The International House of Mojo

In today's announcement of the Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2002, Psychonauts deservingly earned the award for Best Original Game. Here's a quote from one of the many critics who loved the preview for this upcoming title:

Tim Schafer is a man so creative that we?re almost inclined to kick him out of the gaming industry. Why? The bottom line is that he makes everyone else?s games look so damn derivative.

How true. Big congrats to Tim Schafer, the Psychonauts team, Double Fine Productions, and hell, even Microsoft for a great job!

It occured to us earlier today that we've never (to my knowledge) uploaded a version of the crazy E3 Psychonauts teaser video with a working soundtrack. If you haven't seen it yet with audio, you've seriously missed out, and need to get this immediately! Here is the file:

Psychonauts Trailer - AVI 23.4 MB

It's recommended that you right click the link and choose "Save As..." to prevent it from messing up. Also, apologies if the server is slow for anyone.

For those who still don't know, Psychonauts is the latest game from the creator of Grim Fandango and Full Throttle, Tim Schafer, and his new company Double Fine Productions. You can read our first impressions of Psychonauts here.

Our old friends (cough cough) UGO have awarded Double Fine's Psychonauts the second best action/adventure game of this year's E3 (second only to Sea Dogs II). DoubleFine.com says:

Check out UGO's list of the top eleven upcoming RPG / adventure games. And check out who's number two. That's right baby. We're number two! We're number two! Beat only by a pirate game. Ah, the irony.

Makes you wonder what audience Tim Schafer is writing DoubleFine.com for. Probably for Tim Schafer.

Source: Double Fine (and Sarah)

Well, maybe not everybody. Or maybe so, it's hard to say. Anyway, GameSpot has ranked this future Tim Schafer title #4 on its "Top Xbox Games" E3 list. As you may know, we kind of snuck in to the GameSpot private preview of this title, but it's nice to see that they were also able to recognize the potential of this game. Here's a glimpse:

With the abundance of games blaring at us from all corners of the E3 show floor, it takes something special to stand out. Psychonauts caught our attention because of its quirky gameplay and unique premise.

Be sure to check out their view on this game.

CNET.com has posted their E3 best of show awards. Again, Star Wars Galaxies was recognized, winning the award for "Most Anticipated of 2002." Star Wars: The Clone Wars was also recognized as a runner up for the "Dark Horse" award while Knights of the Old Republic was runner up for "Best in Show."

This isn't directly related to LucasArts or Star Wars, but Tim Schafer's new game Psychonauts was runner up for "Best Bet Before Next E3." Congrats to everyone who got the great free press! Unless you bribed somebody. In which case, shame on you.

Psychonauts has been named "runner up" by Gamespy's Best of E3 article for Xbox Winners. GameSpy concludes that "Psychonauts really needs to be seen for complete understanding ? it?s that wacky, that innovative." Well said. Be sure to read their preview of this game as well.

Are you excited about Tim Schafer's new game, Psychonauts? Or, do you hate the game but dig the art style? Then check out two of our Psychonauts desktop wallpapers that we whipped up from the E3 asset CD-ROM.

Each wallpaper is at a size of 1024x768. Just click on one of the images below. When it loads, do a right-click and "save as". That is, unless you're using a crazy Mac.

Though the expo itself was last week, the Mojo coverage starts today. Over the next few days we'll be running previews and our impressions of the games shown this year both by LucasArts, and by Double Fine (Tim Schafer's company).

To start it off, we have a preview of Double Fine's XBox-bound adventure/platformer, Psychonauts written by Andrew "telarium" Langley. The preview includes screenshots and concept art you may or may not have already seen before, and quotes from Tim Schafer himself that we may or may not be sharing with Gamespot. Enjoy!

IGN Insider has posted some more information regarding Psyconauts, the new game from Double Fine Productions.

Tim Schafer, of Grim Fandango fame, wants to apply the depth and rich story driven content of a typcial PC adventure game to the simple action of a platform game...

...Raz has to develop his psychic abilities across a variety of different disciplines and earn merit badges for each one to become a Psychonaut. The game is organized more or less in 16 levels, but each level is actually inside the mind of sixteen different disturbed individuals

For those of you without IGN insider access, You can read some more, by clicking below.<:MORENEWS:>

Tim Schafer, of Grim Fandango fame, wants to apply the depth and rich story driven content of a typcial PC adventure game to the simple action of a platform game. The result is Psychonauts a game whose looks will surely belie its extremely sophisticated humor and attitude. Psychonauts are a super elite team of psychic powered agents charged with protecting the free world.

You play as Raz, an impetuous young boy who dreams of joining the elite squad one day. There's an intricate plot that explains Raz's family history and his former career as a circus performer, but when you start the game, he's just been accepted to the Psychonauts training camp where all young potential psychic warriors come to learn.

