychonauts and features comments from Schafer about the game's low sales and the challenges involved with pitching Double Fine's new game to publishers. The article as a whole is interesting, pretty sad, and worth checking out.

A brand new Psychonauts Bootcamp Bulletin has been sent out, asking for help in making Psychonauts look good. How can you assist in this noble quest? All you have to do is get yourself over to 1up's Best of 2005 voting arena and cast your finger upon the big button entitled "vote", ensuring that Psychonauts is first checked in every field ever.

If you weren't able to convince a friend to buy Psychonauts as part of the refer-a-friend program which ended a while back, you can also win a special t-shirt and electro-ball-thing by sending in a bit of fanfic-esque writing which could be used as Razputin's victory acceptance speech.

The official website's Bootcamp Bulletin area hasn't yet been updated, so peruse this mirror for now should you not be subscribed.

PS: No news about the international release is in the newsletter, other than telling us that there is no news! I'd hate for you to go in with your hopes undashed.

Remember Old Grandma Hardcore, AKA the coolest granny ever? Of course you do!

Well it just so happens that Tim Schafer sent her all this cool crap as thanks for completing Psychonauts. Now that's what I call a good Christmas present.

And speaking of presents, does anyone know what the deal is with the Psychonauts European release? It was originally supposed to be over here for November, but now the hot estimate seems to be February 2006. :~