Look, I’m not gonna lie. This post is probably about trying out a beta feature. Probably? Entirely. But why not do so with a classic piece of trivia to do so? Double the fun if you so like.
Sure, most of Mojo’s esteemed readership recognize that little chestnut, but you’d be surprised that many aren’t familiar with the alternate ending.
This weekend was The Xbox Showcase, and it was a natural venue for showing off more of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. That’s probably why they up and did it:
The release date remains merely “2024”, so the odds seem good that this will be dropped just before the ball in Times Square does.
Source: Bethesda Softworks
While we don’t front page every last instance of it, since at a certain point we’d just be functioning as a mirror of Ron Gilbert’s Mastodon page (not that we’re above that in principle - only in work ethic), it’s worth reminding those with ordered priorities that Ron fairly routinely volunteers glimpses of his upcoming RPG A Schtick to the Past (working title) there, for example this one from a few days ago:
I don't know much, but if Ron can’t come up with some arrangement with Limited Run to print a couple of novelty Game Boy Advance cartridges for this, a lot of dreams are gonna be murdered.
Source: Ron's Mastodon
You don’t pass the twenty-five year milestone in the fan site business without learning a few tricks of the trade. One of them is to maintain a “rainy-day fund” of news items that have an evergreen quality, unburdened by topicality. And on a fine, quiet Sunday like today, why not fish one out of the sack?
Back in 1991, a gamer wrote in to Nintendo Power magazine to report an exploit involving Nurse Edna in the NES version of Maniac Mansion, getting his finding published in the May issue. Today, and by today I mean five years ago, “Agent #912” took to Reddit to claim credit for his five minutes of fame, and he brought along the receipts:
Now then: what have you done?
Source: Reddit
A bunch of Gary Winnick’s concept art from his Lucasfilm Games days is up for sale over at Heritage Auctions. I don’t know how this came to pass or how that site works, but you’re still going to want to browse the lot. Probably the most intriguing item is this early set of character designs for The Secret of Monkey Island. Who knew Gary did concept art for that game?
I couldn’t even tell you what characters those are supposed to represent. The leftmost one is presumably an early take on Guybrush, and the guy on the right is a credible match for that Governor Phatt-esque character who was found in the resource files but didn’t make it into the final game:
Anyway, you’ll want to check all of it out, and to pass judgment on the mislabeling of Maniac Mansion pieces as belonging to Day of the Tentacle. Such humiliations are the sort any business runs the risk of when they’re too cheap to spring for The Mojo Audit.
Source: Heritage Auctions
I wouldn’t blame you for not believing this, but sometimes, not often, but now and again, we actually do some work on future sections of this site. Case in point is the elusive MojoDB, which… may become a thing at some point.
Unattainable deadlines aside, having added quite a bit of trivia to the prototype, it increasingly occurred to me that many are unaware of the breadth of details found in Return to Monkey Island. Long story short, instead of putting more work into the database, I ended up writing an article called “ICYMI: Return to Monkey Island.” Actually, “article” might be overselling it. “Listicle” might be a more apt description. But, no matter! Give it a perusal to learn about the hidden Pineapple Man, dangling electrical plugs, the Scumm Bar cook’s extensive rebuilding plans, and more.
If nothing else, it might spur you into replaying the game—or just browse The SCUMM Bar’s ReMI database. Either way, go read “ICYMI: Return to Monkey Island.” It’s basically scholarly material.
During Mojo’s Monthly Metrics Meeting, Zaarin presented some unexpected data. Numbers show that Mojo’s most-visited page is our September 2022 article, “The Secret of Cogg Island.” Hearing the news, the 
raised an eyebrow and gave a slight nod, which said it all: More Cogg Island content was needed. And so, we have added a second page to the article called “Puzzling Puzzles.” In it, we take a short look at what likely was the location’s five main puzzles: “Symbol Puzzle,” “Clock Puzzle,” “Compass Puzzle,” “Oar Puzzle,” and “Cannon Puzzle.”
While our findings weren’t plentiful, there’s enough fodder there for at least a decade or two of speculations. So, go read unless you’re a complete butt.
If you love Monkey Island and want everyone on the seven seas to know it, Devolver Digital's got Return to Monkey Island goods up for preorder.
