The International House of Mojo

Well I don't know about you, but I'm bored, so come along and let's see what we can go steal from The Pumpkin Post.

Hmm, what's this? Crimson Cow released some music tracks from the game on the official German site? And look at this, almost as if he knew I was going to swipe them, Haggis even provided direct links to the tracks. Bless his heart.

• The Eternity of Immortality
  
• Midnight
  
• The Sad Musicbox
  

Sounds like a rather "big" score, don't you think? Also, why didn't anyone tell me that sad music boxes were going to be a component of this game? My anticipation just shot through the roof.

Those mad fools over at Adventure Classic Gaming are at it again with this splendid interview with Bill Tiller about all things A Vampyre Story. A snippet:

Designers and artists once worked at LucasArts during its prime are worshipped as almost demigods by classic adventure game fans. In consequence, expectations are very high for A Vampyre Story to revive the spirit of classic LucasArts adventures. How do you deal with such high expectations of your work?

Well, let’s be realistic; adventures are a good solid market, but they have suffered a bit from the variety of genres out now that weren’t there 12 years ago. So consequently the sales and budgets have been affected. So if people expect us to have the same size and scope of Grim Fandango or Curse of Monkey Island, it just isn’t going to happen on half or 1/3 of those game budgets. But on the other hand 3d makes creating assets go a lot faster and look better. So some things will be better than those old games and some things won’t. That’s just the reality of today’s market place. And that is fine; we just have to take that into consideration when making our production plan. And if the game sells really well then who knows? Maybe we will be back to selling the same number of units we did in the mid to late nineties, and the next game can be even bigger.

As far as the design and humor go I just stick to the hope that my training under Brian Moriarty, Hal Barwood, Larry Ahern, Jonathan Ackley, Sean Clark, Peter Chan and Bill Eaken pay off. I’m pretty sure it will. I don’t know how it will measure up to those classic titles, but I think we have created a really fun game that people will enjoy.

About the wee bit of fame we get, I enjoy it because generally I am a shy person and am a little nervous meeting new people. But when I meet LucasArts fans they already seem to like me so I am not so nervous, which is a nice change. Though I could still make a bad impression but I am at least not as nervous about it. But trust me I am so full of insecurities that I’m pretty sure no amount of fame will ever go to my head. I’m just happy people are looking forward to my game and like what they see so far because I want to keep making it for them. It’s sort of like I have a bargain with the fans: I will work my ass off and do my best to make a fun, beautiful adventure game for you, if you just buy the game and help me pay the bills. It’s a good deal for me and the fans I think.

Much is learned, and there's even some new artwork in there, so there's really no defendable reason for you to not be there by now.

Wanna see Mona, the heroine of Bill Tiller's upcoming A Vampyre Story, turn into a bat? Well, as The Pumpkin Post points out, the game's official site has been updated with two extremely brief video clips of Mona performing her bat-transformation power. I most enjoyed the background effects.

The screenshot gallery has also been updated with "two new screenshots," but I can only find one. Anyhow, check it all out! And hopefully we'll all be playing this at the end of next month.

The game's official website has been updated with a new trailer showing off the game's art as well as Froderick's voice!

The site also promises more updates and screenshots over the following weeks so check back regularly!

Tingler Updates: The site also confirms our previous report that the game will indeed be released October 30th, just in time for Hallowe'en. Hooray!

According to a press release by publisher Ascaron, A Vampyre Story is coming out this Hallowe'en - or at least October 30th.

Whether this is just good timing or intentional marketing, whatever, the game's coming out!

Source: Games Press

By reading The Pumpkin Post, you could learn about this interview with Bill Tiller by Kezins. Tiller supplies lots about the current progress of both A Vampyre Story and its first sequel, as well as a bit about two - count 'em, two - unannounced adventure games we should expect to see from Autumn Moon in the future. It seems that to reflect the crazy amount of activity going on at the studio there has been some significant expansion:

To accommodate doing three games we expanded from five people in house to eleven in house people. And we about that many out of house now too. We also now have a business manager and president, and he has really helped us grow and get more organized, and soon will get us involved with investors to help expand the business even more. We also have a new background painter, rigger, programmer, writer and two engine programmers. So it has been an incredible last six months and exciting things are starting to happen at an alarmingly rapid pace.

