The International House of Mojo

Awhile back The Pumpkin Post noticed the existence of www.vonkiefer.com, an official online version of Baroness Von Kiefer’s journal, a text alluded to in A Vampyre Story in the Castle Warg library. The site will apparently be updated regularly, as some more material has recently been added (click on the top right of the screen to turn the page).

This is a really cool backstory supplement to the game, and feels akin to the kind of extras you used to find when opening an adventure game fifteen years ago. It reminds me a lot in particular of Henry Sr.'s Grail Diary that game packaged with Last Crusade. Do keep an eye on it!

Crimson Cow has already released the first patch for A Vampyre Story that corrects a number of bugs, including some big ones that players encountered in the stadium and perfume puzzles. You should probably go download it.

Got this in my inbox a few days ago:

I don't know if you are interested in posting this but I took the time to do some new desktop icons for AVS which are suitable for the Windows Vista icon type but also compatible with XP. I put them on this website for others to download. I must admit i was a bit disappointed with the "lousy" one the included in the game when you think of the quality of Mr. Tillers artwork. The link is:

http://maalflasken.dk/avsicon/index.htm

Well, what are you waiting for? Me to put this superfluous link?

Bill Tiller has revealed to The Pumpkin Post that he was originally planning to include an easter egg in A Vampyre Story which was cut due to time constraints - an 8-bit version of the game, complete with v1 SCUMM interface! A visibly emotional ATMachine has declined to comment.

Incidentally, you may want to peruse The Pumpkin Post's news updates from the past few weeks for some other fine Autumn Moon related news we neglected to point out to you as we were too busy gawking in disgust at the shenanigans going on over at The SCUMM Bar - which has, by the way, been updated in response to some donations that were as misguided as they were generous.

Yesterday was the alleged shipping date of Dreamcatcher's release of A Vampyre Story meaning the game may be on, or on its way to, North American shelves now. I haven't had a chance to go look in stores myself, and online retailers seem inconclusive, with Amazon saying the game will ship in "3 to 5 weeks" and Gamespot claiming a December 2nd release.

I dunno, maybe it's not out yet after all. I'm quite confused. It is out in Germany though, that we can confirm. What about elsewhere in Europe? Anyone in the UK seen it at retail? Anyone? Err.

Yeah, sorry, I wish I could give an update on the AVS retail situation, but it seems like your avenues for getting the game are still limited at the moment. This is why Ron Gilbert invented digital distribution. So if you have the patience of a Me, remember that you can still buy and download the game straight from GamersGate. (They have a period of exclusivity, after which other digital outlets will offer it as well.) You can also import the game (available in Regular and Special Edition flavors) from Germany. If you're patiently waiting for a physical copy in your own country, take comfort in the fact that it can't be much longer, and that Crimson Cow seems to be trying to launch in all non-German territories at around the same time.

Update: The game seems to be out in the UK, as Ascaron's release is shipping from Play.com.

Update 2: All North American retailers seem to be shipping the game, so it is safe to say that A Vampyre Story is now out in Canada and the good ol' US of A. It's also available in several additional digital distribution channels, not the least of which is The Adventure Shop!

Adventure-Treff has posted this huge interview with Tiller about Autumn Moon, AVS, and his LEC past. Did you know that it was George Lucas who insisted on The Dig not being cancelled despite the repeatedly failed development efforts?

Then there's this article at GameSetWatch, which takes an analytical look at Grim Fandango, a game about which there never seems to be a deficit of things to praise.

Thanks to reader Igor for the heads up on both of these news items!

Today the game was released on GamersGate for €39.99. It's a healthy 3.2 GB download so if you want to get it in a box instead, Play has already got it for just £14.99.

The Tingler apparently found that a demo for A Vampyre Story is available for download right now! I haven't had a chance to play it yet so all I know is that it features both English and German speech. So just get playing!

I might as well take this time to catch up on some general AVS news, all previously supplied by our good friends (and better lovers) at The Pumpkin Post. There's a new gameplay video from the game available from Adventure-Treff. It features a German narrator but the actual in-game voices are in English.