Just taken a long walk off a short plank? There's a Bella Fisher towel. Yer timbers be shiverin'? Warm up with some Guybrush socks. Eyeballin' your enemies on a tense table and need some style to your swig? Try the Pirate Leaders lowball glass.
There's also stuff from gems like Cult of the Lamb and indie darling Inscryption, if those strike your fancy. Take a look here.
The future marches on, and so does Grim Fandango. Old Lost Soul Alliance webmaster, Bone Man (aka Dean), sent us word of a remaster of the remaster called Grim Fandango Remaster HD. It’s exactly what you'd imagine: An AI-scaled version of Grim Fandango Remaster OG. Think higher resolution and 32-bit color, wisely set in the old 4:3 ratio. Downside: It only works with the Steam version of the game.
The result is undoubtedly impressive, and you should run, not walk, over to the project’s website for more information.
Source: Reddit Announcement
Sure, none of this is actually “news” as such, but as pointed out by TimeGentleman over in the forums, Ron “Ronzo” Gilbert’s upcoming RPG-Adventure (known colloquially as A Little Something) has a small write-up in Eurogamer. If you follow the man over on the Linux-of-social-networks, Mastodon, you’ve seen all of this before, but hey, it’s nice that the game is getting some love.
Plus, I had not noticed that Wally would potentially make an appearance.
Return to Monkey Island—more commonly known as ReMI on various Discords—is set to hit Apple’s subscription service this June. Or, more specifically, Return to Monkey Island+ will. My guess is that the + indicates the game will be playable on both Mac and i[Pad]OS.
Everybody needs more ReMI in their lives, so check it out on June 6th.
Update: The has bestowed upon his wisdom and informed us that the + indicates that downloadable content was included. That could mean that a) the Mac version includes the horse armor or b) as the iOS version has a sandboxed demo, the full game could be the +.
Source: The Verge
Matthew Shell, a long-time LucasArts and then Disney employee credited on over 60 video games, has suddenly passed away.
Described as an “incredible person with a huge heart,” Shell was primarily an ambassador for Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, most recently 2023’s Star Wars: Jedi Survivor.
Ray Almeda, Global PR Lead for the EA SPORTS portfolio, wrote : “We will miss his jokes, love for Sticky Toffee Pudding, BBQ expertise, celebrating Warriors championships the night of, and of course his profound fandom for his SF Giants. Rest in Paradise my friend and May the Force be with you, always.”
Our condolences go out to his loved ones.
If you’re the type who loves Psychonauts 2 and physics with equal passion, then Double Fine has just the article for you: “Behind the Code: Designing Raz' Jump.”
What’s it all about? Math and science, basically. But, fun math and science! Math and science that made the game fun! And, in that sense, you probably should read it. If nothing else, I’m fairly sure you can use it for your dissertation.
We try to keep track of the fantastic work Jimmy Maher does over at The Digital Antiquarian, especially when his comprehensive inquiry into the totality of video game history (because that’s more or less what his efforts amount to) leads him to LucasArts’ sizable contributions to that story.
The Herodotus of interactive amusement, who’s been at this since 2011, has arrived at the mid-to-late-90s in his ongoing chronicle, and in LucasArts terms that has brought us two terrific articles just this month: one examining Jedi Knight and another published only yesterday in evaluation of The Curse of Monkey Island. As usual it’s good stuff and inspires good engagement from commenters who might already be familiar to you.
If you’re unfamiliar with the site itself, you may well want to check out all the LucasArts-related posts over the years, the links for which we collect here for your convenience. Or you can just, you know, stop stagnating at the junior varsity level and read it all from the beginning.
Source: The Digital Antiquarian
If an open world, single player action adventure Star Wars game gets your blood going, then add Star Wars Outlaws to your bounty list.
Developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, Outlaws is targeting PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on August 30, 2024. The game centres on a major heist and is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, a brief halcyon period where not everyone was related to everyone else in a galaxy far, far away.
Source: YouTube
On April 1st, Lucasfilm.com ran a little commemoration of their Monkey Island series. And in keeping with the spirit of April Fools, they used the Special Edition cover art as the header.
