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Tex Murphy's familiar faces and the appeal of FMV in a CG age
The Tex Murphy: Project Fedora Kickstarter is fully funded, and even looks in reach of surpassing its $450,000 goal by a solid $100,000 when the campaign expires on Saturday, June 16. Then the real work begins.Project Fedora will be shot in Tex Murphy's classic full-motion video, with series creator Chris Jones returning as the man in the hat. Not that it's the same hat."Unfortunately, the original fedora has been crushed so many times it makes me look like Jed Clampett about to go to his favorite fishing hole," Jones tells Joystiq. Never fear, keepers of continuity: Project Fedora's trench coat is the same one from the previous Tex Murphy titles. Germophobes, maybe ignore that bit of insider information.Along with a slightly updated wardrobe, Project Fedora is taking advantage of technological advances in FMV that weren't accessible 20 years ago. "CG is used in action movies more often than not these days and I have no doubt that FMV could be integrated much more effectively – and with less effort – than back in the day," Jones says. "Today, with fewer restrictions and limitations, we can do it even better."
Tex Murphy may be revived as a Kickstarter proposal
Before we say anything here, make sure you've got a firm grasp on your wallet because it might just jump out of your pocket. The odds are very good that Tex Murphy is coming back in a new game ... funded by Kickstarter. Whoa there! Hang on to that wallet, there's no place to spend your money just yet, kid!As announced by the trailer above, Big Finish Games indeed has plans to start up a Kickstarter page on May 15, and try to round up fan-based funding for a sixth game in the fondly remembered full-motion video adventure series. What they're asking for right now is ideas on what to offer in the Kickstarter campaign, as well as written or video testimonials from fans extolling the series' virtues, to be delivered to the company's contact page.On May 15, the page is supposed to go live, and at that point you can donate to your heart's content. Chris Jones, who both designed the games and plays Tex Murphy himself, is obviously on board, because you can see him mugging in character with the latest People magazine right there in the video.
Mozilla planning a Chrome OS-like operating system for phones and tablets
The jury is still out on whether Chromebooks will sell like hotcakes (we're guessing not), but no matter to Mozilla. The organization behind Firefox has plans to develop its own operating system for mobile devices -- a clear shot across the bow at Google's browser-based Chrome OS. In a page on Mozilla's own wiki, a handful of senior developers announced their intentions to create a "complete, standalone operating system for the open web" running HTML5 apps. The OS, codenamed "Boot to Gecko," will be designed with tablets and handsets in mind, says Mike Shaver, the foundation's VP of technical strategy. And here's the fascinating part: the OS will rely on Google's own Android drivers and kernel to boot the device. In a Google Groups discussion thread, the lead devs said they chose Android over a Linux stack since so many device makers have focused their efforts on Android, and it makes sense to "reuse its lower layers." Still, they insist that they otherwise intend to borrow from it as little as possible. Obviously, don't hold your breath for Firebooks, as the project's very much in its infancy, but in the meantime there's some mighty interesting conversation happening in that discussion thread about Mozilla's lofty end game: breaking "the stranglehold of proprietary devices over the mobile device world." [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
