Duke Grabowski Episode 1 Is Out Now

The first episode of Duke Grabowski, the crowd funded adventure game by Venture Moon (the new venture by a trio of developers that made Autumn Moon's adventures, including Bill Tiller himself), is finally here on Steam.

The game follows a brutish pirate named Duke, who longs to be a captain.  It's set in the same world that was introduced in Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.

Duke Grabowski is Funded, Now Accepting Paypal

The Duke Grabowski kickstarter campaign is now fully funded and they also now accepting Paypal donations for the digital tiers (you'll find the Paypal links at the bottom of the main page). So, if you wait for that option before backing a crowdfunding campaign, and you want to play a campaign with an awesome art design by Bill Tiller and a game design by Dave Grossman, Bill Tiller, and Gene Mocsy, then you can now be a backer as well.

Oh, and my rendition of the pirate song is on its way. I'll try to get it done soonish. :)

Duke Is 90% Funded, Dave Grossman Joins Team

There is some good news at the Kickstarter for Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler! Dave Grossman, the co-designer of the first two Monkey Island games (and Tales of Monkey Island), has joined the team as a co-designer. Another LucasArts alumni, and the current co-writer of Teen Wolf at MTV, Alyssa Clark, has also joined up to write dialog for the game. In addition, Larry Ahern, the co-designer of The Curse of Monkey Island, will be joining Dave Grossman in voicing versions of themselves in the game.

Duke is now 90% funded, and new slots have been added to the sold out upper tiers as incentive for those who want to pledge that high but missed the chance.  There's just over two days left in the campaign, so there's still time to make the goal.  Oh, and if the goal is met, I promised the readers of The International House of Mojo that I'd perform all four parts of The Curse of Monkey Island pirate song.  So, if you want to watch a grown woman try to mimic four men in a pirate shanty, there's always that for incentive. ;)

Kickstart Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler!

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. It's an homage and spoof of The Secret of Monkey Island but with a twist, 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'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.

Ghost Pirates English Release Date

The Pumpkin Post posted news that you can pre-order the English version of Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island now directly from the publisher, Mamba Games, for £29.99. The release date for the English version is March 26, 2010.

Ghost Pirates Gets a Publisher For Its English Release

Autumn Moon's Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island is already out in Germany, but fans outside of Germany have been wondering when we'll hear information about an English release. We don't have to wait any longer, because Ghost Pirates now has an English publisher, UK-based Mamba Games. According to their latest press release, the game will be released in 2010, but a specific release date has not yet been announced.

Ghost Pirates is Out in Germany

I was doing my usual checking of The International House of Mojo, and saw that Ghost Pirates of Voojoo Island, Autumn Moon's second game, is now out in Germany. German speaking people can pick it up from the dtp entertainment shop for €37,45 or from amazon.de for €32,95.

An announcement about an English release should be happening soon.

Ghost Pirates Video Preview

Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island, Autumn Moon's second game, is set to be released soon. The Pumpkin Post has a new trailer for the game available. It's on YouTube here, or you can play it below. Check out the box art in the final shot. It's preliminary (it says the box art isn't final, but it's nice to see boxart since that makes it just that much closer to being released :)).

Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island Revealed

Autumn Moon's mystery game, formerly known by the tongue-in-cheek codename Teal Harvest, now has an official name. Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island follows three pirates who have become ghosts and are trying to deal with their unique situation, much like Mona the vampire in A Vampyre Story.

The German adventure site Adventure-Treff has the scoop, and Haggis from The Pumpkin Post has translated it:

The source of inspiration for Ghost Pirates is the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney World. The game, however, will not at all be a copy of Ron Gilbert’s Monkey Island. The three protagonists will find themselves in a spectral form, and this will play a major part in the puzzle design. For instance, collecting objects isn’t possible at first, so the player has to find different ways to deliver an object to its destination. Similarly, communication with non-ghosts is only possible indirectly. Special skills like the option to walk through walls, will also play a part in puzzles. There will also be cooperative puzzles, similar to those in Day of the Tentacle, for instance.

Autumn Moon's Mystery Game Announced

The Autumn Moon page has been updated with news on Autumn Moon's next game. The game has a working title of "Teal Harvest: Terror Beyond the Act or Power of Forming a Mental Image of Something Not Present to the Senses or Never Before Wholly Perceived in Reality". The title pokes fun "Blue Harvest - Horror beyond Imagination", which was the name of the film that Lucasfilm told Star Wars fans they were filming when they got too close to the filming of the outdoor scenes in Return of the Jedi.

Teal Harvest will be released before A Vampyre Story 2. The publisher wants to publish the two games in seperate quarters of the year, so they won't compete with each other. Bill Tiller is hoping for a September release of Teal Harvest, which would mean we won't be seeing A Vampyre Story 2 for 4 to 6 months after that.