Double Fine Adventure Game

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:57 am

Double Fine Productions is finanacing an adventure game via Kickstarter right now. At minimum, a $15 pledge will get you beta access, documentary access, and a full copy of the game on Steam when it's finished (targeted Oct 2012). This is the team that made Psychonauts, Costume Quest, Brutal Legend, among others. The head of the company is Tim Schafer, who was involved in the creation of such classic adventure games like Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, and Full Throttle. And recently they added Ron Gilbert to the team, one of the major creators of the Monkey Island series of games, as well as the original Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, and Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade SCUMM adventure games. This is basically a legendary group about to make a new adventure game. For $15. And you get to watch the entire process.

There is no doubt in my mind that this will be fully funded tonight, it's already at $106,000 of the $400,000 goal in an hour or so, but if you're an adventure game fan I would leap at the chance to get in on the Kickstarter campaign while you can so you can watch the design process while it's happening. The link is below if you're interested.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:28 pm

Annnnd as expected, the game is happening. $643,000 raised in a little over 12 hours now. The way Kickstarter works is they have until their time limit (a little over a month) to continue raising money for the project, so if you're interested in getting in on the game's beta and watching the documentary as it's being made, you can still do so. The currently announced plan is to use the extra money that comes in to add additional platforms, languages, and a better soundtrack to the development.

Joined: Mar 20, 2010 Posts: 378 Location: behind you

Get paid tonight, will probably donate tomorrow to to get in on that, definitely seems like something that's gonna be worthwhile (I'd guess it's going to be worth quite a bit more than $15 when it comes out as well....).

Thanks for sharing!

Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Posts: 397 Location: Austin, Tx

Last I checked, they were over a million last night. I heard they're at 1.3mil today.

It will probably take them a long time to sign over 700 posters. Smile

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 8:59 pm

Ruy wrote:

Last I checked, they were over a million last night. I heard they're at 1.3mil today.

It will probably take them a long time to sign over 700 posters. Smile

At $1.4 million now. I imagine by the end of all this practically every reward is going to be bought out. Personally I just went with the $30 option to get the game, soundtrack, and HD download of the documentary and extras.

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:51 am

As an update for anyone thinking about participating but on the fence:

-There are 15 days left as of this post to join the Kickstarter, which is as of right now the only way to be in the Steam beta and view the "making of" documentary.

-The game has broken over $2.2 million in funding at this point. Tim Schafer has mentioned in tweets and interviews that this has now moved the game from a small fun project to a full blown Monkey Island level of quality adventure game.

-The game will now have a DRM free option available when it's released for backers. There's a planned platform release for PC/Mac/Linux as well as iOS/Android. It will also have English voice acting and translation to four other languages alongside English for the subtitles.

-There are some additional rewards available for those interested at this point. A digital copy of the documentary soundtrack was added to the $30 tier. A $60 tier was added that gives a PDF of a 100+ page game development book, with full color concept art, developer bios, photos, etc. At the $100 tier a special edition physical box with a disc of the game and bluray of the documentary has been added to what was already there.

Note that you can still just get a copy of the game, Steam beta access, and access to the documentary online for the bottom $15 tier even if none of the rest interests you.

And as a final piece for now, DoubleFine put up a 35 minute interview between Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert about what they think adventure games are, where they're going, and their thoughts on what this game was going to be before it hit millions of dollars in funding. I'm not sure if the full interview was supposed to be available only to backers, but I'm going to post the YouTube link here in the hopes that it might interest some people. Just don't link it anywhere in case it's not supposed to be up for the public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_LWmRJK-g

Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Posts: 397 Location: Austin, Tx

Konata wrote:

Just don't link it anywhere in case it's not supposed to be up for the public.

Uhm. This is a public forum. Sad

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:47 pm

Ruy wrote:

Konata wrote:

Just don't link it anywhere in case it's not supposed to be up for the public.

Uhm. This is a public forum. Sad

I didn't realize the Other Games forum was public, but turns out it was posted on Joystiq, so no problem anyway.

Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Posts: 397 Location: Austin, Tx

Yeah. I saw reposts at work from public sources. It's all good.

My favorite quote from the video:
Ron Gilbert: "... the argument that we still go back to today about whether designers should be programmers? And I think they absolutely should." He further qualifies this as that there should be good tools for designers to tune a game.

This is something I've been preaching to every producer, director, and ceo of any company I've ever been at. It's amazing how much pushback you get from management for tools development to make a game. However, an easier way to get a good quality game is to give designers scripting abilities.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:21 pm

Looks like Tim found a few ways to spend the cash:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/08/this-is-kickstarter/

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 12:36 am

Tonight they posted the 4th update to the Kickstarter campaign with only 4 days left to back the project (ending Tuesday 13th at 5pm PST). The following is new:

- The $100 tier will now have a special t-shirt that has the Doublefine Adventure flying characters on the front and "BACKER" on the back. A pic of it is on the Kickstarter page.

- The collectors art box, also on the $100 tier, will be an old-school large cardboard box in the style of the old games like Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle.

- The hardcover art book on the $500 tier will be signed by Tim Schafer.

If you've hesitated up until now, it's time to make a decision. In 4 days they won't be taking any more backers, and you'll likely miss out on the documentary completely. It's only $15 to get the game, the Steam beta, and streaming access to the documentary. You don't need to pay more, but if you want some cool swag, the option is there for a few more days.

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2012 12:49 am

I RECOGNIZE THAT HOTSAUCE. IT IS MY FAVORITE KIND AND HAS A FANTASTIC BOLD FLAVOR, NOT JUST VINEGAR AND RED PEPPER.