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

Double Fine studios, creators of such fine games as Costume Quest, Stacking, and Brutal Legend want to make an adventure game. Oh, I should mention that the people that work at Double Fine were responsible for previous adventure games including the Monkey Island games, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango.

And yeah, they've got a Kickstarter project started for this. A mere $15 gets you a copy of this game on Steam.

I plan on donating, but with one request: that they re-release Full Throttle and Grim Fandango on Steam.

Notably they started the project yesterday, and it's already over a half million dollars this morning.

It's pretty crazy, but I'm excited. I've backed the project, and I'm looking forward to it with great anticipation.

It blows the other one out of the water so far. Fucking amazing. Where is all of this money coming from and how can I get a little?!?

ThatNickGuy said:

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

Double Fine studios, creators of such fine games as Costume Quest, Stacking, and Brutal Legend want to make an adventure game. Oh, I should mention that the people that work at Double Fine were responsible for previous adventure games including the Monkey Island games, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango.

And yeah, they've got a Kickstarter project started for this. A mere $15 gets you a copy of this game on Steam.

I plan on donating, but with one request: that they re-release Full Throttle and Grim Fandango on Steam.

Click to expand...

I'd imagine there's a rights issue with those games since LucasArts still owns them.

This is another fantastic idea, though. I'm curious how they'll be able to fund an entire game development with 300k, though.

Give that they've already surpassed $600k, I don't think that'll be a problem.

Besides, by kicking out the middle man, they don't have to sell as many copies to be profitable. Valve will get a cut via Steam, but that's it. No CDs, no shipping, no publishers taking 30-40%. And with the people interested in the product actually fronting the production capital, they know exactly what kind of audience they have for the game itself.

Really, this is the future of games development: Developers submitting game ideas to the public, not the publishers.

Prior to today, the highest pledge drive was just over $942k. Today, one project cracked a million, but this DF project just cleared $943k in about 21 hours.

EDIT: In the time it took me to post this, the project made another 4k.

Yeah, it's stunning. $27,000 per hour.

@TimOfLegend tweets:
"$955k! Guys, I'll make you a deal. If we hit $980k I'll add RTS elements to the game! And if we hit $1M, I'll take them back out!"

figmentPez said:

@TimOfLegend tweets:
"$955k! Guys, I'll make you a deal. If we hit $980k I'll add RTS elements to the game! And if we hit $1M, I'll take them back out!"

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I just shot cocacola out of my noise and over my keyboard.

Well, he just got past 1 million so we won't have to worry about that.

...in 22 hours. DAMN.

figmentPez said:

@TimOfLegend tweets:
"$955k! Guys, I'll make you a deal. If we hit $980k I'll add RTS elements to the game! And if we hit $1M, I'll take them back out!"

Click to expand...

I just laughed so hard that I had snot coming out of my nose. Glad to see that Tim is at least in good humor about Brutal Legend.

Some fans probably thought he was serious and went, "OH FUCK!" and donated all to hell.

I'm a backer!

Tim Schafer continues to be funny:

@TimOfLegend: $1,343,061! We've passed the budget of Day of the Tentacle and are closing in on the Full Throttle budget ($1.5M). I'm adding motorcycles!

Oh, and in case anyone somehow missed this (I almost did):

The video is hilarious. I think kickstarter did a bad thing to remove the play button from the video image on the page, but oh well.

They've got a month left, and they're already at 1.3 million dollars.

It's astounding.

Piotyr said:

Tim Schafer is and will always be funny:

Click to expand...

Fixed that for ya.

ThatNickGuy said:

I plan on donating, but with one request: that they re-release Full Throttle and Grim Fandango on Steam Good Old Games

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There, fixed that for you...

And there at 1.5 mil with over 30 days to go....

figmentPez said:

@TimOfLegend tweets:
"$955k! Guys, I'll make you a deal. If we hit $980k I'll add RTS elements to the game! And if we hit $1M, I'll take them back out!"

Click to expand...

Yeah, that may be the best God damn thing anyone has ever used Twitter (or the internet) to say.

ThatNickGuy said:

I plan on donating, but with one request: that they re-release Full Throttle and Grim Fandango on Steam.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, Double Fine doesn't own the rights to either property, LucasArts does.

