Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler

Fun little adventure game with nostalgia graphics, some uplifting tropical tunes and very silly humor.
Got it on sale and it was 2 bucks well spend.

I had a lot of fun playing this short little gem! Insanely good artwork made by point'n'click adventure legends, what's not to like!
I may be a bit biased though, since my first adventure game was Curse of Monkey Island, so I have a bit of a soft spot for pirate games :)

Duke struck me as an odd choice for the main character, huge and very, very dumb. But, not to spoil too much, he develops more as you play, really growing on you in the end.
My favorite scene was the dancing people aboard the "Gnarly Narwhal", the whole aesthetic of it all combined with the music in that scene, I just sat there taking it all in for what must've been 15 minutes at least. It really took me back on a weird goose-bumpy nostalgia trip. For that alone I'd recommend this game!

If you're a point'n'nclick adventure game fan, you have to try this one, and if you're not, give it a chance, it just might grow on you :)

Cuộc Phiêu Lưu Đơn Giản Để Làm Quen Với Các Cô Gái Dễ Thương

“I can’t help but feel I’ve been ripped off.”
~Guybrush Threepwood

The story of Bill Tiller is... Kinda sad when you think about it. Then again, many others ended up the same way. People we used to worship back in the days ended up losing all of our trust and all the cult status. Peter Molyneux, who gave us games like Dungeon Keeper, Black & White and Fable, ended up being a fraud and a liar who scam people on Kickstarter with his empty promises. Brian Fargo, a man behind Wasteland and the original Fallout came pretty close by accumulating millions on, you guessed it, Kickstarter, and then making cheap-ass games, while also starting a shady video game store that revolves around cryptocurrency. Richard Garriott, the legendary Lord British, creator of bloody Ultima and, while we're at it, the whole RPG genre went to Kickstarter too. They're still suing his space-traveling ass. The biggest fraud in gaming history, Star Citizen, is run by Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander series. And yes, you guessed it, it all started with Kickstarter. The list continues, but you've got the idea. Now, what about Bill?

You know, Bill. The lead artist of LucasArts' The Dig, who also worked on games like Full Throttle, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and, of course, The Curse of Monkey Island. Unfortunately, when LucasArts hired EA exec, he, according to himself, started to feel like the team started to lose its creative freedom. The team was great, but that new EA exec guy (again, according to Bill) “just didn't get it”. Bill left, leaving one of the most influential developers in a history of point-and-click adventures behind, and joined ArenaNet, who were working on their now famous MMORPG Guild Wars. Bill praised their skills in his interview, but working on MMO proved to be heavily different from what he was used to (Arena guys didn't have finished concept to make arts for) and... You guessed it. Bill didn't like taking orders from a “programmer who didn't know anything about art”. He left again. This time, though, he co-founded his own company called Autumn Moon Entertainment.

Their first game was A Vampyre Story. And you know what? It wasn't bad. Visually it was totally fine and stylish, the characters were likable, there were tons of quality-of-life features like walk skipping, we were able to turn into a bat and like I said, it wasn't bad at all. Except it was poorly made. The game used a free engine called Panda3D, had quite a lot of bugs on launch, etc. Also, even with free engine behind it, Bill and his new team didn't manage to achieve much – the game ended abruptly with no ending and no explanation why. In other words, the game was left unfinished. And instead of fixing things in a sequel, Bill started to work on prequel. Moreover, A Vampyre Story: Year One was supposed to be episodic game. Because obviously, such games are easier to produce and make more money. Talking about money. It was then when Bill discovered that evil thingy I've mentioned above, the Kickstarter. Nobody really wanted yet another generic point-and-click game, though, and A Vampyre Story simply wasn't special enough to get the attention, so... Yeah. No money – no game. A Vampyre Story: Year One didn't happen. A couple of years before that, though, Bill made another game with the Autumn Moon. That game was Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.

What can I say? He desperately tried to milk the time he spent working on third Monkey Island there. He never worked on the first two, which are considered to be “true” Monkey Island, but still, he got that certain reputation and, well, he tried to turn it into money. Didn't work out either. Despite using the same exact engine with A Vampyre Story, Ghost Pirates had rather terrible puzzles (it was one of those games that forced us to use some random things on some other random things, just because logic wasn't involved most of the time), quite a lot of quality-of-life features disappeared (for example, there was no way to skip walks), while Gobliiins-like multiple characters approach only made all the above worse. The worst of all, though, it was a terribly made game that crashed a lot and do some other nasty things. Which is very ironic when you think about it. Can't make a good game without learning how to work in a team, huh?

