The International House of Mojo

So the Vampyre Story: Year One Kickstarter might not have set the world on fire, but that doesn't mean we won't be seeing any more adventure games from the Tiller. In fact, those with an iPad will be seeing something come October.

Adventure Gamers brings word that Tiller has joined forces with IF Studios to create a two-part adventure game called Perils of Man. This (apparently) epic game follows an Ana Eberling who receives a gift from her missing father, a gift that could eliminate uncertainty from the world. Yeah, sounds a bit odd, but who am I to judge?

Will she unleash the gift? Dig into the three hours or so long episodes, and you probably will find out. (But then that's what we thought about that whole secret thing in LeChuck's Revenge too so who knows.)

Trailer!

Source: Adventure Gamers

Telltale's gone to Vine again, where they did their first reveal of The Walking Dead: 400 Days, this time promoting their Fables game, The Wolf Among Us. Check out the first Vine promotion here. If the length of time between Vine promotion to release of 400 Days is anything to go by, it shouldn't be much longer before we see the release of the first episode of The Wolf Among Us.

Xbox 360 owners can now use The Walking Dead skins in Minecraft as part of skin pack #5. Choose from Lee, Kenny, Molly, Omid, Christa, or a walker (both male and female models).

There's a kickstarter up for an atmospheric point and click adventure called Alum, which is a LucasArts and Sierra style adventure. They are over half way to their goal (of only $10,000), with 6 days left to go.

Well I've got one for ya: The SCUMM Bar has been updated. What a world we live in.

Following a quiet and thankful revert to their old design back in February, they have now made some sizable content updates. This mainly includes a much more corpulent Tales section, a more comprehensive collection of known info about the cancelled animated film, and a revamped MP3 section that now covers Tales.

I don't mind telling you, I needed those MP3s. Go visit The SCUMM Bar! Your children may be the age you are now before its next update, after all.

Bill's response to the failure to get his game crowdfunded? Ramping up production:

What's interesting about the switch to Unity is that Bill had said that the decision not to use it in the first place was because it would have required more than the $200k he was requesting for the Kickstarter. Since he is ultimately collecting $0 from the Kickstarter, I don't know how that one works, though it probably has to do with a now indefinite schedule.

What I do know is that Bill and co. are totally pushing forward with this game. Good to know that Bay Area Sound are lined up. I guess the next big thing to look forward to on the Autumn Moon front is their new web site, hopefully one armed with an online store gravid with goodies.

Source: AVS Facebook page

Tim Schafer posted news about Broken Age's monetary and development woes, and plans to relieve some of those woes through releasing half of the game in January through Steam Early Access. Backers of Broken Age can read Tim's message here (or through the Backer only forum at Double Fine's forums).

News sites are picking up the story, so if you didn't back, you can still get the skinny on what's happening. Apparently, Tim designed the game too big in scope, so he's had to cut it down in order to fit in the budget. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter money still isn't enough for the large scope of the game, so he's funding the game additionally from the money Double Fine made from the games they're self publishing. He doesn't want to have to cut large things like the girl or the boy from the game, so he's decided to get additional funding through Steam Early Access. Steam Early Access will allow gamers to play the first half of the game in January 2014, and then play the rest of the game in a free update in April or May of 2014.

Those who backed the game don't have to worry, you'll get the Steam Early Access at no cost (this Steam Early Access plan is for additional purchases, not those already made). You'll also still be able to get access to the beta even earlier than that, as originally promised.

The Kickstarter for A Vampyre Story: Year One was unsuccessful, but Bill Tiller has restated his plans to develop the game regardless.

Even better, as a show of gratitude for the fans who did chip in on the Kickstarter, Mr. Tiller has posted Paul Mica's storyboard for the opening sequence of A Vampyre Story: Year One. And, it's available to everyone, so even those who didn't back can see it by clicking here.

Also, those of you who really wanted to purchase some of those A Vampyre Story themed items that Bill was planning on having made for the Kickstarter don't have to worry. He plans on having some of those made, and selling them through an online store with a Paypal option.

Finally, the old Autumn Moon website will finally be getting an overhaul this summer. Hopefully that includes the forums as well, since they're currently populated by a bunch of spambots.

Oh, and sign up for the A Vampyre Story: Year One mailing list if you're interested in following its development. Or just read Mojo, since we'll likely be shamelessly copying and pasting the e-mails posting about the game's development here as well.

Night Dive Studios, the company that managed to untie the legal mess surrounding System Shock 2 to negotiate the digital re-release of that game, is apparently negotiating to digitally re-release more games that are currently unavailable.

In this case, it seems they are trying to free the LucasArts adventure games from the Disney Vault, since they posted a teaser on their Facebook page that they are "Heading to Corley Motors!" (complete with a shot of Ben Throttle on his Corley motorcycle). After posting shout-outs to more LucasArts adventure games, such as Sam & Max Hit the Road on their twitter page, they were asked by twitter user BJ Wanlund to clarify the meaning of their LucasArts teases. Night Dive Studios responded by saying "We're hoping for it as much as everyone else, that's all we can say at the moment!"

