The International House of Mojo

The hipsters over at Tim Fandango has gotten confirmation straight from the horse's (the horse being Majesco) mouth - Psychonauts is finally set to be released this April.

In other confirmation news, the cover art we posted a few days back is indeed the one that will be used for the final product. The art was done by DoubleFine themselves, but I imagine most of us had already figured that out.

Source: Tim Fandango

The Psychonauts page over at Majesco's website has been updated with what looks to be the box artwork for the game! While the overall layout of elements on the box looks to be more of a mockup than the final work, the main artwork is amazing (especially for fans of Double Fine Action Comics), featuring a spiraling collage of scenes and characters from the game. Take a look.

It's well known that Norwegians are both sexy and people of good taste, something which is proven in today's edition of the online version of VG, Norway's largest news paper.

In the list of the 50 most anticipate games of 2005, Psychonauts is ranked as number eight:

The legendary and extremely funny game designer Tim Schafer returns with his first game since the 1998 classic Grim Fandango. Schafer has only created classics, and the expectations for this game are automatically sky-high.

You can read the whole list over at VG's website, at least if you're familiar with the language. More importantly it's good to see that Psychonauts is getting more mainstream attention.

With video love! Possibly smelly Mojo old-timer Netmonkey has pointed me to the Psychonauts videos page over at GameSpy, which contains yet another set of videos from the game. Here at the Mojo we advise against watching more than a little bit of this video content unless you really want to spoil the surprises throughout the game.

Netmonkey also pointed out that GameSpy has a Psychonauts box art mockup on their Psychonauts page, but since its based around some pretty old production art from the Microsoft Psychonauts site (plus the stated fact that the box art would have at least two explosions and we're holding him to that), I doubt it's the final artwork.

Time for more of that wave, you know, The Wave.

Psychonauts gameplay videos, previews, and interviews with Tim Schafer have littered a good percentage of the Internet today. If you weren't interested in Psychonauts before because there wasn't enough information for you to bother, now's your chance to get informed, and excited about the Excellent Game.

I'll break it down in easy to reference "Unsorted List" form:

• Gamespot has a great, lengthy preview up of the game, featuring actual descriptions of Psychonauts' gameplay, a tour through the first level, and more.
  
• Also on Gamespot are a bunch of videos, including an interview with Tim Schafer, the game's opening cutscene, and of course the game's official trailer, which we mentioned over the weekend.
  
• Over at the always suspect IGN is a heaping helping of gameplay videos which will surely entertain on first viewing, but rapidly turn into spoilers under any semblence of careful examination. You have been warned.

Surely there's more than this floating around the Internet today, but that should more than occupy the broadband-able for the next day or so. If you find anything else interesting of course leave it in the comments, and if you haven't yet taken a look at Psychonauts.com, now's as good a time as any.

Big News! Though the Playstation 2 announcement was the beginning, it seems as if the aformentioned wave is upon us. Psychonauts.com sports a new full on redesign, full of things to poke around and look at.

There's freaky new screenshots, a news page with news thats actually about the game, a page for "new recruits" to sign up to gain access to the grey matter page, which contains get a most important bit...

The brand new Psychonauts trailer, featuring all sorts of characters and dialogue and artwork and gameplay and... New Psychonauts trailer! Go take a look. Also I don't know what that fake Beetlejuice music is about. It doesn't sound like music from the game. But whatever, the trailer is awesome and you're obligated to go look at it now.

Go sign up and poke around. Woot.

Note: You're best off getting the large version of the MPEG format trailer, as it's bigger than either of the QuickTime formats, brighter, and only 20 megs more. They seemed to have some funkiness encoding the QT versions.

Since Majesco signed on as the new publisher of Tim Schafer's upcoming game Psychonauts, it's been know that the game would be gracing PC screens along with the original announced Xbox version, but as of today Majesco has added another console to the list. It looks like Psychonauts is headed to the Playstation 2 as well.

You can read all about it along with a couple new tidbits about the game, and a quote from Tim Schafer over at IGN PS2. They also have a heaping pile of screenshots, some of them new even!

They also have the same old video trailer from back in 2002 that ends with "Only on Xbox," just to confuse you a little.

Looks like Majesco has put up an official page for Psychonauts, at the predictable URL of Psychonauts.com. Psychonauts.com used to point to some sort of rockabilly band called "Psycho Charger" who were formerly called "The Psychonauts," but renamed around the time Microsoft announced Tim Schafer's game in 2002. I don't know if those events are related, and I don't particularly care, but this news post would be pretty sparse if I hadn't brought it up.

Also on the Psychonauts website are a handful of brand new screenshots, and some bullet points about the game that probably came from the game's press release. Check it out.

As the headline says, over at Gamespot there's a new interview with Tim Schafer about Psychonauts and their new publishing deal with Majesco. You can check it out here.

GS: What does it take to sell a crafted, adventure game in today's all-Doom, all the time environment?

TS: Well, I'm not in sales, but I did learn one thing from Full Throttle. PUT A BIG EXPLOSION ON THE BOX. Psychonauts is going to have two explosions on the cover, so it will probably sell twice as much as Throttle. As far as people wanting Doom games only--I think we get a skewed perspective in this industry. A lot of the people we know are in the industry or hardcore gamers, and they do want Doom all the time. But there are vast oceans of people out there for whom Doom is not their thing. We just have to get the word out there. And if that doesn't work, we'll ship out a sticker with an extra explosion on it for retailers to slap on the boxes.

Check the whole story out over at Gamespot.

