Broken Age Catch-All

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So I posted this in the "Notch offers to fund Psychonauts 2" thread, but I felt it would do better to have it's own thread.

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Tim Schafer and Double Fine launch a Kickstarter campaign for a new, old-school-style adventure game. Stop reading this forum and go give the man your money. Go! NOW!

PS. Donate enough, and you can have dinner with Tim and DF friends, bowling and dinner with Tim and DF friends, or an original copy of Day of the Tentacle, complete in factory-sealed triangle box.

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I donated $30. Wish I could donate $50K and get a version of myself in the game, but I have enough loans to pay off as it is.

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3/14/2012 -- Holy crap! The Kickstarter campaign ended on a REALLY REALLY high note: $3,336,371 with 87,142 backers! Not including the $100,00 + provided by a few folks directly to DF.

I'll update the OP with the update vids and such when I get some more time.

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4/11/2013

I should update the OP. Game is officially called Broken Age, as voted on by the backers. Also, teaser!!

Bagel's art is awesome. Even more so when animated.

I just donated $100 to this with barely a second thought. I cannot wait to see what they come up with! This news made my night. I love this bold new direction Double Fine is going in.

They've already reached 25% funding in only a few hours. Wow.

This makes me happy to see. I've not played any of the old LucasArts games (c'mon GOG, pretty please) nor any of Double Fine's current games, but this feels like one of those earth-shattering events that changes....something... somehow. I mean, I've seen Kickstarter successfully employed for a couple of indie projects, but not something with this much name recognition in the gaming space.

Also, it's PC only right now. Utterly surreal.

I guarantee that by the end of tomorrow, they will have completely shattered their funding goal.

That's a hell of alot of pressure to put on your team to make a great game. Will "invest" when I get home from work, there's zero chance this game will suck.

I really do not care for adventure games much if at all.

But, hell yeah I'm going to support Double Fine and this phenomenal idea.

Looks like they're over half way already. Might be time to sneak an extra zero onto the money goal.

Maybe it's me, but this seems a little creepy and against the spirit of kickstarter. I mean an indie company asking for $10k to fund an actual idea they believe in is what KS is about IMO. It's a means for a an unknown entity with limited funding options to get started.

DF is an established, successful company with a well-known developer in Tim Schafer. They've had several well-received d/l games just in the past few years. It seems kind of insulting that they're asking for almost half-a-million bucks to fund "a brand-new, downloadable "Point-and-Click" graphic adventure game for the modern age".

Or, maybe I'm just tired.

'Night

Put down my $30. Psychonauts is one of my favorite games, but besides that it's hard not to support the funniest guy in gaming. In mean, just look at that video. Plus, other than the high dollar donations, they're really just asking for pre-orders. Thirty bucks for a game, one-of-a-kind documentary in HD, private forum with the devs, beta access, and soundtrack sounds like a steal to me if you even like Double Fine a little bit.

Go, go, Kickstarter.

D-Man777 wrote:

Maybe it's me, but this seems a little creepy and against the spirit of kickstarter. I mean an indie company asking for $10k to fund an actual idea they believe in is what KS is about IMO. It's a means for a an unknown entity with limited funding options to get started.

I think this is well within the spirit. Essentially, you are voting with your dollars.

And I've always been under the impression that Double Fine is one of those critically acclaimed game devs that have done well enough to be successful but not swimming in cash successful. If we the consumers can get them creating new IPs and reviving "dead" genres by paying in advance, I am all for it. Well... $30 in it this time around.

D-Man777 wrote:

Maybe it's me, but this seems a little creepy and against the spirit of kickstarter. I mean an indie company asking for $10k to fund an actual idea they believe in is what KS is about IMO. It's a means for a an unknown entity with limited funding options to get started.

DF is an established, successful company with a well-known developer in Tim Schafer. They've had several well-received d/l games just in the past few years. It seems kind of insulting that they're asking for almost half-a-million bucks to fund "a brand-new, downloadable "Point-and-Click" graphic adventure game for the modern age".

Or, maybe I'm just tired.

'Night

I think you might just be tired. Kickstarter is a means for any independent company to fund an idea they believe in. Why would Double Fine be any different? Because you've heard of them already and like their games? Those same download games you mentioned were released independently; DF has already expressed their frustration with big publishers and have even been screwed over by those same big publishers (in the forms of a cancelled Brutal Legend and Psychonauts sequels); and they're one of the very few studios to come out from under a publisher's chopping block a better and stronger developer for actually reconfiguring their development strategies. I see no problem-- find it refreshing and a boon to my industry even-- to see an established developer take publishing and funding into their own hands (so to speak), instead of kowtowing to one of the big publishers in hopes that they can continue unsustainable business practices.

D-Man777 wrote:

Maybe it's me, but this seems a little creepy and against the spirit of kickstarter. I mean an indie company asking for $10k to fund an actual idea they believe in is what KS is about IMO. It's a means for a an unknown entity with limited funding options to get started.

I don't think it goes against the spirit of Kickstarter. They want money to make a product, they promise rewards in return for funding, everybody wins. Tim and Double Fine do have an advantage of having an established fanbase, but this in no way hurts any smaller projects on Kickstarter. If anything, it brings more attention to the site, which may in turn get more projects potential funders.