So it seems like more classic LucasArts adventure games might come out on digital distribution sites some day after all. Or, they might not. We'll just have to wait and see how this situation develops.

Source: Threepwood4life

Bill has made Update #7 to his Kickstarter, which includes a brand new screenshot from a game that will hopefully one day exist. In case it does, sign up for the official mailing list.

You can view the new screenshot along with all previously released art assets for A Vampyre Story: Year One in our gallery. Holy smokes, we have galleries!

Source: AVS:Y1 Kickstarter

A good three weeks past when it might have had an impact, The LA Times has interviewed Bill Tiller, discussing his Kickstarter and career at large.

The interview is good, so check it out, but as far as its role in raising awareness, it's surely too little too late.

I'm gonna heap a little bit of scorn here: where the heck was the gaming press to expose this project? I don't think there was one word of coverage from the likes of Gamasutra, Shacknews, Kotaku or Joystiq.

Source: The LA Times

While the A Vampyre Story: Year One Kickstarter is looking mighty hopeless with ten days to go, the conclusion of E3 has led to the meager PR surrounding the project to ever-so-subtly rev back up.

There's a terrific new interview with Bill published by Adventure Corner. It's filled with great anecdotes and does not just serve to flog the crowdfunding campaign, so do read it.

As for the campaign itself, Bill has unflappably updated yesterday with yet another reward tier, a cutscene screenshot and the promise of more.

Bill also acknowledges what at least from here seems like the inevitable by discussing his Plan B:

If Bill ends up having to finish the game in his free time we can probably expect its progress to resume at its traditionally excruciatingly slow rate (recall that this title was first announced Halloween 2010), but I'm heartened that he appears to be so positive about it.

In that spirit of optimism here's hoping that some of those awesome-sounding rewards at least end up in the Autumn Moon store that Bill keeps promising and that he is onto something with his sense that the campaign is "raising awareness" for the franchise and that this will somehow benefit future endeavors.

In the meantime, I'll be waiting for Luke's goons to catch up with me. :-(

Source: Latest KS update

Jukka Jylänki has ported ScummVM's SCUMM engine to HTML5 using enscripten.

Head over to the website and you can play demos of Maniac Mansion, Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam & Max Hit the Road directly in your browser!

The meaning behind Telltale's short Vine teasers has been revealed: it's the extra content between The Walking Dead Seasons One and Two that has been teased since February.

400 Days is Telltale's first foray into DLC (not including the original The Walking Dead episodes themselves, which were marked as DLC out of necessity on XBLA). The 400 Days downloadable content is for The Walking Dead Season One, and is one episode containing five all new stories to play through. It is scheduled to be released this summer.

A bundle for PS Vita has also been announced. The bundle will include the original 5 episodes and 400 Days for the PlayStation Vita, and is scheduled to be released this August.

IGN has posted a trailer for the 400 Days DLC, which is embedded below:

Adventure Gamers has published a new interview with Bill as his A Vampyre Story: Year One Kickstarter hobbles past $32k. It's a satisfyingly massive article covering, if I'm not mistaken, every single moment of Bill's life, including the explanation for why over twelve months separated his initial tweet about the Kickstarter and its launch last weekend. There's some art in there, too.

Go read it. Then check out the latest updates for the Kickstarter to discover that there are some new tiers available at $20 and $40. A $20 dollar pledge gets you a free copy of A Vampyre Story and its splendid soundtrack. You'd be a fool to not be all over that. And you can tell you I said so.

Source: Adventure Gamers

Bill has made his first update to the Year One Kickstarter. In response to the concern that there was too big a gap between reward tiers, he has added a new one. For a $75 dollar pledge, the so-called Lake Monster tier, you get the following additional rewards:

- A large map (18” by 24”) of Draxsylvania
- PDF Atlas of Draxsylvania Atlas Book with color maps, art and descriptions of the history and geography of Draxsylvania and its macabre citizens
- Video lesson on How to Design Animated Characters the Autumn Moon Way

• A physical Sheet of A Vampyre Story Stickers

At the time of this writing the Kickstarter has reached $18.5k in pledges. That's the mathematical equivalent of stressing that they've got a long way to go, so be sure to use your disposable income to tell Bill you love him if you haven't already.

Source: AVS: Year One Kickstarter

The day has finally come. The three minute animated Kickstarter pitch video that Autumn Moon has been working on since April 2012 is finally finished, and A Vampyre Story: Year One is now live on Kickstarter!

The game, which is a prequel set in the first year that Mona is captive in Castle Warg, begins when she first meets Froderick the bat. It is an episodic adventure for Windows (on Facebook, Bill Tiller mentioned that the first episode will tentatively be called Spring, with the other three being the remaining seasons of Year One), using 2D backgrounds and 3D characters with a Curse of Monkey Island style verb coin interface, just like the original game. The first episode should be about one third the size of A Vampyre Story, and have about five total hours of game play.