Then there's some confirmation about the game's release. The game (which, as far as I know, is available in Germany right now) will hit the UK and France on November 24, and the US "soon after." Additionally, the game will be available in about a week or so from digital outlets GamersGate, GameTap, and Metaboli.

You already know about the special edition of A Vampyre Story (still only confirmed for Germany) and were given a guesstimate of its contents, but a news post by Crimson Cow on the official site for the game gives the official list, while confirming the game's release on the 17th for Germany. Check out the complete list at The Pumpkin Post, but the main addition is the inclusion of a soundtrack disc, which is awesome. For Germany.

At least, that's what The Pumpkin Post says. And if you can't trust The Pumpkin Post, who the hell can you trust?

The release of A Vampyre Story is moving closer and one of the game's publishers, Focus Home Interactive, has released a new 90 second trailer showing off the game's various locations and characters.

You can either stream or download it from their site.

Source: Focus Home

Adventure Gamers recently got a chance to sit down with Crimson Cow The Adventure Company and play through a build of A Vampyre Story and subsequently put together their thoughts into something Mojo doesn't do anymore: a preview.

Their impressions are of course positive, and will probably heighten your anticipation even more for this highly promising and long-awaited game.

Gameplay in A Vampyre Story is very conventional, but with a few tricks up its cloak. The game is entirely point-and-click, but makes use of the “verb coin” type of interface, where holding down the mouse button over a hotspot reveals use, talk, or examine options. There’s also an additional fly option, as Mona can turn into an adorable little bat herself at will, though this is used only for places Mona can’t reach by walking. Which is too bad, since she won’t run at all and walks very slowly. Fortunately, the space bar can be used to skip directly to her destination, plus skip dialogue. Conversation is carried out in straightforward dialogue trees that you’ll exhaust in their entirety, and while some responses provide player choice, the differences are mainly cosmetic. Many of the topics are non-essential, but you’ll want to click through everything just for laughs and background details.

There's a lot of new information scattered throughout the preview, which you should really read while waiting for November to roll around.

The US Amazon page for A Vampyre Story has finally updated its placeholder AVS artwork with this, and the fact that it's identical to the German version (except with different publishers and layout) leads me to believe that it may very well be the cover art you'll see for the game when it hits store shelves. I like it, but I thought we were getting a Bill Eaken original? Still, these days we should count ourselves blessed if a graphic adventure box doesn't inspire reactions like this.

On a semi-related note, the official Crimson Cow forums are temporarily down, prepping for a " small relaunch to celebrate our next upcoming title, A Vampyre Story." So look out for that!

As we recently learned, in addition to the standard version of the game, you will also have the option (in Germany, at least) of getting an uber ultimate ultra edition of A Vampyre Story for the low low price of EUR 59,95. Now I don't deal in European currency, but that strikes me as being more than a peanut or two.

Other than the cool box that Amazon.de just put up, a strictly English-speaking gent like myself would have a hard time telling you what else the special edition has to offer, but our online siblings at The Pumpkin Post have speculated based on some other guy's speculations that there will be Mona and Froderick figures included, as well as some sort of art book. Nice!

So how about that North American version?

Update: Thanks to Marcus for translating this! I'll just quote him:

"Inhalt der Special Edition:
* Das Spiel A Vampyre Story auf DVD-ROM (Deutsche & Englische Sprachausgabe)
* Original Mona de Lafitte & Froderick Figuren
* Gruzzle-Puzzle bestehend aus 77 Teilen
* Postkarte (Motiv: Untote Grüße aus Draxsylvanien)"

...so we have:
* the game itself (german and english talkie!)
* Figures of Mona and Froderick
* A 'scary puzzle' with 77 pieces
* A postcard

Confirming what's been listed on a few online retailers, Crimson Cow producer Georg Hach has made a (German) post on the forums for the (German) site Adventure-Treff, in German, confirming November 17th as the game's new official release date. (We can only hope that's worldwide.)

