Earthworm Jim Message Board

Pencil Test Studios, a company manned by one of the designers and two of the artists responsible for 1996's classic The Neverhood, is seeking $900,000 in crowdsourced funding via Kickstarter in order to fuel the creation of its new claymation point-and-click adventure project, Armikrog.

While story details are sparse, the game's overall premise is pretty straightforward: Tommynaut, a space explorer, and Beak-Beak, his blind, talking alien dog, crash land onto a "weird planet" and are somehow imprisoned in a fortress called "Armikrog." Assuming it's fully funded, the game will be available in both Steam and DRM-free flavors for PC, OSX and Linux.

In addition to being helmed by Neverhood alumni Doug TenNapel, Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield, Armikrog will also feature a soundtrack scored by Neverhood/Skullmonkeys composer Terry S. Taylor, in addition to voice work by Mystery Science Theater 3000/RiffTrax's Michael J. Nelson, Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, Rob Paulsen of every cartoon from your childhood, Tekzilla's Veronica Belmont and PvPOnline's Scott Kurtz.

Pencil Test Studios, a company manned by one of the designers and two of the artists responsible for 1996's classic The Neverhood, is seeking $900,000 in crowdsourced funding via Kickstarter in order to fuel the creation of its new claymation point-and-click adventure project, Armikrog.

While story details are sparse, the game's overall premise is pretty straight forward: Tommynaut, a space explorer, and Beak-Beak, his blind, talking alien dog, crash land onto a "weird planet" and are somehow imprisoned in a fortress called "Armikrog." Assuming it's fully funded, the game will be available in both Steam and DRM-free flavors for PC, OSX and Linux.

In addition to being helmed by Neverhood alumni Doug TenNapel, Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield, Armikrog will also feature a soundtrack scored by Neverhood/Skullmonkeys composer Terry S. Taylor, in addition to voice work by Mystery Science Theater 3000/RiffTrax's Michael J. Nelson, Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, Rob Paulsen of every cartoon from your childhood, Tekzilla's Veronica Belmont and PvPOnline's Scott Kurtz.

The continue countdown screen was introduced to arcades in the 80s. It was a simple and effective way of getting players to fork over more money. When you fail, the screen comes up for a limited time with a countdown to insert additional coins or press a button. Most of these games' continue screens were pretty basic—they used simple text or huge flashing numbers on a black background—but there were some really cool exceptions, like the one above from Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and like these below: Ninja Gaiden Street Fighter II Mortal Kombat 4 The Punisher Final Fight Final Fight 3 Primal Rage A lot of non-arcade games experimented with unique continue screen designs, too, nixing the traditional (and now useless) timer: Bayonetta Earthworm Jim Metal Gear Solid sources: GameOverScreens, NeoGAF, Bayonetta Wiki, SanguisArcangel There are many more! You should storm the comments with your favorite picks.

In addition to all that Mac OSX hoo-haa that happened earlier today, GOG announced a trio of pay-what-you-want Interplay bundles, featuring games such as Shattered Steel, Messiah, Earthworm Jim and Fallout.

Available for the next 14 days, the bundles' incentivized pricing structure should be familiar to anyone who's bought a Humble Bundle. Any price entered will purchase the basic bundle of eight Interplay games, which includes Conquest of the New World and Evolva, among other things. Paying more than the average price ($11.50 as of press time) unlocks 12 more games, and dropping down $35.00 or more brings the bundle's total up to 32 games.

The $35 bundle also includes 21 different soundtracks, 37 wallpapers, 410 pieces of artwork, a 205-page "Fallout Bible" and "much more." Click here for the full list of games in each bundle.

Is launching cows still fun 15 years later?