Raz has to develop his psychic abilities across a variety of different disciplines and earn merit badges for each one to become a Psychonaut. The game is organized more or less in 16 levels, but each level is actually inside the mind of sixteen different disturbed individuals. You as Raz have to enter those scrambled brains, where all of that person's delusions and paranoia are manifested as obstacles and characters that you'll have to deal with. We don't have a complete list of mental disorders but we do know there will be one guy who thinks he's Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, named Fred; an artist who only likes to paint on black velvet; a woman who's afraid of nearly every single thing under the sun; a guy who's a big conspiracy theorist and a giant lungfish monster who's actually afraid of your character Raz.

That's quite a collection of characters but the way their disorders come to life while you're running around their brains is truly something else. The black velvet artist for example is convinced that a snarling raging bull is going to be his ultimate demise, so while you're in his brain, you'll constantly have to be worried about a charging bull trying to run you down all the time. The artist also suffers from involuntary vocal spasms so you'll hear his spontaneous outbursts as they travel through his brain and out of his mouth.

The conspiracy theorist is convinced the government is out to get him so his mental delusions are manifested by a game world where all roads lead to his house and that government agents are lurking around everywhere. He thinks there's a Manchurian Candidate-style self destruct sequence waiting within in his mind and all it needs is for him to hear the right password to become activated. You actually meet the self destruct "guy" as a character simply hanging out in Conspiracy Man's head kicking back, doing nothing and waiting for that password. Indeed, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

For more of the article sign up to IGN Insider or pester me to secretly steal and post it all on Mojo.

The game certainly looks colourful, and I love the art style. Judging From this article and the concept art I saw last year this game should be a true
PsycoSchafer-BrainWrongRomp through your mind.

Are you waiting for our intrepid explorers to report all the happenings from the show floor? Whats hot, what's not and what the hell Tim Schafer has been doing?.....

Well bad luck you have to wait longer. But while you wait, you might like to read Tim's description of his game on the Double Fine Top secret Game in Development page. and then try and guess from the other information just what the hell ?Psychonauts? is going to be like... I am.

Update: RemiO has reminded me that there is a bunch of info on this game, including a movie, posted on The Scummbar.I'm going to go watch it whilst I sit here, clueless and holding the fort so to speak.

Psyconauts Movie - Mixnmojo Mirror.

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Last night, Mixnmojo had the privilege of attending a private screening hosted by LucasArts. The event, which was attended by a wide variety of industry professionals and media, began with a slide show demonstrating some LucasArts trivia. Of course, we knew all the answers, despite all the trivia being Star Wars related. The large theater was virtually filled to capacity, and there were a few familiar faces scattered around the room. We saw Tom Sarris, being his usual friendly self, and Tim Schafer was at the screening, which was a pleasant surprise.<:MORENEWS:>

Simon Jeffrey, president of LucasArts, started off the show by talking about the current focus of the company. ?At a time when the industry is standardizing,? Simon began, ?we?re aiming to go back to our roots. Highly creative, original, edgy, and thought provoking games.? After discussing the critical success of last year?s E3 lineup, he reflected on the challenges ahead. ?Our positioning is somewhat in conflict with itself in that we are striving for innovation and creative achievement, while at the same time managing one of the biggest intellectual properties in gaming.?

So what about original gaming? ?We?re showcasing eight games at E3 this year,? Simon continued. ?Four Star Wars games, and four games that aren?t Star Wars. This marks our return to original gaming; part of our legacy, part of our heritage.?

The highlight of the show for Mixnmojo was hearing the crowd reaction to different games mentioned by Jeffery. While the other games were met with half-hearted clapping, once it was revealed that Ben from Full Throttle was returning in a sequel, the crowd erupted with applause. We were then treated to projected game trailers on the movie screen for each of the new titles. Some trailers ended with enthusiastic responses from the audience, while others resulted in quiet reflection.

After the 10-minute presentation, the Episode II screening began. The crowd wasn?t nearly as enthusiastic about the movie as they were the game trailers, but it?s likely that everyone at the screening has already seen the movie. Of course, it didn?t help that the sound broke near the beginning of the movie. Oops.

We?ll be at E3 all day today and tomorrow, so expect more news directly from Los Angeles soon.

Up over at EuroGamer are a few screenshots of the X-box game "Psychonauts" and from the information on the site, it says that the developer is Double Fine Productions, Tim Schafer's company. There's no word of this on the official Double Fine site but keep checking back for possible updates. In any case, the shots are cool-looking, so check them out. :) Thanks to Kingzjester for the news.

I'm a day or three late reporting on this, but at least now I have enough spare time to make this a decent update, so here goes...

Double Fine Productions, Tim Schafer's game company, has updated their site with "information" about their top-secret title, as well as up-to-date "news" about the goings-on in the company. Have a listen:

I'm actually writing this news update on Saturday and pretending it's Friday. The problem is, I can't remember anything that happened yesterday. I don't think anything did. Oh, wait! There was a big fire in the next alley over. Lots of smoke and firetrucks and-- wait, no, that was Thursday. Yesterday I don't think I did much. Possibly, I overslept.