Right, but they must be on somewhat good terms with LucasArts. Otherwise, they wouldn't have done the commentary for the Monkey Island II special edition. Surely they could convince LucasArts to put those games on Steam.

LucasArts is notoriously tight-fisted about this kind of thing, unfortunately. Hopefully they'll relax a bit since its not a Star Wars license.
Added at: 10:44

AshburnerX said:

I just laughed so hard that I had snot coming out of my nose. Glad to see that Tim is at least in good humor about Brutal Legend.

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I...I liked Brutal Legend. Even the RTS bits.

That's what killed it for me. I was honestly digging the game up until that part.

SpecialKO said:

I...I liked Brutal Legend. Even the RTS bits.

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Most people liked Brutal Legend right up to the first RTS scene. Most people went into Brutal Legend expecting a third-person action game, similar to God of War. And because of EA's interference, that's how the was marketed. Unfortunately, RTS don't have the "casual" appeal and once word got out of those scenes, people stopped buying.

I honestly think the best move would have been to keep it to small scale RTS (maybe 10-20 guys at a time, so you have less to control) for most of the game and only bring out the bigger armies for the final faction battles. They really don't wean you into the big fights well.

The RTS segments were pretty poorly designed. I know in the first battle I accidently restarted the fight right as I was about to win because I was scooting around in the car and went off a jump that informed me midflight that I was leaving the area and by the time I landed I had, by default, lost because I went out of bounds.

It's past $1.7 million now.

If my math is correct, nearly 90% of the backers are at the $15 or $30 level, accounting for at least $916,110 of the funding, about 52%. Even without the huge buy-ins, or even the $100 level stuff, this game still has enough basic purchases to have met the original goal twice over.

Yeah, it'll probably slow to a crawl now. Couldn't keep that pace forever.
Added at: 16:02
I kind of wished I'd acted sooner, I might've gone in for the 250 dollar level.

Video update.

Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android. Beta will be Steam-only, but there will be DRM-free options for the final game.
Subtitles in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

No Swedish?

Muppets fans are gonna be pissed.

They're gonna hit $2 million very soon. Holy crap. Suck it, big name publishers!

I can imagine the moneyhats in the big publishers seeing the dollars in this, "You mean, we can get the consumers to take the financial risk, publish a game, then reap nothing but profit?"

No you can't. Tim Schaffer, maybe Will Wright or Warren Spector too, but not you guys.

Frankie Williamson said:

I can imagine the moneyhats in the big publishers seeing the dollars in this, "You mean, we can get the consumers to take the financial risk, publish a game, then reap nothing but profit?"

No you can't. Tim Schaffer, maybe Will Wright or Warren Spector too, but not you guys.

Click to expand...

Oh god... someone get Warren Spector in on this, pronto!

You know the companies are going to try it, but frankly, I am fine with that. We need a change in the way the system works, and this one seems like it would be an interesting one to try.

Those companies that try to abuse it for profit will just begin to see a decline in customer backing, while those that show the customer respect will get more and more support in the future.

Also anyone notice that TWO of the $10,000 packages were bought? That is pretty crazy to me.

I could totally see the bigger pubs trying this as a form of advanced pre-order, but I really doubt it will work when game development for original IP at that level takes two years minimum and often goes way over budget.

It might work for Madden games, for all the good that will do.

The real problem is pub corporate bloat and their general unwilling-ness to take more chances with smaller projects. When everything *has* to be (in their minds) a $20-$50M mega-project, it's no wonder they're so risk-averse.

Done right, Kickstarter could be fantastic for small devs who already have a prototype/previous work that can help get buzz going.

SpecialKO said:

I could totally see the bigger pubs trying this as a form of advanced pre-order, but I really doubt it will work when game development for original IP at that level takes two years minimum and often goes way over budget.

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Can you imagine the level of fandom it would take to plunk down $60, in full, for a game you won't get for a couple of years? There definitely are some gamers who would do that, but not many. The Double Fine Adventure is, what, six months of waiting, with just $15 or $30 on the line, and I'm betting even that was too much of a wait for some people.

figmentPez said:

Can you imagine the level of fandom it would take to plunk down $60, in full, for a game you won't get for a couple of years? There definitely are some gamers who would do that, but not many. The Double Fine Adventure is, what, six months of waiting, with just $15 or $30 on the line, and I'm betting even that was too much of a wait for some people.

