Udvarnoky

I stumbled on this forum thread that does a deep dive into the strange history of Hulabee Entertainment, the would-be spiritual successor to Humongous Entertainment. The backstory for the unfamiliar: Humongous changed hands a few times over its existence, first in 1996 when it was sold to GT Interactive. This was a "benevolent" acquisition along the lines of Double Fine and Microsoft, with the studio continuing to enjoy some kind of creative autonomy. However, GT in turn sold the studio off to Infogrames in 1999, and that's when Humongous aficionados will tell you things went sour. The founders of the studio - that would be Ron Gilbert and Shelley Day (producer of Monkey Island 2, among other titles) felt similarly, and they consequently made an attempt to buy back the company. In the end they couldn't put the money together due to the dot-com bust, and instead they founded a new company, Hulabee. The potential for Hulabee to be a continuation of the spirit of classic-era Humongous can be seen in their 2002 release Moop and Dreadly, a point 'n click adventure along the lines of Putt-Putt and Pajama Sam that even had Dave Grossman as writer. Alas, Hulabee ran into financial problems that saw their offerings quickly devolve into the lamest sort of mid-2000s casual licensed game dreck, and the tawdry ignominy of it all culminated when Shelley Day got busted for bank fraud. Anyway, if you're interested in some archeology of this less-than-beloved company, you may want to give that thread a read.

As per the latest Mojo newsletter, it turns out there is custom dialog when you try to "Turn Off" or "Turn On" the grog vending machine at Stan's shipyard. That leaves the lines untriggerable in the VGA CD version because it just knew better about what verbs you needed in its elitist new economical interface. Just further proof that the VGA CD version Monkey 1 is, objectively, the devil. As if you needed it.

The Devil's Playhouse soundtrack dropping April 17th.

Great interview. I have to say the more we learn about Iron Phoenix’s development, the less clear it becomes. The narrative/timeline I had understood for the longest time was: 1) The project initiates under Joe Pinney, who establishes the basic concept. 2) Pinney leaves the studio and Aric Wilmunder steps in to continue where he left off, developing a much, much more detailed design document to prepare for the largely outsourced production that LucasArts management decided to sign up for. 3) The external studio fails to deliver, which is more or less what kills the project. Aric explores the FMV route as a Hail Mary pass to do the art/animation quicker and cheaper, but ultimately the project withers away. The involvement of Dave Grossman and Mike Levine in these FMV tests throws things into a bit of confusion, because it suggests the FMV idea started earlier in development. Dave makes it sound like he got assigned to the project right after Pinney left, possibly as the lead, and that FMV had in fact been a proposed direction for a while leading up to that. Does that place his involvement during a brief transitional period before Aric took over? The history of aborted Indy games in the early 90s remains one of our most enduring enigmas.

Today's Frantic is a scandal. I'm writing my congressman.

Watching the playthrough of Fate, I was reminded of how even-handed the game is as a tribute to all three games of the series at the time. Where did those MIDIs of CMI tracks come from? Were those always around?

A Shtick to the Past will remain there, though Ron's pivoting to another game that supposedly releases in only a few months.

I think there's some real sketchy puzzle design in Grim, but the broad assertion that all the good parts of the game are non-interactive is major hyperbole and part of a narrative (one that, as you point out, finds a lot of sympathy in the comments) that makes Jimmy's take more familiar than dissenting. That Grim would have benefited from superior puzzles is a far cry from "Why is it a game at all?" but the former is more the position I take on it.

Great work! I gave them the boutique treatment and filed them under their own galleries. That catchall EMI Press gallery is due for some cleanup. https://mixnmojo.com/media/galleries/Computer-Games-Magazine-Feature-September-2000 https://mixnmojo.com/media/galleries/Playstation-Magazine-Review-2001

That's what makes me so curious about what Iron Phoenix would have looked like had it actually gotten made. I suspect it would have been very close to The Dig, where the majority of the game would have inclined toward a relatively realistic style akin to Fate of Atlantis, but with the cutscenes being significantly cartoonier. The storyboards we have look a lot like the FMV stuff in The Dig to me:

Not as much as I'm looking forward to watching somebody with the requisite hardware play it! Probably we can all agree that video games are the way to go with Indy going forward. I'm still baffled that an animated series never turned up, though.

I don't think the failure of Dial had to do with the quality of the movie or the marketing (though I certainly question the expense of a Rolling Stones song as the calling card for the trailers and TV spots). As a movie property at least, Indy just doesn't have a lot of currency among people beneath a certain age, and Skull already Hoover'd up the "long-anticipated revival of a legacy franchise" money. Skull was impervious to word of mouth -- the last memory of the series was the beloved Last Crusade, so everybody wanted to see it for themselves to form their own opinion. In addition, the idea of Spielberg/Lucas/Ford joining forces again still kind of meant something as a marketing hook in 2008, even to younger audiences. Dial was in just the opposite position. In some respects, I suspect Dial was left to settle Skull's check. Besides which, Disney/Lucasfilm did practically nothing to keep the property active since Skull's release, whereas by contrast they've been outright overprinting Star Wars, with oodles of movies and TV shows. Left unexploited, Indy firmly became Dad Movie material, and there was no multi-generational Top Gun: Maverick situation in the wings because Skull already got to fire that bolt. Combine that with all the weird, manufactured internet narratives that began before the movie even started shooting, a box office era that has proven time and time again to be merciless to movies that skew older (and the demographic data showed that Dial did), and a COVID-inflated budget, and you have all kinds of fine reasons for this to have failed before you even consider the movie itself. I'm not suggesting creative moves weren't made that might have turned audiences off, but an audience has to see a movie before they can hate it. I for one am pleased that Disney made this financial mistake, because I think, arguments over quality aside, it finishes the series on a much more appropriate note than Skull did. Future marathons are going to be a lot more satisfying now. Disney's balance sheet is somebody else's problem.

I guess he's indicting the puzzle in Year Four where you have to set fire to the flammable packing foam to bring it to the intention of the demons as a fuel source. It calls upon information you learned in Year One.

Oh they're smashing idols today over at The Digital Antiquarian. The latest piece is on Grim Fandango, and it's a spicy one.

Always does. If anything from Staff of Kings merits reprisal, it's him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSjbjoPAsJM