http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure
Awesome! Look at all the money it's pulled already. People love Double Fine.
There are no details about the game itself, but it does specifically say it would be a point and click, though one with a small team and what seems like a short production period. Still, it's been way too long since Schafer designed an adventure game, so this is exciting. I really hope it pans out.
Pretty much the most exciting gaming news I've heard since forever. Backed that one straight away 8)
What is more amazing is that they have raised 3/4 of the required funds in about 6 hours! Let's see what Europe can do.
Yeah, Kickstarter is pretty cool. Recently, Rich Burlew (creator of the popular Order of the Stick webcomic) wanted to raise money to put his older books back in print, and he raised 1000% of the amount he needed in little more than a week. Yes, that's one thousand percent.
LOL, I just looked at it, and they're at $392,000 out of $400,000 needed. 33 days to go. ;D
And, man, even Cookie monster approves this! I'm so backing it now!
And it's fully funded in under 9 hours. Well done to Tim & Ron & Double Fine!
(deleted)
This is cool! I might have to dust off my card again.
$400,000 for a point n click adventure?
Should've used AGS ;D
Nearly at a half a million. It made 400k in eight hours. This is a slap to the face of anyone who ever said adventure games are dead.
Woo! Half a million!
Quote from: m0ds on Thu 09/02/2012 12:22:20
$400,000 for a point n click adventure?
Should've used AGS ;D
Who says they aren't? They might blow the whole budget on Tacos.
But seriously, feeling kinda warm and fuzzy towards the adventure game community right now!
Wow, this truly is amazing. Just on the promise of a new game, Double Fine raised enough capital in a single day to make it. I don't want to be presumptous, but this is promising on a wider scope than just this one game. It could be the blossoming of a whole new way of funding video games, as this proves it can be a resounding success.
I'll be sure to pick it up once it's hits stores! Screw it, pledged!
Don't be stingy, look at all these great rewards!
QuotePledge $15,000 or more:
Dinner with Tim Schafer and key members of the dev team.
Pledge $20,000 or more:
Dinner and BOWLING with Tim Schafer and key members of the dev team.
Pledge $30,000 or more:
Picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.
Pledge $35,000 or more:
Undoctored picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.
Pledge $50,000 or more:
Become an actual character in the game.
Pledge $150,000 or more:
Tim Schafer (that’s me) will give last four remaining Triangle Boxed Day of the Tentacles, in original shrink-wrap.†(Limit of 1) (Holy crap, what am I thinking? I only have four of those!)
I hereby reserve the right to post Dr.Evil image in this very post when they reach.... one.... million... dollars!
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 09/02/2012 13:54:16
Don't be stingy, look at all these great rewards!
QuotePledge $15,000 or more:
Dinner with Tim Schafer and key members of the dev team.
Pledge $20,000 or more:
Dinner and BOWLING with Tim Schafer and key members of the dev team.
Pledge $30,000 or more:
Picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.
Pledge $35,000 or more:
Undoctored picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.
Pledge $50,000 or more:
Become an actual character in the game.
Pledge $150,000 or more:
Tim Schafer (that’s me) will give last four remaining Triangle Boxed Day of the Tentacles, in original shrink-wrap.†(Limit of 1) (Holy crap, what am I thinking? I only have four of those!)
What the...
So if you don't have friends but have lots of money, $15000 is all you need. ;D
Well that's what you might call guaranteed sales, as in they actually paid up front.
$747k, including my $39.99 :)
Quote from: Kweepa on Thu 09/02/2012 18:15:53
$747k, including my $39.99 :)
(http://emmyc.com/GuybrushComputerGame.gif)
:D
Whoa! I nearly wet myself when I heard the news. Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert back in the saddle on an ADVENTURE GAME! YeeHaw! I like how they are going to document the whole process for the world to see as well. Just became a backer for just that very reason!
Soo gooood! And now my OTHER favourite developers who complain about publishers; their ears will be pricking up. They will be wondering. I will be waiting with my bank account and my clicky finger.
Weird and interesting news!
If they can raise so much with so little information about the game itself, I wonder if that might encourage other adventure developers to be a bit more daring. I'd be delighted to see Telltale come up with a wholly original series at some point.
Quote from: Ali on Thu 09/02/2012 19:35:21
Weird and interesting news!
If they can raise so much with so little information about the game itself, I wonder if that might encourage other adventure developers to be a bit more daring. I'd be delighted to see Telltale come up with a wholly original series at some point.
Well I'm sure they raised so much with so little info, purely because of Tim Schafer's name. He's a game design celebrity, and has a huge track record of successes. Without that I'm sure it would have taken much longer to raise those funds. I think crowd-sourcing sites like kickstarter are a great way to get a project funded and off the ground. However we all have to "prove ourselves" to one degree or another before people are going to start handing over money. I'm seeing a lot more video games that are being funded this way, and I think it's a good thing overall. Especially as you've have some initial customers (backers) / fans right out of the gate before you really get started.
Backed. Come on, people! For Double Fine! For the adventure game genre!
Quote from: Greg Squire on Thu 09/02/2012 19:59:38
Well I'm sure they raised so much with so little info, purely because of Tim Schafer's name.
Of course! By adventure developers I didn't mean people like us, I meant established companies with track records of making good (if not particularly adventurous) adventures. Really, I did just mean Telltale.
I've never seen a Kickstarter get funded this fast. Just goes to show you, people still love adventure games. I can't wait to, hopefully, get lost in a new world built by Ron Gilbert and Tim Shafer. I just hope it's not 3D. :P
Well, they got my $30, not that they need it. Hot damn, 150% of the funding and counting :D
Have the Toonstruck guys thought about Kickstarter?
You are late, doimus!
Quote from: Armageddon on Thu 09/02/2012 22:58:45
I've never seen a Kickstarter get funded this fast. Just goes to show you, people still love adventure games. I can't wait to, hopefully, get lost in a new world built by Ron Gilbert and Tim Shafer. I just hope it's not 3D. :P
This! Buuuut I'm sure it will be 3D. Not that they won't do a good job of it, but damn... can't help but daydream at the potential of a modern Gilbert/Schafer 2D adventure.
Quote from: Jared on Fri 10/02/2012 01:36:50
Have the Toonstruck guys thought about Kickstarter?
I would fund the hell out of a Toonstruck sequal drive. No word of a lie, I would back it in a heartbeat. If this resounding success sparks off one of theirs, it would make me very happy indeed.
This had 200.000 and 379 comments just this morning. :D
Quote from: Dualnames on Fri 10/02/2012 03:47:00
This had 200.000 and 379 comments just this morning. :D
And they were aiming for 379 and 200.000 comments ;D
Exiting news. Mr. Schaefer's bound to come up with something. Maybe something good. I remain optimistic.
If it's even half as good as Grim Fandango I will eat my appendix.
Ok... Am I the only one weirded enough by this "15,000$ for dinner with Tim"?!?!?!
I'd gladly pay 15,000$ if I had it for dinner with a famous actor or something, but Tim schafer!??!?!
I think that Vince and Dave should consider their kickstart pages a little and redo them... ;D
EDIT: For fucks shake... 1,2 million in 24 hours?!?!?! Yikes!
Quote from: Nikolas on Fri 10/02/2012 08:10:47
I think that Vince and Dave should consider their kickstart pages a little and redo them... ;D
"Dave"? Which Dave and which kickstart page do you mean?
Quote from: Ascovel on Fri 10/02/2012 08:13:12
Quote from: Nikolas on Fri 10/02/2012 08:10:47
I think that Vince and Dave should consider their kickstart pages a little and redo them... ;D
"Dave"? Which Dave and which kickstart page do you mean?
I'm talking about separate people and kickstart pages from imagination land... ;D
Quote from: blueskirt on Fri 10/02/2012 02:00:31
You are late, doimus!
Erm... sorry... I'll do it when they make One Hundred Billion Dollars!!!!
Quote from: Kweepa on Thu 09/02/2012 18:15:53
Guybrush and Elaine.
Ahhh := You funny Steve :D
On that note i pledged $15.
Yeah, yeah he was pretty hilarious posting that picture wasn't he. What a hilarious dude.
Ah, don't worry, Nathan's just drunk again.
Just wait till he sobers up a bit and realizes that his "$15" was really "$150". :=
I'd like the poster and all that, but $100 might be a bit too steep for me ATM. I think I'll probably do $30 though.
I liked the joke about how at 100k they're gonna add strategic elements to the game but if it reaches 120k they're gonna take them away again (little Brutal legend humor...damn ps3 exlusive half strategy mess). ;D
Btw do you realize what this is? A high budget title that has sure profit (or if not profit per say, it keeps the company running and no publisher supervision...that's like an endangered species. Not only that but the financing was solved in probably less time than what would take for them to take out a loan from a bank or something. ;D
I'm just afraid that in the future this might become overused in some way. :-\
'# Kickstarter's big moment: 2 projects earn $1 million on same day (http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-kickstarters-double-fine-20120210,0,7607910.story)
Best. News. Ever.
I heard about this an hour ago, been walking around my appartement screaming "YES!!" to myself over and over ;D
It's now over 1.5M, which is great... but it suddenly occured to me that the bigger the budget is the more likely it will be that the game won't run on my shitty laptop... :'(
Pledge more, it can be PORTED to shitty laptops!
Quote from: Ehkber on Sat 11/02/2012 16:41:42
Pledge more, it can be PORTED to shitty laptops!
Just like it can be ported to shitty German. :P
Quote from: Sughly on Fri 10/02/2012 02:19:38
Quote from: Armageddon on Thu 09/02/2012 22:58:45
I've never seen a Kickstarter get funded this fast. Just goes to show you, people still love adventure games. I can't wait to, hopefully, get lost in a new world built by Ron Gilbert and Tim Shafer. I just hope it's not 3D. :P
This! Buuuut I'm sure it will be 3D. Not that they won't do a good job of it, but damn... can't help but daydream at the potential of a modern Gilbert/Schafer 2D adventure.
Reading Tim Schafer's latest tweet (https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/168471171480817664 (https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/168471171480817664)) it seems it will be a 2D game! ;D
He makes hell of a use of 3D.
Guess I chose the right day to check up what's new in the AG community. I like this very much!
Schafer says that Costume Quest and Stacking had about $2 million budgets. I wonder if that means this was planned at an even smaller scale than those two, or simply something with cheaper graphics.
What I don't understand is just because he went over the planned $400,000 budget, doesn't mean the rest can't be profit.
That would be cheating. The money is raised for a specific cause - and making the company richer wasn't part of it.
Quote from: Ascovel on Sun 12/02/2012 01:40:46
That would be cheating. The money is raised for a specific cause - and making the company richer wasn't part of it.
Check out some of the tweets on Timoflegend account - Schafer mentions that Full Throttle cost $2.24 million dollars and DotT was 300k plus 300k for voices (which sounds kind of weird to be honest, or actually it makes uncomfortable to think how much "famous" actors are paid these days for games).
Now, I don't know what's gonna happen, but it seems the project got a good budget for complete funding of a regular length 2d point'n'click adventure game. And even though the budget seems to be just right, the fact is that that is just a preorder (you get a copy of the game if you give enough money), but they're gonna get more money when they start selling it so profit is gonna be made.
Not to mention that even if they don't sell one more copy, still they've got money to pay their workers for some time and keep them afloat, plus since they won't be publisher supervised, they could experiment and thus maybe get some projects coming their way in the future, especially since it's on Steam (and thus Valve)...
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sun 12/02/2012 01:29:03
What I don't understand is just because he went over the planned $400,000 budget, doesn't mean the rest can't be profit.
It does mean that the one party making a substantial profit is Kickstarter themselves. After all, they get 5% of all donations, and all they need to do is keep their servers running.
Been following this, but finally got around to pledging today. I would probably have bought the game anyway (now that it's certain to be made) but access to the documentaries swayed me.
One thing I wonder about is that when they proposed the idea it was obviously supposed to be a pretty small game. They've got a lot more money available than they were planning, but are they still planning to finish it for October? I'd rather see them make the most of the opportunity to make something like DotT rather than rush through an 'episode' length game that I can play on 20 different platforms.
I still haven't rustled up the cash (but I plan to) but I think a shorter game is a wiser idea. They'd be asking for trouble if they tried to create something too grand on what is relatively a pretty small budget.
If they produce a small but successful adventure game through kickstarter, then perhaps that makes publishing an adventure game on the scale of DoTT or Grim Fandango more realistic in the future.
Tim Schafer has posted a video update:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFKwplDBmgg&feature=youtu.be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFKwplDBmgg&feature=youtu.be)
Long and short of it, they're going to be making PC, Mac, Linux and smartphone versions; it will be fully voiced in English, text translated to French, Italian, German and Spanish; and there's going to be a closed beta for all the projects backers (including me!!!)
Quote from: Peder Johnsen+ on Sat 11/02/2012 23:20:37
Reading Tim Schafer's latest tweet (https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/168471171480817664 (https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/168471171480817664)) it seems it will be a 2D game! ;D
GAAAAAASP!! Oh my... that's rather exciting. Not that I dont think they would do a good job with 3D, its just... 2D!! :D :D :D
Did he actually say that, though? From the start the phrase has been "Old-school point & click graphic adventure game", which could be any of the following:
oldschool*(point&click+graphicadventuregame)
oldschool*(point&click+graphic)+adventuregame
oldschool*point&click+graphicadventuregame
So is oldschool just a description of its point&clickness, or will the whole thing (including graphics) be oldschool?
Whatever the weather, as LRR crew mentioned - the pressure is ON - not only do they have "investors", they have investors that'll actually play the game.
Quote from: Babar on Fri 17/02/2012 11:28:51
Did he actually say that, though?
Read the fucking tweet Babar https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/168471171480817664 (https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/168471171480817664)!
Hey, they all is up to 2 million dollars or some shit. That is some kind of "milestone" right?
I hope with all this extra money they'll be able to replicate the things we loved most about Tim Schafer's old adventure titles, such as the Grim Fandango control scheme and the driving minigame in Full Throttle.
I wish they stole one idea or two from Rich Burlew's Order Of The Stick reprint drive (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599092525/the-order-of-the-stick-reprint-drive/posts), like the daily chart and mystery prize milestones, to bring back the momentum of the first days. It was somewhat entertaining to watch Rich's attempts at keeping up with his fans and them shattering every goals he could come up with.
So can we now have 5 games at 400,000 each please? That would be cool. :P
Quote from: cianty on Tue 21/02/2012 19:01:30
So can we now have 5 games at 400,000 each please? That would be cool. :P
I approve this idea.
Quote from: Armageddon on Wed 22/02/2012 08:22:21
Quote from: cianty on Tue 21/02/2012 19:01:30
So can we now have 5 games at 400,000 each please? That would be cool. :P
I approve this idea.
+1 this... although as a backer I would consider them all part of the same project and demand I get to download all of them and not just the first one.
This has the potential to become a new trend. Chris Avellone has been talking about the idea of doing a 2D iso-RPG using Kickstarter, and I just emailed Al Lowe about it because I naively thought he might be out of the gaming loop these days after his last big project went belly up. According to AL "in fact, I saw Tim the morning after it went public and, during the five minutes we spoke, he took in $10,000!". He says it's become a "hot topic" with the people he's dealing with atm.
Al Lowe really stays connected with the fans- 8) But it's good to stay connected in this modern age. Just look at Tim Schafer and his Kickstarter page! ;)
I don't think I can think of another developer I'd pay money to make a game like I did Schafer here. Maybe Gilbert on his own? But I imagine that most of the industry people whose ears are prickling up at this are the sort who possibly can't find funding for their games for good reason..
Chris Avellone's definitely near the top of my list of people I'd throw money at to make whatever they wanted. Do it, Chris! DO IT!
Just watched the half-hour conversation between Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. Hmmm... I find it interesting that they don't really seem to have any special insight into what makes adventure games unique, or why they stagnated, or what can be improved, or anything like that. Anyone who's spent any time talking adventure games online will have heard everything they say before. In one sense it's reassuring to see that two such famous designers aren't any smarter or better-informed than us, but on the other hand it makes you wonder if they have anything new to add after all these years. (Of course, talent for creating isn't the same as aptitude for analysis, so maybe we shouldn't put too much stock in this.)
It looks like the game will be, or at least was intended to be, pretty old-school, with all-2D graphics, puzzle-heavy design, probably comedic dialog, etc. But is it all going to be a nostalgia act? Ron is pretty hung up on Monkey Island (he clearly considers it the best adventure game ever made; not that I disagree with him). I hope they have some new and original ideas for this one.
This may make it sound like I'm not excited. I am. But I'll temper my expectations and try to remain cautiously optimistic rather than assuming it'll be another masterpiece and running a significant risk of disappointment.
Hey, if they make a game even half as good as I enjoyed Monkey Island as a kid, it's worth the $30. Heck, even the nostalgia alone that I have for that game is worth what I've pledged. The game they make now will just be a bonus.
Quote from: Bluke4x4 on Thu 23/02/2012 16:02:46
Al Lowe really stays connected with the fans- 8) But it's good to stay connected in this modern age. Just look at Tim Schafer and his Kickstarter page! ;)
I don't think I can think of another developer I'd pay money to make a game like I did Schafer here. Maybe Gilbert on his own? But I imagine that most of the industry people whose ears are prickling up at this are the sort who possibly can't find funding for their games for good reason..
Al Lowe is a big jolly, generous man. We're always seeing his rosy red cheeks and warm smile to give us more support for being fans of the 'Leisure Suit Larry'. I would trust him with over 3 million dollars to bring us that wonderful joy again.
And Josh Mandel. "It doesn't work", "It won't budge", "You can't pick that up", "It doesn't respond," are just not good enough for him, if there's ten hotspots and four verbs for a room, there's got to be forty different and unique messages for that single room, one for every verb/hotspot combo. That guy's a genius.
Snarky: There's three things I expect from Tim and Ron: A unique setting, creative puzzles and a whole lot of humor/comedic feedback, even (and especially) when whatever you try doesn't solve a puzzle, that's what I feel is missing from today's adventure games, maybe not the first one but most certainly the latter two, and what I got from the thirty minutes video is that Ron still seems rather keen on the puzzle aspect, they both think comedy is important, and Tim always had this thing for unique or rarely used worlds or settings in video games. I only expect these three things and I'm rather confident that's what we'll get, and it will be a happy day, like when Time Gentlemen Please came out.
Quote from: Snarky on Sat 25/02/2012 00:52:29
Just watched the half-hour conversation between Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. Hmmm... I find it interesting that they don't really seem to have any special insight into what makes adventure games unique, or why they stagnated, or what can be improved, or anything like that.
I think the reason for that is, they haven't played all the rubbish we've played in the intervening years. So obsessive fans like us may have gained a bit more insight... but at what cost?
> use cup of tea
I don't know how to 'use'.
> drink tea and get to work
I don't know what you mean by 'work'.
In the Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert interview, Ron suggested they use an "off the shelf" engine for the game, and it sounded like he knew of some out there (perhaps he knew about AGS). Of course this was filmed before they had 2.4+ million dollars, and a text popup mentioned they were still evaluating what to use as an engine. They have also mentioned the game will be for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, & Android. To my knowledge there isn't an "off the shelf" 2D point-n-click adventure game engine that will support that. XAGE might, but it's not in a released state yet. SCUMM might, as there's a ScummVM for those platforms, but I haven't seen much in the way of a modern SCUMM authoring tool. Also it was implied they don't have the rights to use SCUMM anymore so they might not be able to do that. However I have a feeling they may have enough pull to be able to secure rights to use it again. And maybe even buy the rights outright. So my guess is they will try and use SCUMM again.
If however they can't, I think it would be great if someone could convince them to use AGS. Now that AGS is open source, they certainly could help finish off the ports to Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. It would give them a leg up on development (as they wouldn't be creating something from scratch), and it would benefit the AGS community. Anyone want to convince them to do that?
They might ask backers for input in this, but if they do I don't think our little community's really going to convince them that this is the best engine for all the modern, swishy platforms they're developing for.
After programming for Journey of Iesir, I've realized how limited AGS really is. Not to sound like I'm bashing it, but they are definitely better off using a more professional engine that doesn't limit nearly everything they want to do, or simply just program the whole game from scratch.
Pretty sure Ron is aware of AGS, he got given quite a few AGS games at his meet in London. Also, Yufster + Tim Schafer probably means he knows about it, too. But along the lines of Ryan's agreeable comment (for their game), can't use iMuse with AGS :(
I thin with their newly revised budget plan they might well just write their own engine. I must admit I thought 'It would be cool if they used AGS' at that point in the interview, too. But they have better options now that they are rolling in our money and love.
so 100$ is the lowest amount to finally get a boxed version you can put in your shelf? :(
Or buy it twice?!
Quote from: Greg Squire on Tue 06/03/2012 20:39:59So my guess is they will try and use SCUMM again.
One of Schafer's video answers during his Reddit session yesterday led me to believe that they would steer clear of SCUMM. But the actual question involved SCUMMVM, so maybe I read too much into it.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Wed 07/03/2012 00:41:45
After programming for Journey of Iesir, I've realized how limited AGS really is. Not to sound like I'm bashing it, but they are definitely better off using a more professional engine that doesn't limit nearly everything they want to do, or simply just program the whole game from scratch.
My initial reaction to this comment, for whatever reason, was "You crazy, AGS can do anything!!!"