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Exactly.

I'll bet it would have worked for SWTOR (the pledging part, I mean). I love the game, but thank god they didn't try Kickstarter for it. The hate-level among the "hardcore" is already a little insane for that game, imagine what it would be otherwise.

I do actually think it would work for Madden. Which kind of depresses me.

figmentPez said:

The Double Fine Adventure is, what, six months of waiting, with just $15 or $30 on the line, and I'm betting even that was too much of a wait for some people.

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I think it's going to be a problem for them, actually. You can't easily spend 3 million dollars in 6 months and get a game that's 8 times better than the originally planned 0.4 million dollar game.

They're going to end up lengthening the schedule, and involving more developers, which should be ok.

I think they ought to cap the $15 donation at 50,000 people and add a new donation level of $20 for the next 50,000, and $30 for the next, etc. Make people pay more as the game gets more funding - this is essentially going to be a $60 game, and $15 is a fantastic deal for it. It would also push a lot of people who are sitting on the fence about supporting it - the earlier you donate, the better deal you get.

But yeah, I think they're going to be in a bit of a pickle. You can't simply throw 10x more developers at it and get 10x the productivity. I'll be interested to see how it ultimately turns out.

Does Kickstarter allow you to set a cap? As you point out, not every project is scalable to each individual dollar.

I kicked in $30, but I didn't view it as a preorder.

I viewed it at what it is, donating money to a developer I love for a project that I think is worth doing. That I get a copy of the game when it releases is just a bonus to me.

stienman said:

I think it's going to be a problem for them, actually. You can't easily spend 3 million dollars in 6 months and get a game that's 8 times better than the originally planned 0.4 million dollar game.

They're going to end up lengthening the schedule, and involving more developers, which should be ok.

Click to expand...

What if they go episodic, or plan DLC? They obviously had some idea for a game they could do in six months, what if they do that as planned, with all the voice acting that was contingent on funding, and then use whatever is above and beyond to do more content past the six month period. That way backers aren't waiting past the original deadline, and Double Fine isn't spending exponential amounts of money to rush the schedule.

Six months, they release the game on Steam, (additional money comes in and they use that to fund a port to XBLA) while they work on Part 2 or the Holiday Special or whatever with what's left of the Kickstarter money. Backers get the game with the DLC for free, just not all right at the original release date.

Oh, hey, that would be good! Since buyers will get betas anyway, it'll be kind of like that from the start.

I'm waiting for the backlash when people realize they were funding the game, not purchasing it.

"Dah... you mean you expect me to actually pay for the game when it's released... :dur:"

If you pledge enough for any reward, you do get the game as well.

Bowielee said:

I'm waiting for the backlash when people realize they were funding the game, not purchasing it.

"Dah... you mean you expect me to actually pay for the game when it's released... :dur:"

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But even at the lowest level of backing you are getting a copy of the game when it's done.

Dur, on me, then, I totally misread the donation tiers.
Added at: 01:19
Well, that's cool then. I can't wait to get my DRM free game, then. I'll still end up paying for the iOS version anyway.

They've passed $2,000,000 now, with just over three weeks to go.

For awhile, Shaefer was comparing the current amount to previous games' budgets. I wonder what it compares to, now?

A fifth of what it probably cost to make Brutal Legend?

It's a sixth of what it cost to make psychonauts.

I could watch/listen to these two talk for hours.

They're making me wish I had $470 extra lying around.

Yeah....I like them, but not 500 dollars worth for a book.

I do like them exactly 15 dollars worth though.

At first, I liked them $15 enough. But I changed my mind. I now like them $30 enough.

I can't see the video here at work. Is that the interview with Ron Gilbert?

I did find something interesting though, and I think Ron may have actually inadvertently hit the nail on the head why Adventure games have fallen out of favor with some people. He was talking about how with adventure games, they were something where you stewed over the answers to the puzzles and thought about them even when not playing. With the advent of the internet, I think may find it hard to avoid just jumping online to get the answers, which kind of destroys the whole play experience.

Also, Limbo is a platformer with puzzle-solving elements, not an adventure game

Eh, I played Grim Fandango even with the internet and it's still a treasure but I totally get his point.

He didn't really make that point, he was more musing on what he thought adventure games should be. It did make me realize that one of the reasons the genre might have fallen out of favor is because of the rise of the internet.

