The International House of Mojo

I don't think I'm blinded. I think I judged the game against what it set out to be, which is surely the only sensible criteria. The game basically consists of three main objectives which can be solved in any order, so your complaint about linearity is really a complaint about the game's size.

The scope of Duke was made plain from day one. I'm sure Bill would love nothing more than to get cracking on a 20-hour adventure game, but publishers aren't exactly breaking his door down to finance those. The last publisher he was able to sign with was dtp back in 2008. And look at what happened with Duke - the team basically had to build a complete (albeit 2-hour) game themselves before a publisher even got interested. And as far as I can tell, the remaining episodes aren't a slam-dunk right now.

This is just the state of the business, and Bill doesn't have the marquee of Tim or Ron in order to crowdfound a seven figure budget. Look at what happened in 2013 when he tried to raise a comparatively humble $400k. He didn't even come close. And that was for another bite-sized game - who do you expect to fund a full-sized one?

With Duke he asked for $40k and that is all that was raised. That's nothing. In California that's probably not a competitive salary for a single junior programmer. When you subtract Kickstarter's cut and reward fulfillment, what was left probably went toward a few contractors getting paid less than their going rate to contribute a very limited amount of work. Grossman made a pass on the design in exchange for a favor rather than money. This game didn't even have opening and closing cutscenes until a publisher got involved.

All signs point to Duke being primarily made by a three-man team with day jobs who worked on it on nights and weekends for 18-24 months until a publisher came along in time for the last coat of paint (and, fingers crossed, more episodes). The team said in the initial campaign that it would be a 2-4 hour game, and that's what they delivered, and that's what I reviewed.

I'm not Bill's #1 fan and I already pissed him off once for my overly harsh critics.
This time's different anyway, and I'm with Bill: Duke's a fun 2-hours-stand-alone little game which you can buy for 5.99 on Steam.
Don't forget Duke was born as a small project from KS, while the other episodes are a different matter.
If the following episodes are going to be the same, then you're right.
Let's just wait for now.

We probably love so much Bill and Adventure games, we are blinded. I'm so disappointed by this game. Puzzles are too linear and there are no items to grab! Almost nothing, the inventory is quite useless.
Background art is awesome but, I'm sorry, that's not enough.
Another problem (also present in TOMI) is the episodes format: this make the game too linear, without the possibility to explore different islands/environments at the same time.
Sigh, let's hope for improvements in the next eps.

Hah, nice then!

Nope, it's me. I just brought the game up and noticed that I'm totally a hotspot in an adventure game. Totally forgot about that backer reward (been two years, after all), so that was a nice surprise.

Yes, there's a Jennifer McMurray (is that correct?) and a photo of hers in the "Phatt Island" jail. If you look at it, it closes up and reveals a full painting (made by Bill I think).
I recognized her because of the Kickstarter campaign she launched years ago, with full name and an avatar.
Otherwise I'd have never noticed.

The Jason guy is probably someone else then :)

Hah! If I am there I didn't notice. Can Jennifer be identified?

Nice game.
Completed in two hours (I wanted to be sure to hear every possible sentence).
Also, Jennifer was there (maybe Jason also, I'm not sure about that).
Waiting for more!