Unfortunately, Kickstarter didn't go anywhere. Money were there, waiting to be taken. With A Vampyre Story: Year One in mind, it was decided not to ask much this time. They only asked $40.000 and, well, they've got it. So, here we are. In a company of Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler. And you know what? It's not nearly as poorly made as the previous Autumn Moon efforts. It looks like the team actually cared. Why? Because they had a share. See, this game was only technically made by Autumn Moon. AM owned Ghost Pirates, this here technically is a spin-off (no, you don't need to play Ghost Pirates first), team wanted a share, hence the financial hocus pocus – the team registered their own name, Venture Moon, and Bill licensed the IP to them, while still leading the project and doing things like writing and art directing.

That's the saddest thing here, though. The whole thing is about money. Nobody wanted to make statement. Nobody wanted to make art. It was just that – they've got 40K and they needed to deliver a product. You may say that you can't make anything solid with only 40K and you're right, you can't. Attic Door Productions (the guys behind The 13th Doll) barely managed with 60 and since they actually cared about their project, they ended up adding a lot from their own wallets. Bill and his team did not. Thanks to which we've got... only eight screens. That's right, guys, the whole game is only eight screens. And it's not like there's a lot of things to do there. You just press Tab to see what you can interact with and then do just that – click on things. No thinking involved. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate logic (hello, Ghost Pirates), but it is not about logic here. It's about lack of content. At very best you'll have a couple of objects in your inventory at the same time (won't even be real items, since the game utilizes the same ol' ideas from previous games and lets you carry the “ideas” with you) and it'll be painfully obvious where to use 'em. It's one of those games that don't even need a guide. Just because of how obvious everything is. Thanks to which you can beat the whole thing in less than an hour if you won't listen to each and every line completely (like in Ghost Pirates, you can't skip walks, but at least dialogues are skippable). Maybe the story's good? Nope. Again, Bill tried to pull his “I've worked on Monkey Island!” thing. And again, he failed. Duke Grabovsky feels like something from that “We've got X at home” meme. More sad than funny.

So... Ye-e-ah. Eight screens, about 30 minutes of pure gameplay (again, if you won't listen to dialogues) and lame attempts to imitate Monkey Island. Music from Ghost Pirates and free assets included. That would be $40.000. Like I said, though, Duke Grabovsky is not a terribly made game. The guys switched to another free engine, Unity, with Adventure Creator toolkit, which leads to the game being stable and running in modern resolutions, but still, what we have here is not really a game, but an excuse for Kickstarter campaign. What can I say? At least it was $40.000, not $700.000.000.

Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler

Has a total of 6 trading cards.

Simply a great point and click in the spirit of Monkey Island. At this price it's a steal.

Only complaint me got is that after finishing the game the menu buttons stopped working so needed alt+f4 my way out.

this was such a silly little game to play and was overall actually pretty fun. The graphics look very old but in a weird way it kinda feels like it adds to the charm of the game. Though sometimes it can feel a little wonky to play I would still recommend it as a game ^.^

Funny short adventure

Duke Grabowsky, Mighty Swashbuckler Review

A short, cute and funny point and click adventure gem, reminiscence of old school Monkey Island style games

I bought this game cheap, can't even remember exactly when or whether it was directly from steam or a 3rd party store, doesn't really matter, I went in without too much expectations but a little bit of hope, and I wasn't disappointed.

Duke Grabowsky, Mighty Swashbuckler is a fun, yet extremely short and not very difficult classic point & click adventure game, the controls are so simple it really reminds me of the original Monkey Island games or even Simon The Sorcerer, the game is fun to play, the voice acting is very well made and the game made me chuckle and even laught at a few occasions.

The graphic style is nothing special, it's modern enough to look good and toy-ish enough to fit the story, which is from the get-go not a very serious one, the game doesn't take itself too seriously and that's a good thing, it comes off as a lightheaded, comically fun pirate adventure.

I won't say too much about the story or the characters themself so not to give any spoilers, but I really enjoyed the game, even though I finished it in under 2 hours overall playtime, including all achievements.

Overall, I definitely recommend this game for those who loves the classic point & click adventure, and want a good chuckle while they play, 7/10 from me.

A very bad Monkey Island clone.