Here we go again. Majesco has put put five new screenshots from the newly reborn and still excellent game Psychonauts, depicting some new areas and some we've seen a million times before. You can view them here. For the picky, here are some thumbnails:Also I've made a downloadable wallpaper out of that first shot of Raz and some of the other characters in the game. You can download it in three handy sizes:

• Wallpaper - 1600 x 1200
• Wallpaper - 1024 x 768
• Wallpaper - 800 x 600

Enjoy! According to Double Fine Action News we should be seeing more of these updates in the near future. There's also a new video trailer for Psychonauts floating around somewhere, hopefully it will show up soon as well. That's it for now.

The official word is out: Psychonauts is back on with new publisher Majesco Games, along with the bonus news that Psychonauts will be coming to the PC as well as XBox. So, that's awesome. You can read the whole press release here, but here are a few snips anyway:

Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine, added: ?I'm really excited to be working with Majesco because I can tell they understand what Psychonauts is all about, and that they believe in giving developers the creative freedom they need to fully realize their ideas. Together we are going to make what could conservatively be called the greatest game of all time ever, and I think that's awesome."

The news was rumored to be coming for a while, but it's really reassuring to have it actually on paper (or, online) instead of just sort of a "maybe" that floats around forums and news sites. According to the press release, Psychonauts "will be available next year," hopefully that means "early next year." We'll be waiting. Congrats to Double Fine for getting their game back on track!

Gamespot has put up a follow up report on yesterday's rumor about Psychonauts finding a publisher. The new report is a little more certain sounding:

Well-placed industry sources tell GameSpot that Majesco has agreed to publish the eccentric platformer, a fact which was backed up by a [Psychonauts] video trailer recently screened at the G-phoria awards which sported the Majesco logo.

Hopefully this is really really true, because if they're already airing trailers with a publisher's logo an official announcement can't be that far off... Hopefully.

Source: Marek

In Gamespot's coverage of the recent G-Phoria game awards show, they report on a little piece of gossip circulating around the ceremony concerning Psychonauts.

There were surprisingly few executives from the major game publishers in attendance, but news about a major publishing deal did break during the show when sources let on that Majesco had picked up Tim Schafer's Psychonauts and will publish the game in early 2005.

Is Psychonauts back on? Will we finally get to play Tim Schafer's next game? Is humanity saved? We'll have to wait for an official press release or something of course to know for sure, but that sounds super promising. Winnar.

Though everyone has sort of assumed and/or hoped for the best, the fate of Tim Schafer's new game Psychonauts, has been a bit unknown since their original publisher, Microsoft Game Studios, dropped the game four months ago. Are things looking up?

According to hosted site Tim Fandango, the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly (on page 21) says that Psychonauts may in fact have found a publisher, and may possibly be set to be released in February 2005. If true (cross your fingers), this is great news. Any sort of "new publisher" or "not dead" news is good to hear.

Even if it's in no way a confirmation of the new publisher rumors, it's pretty encouraging that Double Fine has been on a hiring binge lately, with three new employees and another three new listings on their jobs page.

The Double Fine Action News brings word that Tim Schafer and the Psychonauts team are once again looking for some people just like you to come in for a day or two and help them test Psychonauts.

Those of you who missed out last time, now's your chance. I wholeheartedly recommend JetBlue for great rates for flights to San Francisco from the east coast, and though I don't do it ever, I suspect Spaff would put in a good word for both the good rates and service of Virgin Atlantic for those of you who will be flying in from overseas.

For more info take a look at the action news, or to volunteer right away, email them at the job hotline.

Surely you didn't have any doubts, but just in case you did (you didn't), Double Fine Action News has been updated with a bunch of new comics, and a very important Psychonauts status report. Take a look.

Wonder why there is no Psychonauts news from any other media sites? Our own Doug Tabacco on the show floor explains:

That's because Psychonauts isn't being shown on the floor. With no publisher to host them and no time or space left to secure a booth of their own, Tim is reduced to showing it out of a hotel suite. We called him and tried to set up a meeting, but he said he's totally booked up. We take that to be a good thing, since it means lots of people (hopefully some of them publishers) are seeing the game.

Thre you have it folks... You heard it here first! Exclusive E3 News coverage. Come on you know Mojo still loves you. It does.

Source: Doug Tabacco

According to today's Double Fine Action News, testers are urgently needed for Psychonauts to get the game ready for E3. If you live in the SF Bay Area and can get to the Double Fine offices, this could be your chance to get in on some Psychonauts goodness.

Sigh. According to IGN Xbox, Microsoft Game Studios has "cut its ties with Tim Schafer and his upcoming platformer Psychonauts." Here's what Microsoft told IGN about it:

"Microsoft Game Studios has made the decision to end its publishing agreement with DoubleFine for the upcoming Xbox game 'Psychonauts.' Microsoft Game Studios believes in the vision of the title and would like to see the game on Xbox. Microsoft is supporting Tim Schafer and DoubleFine in their search for a new publisher."

So that doesn't sound too bad, and we're pretty sure Double Fine will find a new publisher to pick up the title, but its never exciting to hear news like this. The IGN report says Double Fine is still definitely planning on having an E3 presence including a playable demo of the game, so Mojo will definitely have some good Psychonauts coverage come May.

[In other news, my email seems to be broken. If for some reason you need to bug me, try this address.]

Mojo: Forgotten. Maybe its because they attended GDC, and I didn't. Maybe its because Chris, their assistant webmaster, has a cool Full Throttle shirt, and nobody on our staff does. Whatever it is, Adventure Gamers is getting some supreme love from Double Fine Action News, with their new best friend Tim, while Mojo sits alone over here.

Why has Adventure Gamers forgotten us? Why has Tim forgotten us? We were even taken off Double Fine's products page when it was made "less manky" back in February. Was the excising of Mojo from the products page the main cause of the de-mankification? Many a tear has been shed, but everything's okay really, since the Double Fine Action Comic is already up to #20, which is a whole lot of comics. If you ask me.