When Disney ceased all development at LucasArts earlier this year, the press around it was focused on the cancelled Star Wars projects, such as Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault. However, according to an extensive interview by Kotaku with former developers at various branches of the company, there were quite a few projects in the works that were also cancelled that the public didn't know about.
One of the projects revealed was a high definition remake of Day of the Tentacle, which was being developed by LucasArts Singapore. Apparently, it was never officially greenlit, but the staff who were interviewed about it's existence estimated it at about 80% completed.
Campo Santo is a new game studio formed by Jake Rodkin and his fellow Idle Thumbs founder and co-lead on Telltale's The Walking Dead and Puzzle Agent 2, Sean Vanaman. Co-founding the studio with them are the lead designer of Mark of the Ninja, Nels Anderson, and artist Olly Moss.
Their first game will be coming out for Windows, OS X, and Linux, and is funded by, and will be a collaboration with, Oregon-based Panic Inc. There's no news about what kind of game it will be, so the game may not be one that's covered on this site, but I decided to post the news here regardless, due to their pedigree.
Cognition, the four part episodic mystery adventure game by Phoenix Online Studios and story consultant Jane Jensen is now complete with the release of the final episode, The Cain Killer.
Paintaria is a free adventure game made with the Wintermute Engine. It follows a young man who managed to erase all colors from the world (except for red). Now he finds himself in the new world of Paintaria, where he decides to fix the mess he caused.
As was teased earlier this year, Night Dive Studios (the company behind the System Shock 2 re-release and the people behind the teasers for a possible re-release of the classic LucasArts adventures) has managed to secure the rights to re-release the classic adventure I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
The Legend of Kyrandia, the classic adventure game by Westwood Studios has been out of print for some time now. That has changed, at least digitally, since the game's current intellectual property holders, Electronic Arts, have released the game on GOG.com for only $5.99 USD.
The finale of the Erica Reed mystery adventure series Cognition, by Phoenix Online Studios and story consultant Jane Jensen, will be released next Thursday, September 19th. Episode 4: The Cain Killer will finally wrap up the series, but it's left to be seen whether Erica Reed, the detective with retrocognitive abilities, will get all the answers she seeks.
His first Kickstarter campaign may not have been successful, but we will still see a Bill Tiller (lead artist of Curse of Monkey Island, creator of A Vampyre Story and Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island) adventure later this year.
He is working with IF Games, which is a new game studio opened by the Swiss animation house Boutiq, on a two part adventure game for the iPad titled The Perils of Man. Each part will contain between 2 to 3 hours of gameplay. It involves time travel that will revolve around events through time that "spans 150 years, darting from a tramp
freighter adrift in the South China seas to impending disaster at the
Chicago World's Fair, bringing a host of unforgettable characters,
perilous exploits, and existential riddles along for the ride." You will explore the "mysterious chronicle of history’s disasters and catastrophes", and use your ability to "timewalk to real-world events from the gilded age
of scientific invention."
Both parts will be released completely for free, since the game serves as an advertisement for the 150-year anniversary of the insurance company Swiss Re. The game will not be cluttered with ads for the insurance company, however, as the only branding in the game is said to be the Swiss Re logo in the game's credits. The exploration of risk throughout the gameplay itself and the game's storyline serve as the advertisement. The game is said to contain a "special gameplay mechanic that reveals a hidden matrix of cause and effect". And you will "command the fates of thousands by mastering a hidden technology that gives the player the ability to foresee risk."
The first part will be released for the iPad this October, and the second part is expected to be released some time before the end of this year.
