That's right, he'll answer any question. Provided that you asked it yesterday, because that's when Noah's AMA happened. Lots of good stuff in there, though.
Source: Reddit
Articles
For the past few years, Bill's communication with his fans has mostly come in the form of updates to the Duke Grabowski Kickstarter page, and yesterday's post had something provocative in it:
In other not bad, but not great news is that Duke Grabowski: Debonair Corsair is on hold until we sell a certain number of units. Alliance wants the first episode to prove it is a success before funding the follow up. And you can help with that if you so chose because Alliance has discounted Duke to $2 and the sales are picking up. If you all told all your family, friends and acquaintances about the game that could really help. Mean time Venture Moon and Alliance will continue to promote the game as much as we can.
But have no fear that I won't be doing any more game because I am in negotiations to make another non-Duke game while we wait for Duke numbers to reach our goal. I can't go to much into it because nothing is official, but I can say it is an idea that is very close to my heart.
That's not very hopeful news on Duke - if the first episode's sales is making the publisher wary of funding the second, what are we to conclude about the likelihood of episodes 3-5?
On the other hand, we apparently have a secret project in the works. The obvious question: is this A Vampyre Story 2 or a new IP altogether? Only time will tell, and in the meantime you might want to throw a measly two bucks at Duke Grabowski
and contribute to those sales numbers
.Source: Kickstarter
Adventure Gamers has a ten day old brand new interview with Tim for your enjoyment. It's primarily about Full Throttle Remastered, but it's pretty well-rounded. Tim even talks a bit about the old LEC vs. Sierra rivalries:
You know, I like talking about it. I think it’s a symptom of the fact that we didn’t have the internet back then. Nowadays, I’d be Facebook friends with those guys, and we’d all be making fun of each other on Twitter. Back then, we just didn’t talk at all, except for a couple of people that knew the Coles. There was a little back-and-forth, so the Coles came to the ranch to play softball, and they beat us. (laughs) They put it in the Sierra newsletter, but didn’t even mention the name LucasArts, just “Sierra beats competitor in softball”, and we were like, “oh my god, guys!”
I got to know Lori Cole a little at GDC last year; we were on a panel together. They were much more aware of our games than we realized. We thought that we had this competition going on, and they weren’t even aware of it, but they were much more aware than we thought! They kind of saw us as taking over. Lori was like, “we were on top for a long time, but after Monkey Island things started to shift, and Lucas took over.” They had a completely reverse idea of that competition than we had, which is that we were always up against them, and they were winning. I mean, they definitely won the sales war. We’re winning the remasters war, though! (laughs)
Read the full interview here, and prepare yourself for Full Throttle Remastered tomorrow!
Source: Adventure Gamers
Adventure Gamers decided to have a lengthy confab with their personal graphic designer Bill Tiller as well as his Duke Grabowski cohort Gene Mocsy. They mostly talk Duke - which Bill reiterates is planned for five episodes that he figures will come out at six-month intervals - but other topics spring up, like the future of A Vampyre Story, which isn't quite as defined as I had hoped:
Ingmar: Speaking of legal stuff… I know people ask you about this a lot, but of course we can’t do an interview with you without discussing the potential future of A Vampyre Story.
Bill: I think Crimson Cow has a new management. They’re probably not interested in doing it, but I don’t think they’re against selling it, so I guess if I came up with the right money I suppose I can get the rights back. I’m concentrating on Duke Grabowski right now, but once Duke’s over I’m totally open to talking to Crimson Cow. But I’ve also been discussing the idea of animated shorts with our animator Romero. I love these characters, you know, and I don’t want them to die off just because of the distribution rights.
It’s a pretty long and epic story, so it could easily be turned into an episodic game with around eight episodes before the whole story arc wraps up. So, yeah, I’d love to do it, but if worst comes to worst I have the rights to do animated shorts, books, or comic books. When the time comes I’ll definitely explore the options.
There's a whole lot more in the full article, so why don't you go give it a read? Gosh, it's not like we're competitors.
Source: Adventure Gamers
Using the official A Vampyre Story Facebook page, Bill has posed a cryptic question. See it at the bottom of this post, because that's apparently the only place images will work. Good gravy, this site.