According to The Pumpkin Post, Hach also explains that the German version will include English text and speech, and that the figures included in the special edition will look a lot better than the Amazon.de box (which will soon be replaced) suggests.

With the game due next month, those of you desperate for more adventure gaming in your Halloween may want to look into Telltale's Halloween contest, which closes on Tuesday. We would have told you before, but, you know.

The Pumpkin Post is at it again, this time reporting that Bill Tiller's vampire game to end them all will be making its way onto the Macintosh courtesy of Virtual Programming.

Whoever thought we'd ever see that logo again? The port is said to be due before the year's up. Oh, and checking out Mac World's write-up of the announcement will give you the first look at one of the game's dialogue trees!

Crimson Cow has sent out seven new screenshots from the soon to be released (seems like I've been saying that for awhile now) A Vampyre Story to the media. Check 'em out in our screenshot gallery if you are so inclined and haven't already seen them on a site more diligent than us.

Also, as you might know if you're a regular visitor of the Mojo-hosted The Pumpkin Post, system specs for the game have been revealed. As expected, they're pretty modest, unlike, say, Gabez's mom. Oh man, he didn't even see that coming.

Update by Gabez: Hoho, Jason! (You're fired.) In other news, there is apparently a Special Edition of A Vampyre Story planned, to be released sometime in Germany. Thanks to Sven_Q45 for the tip-off.

With the release of A Vampyre Story being imminent (if all goes well it could be out as early as Halloween) Bill Tiller decided to drop by the Autumn Moon forum and give fans a status update:

Hi All Bill Tiller here,

Yes the game will be out very soon and relay depends on how quickly the game can be manufactured and shipped for the in store date, but it still could be Halloween. The hold up is making sure our low-end machines have good video performance for our FMVs. We want to make the FMV viewing experience a good one for those players who don’t have the latest high-end machines. That should be addressed soon, probably in the next ten days. But after that I don’t know how long it will take to actually get in stores.

Anyway I just wanted to let you know what the current hold up is. But other than and a few minor bugs we are pretty much done. We can now get back to full production on AVS 2 and our soon to be announce second project. That game will be announced by our other publisher once the game demo is more polished and we have a final title and graphic for the title. We had a generic name for it but the publisher wanted a name that was unique but still expressed the genre of the story. More on that I hope soon. But right now, mums the word.

But what I can say is that so far it looks really good and it has been so much easier getting this game and AVS2 going now that our engine is done, plus we hired some kick butt programmers, some of whom worked on the Force Unleashed Engine, to add features to our engine and to write tools to speed up our production time. I am amazed how fast a art gets modeled and scripted into the game so we can play it right away. These next two productions will go so much more smoothly. Our team is doing a fantastic job and really taking advantage of what they learned don AVS1. May hats of to them! Thanks guys.

Now that AVS is done for me I am going to find time to upgrade the graphics on the web site, starting with the front page. I wanted to do flash but no money in the budget for that this year, but it will get a new coat of paint.

Thanks all,
Bill Tiller

It's comforting to know that some of the talent behind The Force Unleashed that LEC showed the door to for their troubles have found a new home to contribute to the kind of story games their former company used to be famous for. Look out for A Vampyre Story to come out in what sounds like about a month.

Because something awesome happened at the Pumpkin Post today. It involved Vampyres and gameplay videos.

You should read the Pumpkin Post more often.

Update: I've just been emailed with a "Hey I need to join to watch this". This seems to be the case...except that, for some reason, I was able to watch the video without joining the first time. Anyone have any idea on what's going on? Can anyone post the video on YouTube, too?

Source: The Pumpkin Post

The Pumpkin Post has noticed the existence of a preview for A Vampyre Story by the German site Adventure-Treff, who were able to play through the first two "Chapters" of the game. (Monkey Island type structure?) You can see the Google translated version here, and you'll also want to be checking out the sixteen new screenshots that are included.