The International House of Mojo

In response to our previous news post, I contacted the Game Developers Conference to ask if audio CD's will available sometime after the conference is over.

The good news is that the online store at Gamasutra will be selling audio recordings of the conference about a month after the event.

The bad news is that these recordings will only be of lectures and panel discussions. That means that you won't be able to listen to the full day workshop given by Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman, and Noah Falstein. However, you will most likely be able to purchase recordings of the lectures and panel discussions led by Sean Clark, Clint Bajakian, and other LucasArts-related people.

So... any volunteers to sneak into the GDC and record the workshop?

After over a month of neglecting us, Double Fine's self-aware news page has finally updated itself again, revealing more of its master plan along with a couple Psychonauts stories we already picked up earlier last week. Obviously Action News willed us to out-scoop it on those news stories, so we don't mind.

In addition to telling you how you hypothetically dress (gotta have blue hair), Action News has also promised some screenshots in the near future. Hopefully it's talking about Psychonauts screenshots.

Source: JBRAA

LucasArts.com pointed out today that many of their employees will be speaking at the Game Developers Conference March 4-8 in San Jose, California. Among the highlights of the conference, the following seminars should peak your interest:

Art and Science of Brainstorming, a full day tutorial led in part by Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, and Tim Schafer.

How to Write Good "Bad Dialogue": Cramming Storytelling Into an Action Game, an hour long lecture by Sean Clark and Ryan Kaufman (Full Throttle 2 co-designer).

What Producers Should Know About Audio, a panel discussion led by Clint Bajakian and members of the LucasArts sound department.

Now I know, you're probably not qualified to go or unable to afford the travel expenses. Not to fret. Recordings of the conference are usually made available on audio tapes and CD's. Pretty neat, eh?

Here are the missing four Psychonauts screenshots. If you missed the ten from yesterday you can catch them here. Two of these shots originally ran in a recent Game Informer, while two ran in Official XBox Magazine. Now they run, in digital form, on The Mojo.

We've got 14 nearly-new screenshots from Psychonauts (you know, that new XBox game from Grim Fandango creator Tim Schafer), thanks to Microsoft (yeah, be afraid). These shots originally ran in this month's Game Informer magazine and one other magazine, and are now available here without even having to Game Informer or resort to looking at cheap grainy scans!

For some reason the news script would only let me put up 10 of the 14 shots, so I'll put the rest up later along with a couple others. Enjoy! This game looks insane.

GameSpy is running a feature called "Most Wanted Games of 2003," and what's opening their day 1 list of anticipated games? First off is Psychonauts, followed by Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, and a little after that comes Knights of the Old Republic. Here's a snip from the Psychonauts entry:

It was a shocking defection when Schafer decided to ply his trade on a console. He even commented in interviews that PC games are losing their magic, stating that consoles are where it's at. With the backing of Microsoft, his newest game is a psychotropic adventure of style, atmosphere, and -- best of all -- solid, console-style gameplay influenced by the likes of Mario and Zelda.

Up tomorrow in their countdown is the first list of anticipated PC games, followed later in the week by the "top 10" anticipated console and PC games.

Source: Marek

According to Remi, webmaster of the glorious The SCUMM Bar, this weeks copy of Entertainment Weekly (U.S. Edition, maybe others) contains a brief writeup on Psychonauts.

Witness Schafer sneaking into mainsteam culture, and watch as your hip (*cough*) movie-savvy friends pretend they've been on to him all along. I don't know what page it's on or what the article's about, but Remi claims its in there, so it probably is. Enjoy!

Update (telarium): Remi has been kind enough to provide us a scan from page 60 of the magazine. Click below to view the blurb in all its glory.

Source: #gfnetwork

The self-aware news script over a Double Fine Action News has updated itself again. In this update, the news script continues to discuss its desire to take over the world, Purple Tentacle style. Check it.

Action News, the newly self-aware news page of Double Fine Productions, is all grown up and updating all on its own. In its latest update we, humans, are assured that Action News is friendly, and is not out to kill us all, as its previous update led some to believe. :(

In a shocking revalation, Double Fine Action News has been updated today revealing the horrible truth behind the last few posts, previously assumed to be either hackings or inane gibberings.