A Vampyre 2: A Bat's Tale entered production immediately after the original game back in 2008, but months later the plug was pulled by its publisher Crimson Cow Games. Because they still had the rights, Bill was unable to try to shop the project around or go the crowdfunding route, leaving the sequel in indefinite limbo.
So why is Bill gauging fan interest now? Have the rights lapsed back to him, or is he trying to gather evidence to show Crimson Cow that there's an audience that justifies revving the machine back up? Is Crimson Cow even in business anymore?
Whatever's going on, send an email to Bill at the email address below, and let him know that you need A Vampyre Story 2 more than you need potable water.
(Click to enlarge)
Source: Facebook
Some news requires no comment, other than: w00t.
Here's Tim humbly suggesting that you pre-order from GOG:
One last cool thing: apparently Tim had the original demo of the game (a PC Magazine exclusive) remastered as well because it featured unique dialog not heard in the shipped game, and Tim wanted all of Roy Conrad's lines preserved in high quality. Pretty rad.
Source: engadget
As with Day of the Tentacle Remastered and Grim Fandango Remastered, Double Fine had to go through the LucasArts archives to resurrect Full Throttle, and Tim talked about that effort with GamesIndustry.biz:
Schafer called it a sort of "digital archaeology." For Full Throttle, the art was completely repainted, often with input from original artists like Larry Ahern and Peter Chen. 3D elements like the game's motorcycles had to be remodeled from scratch because the originals weren't archived. Roy Conrad, the original voice actor for the game's protagonist Ben, died over a decade ago, so they had to track down the uncompressed DAT tapes of his original voiceover sessions in order to remaster them in stereo.
"We're in a unique position where we remember where the bodies are buried," he said. "'I think that sound guy took home a box of tapes once, and I know so-and-so has that thing in their attic.' And at Skywalker Ranch there's an archive that has a lot of cool stuff there, and we got access to those. We got to dig through these flat files, finding these great pieces of art and putting them in the concept art browser for the first time to let you see all this stuff when you play the game. It's more like a fun treasure hunt."
One might expect that the hassles of remastering projects like these would cause Double Fine to re-think the way it preserves its current titles for the future.
"I feel like we had all this trouble finding all these archives," Schafer said, "and it was like, 'Why didn't we archive this stuff better?' And then I was like, 'Are we archiving our new stuff better?' We had to really look at it, and well, you know... In some ways it's easy to make those same mistakes again, to just not really think about what's going to happen 20 years from now. 'Yeah, that stuff's all on that one artist's hard drive, but we don't have time to do all that...' So you really have to push yourself to create good archives, and to put away a machine that can do the actual build of the game. And that's something I hope all developers do, or they'll be kicking themselves later."
It's a comfort to know that Roy Conrad's line readings will liberated from that Turkish prison that is MONSTER.SOU.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
You may recall that time a year ago when we reported that an indomitable band of Germans were seeking to get official approval for their HD remake of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
Those of you who hate surprises, I should warn you: this isn't going to be one.
Hi Fans!
Quick announcement!
We will remove the downloading buttons from our website this Sunday (5th March 2017)
We have been told that Lucasfilm don't want to share the Indy license with anyone right one, so we came up with other solution and we will see if that is going to work for them.
We will keep in touch with Lucasfilm people and continuously trying to obtain a deal for a full project development!
Lucasfilm has seen what we have done, we proved our skills, show them a great effort and strong responsibility, they have received all required documents and now it's up to them if they will change their minds and start supporting Independent developers.
Whatever the response will be, We are extremely proud of what we have done, it has been a great fun, we will love this project forever and we thank you all who participated or support us during this "long-term, free-time" development.
Fans community is strong, full of talented people and nobody is going to stop us from doing what we love, because we are doing it right! This is not the end of this project and this is not the end of any fans projects...big companies need to understand that: "All things come to him who waits." #lucasfilm #lucasarts #adventuregames #disney
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39935592/IJ_clocks.jpg
Source: Facebook
We're now a week into 2017, which means it's the perfect time for a new poll. We couldn't just put one up on the first day of the new year. That's just not The Mojo Way™.
There's a lot of goodness coming out this year, from just about every company that this site covers. So go to the poll on the right and let us know which one has you excited the most.