The Kickstarter goal is $200,000 for episode one, and (according to the afforementioned Facebook page) the other episodes could be funded through this kickstarter as well, depending on how much money is pledged.

The minimum tier with the download of the first episode (for Windows, but Bill Tiller has stated that Linux, Mac, and iOS versions are a possibility if the Kickstarter does well enough) is available for only $8 (with beta access included!). If you pledge higher, you'll get a digital download of Pedro Macedo Camacho's soundtrack for the game at $25, a digital artbook at $50, a special collector's "big box" version (made with the dimensions of the Curse of Monkey Island box) at $100, a hardcover art book at $500, and even more goodies at the higher premium tiers. So, choose your tier and pledge your support for this classic style adventure game.

For those of you wondering about A Vampyre Story 2: A Bat's Tale, the reason that one's not being Kickstarted is because the rights lie with the publisher, Crimson Cow. But, Bill Tiller did mention on Facebook that if this Kickstarter does well, the chances of A Vampyre Story 2 coming out soon ("fall 2014 or sooner") go way up.

Some guy started a thread on NeoGAF, observing that Lucasfilm, now a Disney subsidiary, filed four trademarks for Maniac Mansion on May 22nd. You can find the USPTO links within; check out the goods and services that Disney is reserving the rights for under the Maniac Mansion name:

While this shouldn't be necessarily interpreted as evidence that Disney is about to start pumping out Green Tentacle footwear, there does seem to be an education theme, doesn't there?

A few publications have picked up on the story, and there is some speculation that Disney is giving the classic game the HD remake treatment. While we advise against that kind of optimism, the NeoGAF guy makes a decent case for why Disney must be fixing to do something with the property and that this isn't just standard trademark renewal.

Source: NeoGAF

Update: Bill thinks Monday Thursday.

As has been his way, Bill transmits his latest update on the A Vampyre Story: Year One Kickstarter launch via Facebook.

Until the next hang-fire!

Source: AVS Facebook page

Update: May 19: I originally linked to the wrong part of the interview. Thanks to Vainamoinen on the Telltale forums for pointing out my mistake.

Remember the strange time towards the end of the run of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures where Telltale started releasing Tales of Monkey Island before the former had even finished? According to an interview with Telltale's Ken Bruner over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, that won't be such a strange situation anymore.

Telltale is planning on releasing multiple seasons at the same time, provided that the release of The Wolf Among Us goes smoothly. They want to make sure that this release doesn't have the save bugs and other major problems that The Walking Dead had. If the release goes according to plan, they plan to release another season concurrently at some point after The Wolf Among Us launch. This seems to be a result of the expansion Telltale just recently underwent. Exactly which games will be the first to recieve this treatment is unknown at this point. Could it be the end of The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead Season Two (similar to the aforementioned Tales situation)? Could it be a completely unannounced season? Or perhaps the bonus that's supposed to take place in The Walking Dead universe to ease the wait between seasons? It's anyone's guess at this point, but I think I speak for all of Mixnmojo in hoping that it is Sam & Max Season Four (since Tales of Monkey Island Season Two seems pretty unlikely after the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm).

There's some other interesting tidbits to be found in the second part of the interview, such as the talk of the Pilot Program. Apparently, it's still alive and well. And, pieces of the ideas appear in the games that have been released. It was previously thought to only be Telltale's spring board for testing new, quirky ideas as one episode releases to minimize risk (an idea that brought us the Puzzle Agent and Poker Night games). However, it's now been revealed that it is the name for their prototyping sessions, and that portions of these prototypes have wound up in released games. One of the most interesting things revealed is that The Walking Dead actually started out as Telltale's Pilot Program zombie prototype.

One of the factoids that is of the most importance to Mojo is the bit in the first part of the interview where Kevin Bruner talks more about how The Wolf Among Us is going to play, how different it is from The Walking Dead, and how many traditional adventure game elements are going to be in it (hint: not much, although there are going to be detective elements that are said to be as mentally challenging as traditional adventure puzzles).

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

LucasArts Fan Felipe Machado has put together a loving tribute to the SCUMM era by mashing up several classic characters and locations.

Source: YouTube

Game Informer's print preview of Broken Age has been out for a while but it has only just been made available online.

It's a good long read, but if you're determined to go into the game knowing nothing at all, it may be best to steer clear - it does go into some details of the early plot of the game. In fact, it reveals more than has even been available to backers so far, though nothing I would regard as a big spoiler. To me, reading it recalled poring over those old LucasArts previews in the 1990s, trying to glean as much information as possible because we were so excited about this new thing. I've got a good feeling about this one.

If you want to get a good feeling too, visit Hot Youn-- er, I mean go here.

Source: Game Informer