Round-Up: Bone Distribution Online, Mushiking Arrives Stateside, Sawyer Leaves Midway

Today's round-up includes news of indie episodic digital distribution from the Telltale Games crew, the importation of beetles into North America in arcade cabinet form, and the seeming news of another departure from the Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows team, as well as the latest product news and Gamasutra job postings. - Telltale Games, former LucasArts employees and current developer of the upcoming Jeff Smith-licensed Bone, has announced that the first four chapters of the game will be released through Telltale Now, its proprietary online delivery system. The independent developer will bypass traditional retail publishing arrangements in favor of exclusive online downloads for this PC title, the current plan for which is to charge $20 per chapter. The first downloadable chapter of the game, which hearkens back to point-and-click adventure titles, is scheduled for release in September 2005. - GameWorks, an North American arcade chain co-owned by Sega, will introduce Sega's Japanese beetle-battling arcade CCG hit Mushiking to seven of its locations as a structured launch to build awareness and a community of players. The arcade game uses physical cards for players to battle one another by strategy, and units are connected to one another for ease of tournament play. 50 units are present in the first seven locations, with another 16 on their way to other GameWorks locations within the next two weeks. Mushiking has, notably, recently topped the Japanese software charts in Game Boy Advance form. - Days after John Romero's exit from Midway comes apparent news, via the MistressLair website messageboard, that J.E. Sawyer, the other project lead besides Romero on Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, has also left the company. According to forum posts from Sawyer, the designer's final day at Midway was Friday, July 15th. Sawyer further elaborated that he's left his position at Midway to rejoin former Black Isle colleagues at Obsidian Software to work on Neverwinter Nights 2. Asked if Gauntlet had been completed yet, given that both of its leads were now gone from the company, Sawyer responded with a terse "Nope." - Also updated today: product news including confirmation of four new games using the Trinigy game engine, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings from companies including Activision/Toys For Bob, Blizzard Console, Factor 5, Gameloft, Rockstar Vancouver, Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Turbine.