It is also suggested that we should expect an appearance of the game at this year's Leipzig convention in August, which may coincide with a site redesign.

Anyway, do read it all, because you will learn much. Plus, there's a new screenshot!

Adventure Gamers reports some news that everyone (me) has been waiting for: the announcement of a North American publisher for A Vampyre Story. Said publisher will be, in the most unsurprisingly turn of events ever, The Adventure Company. According to today's announcement, the game will ship in North America in October (a full year from its original project release window, but what month could be more fitting?) at an SRP of $29.99. Woo!

Thanks to reader n0n4m3 for the heads up!

The latest development in the world of A Vampyre Story, as reported by The Pumpkin Post, is a new preview for the game by Total PC Gaming in their upcoming September issue. While that obviously makes the contents of the preview unavailable to us, the following quotes from it provided by Ascaron (one of the game's fifty publishers), gives you an idea of the sort of opinion the magazine had for Bill Tiller's brainchild.

"Considering the impressive pedigree, it's no surprise at all that A Vampyre Story is one of the most artistically accomplished games currently in development."

"Tiller has spent the last 4 years painting the backgrounds and characters along with fellow LucasArts alumni Bill Eaken, and the results are certainly impressive."

"From what we have seen so far it is definitely capable of provoking laughter"

"Bought to life by the excellent comic timing in the animation and voice acting"

"a unique approach to the core gameplay suggests that we're in for some real head-scratchers come September."

"We're confident that A Vampyre Story will turn out to be one of the greatest adventure games of the year."

If you live in the UK, look out for the full preview on magazine shelves in a few months time. And, apparently, we should be looking for the game itself around that time as well.

As you know from reading The Pumpkin Post, the folks at Adventure Treff took a trip to the Hamburg offices of Crimson Cow, where they were able to get a close look at an alpha build of A Vampyre Story.

While Google's English translation is a little rough for my tastes, several details are revealed, and others are reaffirmed. It seems like the game's delay comes from issues with the coding side of the game, and the programming has been outsourced to the company Bear Technology to finish things up. On the plus side, and as we've already known, the art side of the game has been long completed, which is why A Vampyre Story 2 is already well into pre-production, with an extremely early suggested release period of Christmas 2009.

See new screenshots and learn much more, including about the game's possible iMUSE type system and future AVS sequels, by reading the whole preview.

The Pumpkin Post got together with Pedro Macedo Camacho, the guy who is doing the music for A Vampyre Story (still on track for September, it seems), and chatted him up about music and working on AVS. The Pumpkin Post has also got some new info on that rumored Special Edition of the game so why not just take a trip to the site right now?

When I suggested earlier that A Vampyre Story wouldn't be released until Halloween, I was half-joking, but if Adventure Gamers' claim that the game is slated for a September release is any indication, I sadly might have been more right than I thought, and Mona will be taking a longer beauty nap in her coffin than we had been led to believe. Granted, I have no idea where Adventure Gamers got that date, which is attributed to Focus/Ascaron's UK release, from, but I'm too cynical to think it's wrong.

By the way, now might be as good a time as any to recap the rather numerous publishing partners for AVS, since I get the impression that the sheer number of the various companies we've associated with the game over the past year has confused some people. As reader LGH helpfully lists in a recent Pumpkin Post comment:

BOX VERSION:

• Russia (Akella)
  
• Greece, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, FYROM, Turkey (hell-tech)
  
• Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden (Paradox Interactive)
  
• France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, United Kingdom (Focus Home Interactive)
  
• Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg (Crimson Cow)
  

DOWNLOAD VERSION:

• GamersGate (worldwide?)
  
• And perhaps, according to Marek from Adventuregamers, the AdventureShop
  (http://adventureshop.gamesplanet.com/EU/?affilie=AG)

You'll note that there's still no announced publisher for a retail North American release just yet, but hopefully that could still change.

The Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive has announced that they have negotiated a deal with Crimson Cow to publish A Vampyre Story in Scandinavia.

The Spanish adventure game The Abbey is also a part of that deal.

The Abbey will be released in May while Nordic gamers will have to wait till August for A Vampyre Story.

Source: Paradox Interactive

A recent post at the official Crimson Cow forums indicates that A Vampyre Story will not be released in the month previously suggested. Here's the translated version of the relevant portion of the original German text.