There have been big changes afoot over at AdventureGamers.com. Changes in management, and now, changes in logo. Few would contest the greatness of the longstanding original logo, designed by Bill Tiller himself. Thankfully, the powers-that-be at AG are not among those despicable few, and they were thus smart enough to reach back out to Bill when they decided a logo revamp was in order. Behold:
Source: Adventure Gamers
Sure, the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade graphic adventure has been available from Steam since forever, but I know you kids love things that are DRM-free, so consider yourselves accommodated. And just like the Steam version, you get the unabridged Grail Diary in all its .pdf glory.
There was a time when GOG was releasing LEC games more regularly, then that all stopped, and if you think that wasn't the consequence of a sinister, labyrinthine conspiracy, get a clue. But does the unceremonious appearance of Last Crusade signal that the seal has been broken again? We still need Monkey Island 3 and 4 up there, bare minimum.
Source: GOG
Festivus is over lads, so back to work. Earlier this week, Gamecrate asked Bill Tiller a few questions about his career. Among other things the interview gives us an idea of when Duke Grabowski Episode 2 will drop.
So, when is the second episode of Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler due out?
We're planning on five episodes. The plan is to have the second episode come out in the Spring. I've already written it, and we're doing pre-production on it now, and have some sketches done, as well as some of the puzzles.
Check out the full interview here.
Source: Gamecrate
Bill has published a holiday update on the Duke Grabowski Kickstarter page, unveiling the title ("Debonair Corsair") and the status of Episode 2. Hey, I'm just glad it's still happening.
There's more, like a peek at one of the backgrounds and a status on the remaining backer rewards, but why listen to my descriptions of what you can live yourself.
Source: Kickstarter
You probably remember watching Brian Moriarty's superb Loom post-mortem which debuted at GDC 2015. If you haven't seen it, you're encouraged to do so. At the end, Moriarty threw out the names of a few studios (including Double Fine and Telltale) he considered ideal collaborators for a Loom sequel, essentially extending an invitation to them to get him on the horn.
Moriarty has given his talk a few more times since, including at an expo in Argentina this past March. At the end of that talk, he mentioned that some discussions took place with some of those studios. When pressed for details, he offered this. Watch it before proceeding.
I'm dubious of the claim that Double Fine had specifically optioned Loom along with the Tim Schafer relevant IPs, and more so of the idea that Double Fine ever actually committed resources toward a Loom project before learning that this supposed option had expired. And if Brian's got the facts right, and Disney's claiming someone else has an exclusive on Loom, who the hell could it possibly be? Of the precious few studios likely to be interested in the property, I can't think of one that would wish to shut Moriarty out. Sounds to me like someone's getting the runaround here, or maybe there's just some miscommunication.
Moriarty also gets probed a little bit about The Dig, but the Q&A - the online version, anyway - gets suspiciously interrupted just before he can detail how his version would have ended. Can't wait to hear ATM's take on this and how it might fit in with your post-war commie conspiracy.
Update: Mild correction. It seems the Argentina talk actually happened in late 2015, rather than this year.
Source: Youtube
Why can't you people make content like this?
ATMachine has reappeared in order to publish his career best - a deeply researched, legacy-defining thesis that Guybrush Threepwood is in fact a woman in men's clothes.
Source: ATM's site
It was almost a year ago that Full Throttle Remastered was announced, and since then we've known we could look forward to a developer commentary just as Day of the Tentacle had.
Well apparently that commentary was recorded this past week. Check out the photo Double Fine posted on Facebook:
Hopefully media from the game is soon to follow.
Source: Facebook
ScummVM, the project that aims to re-create engines for point-and-click adventure and role-playing games, using the original scripts and data files, so that the games run on modern (and some not-so-modern) systems, has received a new release.
This release brings support for six new games: Myst, Myst: Masterpiece Edition, U.F.O.s (also known as Gnap), and Sierra's Hi-Res adventure games #0: Mission Asteroid, #1: Mystery House, and #2: The Wizard and the Princess.
There's also been a lot of bugfixes for Sierra's SCI games, the addition of Hercules rendering and font for the AGI games, an enhanced Sherlock games experience, and the addition of AmiUpdate on the Amiga port.