Despite there being a mad flurry of news during May (by Mojo standards at least), we somehow missed making a big deal of this: Tim Schafer playing Full Throttle for the game's 25th Anniversary.
So here it is, only three weeks late!
Source: DoubleFine
The Thimbleweed Park interface-turned-free video game Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure is now DRM-free on GOG, following its release on Epic and Steam last month.
Speaking of GOG, their summer sale (which ends June 15) is on, including a selection of Double Fine games and other adventure game stuff outside Mojo's sphere of influence, but which you should look into anyway. In my opinion, works like Primordia and Technobabylon stand comfortably shoulder-to-shoulder with the best LucasArts and its alumni ever swung-out.
Source: GOG
News for a slow news day (since nothing's happening in the outside world):
YouTube user NoirReservoir wants to know your opinions on The Curse of Monkey Island, the best game in the series, which you can provide by clicking here. Do you like the music? The puzzles? El Pollo Diablo? Let 'em know.
This came to our attention via the Twitter account LucasArts fans, who said they'd be happy if we noticed them. Hi, losers. Sorry, we jocky, cool kid adventure game types can't share a table with you sweaty ne--How the hell do they have twice the number of Twitter followers that Mixnmojo does?
For shame. After you've done the survey, follow Mixnmojo on Twitter, you mangy curs. (And also those upstart LucasArts Adventure Fans.)
Source: NoirReservoir
We mentioned this on Twitter (which we intend on using until the White House shuts it down) but seeing Rum_Rogers threatened to break up with us, we'll mention it here, too: Ronzo has released Delores's source code. For free. On GitHub. If that means anything to you, then great. If not, then go about your life like the rest of us, and enjoy your freedoms while you have them.
Say what you like about Ronzo, the man can code
You may our may not have seen/heard this one before, but either way, why not relive the proof-of-concept voice-over for Monkey Island 2?
Source: Video Game History Foundation
Double Fine's Rad, published last year to critical acclaim, is going for pretty dang cheap right now over on Humble Bandai Namco Bundle 4. The average price keeps changing, but currently anything above €8.60 gets you Rad plus a slew of other games, including an entry in the Katamari Damacy series. It's never been more affordable.
Rad is an isometric roguelike about a hero searching a post-apocalyptic wasteland for "respirators," which may restore civilisation in the wake of an apocalypse. Feels prescient. I haven't heard whether there's a pitchfork mob high on hydroxychloroquine out yelling something about reopening the economy despite it killing people, but you can let us know if there is by trying the game yourself.
Source: Humble Bundle
Well, here's one for the quarantine dwellers: Ronzo's prototype for a new adventure game interface has all of a sudden morphed into a small adventure game: Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure. Read all about it, then get it from Steam or Epic Store. For free. How can you lose?
Many, many, many years ago we published reviews for all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which at the time were part of a trilogy. Now, just a little bit too late, we have completed the pentalogy, and reviewed the two last movies. Do we like them? Hate them? Do you care? All great questions, so go read!
Its been a while since the last Mojo podcast so to tide you over you might enjoy listening to the Super Marcato Bros video game music podcast. They dont have 4 guys arguing about which version of Loom is the best, but as podcasts go its pretty good.
Each week they analyse what makes the music in a particular game so great. To save you the trouble of searching here are some episodes that are of particular interest to Mojo readers:
Monkey Island 3 & 4 Monkey Island 1 Monkey Island 2 Sam and Max Hit the Road Interview with Peter McConnell - his Lucasarts music Interview with Peter McConnell - his post-Lucasarts musicSource: Super Marcato Bros Podcast
What could possibly be better than watching Jake and Marius's [and Dom's] Twitch stream yesterday? How about reading us watching it?
It's the third installment in our Excerpts from the Slack series, and it's available here in a global launch for all browser platforms.
UPDATE: It's over now, and it was excellent. Dominic Armato showed up about 90 minutes in, and the gang played through the Three Trials section before adjourning. If you missed it, you can watch the entire three-and-a-half-hour stream here. Stay tuned to Jake's Twitter to find out when they will schedule the continuation.
I dunno how all this "Twitch" stuff works, but I always credit the Mojo readership with being hipper than I, so here goes. Jake informed the world yesterday that he and designer Marius Fietzek will be streaming their playthrough of The Secret of Monkey Island through his Twitch channel. If listening to Jake talk about the game for hours was on your bucket list, I'm happy to say you can die soon.
It all starts streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/ja2ke? come 11AM PT/8PM CEST. That's a little under than two and a half hours from now. Be ready.
Source: Jake's Twitter
We're a bit late on this and I didn't set out to make this Bummer Saturday, but acknowledgment is owed to the passing of actor Malcolm Dixon.
Cast at the beginning of his career as an Oompa Loompa in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Dixon was one of a number of dwarf actors who would find work in the 80s as creatures in fantasy/sci-fi films, appearing under thick costumes in the likes of The Dark Crystal, Return of the Jedi (as an Ewok) and Labyrinth.
Dixon's performances weren't exclusively buried beneath rubber and foam - he also had more visible roles in Time Bandits as "Strutter" and Willow as a musician in the village festival scene. A picture of Dixon from the latter can be seen below.
