A glass-is-half-full personality is going to zero in on the positive elements of this new interview with Bill Tiller courtesy of the rakish charmers at Arcade Attack. After all, it offers delightful career anecdotes from one of the industry's best artists, including his time back at LucasArts (and the attendant travails under Randy Breen).
Unfortunately, it also offers this:
Do you think you will ever work on a new Vampyre Story game?
No, I have given up. I can’t raise enough money to do it and I don’t own the computer game rights, though I own all other rights. But I will do A Vampyre Story graphic novel next year. I am bummed we never got to do the sequel, so I’ll tell the whole story of Mona and Froderick through that medium instead.
[...]
What projects and games are you currently working on?
I was just working on a side scrolling game based on an idea I came up with called Miskantoic Mary, but I couldn’t devote enough time to it, so we cancelled it. I’ll make that into a kids book I think. Now I am looking for a full-time job and freelance work. I think I am done making my own games. They just didn’t make enough money and were very stressful to make. I’m off to do kids books, comic books and to work full time at a reliable game company.
Despite the headline, I don't honestly blame this turn of events entirely on Zaarin's failure to relaunch the Mojo forums by now after a clear mandate to do so, but let's face it: his dereliction of those duties probably did nothing to help.
One silver lining in all this grief is that we intend to celebrate A Vampyre Story's tenth anniversary in some way before the year is through, so look forward to that.
Source: Arcade Attack
jp-30
Don't ever say the word "Miskantoic" again.
Particularly seeing it's supposed to be "Miskatonic."
I've been a little harsh with Bill's games in the past, but I bought them all nonetheless and absolutely loved his usual amazing art style.
Also, I was hoping for a sequel to A Vampyre Story, which had its flaws but was really promising.
Same goes for Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island and Duke Grabowski, but my personal favorite has always been AVS.
This is terrible news.
I feel bad for Bill. His solo games never quite hit the spot for me, but his art is always great and you can't fault his enthusiasm and persistence over the years. His ideas could have worked a bit better if he would have been able to do it under the wing of a slightly bigger developer and 1 or 2 extra writers/designers, I think. But hell, I'll buy that Vampyre Story graphic novel when/if it comes out. I consider his later work to still be part of the Lucas extended family.