The International House of Mojo

In an effort to raise awareness for their adventure game Kickstarter, Bill Tiller and two of his Autumn Moon cohorts, operating under the label Venture Moon Industries, have set up a Steam Greenlight page for Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler!, which has garnered a little attention.

As for the Kickstarter itself, after quickly raising $15,000 of its $40,000 goal, things seem to have stalled a bit, but there's still 46 days to go. This should be far more achievable than last summer's A Vampyre Story: Year One Kickstarter, which rang up $77,000 despite the recurring complaint that it was not an original adventure. With that issue addressed and with a much more modest goal, I'd like to think this one should have a happy ending. Unless you snatch it away, ya penny-pinchers!

Source: Steam

Bill Tiller, Jeremiah Grant, and Gene Moscy started a new company (Venture Moon Industries) and a new kickstarter to fund a pirate themed adventure game inspired by Monkey Island. It's called Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler, and will be set in the Azurbbean, the fictional version of the Caribbean from Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.

The three created a tech demo for an homage and spoof of The Secret of Monkey Island, but liked it so much they decided to extend it into a full, small adventure game. The game puts a twist on the concept, as the main character is a big, dim, angry man who turns out to be a man of honor. Bill Tiller is going to be the project lead and art director, Gene Mocsy is going to design, produce, and write for it, and Jeremiah Grant is going to be the programmer. They founded a new company to produce the game because the three wanted to be equal partners and since Autumn Moon Entertainment belonged solely to Bill Tiller, a new company was decided the best way to do so. Because of this, Autumn Moon Entertainment will be licensing the Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island intellectual property to Venture Moon Industries for this game.

They're looking for $40,000 which will fund the game, which will have about ten to twelve rooms and be a quarter of the size of A Vampyre Story. So, if this interests you, what are you waiting for? Pick a tier and back it now.

Your final excuse has just been abolished. Autumn Moon's first (of two) games is now on the one last digital distribution service it had been glaringly missing from. So get on it - aren't you hankering to know what all that fuss was about six years ago?

It seems Bill Tiller had some help getting the game fitted to Steam's specifications. I'm sure many of you share his gratitude:

Buy it for yourself and then a friend! Every million sales make a difference for that sequel's chances.

Kaptain Brawe 2: A Space Travesty is now on Kickstarter. It is an adventure game with a story by Steve Ince (who worked with Revolution on most of its games, and created the So Blonde series) and 2D art by Autumn Moon founder (and Curse of Monkey Island lead artist) Bill Tiller.

This seems like a perfect pairing, since just about everyone would agree that it's always great to see Bill Tiller artwork in adventure games, and Steve Ince has been nominated for multiple awards for his adventure game scripts. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and pick a tier to help get the game made.

About a week ago, Bill posted on the A Vampyre Story Facebook page with this:

"The game" must be A Vampyre Story: Year One, but what fell through? Will we ever know?

Update: 1954: Alcatraz is now available on Steam as well, at the same limited time $2 discount as GOG.com.

Two new adventure games co-developed by Gene Mocsy, the co-writer of Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island, have been released today!

The first release is 1954: Alcatraz, the first game by Gene Mocsy's studio Irresponsible Games (and co-developed by German adventure game developer Daedalic). The game has two lead characters, a man who must escape Alcatraz prison in 1954, and his wife, who is trying to avoid gangsters who are after the money that her husband stole. The game has multiple solutions to puzzles, which will affect the characters in different ways. 1954: Alcatraz is out now on GOG.com (currently discounted at $2 off it's usual $19.99 price tag), and will also be released in a few hours on Steam.

The second game is Perils of Man: Chapter One, the first chapter of a seven chapter adventure game about risks and consequences developed by IF Games with a game design by Gene Mocsy and Bill Tiller of Autumn Moon. Chapter One is currently available for free from iTunes for iPad and will be updated soon for support for iPhone and iPod touch devices as well. They also have expressed interest in releasing the game for Android and Windows, OS X, and Linux, and ask for people to post on their forums to express their interest in the game for these platforms.

The official Perils of Man facebook page has been updated with news that The Perils of Man, the upcoming iOS adventure game developed by IF Games with a game design by Autumn Moon's Bill Tiller and Gene Mocsy, will be getting a demo release on the 11th of March. The full version has not yet received a release date.

They have also stated that they intend to release some teaser tracks of music from Perils of Man from composer Paul Shapera soon, and hint at a possible full soundtrack album release. To see some of his previous work, you can check out his bandcamp page here.

You may be wondering what is going on with the upcoming free iOS adventure game Perils of Man, which is being developed by IF Games and designed by Bill Tiller and Gene Mocsy of Autumn Moon.

Its previous release date of October 2013 came and went, and the official Facebook page has been surprisingly quiet about the situation.

Surprising no one, the game's FAQ has recently been updated, indicating that the game has been delayed to early 2014. However, there's no word on whether they still plan on releasing the game in two episodes as originally planned.

Source: Perils of Man FAQ

Paul Shapera, the composer of the upcoming free two part adventure game for iOS designed by Autumn Moon's founder Bill Tiller and Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island co-writer Gene Mocsy, has made an interesting blog post detailing the sound design process of Perils of Man.

"I’ve amassed a plethora of sound effects, and insuring they will be clear over the music, PLUS dialogue has been interesting. An interesting challenge is the fact that you may have certain fx looping in the background in addition to the music, voice stuff and individual fx. For instance, if the protagonist is in a room, when standing next to a window or a furnace an effect will play the entire time she is in range, and with that is the music, her interacting with objects, opening and shuffling through her inventory, making exclamations, etc. Fascinating to work on."

The really good news is that, according to the blog post, the first part should be releasing very soon (assuming IF Games still is going forward with its plans to release the game in two parts). It certainly sounds like an interesting concept. Hopefully it lives up to its potential.

Perils of Man, the two part adventure game that Bill Tiller is working on in conjunction with Swiss animation studio Boutiq's recently opened game studio IF Games, will be available for free when it is released later this year.

The reason both parts will be released completely for free is that the game serves as an advertisement for the 150-year anniversary of the insurance company Swiss Re. The game will not be cluttered with ads for the insurance company, however, as the only branding in the game is said to be the Swiss Re logo in the game's credits.

The exploration of risk throughout the gameplay itself and the game's storyline serve as the advertisement. The game is said to contain a "special gameplay mechanic that reveals a hidden matrix of cause and effect". And you will "command the fates of thousands by mastering a hidden technology that gives the player the ability to foresee risk."

Both parts will contain between 2 to 3 hours of gameplay, and both parts will be released for iPad before the end of the year. The first part is scheduled for release this October, and second part is expected to be released some time before the end of this year.

Source: Pocket Gamer

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

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

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.

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

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

I haven't been posting much lately; we've all noticed it. The temptation will be to assume the worst of me - that I've succumbed to laziness or apathy, or outright disdain for you, specifically.

But consider:

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.