We try to be pretty “It’s the thought that counts” when it comes to these valentines that the copyright holder has been willing to throw toward its legacy titles, so let’s remind ourselves that it wasn’t so long ago that even these passing mentions were seemingly verboten as a matter of company policy. And while the write-up may be on the fluffy side, I do see something noteworthy in this paragraph, emphasis mine:
The original game was followed by Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge the next year. A total of six games in the series would be released over the decades, bringing the tale of Monkey Island™ to a close in Return to Monkey Island in 2022. But that wasn’t the last we’d see of Guybrush Threepwood; players got to experience another tall tale of his adventures in a 2023 crossover event with the swashbucklers in Sea of Thieves.
Lucasfilm never was able to get its own story straight when it came to whether they saw Return as a series conclusion or not. Guess they’re back to their original stance. For today.
Source: Lucasfilm.com
That risen phoenix of Monkey Island fan sites, The Legend of Monkey Island, continues to walk the walk by resurrecting the long-offline web comic adaptation of The Secret of Monkey Island by artist Paco Vink. Like a number of masterpieces, it stands unfinished, but that only compounds its mystique.
Legendofmi.com’s coup was accomplished by brokering a deal with Dalixam, the webmaster of the defunct World of MI fan site (the comic’s original custodian), a brutal negotiation that sources say took an army of attorneys eighteen months to hammer out. But in the end, the unwholesome favors were exchanged, the blood debts were paid, and the copyrights transferred. Better still, the comic is being offered in higher resolution than was the case in its first-run presentation, so you really need to check it out with some urgency.
When it comes to the (apparent) arms race of hosting legacy fan content of premium caliber, The SCUMM Bar is hardly going to allow itself to fall behind. That’s why it’s now the licensed home of Marius Winter’s celebrated Monkey Island flash videos. These include the one man band's adaptations of the first two games along with his breakout “I Wonder What Happens in… Tales of Monkey Island” speculation videos, a tightly scheduled bit of inspiration that Telltale itself wisely made part of the series’ official hype machine throughout its episodic release back in 2009-2010.
As they say, healthy competition benefits the consumer. As for unhealthy competition, like the sort we’re witnessing? Well, I think the sky’s the limit.
Source: The Legend of Monkey Island
According to The Hollywood Reporter, comedic actor/writer Joe Flaherty, best known as a cast member of the brilliant Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV, has died at the age of 82.
In Mojo World™, Flaherty has the distinction of starring in the polarizing live action television adaptation of Maniac Mansion, which ran for three seasons on YTV in Canada and The Family Channel (replete with an artificial laugh track) in the U.S. As we once attempted to chronicle, the show began its life as a pitch that was said to be along the lines of The Addams Family or The Munsters, with the Edisons naturally assuming the role of the kooky spoof of a gothic horror household. Though there aren’t really any details to go on, the impression is that it would have been a fairly loose but recognizable adaptation of the game.
However, the project was ultimately offered to SCTV alumnus Eugene Levy who, when he expressed disinterest in the series bible he had been handed, was told he had creative carte blanche to shape the show into whatever vision he liked. What resulted was a self-aware parody of the conventional sitcom (think It’s Garry Shandling’s Show) and something of an SCTV reunion project - with Flaherty’s casting as Dr. Fred being only the most obvious connection - rather than anything that resembled the story, flavor, or really much at all beyond the title, of the computer game. The show nevertheless attracted a cult following and squeaked past the magic 65-episode number that led it to be regularly syndicated in Canada for years after its cancellation. No proper home video or streaming release has materialized to date.
Flaherty is also known for the many appearance he made in movies and other television shows. To people of a certain age group, he might be most immediately recognizable as the Western Union guy at the end of Back to the Future Part II:
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Humble Bundle is bundling Humongous Entertainment adventure games, including Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, and Pajama Sam. You can grab the lot for as little as $14.99.
Humongous Entertainment was founded by Ron Gilbert and Shelley Day after their departure from LucasArts. The company developed adventure games aimed at children, with credits listing ex-LucasArts talent like Dave Grossman and Annie Fox on the regular. Ron Gilbert's especially proud of his games at Humongous.
If that all sounds like fun or you have young children you want to corrupt into playing adventure games, now's your chance.
Source: Humble Bundle
