Kickstarter for Ken Allen's Orchestrated Sierra Music

Under the Half Dome is an album of orchestrated recordings by Ken Allen of the music that he composed while he was at Sierra (as well as some of his favorite scores from non-Sierra games).

There are some really interesting tiers to choose from (enough that the project is included on Forbes' list of the 10 Most Clever Kickstarter Rewards), including a T-shirt with the first page of the handwritten score for "Back to the Sequel", the opening of Space Quest IV at $75, the chance to write 350 words on the liner notes about your love for Sierra's music and/or games at $100, a vinyl edition of the game at $125, actually getting a chance to perform on the recording for "Space Questin" (the ZZ Top inspired song from Space Quest I VGA), and a song written by Ken Allen for you that you are free to use for any family friendly purpose at $1,000 (and much more).

There's links to the some of the original recordings of the songs at the kickstarter page if you don't remember them (but you should, as they're quite catchy) or if you never played the games and want to hear what the fuss is all about, so head over to the Under the Half Dome kickstarter and pick a tier to support the project and help it make it's stretch goals ($20,000 USD for a live recording of "Space Questin" (less than $2,000 USD to go), $25,000 USD for live musicians on key tracks (the tracks in question are specified at the kickstarter), and $35,000 USD for a music video of the band performing Space Questin').

Update: The 24 tracks for the album have been revealed. The full track-listing can be seen here. Also, Ken Allen has put out a call for people to dance to the Space Questin' track for a video he's putting together. Details can be found here (note that the deadline for submitting dancing videos has been extended to February 21, the day that the kickstarter ends).

ResidualVM 0.1.1 "Lumbago Lemonade" Released

ResidualVM, the sister project of ScummVM designed to run Grim Fandango on modern systems (with official builds on Windows, Mac, and Linux), has received a bug fix update.

Although it's just a bug fix update, it's a big one. There's around 40 gameplay fixes for Grim Fandango in the newest release, including fixes for 14 bugs that were present in LucasArts' original 1998 release. ResidualVM is definitely the best way to run Grim Fandango, even if you have a computer that can handle the original executable.

Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey Kickstarter

The Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey Kickstarter is now live. The game is the conclusion of The Longest Journey series and will take place right where Dreamfall: The Longest Journey left off. The game will be a 3D combination direct control/point-and-click adventure where they control Zoë Castillo and an as-of-yet unrevealed male character (and one extra unrevealed playable character in addition to those two), and we'll also learn what happens to April Ryan, the protaganist of the original The Longest Journey.

Like other kickstarters, there are many tiers to choose from, including a higher tier with a physical box (in this case at the $75 tier).  So, if you want to help support the Dreamfall Chapters, pick a tier at the game's kickstarter page.

Double Fine Adventure Games Coming To Ouya

At the 2013 DICE summit, Ouya founder Julie Uhrman announced that Double Fine would be producing games for the upcoming kickstarter-funded $99 Ouya Android-powered video game console. According to Games Industry, Double Fine will be porting The Cave and their own kickstarter-funded adventure, Double Fine Adventure (codenamed "Reds"), to the console.

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded Postponed Until April

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, the crowd funded high definition remake of Leisure Suit Larry by N-Fusion and Replay Games which is being lead by series creator Al Lowe and writer Josh Mandel, has been postponed from March to April. In that post, Al Lowe assures fans that the game is coming along smoothly, and announces that a playable alpha will be released (for people who pledged at tiers high enough to get that perk) on the 16th of February.

Dominique Pamplemousse Done. Beta Testing Soon

Dominique Pamplemousse, the stop-motion musical adventure game by Deirdra Kiai which had an Indiegogo crowd funding campaign last year, is now finished. It's just about ready for beta testing, which will begin soon for Windows, Mac, and iPad.

If you missed the Indiegogo campaign, don't worry. The game will be available to purchase directly from Deirdra's website, as well as from the iTunes App store. She's also looking into other distribution avenues such as Steam and Desura, and is asking people to let her know which places they want to buy the game from.