In addition to these latest developments, Team X-Box has revealed the title of Double Fine's new slam-bang title: Psychonauts. Here's the description pulled from their site:

?Psychonauts? (Microsoft Game Studios). ?Psychonauts? is a wildly surreal action adventure game from Double Fine Productions developer Tim Schafer. It?s a game in which characters? personal paranormal powers are unlocked to plunge players into the minds of bizarre characters. Gamers journey deep into crazy worlds of infinite possibility to thwart the secret plan of an evil madman and realize the ultimate dream of joining an elite force of psychic superheroes, the Psychonauts. The game will be available spring 2003.

Sounds very promising.

Source: SCUMM Bar

GameSpot.com, continuing in their "Games That Should Be Remade" series, has written an article about Grim Fandango. While GameSpot doesn't claim that they'd like to see the original game recreated, they do plead for another story set in this world. Here's a quote:

Sadly, Grim Fandango was Schafer's last project for the company, as he left LucasArts shortly after the game was completed. So the chances of seeing the return of Manny Calavera, Glottis, and the Bone Wagon are pretty slim, to say the least. But we'd still like to see another Grim Fandango game--one that would have the kind of beautiful artistic design and hilarious writing of the original game. And even though it's unlikely, we would like to see some continuation of the story, or at least have one more chance to visit with Manny, Glottis, Meche, Sal, and the rest of Grim Fandango's great cast.

Thanks to Tomas for the news!

Well, sort of. After months with nothing on it, DoubleFine.com, Double Fine Productions' on-line headquarters, has "returned". Yes, we know there's not much on it to speak of, but there are a couple of contact e-mail addresses and a fine picture!

When questioned about the page, Tim Schafer said, "Yeah, our website is back up. That 'What ever happened to Tim Schafer' article made me think I?d better start acting like I?m not dead."

Well this news, is in fact old, but I thought I'd post this anyways:
Whilst mooching about at work, I found an abandoned brochure for the Game Developers Conference that took place in San Hose about a month ago. on the first page was a list of people giving Keynote talks at the show, and under Visual Arts was listed Mr. Peter Chan.

As a conceptual illustrator and storyboard artist, Peter Chan has worked on games (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Putt Putt, Pajama Sam, Vampire the Masquerade to name a few), films and advertising since 1989. After 4 years at LucasArts, he moved to a remote island in Washington State to launch his freelance career ( a giant and illogical leap of faith initiated by quality of life issues). Film credits include Antz, Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phanton Menace, Monkeybone and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's(Philosipher's) Stone. He recently completed 2 projects for the Xbox (New Legends for Infinite Machine, and an unannounced Tim Schafer game).

So yeah we missed a more than probably interesting talk from the man behind some of our favourite things...
Other LEC folk that we missed included:

• "400 rules of Game Design" - Hal Barwood (who also appeared on the 'Advisory board')
• "Managing the QA Process" -Chuck McFadden
• "Battling Level Design in Hardcore Genres for a Casual Audience" - Tim Longo (Star Wars StarFighter)
  
• "From All Levels: Perspectives of Level Design" - Tim Miller (Jedi Knight)
• "Game Audio Production: Process and Strategy" - Clint Bajakian
• "Learning from the Classics: A discussion of What Made Games Great" - Alex Neuse ( Grim Fandango)

This post is pretty pointless, seeing as it's already happened, but at least we will remember to send someone there next year to see what these people have to say!

GameSpot.com recently published this article entitled, "Where Have You Gone, Tim Schafer?" The article discusses Tim's new company, Double Fine Productions, and their new mystery title. It also talks about adventure games in general and the successful port of Escape From Monkey Island into video game consoles. While the article doesn't introduce any new information that we didn't already know, it is an interesting read that is worth checking out.

Source: The SCUMM Bar

Gamespot has published an article dealing with the controversial topic known as Abandonware. As we probably all know, Abandonware is the term used to describe games, etc., that are no longer supported by the company that made them. Some people believe that means that they should be freely distributed.

A great deal of LucasArts games are considered to be abandonware, it is hard to still find let alone buy some of their older games. Enter Tim schafer (amongst some other developers) to comment on this issue:

"Personally, I'd rather my old games were stolen and played for free than forgotten about..."

...and then goes on to say:

"Most of the game makers aren't living off the revenue from those old games anymore. Most of the creative teams behind all those games have long since left the companies that published them, so there's no way the people who deserve to are still making royalties off them. So go ahead--steal this game! Spread the love!"

The article does take a good look at the subject at hand and gets some interesting view points accross. I suggest you go read it!

Source: Huz

Wondering what's up with Grim Fandango creator Tim Schafer and his game company, Double Fine Productions? We were, so we did the logical thing and asked him. But, since they haven't officially announced any projects, Tim couldn't reveal any development news. He tried really hard though:

"A junkie OD'ed in our alley last week, does that count? And the awning at the deli caught fire. How about that?"

Double Fine!