The International House of Mojo

This time it's from MacWorld. Read on.

If any publishers out there think that there's so much hype for this game because it's licensed: you're wrong. There's so much hype because its creators have proved themselves to be awesome. Don't go saying we want games based on webcomics, in other words. Because you're wrong.

Source: Macworld

I'm guessing you've been wondering how to get your hands on Penny Arcade Adventures. Well, let me announce the creation of Greenhouse, "an online hub for digitally distributed PC games" (the first to be sold will, in fact be, Penny Arcade Adventures). It's a merge of Hothead and Penny Arcade. This is all good news.

You can read-up on Greenhouse over at Wired, who also have an interview about it with Gabe and Tycho - or Mike and Jerry, creators of the lovable duo.

Anyone else think that gaming's finally heading in the right direction? Pop-out the celebratory firecrackers lads, this is an event to watch.

Update: And the beta is up.

Source: Wired

In what can only be described as awesome on Wired's part, they have put-up a hands-on preview of Penny Arcade Adventures up for your reading pleasure, which all comes without April Fool's jokes or jokes involving hands. This has been Tim Schafer, Mojo News, Moscow.

Source: Wired

It is! If you don't believe Ronzo is posting here, take a look at his site! All real, I tell ya!

Hi guys! It's Ron Gilbert here. I wasn't happy with how little Mix'n'mojo was covering Hothead, so I decided to do something about it... by joining the staff! I'm a news updater now, as well as being Creative Director at Hothead games.

I'll be keeping you all inbformed about DEATHSPANK, Penny Arcade, Spore and maybe something more... :-) I may also be updating the news about Double Fine from time to time seeing as I'm a HUGE Tim Schafer fanboy.

And they're ever so-faithful to the comic of the same name. Will Penny Arcade Adventures be awesome? Oh, yes, yes indeed: My hype-o-meter is going off the charts. And my chart's pretty, pretty big. Ladies, I am talking to you.

Source: CVG

Rejoice, worshippers of Tycho and Gabe. The specifications hath arrived for Macintosh, but no word yet on much else. Or am I wrong? See for yourself!. You can also play it on Linux. And all you need is a semi-good PC/Mac and a trivial $19.95! Pilgrims, rejoice!

Update: Here's the complete list of specs, supplied by Wired.

There is a new interview on Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness with one Joel DeYoung, Hothead extraordinaire, courtesy of Gamezone. Everyone say thank you to Gamezone and promise you won't ever, ever, ever tell her she has a big nose next time. Even though she does. Totally.

Update: Bless her. Bless her big, loving heart. Lady Gamezone has once again proved to be awesome, for she has brought you another interview on Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, but this time regarding the audio. Bless her, for she must love you all so very very much for interviewing about things that have "touched the hearts of millions".

Source: Gamezone

Gamasutra is reporting that Ron Gilbert's point and click adventures are being ported to the Wii by Majesco.

The titles currently announced for the Wii include back catalog CD-ROM games originally released throughout the 1990s, including Freddi Fish in Kelp Seed Mystery, Pajama Sam in Don't Fear the Dark and Spy Fox in Dry Cereal, updated to utilize the Wii Remote for their point-and-click gameplay.

Interestingly, a majority of Humongous titles were created using the SCUMM engine, the same employed by LucasArts for nearly all of its classic point and click adventures like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, suggesting these new titles will be using a newly created Wii version of the widely ported ScummVM software.

Does this increase the chances of a similar deal with the LucasArts back catalogue?

Magic 8 Ball says "Unlikely".

Source: Gamasutra

Adventure Gamers have a new interview up at their site with Ron Gilbert and Joel De Young of Hothead Games. One of those two you may have heard of before this news article.

They talk about both Penny Arcade Adventures and DeathSpank, which is still just in the early stages of development so don't get too excited yet guys, we've got a long wait. Interestingly though, AG refer to DS as 'Legend of Zelda meets Monkey Island', rather than the usual 'Diablo meets Monkey Island'. I know which one I'd prefer.

Here's a quote about Penny Arcade Adventures in case you're incapable of clicking:

AG: The people who visit our site are obviously into traditional adventures. Can you speak to how much of the game is story-based and how much of it is combat?

JdY: It's definitely a combination of the two. It's hard just putting into a percentage, but you might say it's half and half. It's definitely something we have tried to integrate from the beginning, so that as you are working your way through the adventure game itself you are unveiling the story. The different battles are integrated into the story, but also act as sort of soft gates. You have to have your characters leveled up sufficiently to be able to make it through certain enemies.

Check it ouuuuuuut.

Have you ever heard of Swarm? It's the working title of a video game in development by Hothead Games, which you all know to be the cradle of Ron Gilbert's Evil (tm). We had no reason to report on it before, but now that we do I should urge you all to go check out what little info there is on the game, including a delicious Pixar-like trailer. I'm not sure if Ronzo's "Creative Director" position means he has a hand in this game - and I'm sure his hands are full with Penny Arcade and Deathspank, and even Ronzo only has two hands and three eyeballs - but it's really worth checking-out. Head over to the game's official page as well.

JP Update: More Hothead news with a lovely big interview with Joel DeYoung and Ron Gilbert over at Adventure Gamers. No "Swarm" but plenty of Penny Arcade and Deathspank

Well, it's finally happened. It's ugly, so look it up at your own risk.

