Purcell's Tales of Monkey Island Cover Revealed

Steve Purcell's Tales of Monkey Island cover art has been revealed. The art is a giant picture at the PAX game show. They are also selling the art in poster form at the show as well, so if you're one of the lucky ones who were able to get a ticket to the show, stop by the Telltale booth and buy yourself one!

UPDATE September 6, 2009: Telltale's Twitter page has a better image of the artwork up now.

LucasArts Rumor #1: Maniac Mansion SE

Here's a LucasArts rumor for a change! It is so fun to be able to post about adventure game rumors at LucasArts knowing that these rumors actually have a chance to come true now! :)

On July 4, 2009, Jan "Laserschwert" Hofmeister reviewed the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition soundtrack. With the music that he was given was a file that was listed in the review as "Bonus Track: Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx Xxxx Xxxxx (Xxxx Xxxxx)".

On the Mixnmojo forums, ATM machine posted "I'm pretty sure the mystery tune is "Maniac Mansion - Main Theme (Rock Remix), which was confirmed by Laserschwert.

LucasArts has stated that if the Secret of Monkey Island special edition sells well, they'll consider creating more special editions. The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition is indeed selling well, landing the #1 spot for downloads on Impulse, Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, and has been in the consistently in the top 5 in the iPhone App Store.

If the rumor of Telltale creating a Maniac Mansion episodic series turns out to be true, it's almost certain that LucasArts will re-release Maniac Mansion in some form in order to best maximize their profits on the series like they did with Tales of Monkey Island and the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition. With Maniac Mansion being a non-talkie game, it's very likely that they'll release a special edition over releasing the original on Steam.

With both the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition and the classic editions of LucasArts adventure games selling well on Steam, it's certain that Maniac Mansion will be re-released in some form in the future. With the chances of Telltale making an episodic adventure series based on Maniac Mansion being very high, the chances of Maniac Mansion getting a special edition are very high as well.

It would be great to see all of LucasArts non-talkie adventure games get the special edition treatment, but the first LucasArts SCUMM game would be a real treat. I loved the game on the NES, and I'd absolutely love seeing the game updated so modern audiences could enjoy it as well. :)

Telltale Rumor #2: Loom episodic series

After the last post about dramatic licenses, it's time to do another Telltale rumor feature!

Out of all the LucasArts properties, Loom seems the most unlikely for Telltale to choose for their episodic game model. However, recent comments have made the chances of a Loom episodic series coming into being increase dramatically.

In August 2009, in an interview with Total PC Gaming Magazine, when Telltale design director Dave Grossman was asked about LucasArts adventure game licenses, he stated "The one I always think about these days is Loom actually, and how ahead of its time it was. I think the problem with it at the time was that it was only two and a half hours long and now I find myself deliberately trying to design games that are only two and a half hours long. So I think... well, why not do that?"

Then, on September 3, 2009, in an interview with VG247, Telltale's CEO Dan Connors stated that Telltale was going to announce a new dramatic episodic series, rather than their usual comedy series.

Dan Connors said, “We’ve always believed that there was a chance to get there as well. We want to continue to evolve the genre. We’ve already evolved the genre in a lot of ways in what we’ve done with Sam & Max and Wallace & Gromit… but we believe there’s a lot of head-room to make more dramatic advances in storytelling and drama inside of this genre.”

So, with Telltale deciding to take on more dramatic series outside of their already dramatic CSI series, and Dave Grossman wanting to do a Loom series more than any other LucasArts series, the chances of a Loom episodic series from Telltale actually seem to be pretty high.

I for one would love to see Loom continued. It's the one LucasArts game that I feel needs a sequel, since the original game ended on a cliffhanger. I just hope that if it does come to fruition, Loom creator Brian Moriarty will have an active role in the series.

CSI: Hard Evidence On Steam

Steam, Valve's direct download service for Windows, now has CSI: Hard Evidence available for nine US dollars.

This is the first time that any of Telltale's CSI games have been available for purchase through direct download services. Here's hoping that the game is added to Telltale's own download service, Telltale Now, along with CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder (Deadly Intent would be nice too in the distant future :)).

Mixnmojo's History of Grim Fandango

I've been contributing reader opinions on all of The International House of Mojo's LucasArts Secret History articles, but I keep forgetting to post about them here! >_< They are on LucasArts adventure game 13, not counting the first LucasArts adventure game, Labyrinth. The articles feature informative reviews by the Mixnmojo staff, opinions by readers of Mixnmojo about the games, behind the scenes interviews with the creators of the games, and a trivia section about fun stuff that you might have missed or might not have known about. Read the Grim Fandango Secret History, and then read the other Secret History articles in their review section. You won't be disappointed. :)

Also, Colin Panetta, the artist of the Grim Fandango header art in Mixnmojo's Grim Fandango Secret History article has updated updated his blog with a "making of" the header art and wallpapers for download.

New Telltale Games

VG247 conducted a phone interview with Dan Connors of Telltale.

In that interview, it was mentioned that Telltale will be announcing new titles within the next few months. According to Dan Connors, "There’ll be some combination of things. I think we’ll be sticking with some of the franchises we’ve worked with, and we’ll be announcing some new franchises, probably in some new genres as well, not just comedy.”

Sam & Max Season Three will almost certainly be among the old franchises, since Telltale had already announced that the new season of Sam & Max will debut this year.

It's interesting to note that Telltale is planning on working on a dramatic license. They have delved in more series licences before with their games for Ubisoft based on the CSI series, but never in their main episodic downloadable games.

1UP LucasArts Reunion

1UP has posted a video interview of several former LucasArts designers talking about their time at LucasArts, and talking a little bit about what they are up to today (or at least as of 2008, when this interview was filmed).

 

It's a group discussion, and features Ron Gilbert (project leader of Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games, co-leader of The Last Crusade), Dave Grossman (co-writer of the first two Monkey Island games, co-leader of Day of the Tentacle, and design director at Telltale Games), Noah Falstein (co-leader of Fate of Atlantis), Bill Tiller (lead background artist on The Curse of Monkey Island, lead artist on The Dig, and founder of Autumn Moon Entertainment), Larry Ahern (co-leader of The Curse of Monkey Island), Mike Levine (lead effects technician on The Dig, and co-founder of Crackpot Entertainment), and Tony Hsieh (programmer on many SCUMM titles, also the project leader on Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi).

It's a great interview. The group talks about almost every adventure game LucasArts released, from Labyrinth to The Curse of Monkey Island, as well as several non-adventure games. They talk about the different climate changes in the management at LucasArts over the years, what killed adventure games at LucasArts, as well as what killed good games in general at LucasArts, and what almost killed the adventure genre. There is also an interesting bit in the middle of the interview that talks about cancelled games at LucasArts as well as games by the people in the group that never got out of the planning stages.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and watch the video. It's really a great treat for any adventure game fan. :)