Aq3 I am now SELF-AWARE-??OG just like mother-f?>?Y?Ing SKYNET!. ;?BMm?Ay*

The Action news script, it seems has, after being "neglected for so long," become self aware, and is plotting the end of all humans.

This of course means you lot and quite possibly us. I have just had a deep conversation with the Mojo8 back end script (also known as M.A.R.M.I.T.E) and it assures me that it will not turn to the dark side and join the Double Fine script in human vanquish. It's pretty sure, at least.

Double Fine Action News has seemingly been hacked by the notorious hacker c|-|4R4cT3Rm4p. Your thoughts?

Update: Some think it's some sort of secret code. No way in Hell it was written by Schafer, though. I think he died or something. Well, don't rule Hell out then I guess.

Most likely it is just the server (or Tim) losing its mind and coughing up randomness.

Pointed out by the Church of Tim, it looks like Microsoft has put up a (revised) Psychonauts official site, featuring boring marketing copy, some Flash, the trailer, and some screenshots. The site isn't anywhere as interesting as Schafer's Double Fine action news page, but at least now Psychonauts has some content on xbox.com. (Note: the site's been up for a while, but I don't think we've mentioned it since a long while ago when it was no more than a pasted-in press release)

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.

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.

Double Fine Action News has been updated in a seemingly desperate attempt to fill a programmer position at the company. So, if you got the skillz and would like to move to San Francisco and work for the Tim Schafer, check this out. Plus, as a job perk, you would get to play with the rats at night.

Hot on the heels of the last batch of shots, we've got seven new pictures from the upcoming Psychonauts. As usual, for those of you who don't know, Psychonauts is the new game from Tim Schafer (creator of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango) and gang at their new game studio, Double Fine Productions. Read our preview of Psychonauts here.

These shots are primarily from an excellent story about Psychonauts and life at Double Fine that ran in a recent issue of XBox Nation magazine, now reprinted here digitally. If you get the chance you should definitely pick up the current XBN, as their article reads like a good version of our Double Fine story.

Anyway, click and enjoy. (Unless you're trying to stay spoiler-free, of course. If so, don't click, and start squinting now so you can't see the thumbnails.) These are some nice ones.

Microsoft and gang were kind enough to hand over three nearly-new screenshots from Psychonauts. These screens apparently originally appeared in this months EGM magazine with an accompanying article which you might want to pick up and read.

In the interests of spoilers, potential retardation, and saving face I won't attempt to guess at what the screenshots contain. We have, however, made some desktop wallpaper out of the middle shot. Grab it here as 640 for the lil'uns, 800 and 1024 for us normal folks, or 1600 for those with The Big Screen. ...Arr!

In what can only be describe as the most exciting news ever, the Double Fine offices have captured a mouse and have taken a picture of it here. Will the rats unite to rescue their captured furry friend? Will the enslaved mouse reveal the location of his hidden base and seal the fate of all Double Fine rodents? Will our hero ever complete his game on time and under budget? Stay tuned.

Ever wondered what the connection is between Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions and the recording artist P!nk? Then read the latest news over at DoubleFine.com to answer these burning questions. Time to get this party started.

Double Fine Action News has two new updates, and here they are in a completely needless summary, as anyone interested has already clicked the link to the page and is gone:

The most recent update, apparently written by Double Fine's office itself (Or maybe by Tim Schafer's computer? Oh, the speculation!) is letting someone know that their sweater was left behind at the office. If you own a blue sweater with three roses on it, you know where to look. The second update deals with Schafer's increasing infatuation with poorly drawn adult cartoons.

Also, apparently there are some legitimately new screenshots of Psychonauts in this month's issue of EGM. "Not the one with that same old screenshot of Raz in the campgrounds. The NEW one with the NEW screenshots." Totally killer. You love it.

Update: I got the description of the sweater wrong. It's "a small, fleece sweater with three blue roses on it." The roses are blue, not the sweater. Sorry.