Majesco To Bring Humongous Point And Click Adventures To Wii

Author: by Leigh Alexander, Brandon Boyer

Majesco Entertainment (Cooking Mama, Cake Mania) has announced a new agreement to bring Humongous character games to the Wii in mid-2008. Now best known for its Backyard sports game series, Humongous was originally co-founded by LucasArts vet Ron Gilbert, now creative director at Hothead Games. The company produced adventure and critical-thinking games for kids, including Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam and Spy Fox titles. The companies say the Humongous catalog has sold more than 15 million units. The titles currently announced for the Wii include back catalog CD-ROM games originally released throughout the 1990s, including Freddi Fish in Kelp Seed Mystery, Pajama Sam in Don't Fear the Dark and Spy Fox in Dry Cereal, updated to utilize the Wii Remote for their point-and-click gameplay. Interestingly, a majority of Humongous titles were created using the SCUMM engine, the same employed by LucasArts for nearly all of its classic point and click adventures like Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, suggesting these new titles will be using a newly created Wii version of the widely ported ScummVM software. Interactive Game Group, founded by former Atari Interactive CEO Frederic Chesnais, is responsible for bringing the games to the Wii through a license with Humongous, with stateside distribution through Majesco, and Atari Europe slated to distribute the upcoming titles overseas. Majesco CEO Jesse Sutton commented, "For more than a decade, Humongous has continued to create some of the most memorable and successful interactive entertainment properties for children. Their characters have demonstrated both tremendous staying power and widespread consumer appeal, and we think this kind of family-friendly content is well- suited to the Wii system."