I remember the original point and click adventure games and how MADDENING the puzzles could be (especially when they use "adventure game logic", or render a game unwinnable if you don't get a specific object in the very beginning). However, the sheer frustration led to the greatest moments of the game when you finally figured out the puzzle. With a walkthrough at your fingertips, I could see how that may deminish that somewhat.

That's something he touches on at the beginning of the interview (all I've watched so far) about how too many adventure games expect the player to find the key before they're shown the lock and how missing something can mean unwinnable situations.

Speaking of retro gaming...

Kara-mutherfuggin-teka remake!

http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2012/02/announcing-karateka/

I still have nightmares about that goddamn Babel fish puzzle in infocom's hitchhiker game.

The answer is junkmail?! RRAAWWRRRR!

Gah! You and me both, Raven.

I still enjoy the experience of adventure games, despite the internet. While I don't get that "AH HA!" moment anymore, I do get that "Oh for...why didn't I think of that?" moment, which is pretty similar.

Heh, I remember back when the internet was just starting to form, I had lent a copy of Day of the Tentacle to a friend. He kept calling me over...and over...and over...asking for help on where to go next. Ugh. I eventually told him to piss off and figure it out himself because he was calling too much.

That interview made me download Limbo.

A week to go, and they're at $2.4 million, with nearly 70,000 backers.

Update video #4, in short: new reward tiers for the big spenders.

I can't overstate how much I love Tim Schaefer.

I think my favorite part of Tim Schaefer is even when he's acting incredibly goofy, he still looks furious.

Less than two days left. The count currently stands at $2.7 million.

Last chance to back the project.

8 hours to go, and they've cracked $3 million.

I'm finally in for $30. I love the fact that they're going with DRM free. I got the $30 package because I know I'm going to have two kids playing at once occasionally. Can't say I'm terribly interested in the documentary or music, but they might surprise me.

This made me pick up psychonauts.

I like the game so much, i wish i had taken advantage of the double fine bundle

Final total: $3,335,265

It makes me sad that I got my bonus today, because I didn't know if I'd have the cash to drop on this. I did just buy Stacking though, and I will hunt down a Brutal Legend ASAP. So far, I have yet to see a miss from them.

I need to buy stacking.

Fun Size said:

I will hunt down a Brutal Legend ASAP. So far, I have yet to see a miss from them.

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Yeah... about that...

Brutal Legend has EVERYTHING it takes to make a great game... except great gameplay. Sadly, that's the most important part.

AshburnerX said:

Brutal Legend has EVERYTHING it takes to make a great game... except great gameplay. Sadly, that's the most important part.

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The first half of the game is really fun. And it goes without saying, but the soundtrack is FANTASTIC.

They put up their first backer only video. I love watching Tim Schaefer laugh, his furious looking face still looks furious even when he's cracking up and it makes me feel happy to see.

For the record, Stacking is AWESOME. Also, if you haven't played it yet, get Costume Quest, also by our fine friends at Double Fine.

Y'know, the more I think about this project, the more I think that this may be a milestone in game development. If we can have some companies that break out of the inherent system, we may see a renesaince of truely new ideas, not murder death simulater number 981651513135108481330 and 1/2.

71% of Double Fine's backers were new to Kickstarter
of those, 22% went on to fund another project. To the tune of $877,171 spread out over 1,266 distinct projects.

Also, some Order of the Stick facts:
76% first time backers
of those 22% went on to back another project. $206,766 going to 722 projects.

A lot more info at the article, but basically these two giant projects brought a lot of attention to Kickstarter and they brought in backers willing to go on to fund other projects.

figmentPez said:

71% of Double Fine's backers were new to Kickstarter
of those, 22% went on to fund another project. To the tune of $877,171 spread out over 1,266 distinct projects.

Also, some Order of the Stick facts:
76% first time backers
of those 22% went on to back another project. $206,766 going to 722 projects.

A lot more info at the article, but basically these two giant projects brought a lot of attention to Kickstarter and they brought in backers willing to go on to fund other projects.

Click to expand...

I know it had that effect on me

Reading that category breakdown produces an obvious conclusion: Tim Schaefer needs to make a dance game :-P

I had no money during either promotion. Such is life, ya know?