I'm thinking about making a few videos of the Humongous games to showcase why I think these games should come to GOG. (I'll try emailing them to an employee or two.) I feel most YouTube walkthroughs don't fully do the games justice, as they don't include most of the click-its and can sometimes feel like "speedruns".

Key feature: I plan on doing some voiceover work for the videos, emphasizing things like the important use of color and illustration styles, the game themes, the "click-its", the legacy of these games as evidenced on Reddit and YouTube, and (hopefully) more. I'm not a great speaker but I'll do my best.

I'm planning on starting with Pajama Sam. Let me know what you all think.

Sounds like a great idea! I often wish that I had the chance to play the Putt Putt games when I was young; and I am sure there are lots of people who DID play with Humongous games and that experience I am sure shaped their love for gaming.

Well, its officially 2014 (for some of the world at least), and with this comes a (in my opinion) very promising piece of news! It seems Nimbus has now officially rebranded itself as Humongous Entertainment! They have a brand new website at www.humongous.com, complete with a snazzy recoloring of the classic exclamation point logo! Assuming this is part of a new contract with Tommo, I'm rather interested to see what else the next few weeks/months will hold.

I wholeheartedly agree. I'd love to see lots of older kid's computer games finding a home on GOG (Carmen Sandiego, The Zoombinis, Oregon Trail, Dr. Brain, etc.). I mostly support HE because they are the games I'm most familiar with, and they have some rather standout qualities, like having ScummVM for easy support on modern systems, and the company being co-founded by Ron Gilbert of Maniac Mansion/Monkey Island fame.

Thanks, I actually wrote up a script of about 3 pages or so of what I want to talk about - popularity and sales potential, the games acting as a "gateway" to other p'n'c adventures, art direction, "clickits" and minigames increasing gameplay length, music styles, work put into characters, and the stories, especially Pajama Sam. That's about the gist ofit.

I'll probably have clips from a variety of HE games to emphasize my points, as I think I have a process I can use that will work.

This sound like a really neat idea.

One more thing you may want to showcase is how many of their games featured alternate pathways on different playthroughs, which also substantially increases gameplay time.
In Pajama Sam 1, for example, the Mask, Flashlight, and Lunchbox each have two locations where they could be with one being randomly(I think) being selected for any given playthrough.
Also, as I've gotten older, I really appreciate the little Easter Eggs in the games, like In Pajama Sam 2, if you have Sam put on the Hard Hat in the WWW lobby and wait, he does the "YMCA" dance as his idle animation, and in Freddi Fish 1's intro, she meets a fish that not only looks suspiciously like Putt-Putt, but is named Jason and voiced by Jason Ellefson, Putt-Putt's (then) voice actor.

I will definitely be mentioning this, and how the little "click-its" can add 1/2-1 hour of extra playtime in each game. :) It's not just "kiddie" puzzles where you bring x to y, there's a vivaciousness to the games.

Something I really think GOG needs to consider (and I mentioned in my OP here) is how these games can interest kids in other, more mature point and click adventures when they're older (act as a "gateway drug" to Gabriel Knight and co.), and GOG has plenty of those.

Getting these games onto GOG is probably my personal goal here. I think they'll get more attention than on Big Fish, and fit much better here than on Steam. (It just feels weird having to log in to a "bulky" client to let your kids play your games.)

I recognize Nimbus might not appreciate this, but I will continue to happily redirect people to their iOS/Android versions for those who want portable versions.

Here's some sales information I learned:

"In the height of sales [Humongous] were moving 60-90k units per title in the Holiday season. Especially with the Backyard series and Blues Clues. [Other] characters did well (Freddi, PJ Sam, etc) but ... were more in the 50,000 range."

Not obscure titles by any means! ;)

https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1507664_10151917175509226_1835917103_n.jpg

This image/illustration was posted on the Humongous Entertainment Alumni page. From what I gathered it was drawn as the staff were coming up with a character who would eventually be Pajama Sam. This was "Pumpkinhead Boy".

EDIT: Also, check out this staff picture feat. Ron Gilbert and others: https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/p526x296/1533870_10152156678640985_1143629877_n.jpg

Dunno if you knew, Double-Fine Game Club hosts these live plays of games every week, and they did Pajama Sam before, and this week (and last week) they are doing Pajama Sam 3, with guest appearance and Q&A by Dave Grossman (and maybe possibly Ron!).

http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/11510/

Cool, thanks! I create an account but I guess I have to wait some time before I can comment on the DF forums.

The liveplay will be on twitch.tv and the discussion will be going on in their IRC channel (there are instructions there how to access both, I think). Hope to see you there this saturday!

I was too old (or not old enough :P) to enjoy Humongous's stuff when it initially came out, but from what I've seen of these plays, they do appear to be solid games.

Not sure if this was mentioned before, but the website Adventure Gamers has a list of most of the HE games, and has reviewed the 3 that got Wii ports. They gave Freddi Fish 1 a 3/5 while Pajama Sam 1 and Dry Cereal each got 4/5. I think these reviews offer a good idea for fans of the genre of what to expect going into these games.

Welp IIRC the Humongous brand and all of its assets was the other thing that Tommo picked up in the Atari auction, so with BloodNet arriving at least indirectly from Tommo tomorrow it adds new hope for the Humongous titles turning up at some point too...
Be excited! Maybe!

I can dig it!