Source: New York Daily
It has been reported that American actor Dimitri Diatchenko, who was often cast as Russian characters, passed away on April 21st.
Diatchenko played one of Irina Spalko's nameless Soviet henchmen in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a role which became expanded after he made an impression on the director. The actor was originally booked only for the campus chase sequence in New Haven, and beefed himself up to 250 pounds for the ten-day shoot.
But when Harrison Ford accidentally clipped Diatchenko on the chin during a take, Spielberg saw something in the actor's reaction that he loved and decided then and there to extend Diatchenko's commitment to three months, with the character brought back as a member of Spalko's permanent entourage for the second half of the film.
It was good news for Diatchenko but a rough break for his character, whose participation in the South America mission meant he lived long enough to get sucked up into an alien portal at the climax of the movie. That's cinematic immortality from where I'm standing. RIP.
Source: Deadline
One of the more insane and popular features this site has ever published was the tenth anniversary article by Gabez in 2007 -- a particularly fruitful year for the mischievous staffer. When it ran originally, the celebration/exposé garnered over a hundred comments. Even DJG himsef got in on the act.
Six years later, Remi re-published the article, but his effort to import Gabez's abusive HTML into the far less tolerant MojoX was predictably compromised. Today, we've gotten it into more faithful shape, and thought that would be an excuse to milk Gabez's deranged opus a third time. It's still a mess, but what can you do? Read it.
When we're not stirring up controversy over resurrected Star Wars games the Mojo staff love nothing more than to relax with some good old handicrafts. Right now Jason is reaching the end of his Ozzie Mandrill knitting pattern and Remi has almost completed the tie-die swordmaster tshirts for his Etsy shop.
Its fortunate, then, that papercraft-maker Ninjatoes has created free papercraft models for EMI era Guybrush and Manny Calavera.
Find them and many more over at his blog.
Source: Ninjatoes' Blog
Like the dead-but-resurrected Telltale that birthed it, The Walking Dead shuffles on. You can buy every entry in the series, from the acclaimed, surprise hit first season through the company's swan song, via Fanatical's Sanctuary Bundle, which sets you back $4.99 for the lot. That's Steam keys for all what my Palestinian grandma calls "zombiss" plus Sanctus Reach, Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic, Blood: Fresh Supply, This War of Mine, and Redeemer: Enhanced Edition. And, for $4.99, this is a steal, tempting even to people such as yours truly who shuffled away from Telltale once Walking Dead changed the game (sorry).
You could do worse than support dark humour-as-marketing ("Sanctuary Bundle" raised an eyebrow, but I appreciate the effort) in these troubled times. Escape your troubles into a world overrun by the flesh-eating dead by clicking here.
Edit: Never post stuff at the tail end of a 20+ work day, kids. The Walking Dead games available are season one + "400 Days," season two, and Michonne, the "miniseries". You'll have to get seasons three and four separately.
Source: Fanatical
Have you seen this lineup? I'm not newsing all this garbage as it comes out: https://limitedrungames.com/
Somebody who has actually played some of these game ought to step up. ¬
For the record those games are forthcoming Jedi Knight titles making their Limited Run appearance.
I ruffled some feathers earlier this week when I underestimated the nostalgia people had for Star Wars Episode 1: Racer. The repudiation of my assumptions continues with this paean to the Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace game published by The RetroBeat. Their argument is worthy of Criterion Collection liner notes:
Look, I’m not trying to suggest that the Episode I game is some massive hidden gem. It has not held up as well as other Star Wars games from that era, such as Episode I: Racer and Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. It also has some glaring problems, such as an awkward camera angle that is positioned far too high above your character and some lazy voice-acting.
But The Phantom Menace also has a lot of merit. It’s a snapshot of a much different time in the history of licensed video games, when developers were struggling to make 3D experiences that felt like true interactive versions of the moves they were based on. Eventually, this practice became much too expensive and difficult to create with a release date guaranteed to coincide with the release of a film, so now we see movies flock to the mobile space for their licensed games.
You know what, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut this time. Except to say this: If Masters of Teräs Käsi gets some sort of lionizing reappraisal next, a straitjacket's getting appended to my wardrobe rack.
Source: The RetroBeat
That's the speculation over at SegmentNext, who point out the possible significance of a new job opening at Double Fine:
According to a recent job listing, Double Fine Productions was seeking a Game Scripter to implement “amazing writing and story moments” into Psychonauts 2. The position was closed a month ago and was on a contract basis of six months, which is just about the same time as when the game is expected to be done.
The six-month period also ties up Psychonauts 2 around the release window of next-generation consoles, which in this case implies that the long-awaited sequel could possibly be a launch title for Xbox Series X. Double Fine Productions was already revealed to be working with next-generation technology last December through a different job listing. Hence, seeing Psychonauts 2 release for Xbox Series X at launch will hardly be surprising.
As someone who's fallen somewhat behind on console platforms (any Wii U titles you want to recommend, for when I finally open the box?), I can't say this does much to change my position of I Sure Hope My PC Can Run This, but what do the rest of you think about Psychonauts 2 possibly angling for release on next-gen consoles? And when will Thrik relaunch Razputin's Domain now that Psychonauts 2 is coming out?
In short, hassle Thrik.
Source: SegmentNext