An online petition w/ 10,000 signatures for Tim Schaefer and Double Fine to make a classic adventure game isn't going to sell any publisher on funding the project. But if a developer could just get 10,000 people to give them $30 a pop to effectively pre-order the game before its even in development, that's a whole different story. I wouldn't be surprised if this game gets into the millions in funding at the rate its going. And maybe this will get publishers more open to the idea of developers do more projects like this.

DF is an established, successful company with a well-known developer in Tim Schafer. They've had several well-received d/l games just in the past few years. It seems kind of insulting that they're asking for almost half-a-million bucks to fund "a brand-new, downloadable "Point-and-Click" graphic adventure game for the modern age".

$300K is for the game itself, $100K is for Player 2 Productions to do the documentary. In all honesty, $300K will only get you probably 6-8 full-time people working on this game for the 6-8 months they're allotting for development. They've also said any additional funding beyond their initial asking price will go towards the development of the game, such as VO work and music.

Somebody's already claimed the $10,000 reward! Crazy.

Did I miss an announcement for a PC version of Stacking? If I didn't, it is certainly worth noting they list Stacking as a "XBLA/PSN/PC title."

What else am I going to do with my money. I somewhat seriously considered all of the KS levels...

I did back. I love KS.

On KS:

KS Fees all together are about 10%. Any traffic people send to KS probably helps other KS projects. People who go through the process are much more likely in my opinion to back people again. I don't really see any drawbacks here.

Tannhauser wrote:

Did I miss an announcement for a PC version of Stacking? If I didn't, it is certainly worth noting they list Stacking as a "XBLA/PSN/PC title."

You did, they posted a photo of stacking dolls holding some PC sign.

The reward of an original painting used in the game suggests that the game is going to be made with traditional hand-painted art. Man, that would be friggin' awesome. I wish Kickstarter would take my Canadian money!

$30 pledged - they're already nearing $450.000 with 10.000 donors!

Guess that makes February a "failure" for me in the "no new game purchases" field....oh well.

EDIT: 10.005 donors at $452,183! It seems to be averaging around 10-15 donors per minute!

0kelvin wrote:

The reward of an original painting used in the game suggests that the game is going to be made with traditional hand-painted art. Man, that would be friggin' awesome. I wish Kickstarter would take my Canadian money!

They will. I have donated to 2 kickstarters.

Its kind of amazing to just sit there hitting refresh on the page watching the numbers go up. I wish I could earn money that fast.

shoptroll wrote:

They've already reached 25% funding in only a few hours. Wow.

This makes me happy to see. I've not played any of the old LucasArts games (c'mon GOG, pretty please) nor any of Double Fine's current games, but this feels like one of those earth-shattering events that changes....something... somehow. I mean, I've seen Kickstarter successfully employed for a couple of indie projects, but not something with this much name recognition in the gaming space.

Also, it's PC only right now. Utterly surreal.

Didn't Lucasarts released as freeware years ago? They were certainly up on Underdogs and Abondonia a couple of years ago. Failing that there are contemporary remakes of the first two monkey islands on iOS, PSN and Steam (and xbla I assume). And Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis is on steam; http://store.steampowered.com/sub/2102/

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

I guarantee that by the end of tomorrow, they will have completely shattered their funding goal.

I do not doubt this. Not even for a second.

So, its 8 am on the east coast and they have $509k out of $400k needed to fund the project! What was that, like 10 hours? 11,000 donors to fund a project and already guarantee its profitability?

Edit: Well, in the video he says that the extra money will go into the project, but how do you add so much extra money into something like this without having it balloon out of control? Surely in the next few days it will hit $1M+

Am I right in thinking that before the time runs out a kickstarter is a pledge, and when the time is up people are asked to open their wallets?

Tannhauser wrote:

Did I miss an announcement for a PC version of Stacking? If I didn't, it is certainly worth noting they list Stacking as a "XBLA/PSN/PC title."

They confirmed it in December. It's not surprising given the fact that Stacking was published through THQ like Costume Quest. The PC version of Costume Quest showed up a year after the game's console launch without a big announcement or so. Assuming that the publishing contract for both games was identical, the PC version of Stacking should show up some time this month.

Backed!

I saw the page pretty page way back when they had less than $30,000 and certainly thought that they'll be able to achieve what they set out to do. Definitely surprised that it didn't even take 24 hours though.

On the one hand, I've really enjoyed some of their games lately. On the other hand, some of their other games look like they were made for kids, and therefore have absolutely zero appeal to me.

Looks like they don't need my money anyway.

That it only took about 10k backers is surprising too. There's almost no project around that wouldn't be disappointed with a game that sold 10k copies. Giving players the option of paying more is paying off.

They've already smashed the goal and there's 33 days remaining. And they claim that any overages will go right back into making the game better, translating it to more languages and releasing it on other platforms than Steam. I asked this on Twitter this morning: How long till you think they go over $1M and how high do you think it will go? At the rate things are going, I'm saying they'll hit $1M tomorrow some time and will pass $2.5M before the funding period ends. And I am so stoked to see what they'll do with the extra money.

I have no doubt it will be a great game, but I'm really interested in the impact this will have on the current publishing model. I love supporting independent ventures like this, especially if it sends a bit F U to the publisher that wouldn't bit on a TIM SCHAFER adventure game. They do know who he is, right?

They need to cut it before it gets too high... I would hate to see this backfire on them and end up being a big issue around "was this game worth $1M+ or whatever"

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

And they claim that any overages will go right back into making the game better, translating it to more languages and releasing it on other platforms than Steam.

Wait, it's only slated for PC release?

Oh man, that leaves me out in the cold.

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