A Vampyre Story but will no longer appear in May ... A new date, I still can not mention, except: This year!

At this rate maybe we'll get that highly appropriate Halloweeen release after all.

Update by Kroms: Be sure to also check-out the new, official forums.

As pointed out by the superb Pumpkin Post, a Crimson Cow producer named Georg Hach has posted on the official A Vampyre Story forums that he thinks the prospects of the game expanding beyond the PC are good indeed:

We'd LOVE to do console ports of "A Vampyre Story". But right now, none are in production. This really depends on how well the game will be received on PC. But since I strongly believe that A Vampyre Story will be the best selling adventure game in 2008, I would not worry so much about it. For me, the question is "when" rather then "if".

The minimum system req's are not yet final, but you will be able to play it on a very moderate PC. We'll release more info on that when we get closer to the release.

Could we see Mona on the Wii/Xbox 360/PS3? Time will tell!

Head on over to our hosted Autumn Moon site, the Pumpkin Post for some very exciting news which seems to indicate that everyone, everywhere will be able to purchase A Vampyre Story on its release date in May.

March... April... May! That's not so far away!

Source: Pumpkin Post

According to Bill Tiller, who's recently made a reappearance at the Autumn Moon forums, production is winding down on A Vampyre Story. The game is said to be in the "bug fixing and scripting" stage and Tiller is confident that the game will be released before summer.

It's unclear, however, exactly which territories will benefit from the game's initial launch, except of course Germany. Several other European countries have been negotiated but there are no dates for anybody as of yet. As for the North American release, Bill's comments are encouraging, but there's is apparently still no deal signed.

Be sure to rummage through the forum for all of Bill's recent posts for some new info, and of course keep your eye on The Pumpkin Post, which has proven much better than us at being on top of all things Autumn Moon. Also, I hear the site's traffic has increased exponentially and that women are intensely attracted to anyone who visits it. I don't want to draw any conclusions, but our advertising offer is clearly responsible because let's face it, you're not that good-looking.

Bill Tiller writes:

"I really want to get a good 2d artist and scripters who love adventure games, not some guy in Florida who is working on Madden 2009. I want real adventure game fans to work at the company. So I thought what better place than Mix'n' Mojo?"

The call is for a 3d Maya animator, a scripter who knows python, and a background illustrator who knows Photoshop. Fit the bill? Apply away! This could be the job you've been looking for all your life. Don't waste your time on Madden 2009 in Florida!

Tiller also mentioned that Autumn Moon are working on three games at the moment -- I suppose that means finishing A Vampyre Story and beginning the sequel, plus (maybe) a new original title. As Tiller said during our Christmas chat: "but that is the nature of the game business- you most always be looking to sign the next gig so you don't have a lulL or have lay anyone off"

Cutting straight to the chase - Bill Tiller has updated the Autumn Moon Blog page with their current status.

It's mostly to do with the new staff members joining the team, but there is a quick encouraging paragraph about A Vampyre Story:

I want to give you all an update on what we are doing and give you some news. First, we are frantically working on all the bug fixes and scripting for AVS1. No firm release date yet but we are getting close and I'm thrilled with the progress.

Interesting how he refers to the game as AVS1, even though I know we've known that sequels are a dead cert. Anyway, I'm excited! And you should be too - A Vampyre Story is nearly here!

Adventure Treff, in usual awesome fasion, have decided to provide a video series of footage from Games Convention 2007 (remember that?!). In Part Four there's an interview with Bill Tiller around the 9:00 minute mark, as well as some brief, awkward stalking of Tim Schafer near the beginning. In the interview (which is in English) Bill Tiller elaborates a bit on the "idea icon" that was borrowed from Brian Moriarty's version of The Dig and employed in A Vampyre Story. He says other things too, so check out the whole video.

Thanks to basti007 from the Adventure Gamers forums for the tipoff.

Source: Adventure-Treff

After making its debut at The Pumpkin Post, Autumn Moon has now put their wonderful Christmas card up on their blog, just for you!

Speaking of The Pumpkin Post, you may have noticed that it is now a Mojo hosted site! Did you know that being a Mojo hosted site affords you many super-secret benefits that include free money and drugs? Why not get in on the action by making some new hosted sites, which are way too few in number these days!