The Escapist have a pretty good preview of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, with some new info on the game and the general workings behind Hothead Games. There are very minor spoilers, though, so beware. (I should also probably point-out that Ron Gilbert has worked on neither Sam and Max Hit the Road or Full Throttle, even if the article says he has.)

Speaking of Hothead, have you seen Penny Arcade's Gabe fan-art of Deathspank? Also, I wonder if you've seen Steve Purcell's various pirate paintings? More specifically, his take on Guybrush. Pretty awesome, huh?

Oh, and speaking of awesomness, might I suggest you control yourself and not shower your monitor with kisses, even if they're displaying the awesomness I've linked to? Drat, is it too late all ready? Oh well, it's happened to the best of us.

Source: The Escapist

What looks to bee two new Ron Gilbert interviews have been posted at Joystiq. However it may just be one big interview divided into two episodes in a barely concealed bandwagon-jumping fashion. A DeathSpank episode and a Penny Arcade episode.

How far ahead are you planning DeathSpank in terms of number of episodes? Have you figured it out yet?

We're gonna do a million episodes.

A million?

One million.

Thanks to fco at the Telltale Forums for the heads-up.

Update by Gabez: Kroms electronic-mailed me to point out a further peice of JoyStiq Ron Gilbert good-times reading. In this episode, Ronzo gives a solution to an adventure game puzzle! Hilarity!

Source: Joystiq

As Sven_Q45 helpfully pointed out on our forum, Ron Gilbert has a lovely new interview over at Inc Gamers, who I admit I'd never heard of before today. They talk about DeathSpank, Penny Arcade Adventures, and some game with pirates and monkeys in that I'd also never heard of.

This is probably my favourite question and answer:

How do you think storytelling has improved in gaming over the years?

It hasn’t.

Honest to a fault, that man. Check it out.

Update: And as Kroms just as helpfully pointed out, Eurogamer's got one too. Now them I have heard of.

The time is up, the Final Countdown done, and thankfully I have a wonderful announcement to make - elTee's plausible suggestion was wrong. Pinch me.

In fact, the even more impossible has happened. Check out Grumpy Gamer first, then come back.

Yes, that's right. Unless Ron Gilbert is seriously messing with our innocence gullible minds, he's got a new publisher for his Adventure/RPG game! That new publisher is Hothead Games, who are also publishing the upcoming Penny Arcade Adventures game On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One that Ronny G is acting as advisor for.

The new game is (again, unless we're being totally messed with) DeathSpank: Episode I - Orphans of Justice, so presumably it's gonna be episodic. The game's described by Ron Nee Gee as "the perfect melding of a Monkey Island style adventure game with the wicked RPG game play of Diablo". There's already a temporary website up for the game up here.

Guess we need to update that 'Untitled Ron Gilbert Project' game in the database...



UPDATE: No joke, it's Official now. Yay!

Source: Grumpy Gamer

Ron Gilbert's site over at (which you should know by now) Grumpy Gamer seems to be counting down to something.

A big rippling '3' with Ron's grumpy cartoon was sighted yesterday, throwing up all all manner of bizarre theories. Today we have a muscly throbbing '2' to go with it. A deep penetrating '1' should follow tomorrow (Tuesday 8th), with the countdown ending Wednesday with a deep passionate sigh and a cigarette afterwards.

Question is, what are we counting down to? Let the mad speculation begin/continue!!

Gamespot recently ran an article detailing the arduous and often weep-inducing process of pitching a video game to publishers. You'll probably find the article as a whole an interesting read, but among the developers who share their thoughts on the subject is Ron Gilbert, who I think made Loom or something, so give it a look!

Ron's lovely blog at Grumpy Gamer has a YouTube video of a recent interview with the Monkey Master for a German videogaming show - although don't panic, it's in English (and there's a nice shot of the Mix 'N' Mojo wheel too!).

A lot of stuff we've heard before but some interesting stuff came out - particularly Ronny G's statement that working with LucasArts to make another Monkey Island game "is not outside the realm of extreme possibility". Personally I just enjoyed the presenter shouting "What is the Secret?!" down the phone in anguish.

Oh, and there's some hints as to Ron's next project. He describes it as "kind of an adventure melded with a Diablo-style role-playing game", which he's apparently making with the help of Double Fine. Well, a desk at Double Fine at least. It's a comedy, and going to be Telltale-style episodic too (although he does mention "pitching it to publishers", which I thought was the whole reason NOT to be episodic).

Check it out! (Although being honest the main reason I'm posting this is to see the Xmas version of the Ron Gilbert News avatar)

Source: Grumpy Gamer

For Monkey Island web sites that aren't The SCUMM Bar, existing is a common thing. World of MI, in a display of incontrovertible activity, even posted an interview with the man himself yesterday two days ago. Highlights of the interview include Ron's veiled assertions that he invented episodic gaming:

With Hulabee you had the concept of selling games online and then download each chapter. Something Telltale is currently doing successfully with the new Sam & Max and the Jeff Smith Bone games. Would it be something you are still interested in doing? Or are you already way ahead and thinking of new ways.

I love episodic. When I left Lucasfilm back in '92 my original idea was to do episodic adventure games (mailed out on floppies!). That idea morphed into going the smaller adventure games for kids.

Read it all, and be glad.