OCTOBER 27, 2004

 

THIS GAME IS BUGGY ON PURPOSE

How about GotGame Entertainment’s announcement that they would be republishing the cult classic Bad Mojo! CEO Howard Horowitz promises that the release will appeal to everyone as those who have the original will want to play the updated version and newer adventure gamers will just want to experience this classic game – and all this for only $19.99. My question is, what will this do to the over-inflated prices for classic games on Ebay and, if Bad Mojo is successful, can we then expect other adventure publishers to jump on the retro bandwagon? Look for a interview with Howard soon as we ask that probing question, “Are you buggy?”

 

LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S JOSH MANDEL!

No, not Howie Mandel - though for all I know Josh may have worn some Trojan headgear in his time. Some of you may remember that Josh used to work for a little company named Sierra where he had a hand (and probably some other body parts also) in such classics as Freddy Pharkas, Leisure Suit Larry and many more too numerous too mention.

Now Josh is cooking up something new as he and Producer Kathleen Bober have just wrapped-up production on TRIVIAL PURSUIT: THE SNL EDITION (Saturday Night Live). It's a board game that comes with a DVD, and the DVD is used for the "wedge" questions" and the ‘For The Win’ questions. Josh was the lead designer and question writer for the DVD portion of the game (525 questions); Hasbro handled the card questions (an additional 1800 questions). We’ve not yet been able to confirm the rumor that Josh will play on a recurring character – The Pastry Man – on future episodes of SNL.

 

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN

I’m not sure if they sang when they reached the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, but a group of intrepid developers recently returned from a real life adventure. Britney Brimhall and Chris Warren, co-founders of Himalaya Studios, LLC (King’s™ Quest I VGA and King’s™ Quest II VGA remakes), spent the entire month of August traversing the untamed plains of Africa entirely by bike. You can follow their daily adventures without ever leaving the comfort of your easy chair here: http://www.himalayastudios.com/africa_blog.htm.

 

SO SCARY, YOU’LL WET YOUR DEPENDS

We’ve already given away more than 100 games this year and we’re not done yet! We’ll soon have giveaways for Myst IV: Revealation, Syberia II for the Xbox, Return to Mysterious Island and more. But to celebrate Halloween, we are giving away a rare, boxed copy of The Dark Eye. Voted as the scariest adventure game of all-time by Just Adventure, this is one game you truly don’t want to play with the lights out.

 

FREE GAMES! FREE GAMES! FREE GAMES!

We have scads of free games available at the JA Game Portal. Enjoy free downloads of BeTrapped!, Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Chicken Invaders and dozens of other great casual games. All of the downloads offer limited playtime after which you must pay to purchase the full version, but by then you’ll be so hooked that you’ll be throwing money at us!

We also this month have an offer for JA readers to download Starscape an addictive shooter with some adventure elements. If you need a change of pace and have an itchy trigger finger, then Starscape is for you.