And theeeeen I thought back to customising the inventory GUI in Vohaul Strikes Back and realised that it's definitely untidy in certain spots. In order to allow the player to use a right click option AND to be able to look, touch and lick every inventory item I had to write of extra, lateral thinking code (Including a handler for every right mouse click in the game, IIRC...)
AGS can be funny like that. 90% of the time you're thinking "Man, I can't believe how easy this is!" but when you come up with something you need to mess around with it does feel like you begin coding entirely from scratch and it can be tough to test on top of that... so you're probably right that Schafer and Gilbert will almost certainly go with something else, even if its fine for rough-and-ready pseudo-programmers like myself..
Yes, it's easy to see how we would benefit from them using AGS, but it's hard to see how it would benefit them.
They could take part in the Guess The Movie topic?
Quote from: Eric on Wed 07/03/2012 01:26:02
One of Schafer's video answers during his Reddit session yesterday led me to believe that they would steer clear of SCUMM. But the actual question involved SCUMMVM, so maybe I read too much into it.
I found Tim Schafer's video response here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzP0F_QkmD4), so yeah it does appear they'll be steering clear of SCUMM. He said they'd rather write they're own system than take a chance on getting sued by Lucas. I thought they might try and license it from Lucasarts, but this makes me believe otherwise.
The funding has crossed $3M :o, with a few hours left to go. They're doing some sort of livecast of the countdown soon, at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/double-fine-adventure
Thanks for reminding me, Snarky. This is all quite exiting. I think it will be a while before 3M is achieved again on Kickstarter.
Wohoo - that was fun! Final result $3,335,265. Adventure games are dead? Don't think so! :) Of course I totally got caught up in the spirit and raised my pledge to 110$ at the last minute. What can I say, the special edition box and t-shirt were too enticing. The next few months are going to be interesting!
Don't forget the $110,000 raised through the premiums offered at Double Fine's website. Brings the final up to almost 3.5 mil.
That's true. Of course Kickstarter keeps a small percentage of the money they raised, but it's a huge success any way you look at it.
I am thankful for it because, after I'd donated, I saw that someone in the comments wrote, "They should just make it with AGS, which is free." And I said to myself, "Hey, what's AGS?"
@Eric That's cool. Glad to have you around. You've already been more productive in less than a month than I have been in over 5 years.
The live finale was pretty compelling viewing. Lots of shoes on heads and Tim was even a little choked up at the end, I thought he was going to start bawling. Now, let's just hope the game is good.
It makes me sick that an already rich guy gets 100x more money than he needs to make a game which by his art shown and grim fandango doesn't look too promising.
Quote from: GrimReapYou on Wed 14/03/2012 03:30:13grim fandango doesn't look too promising.
This is among the craziest things I've ever heard.
Lol, its like taking a bunch of default 3d cubes/cylinders/nurbs, drawing a childish smiley face in paint and slapping them on the default cubes/cylinders/nurbs as a texture.
(http://www.donttellmetheending.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/grim-fandango-melange.jpg?w=300)
I mean really lol?
(http://i.imgur.com/eDSm9.jpg)
I mean you know I feel kinda bad for voicing my opinion about it being I know a lot of you are attached by nostalgia kind of like I am with QFG which has terrible graphics, it just makes me sick to see some fatass getting paid 3.4 million dollars to sit on his ass and do what we do for free every day.
I don't know where you get the idea Tim Schafer is rich. What game made him rich? It wasn't Psychonauts, or Stacking, or Costume Quest, or Sesame Street....was it Brutal Legend? The game had pretty disappointing sales in comparison to mainstream titles- not terrible but definitely not enough to make Tim Schafer a billionaire fatcat. As far as doing what we do every day, I don't know anyone around here besides Mark Lovegrove and Dave Gilbert who runs or plans to run a professional video game company. Because that's what Tim Schafer does. This is a smaller project, and you forget Ron Gilbert is also working on a separate Double Fine game that didn't use Kickstarter. Not to mention the fact that they probably have unannounced projects that they put money towards, or the fact that they always got backing from publishers for their previous games. It seems like you're assuming Schafer is a rich fatcat just because he's getting so much exposure, and because he rose such a huge number in his fundraiser, but he's not getting exposure because he's rich and can buy it, he's getting it because people respect his creativity and his output. He got so much from the fundraiser because people love his work and want to see him succeed. Simple as that. He didn't expect any more than 400k, and he didn't ask for more than 400k. He has no reason to give the remainder back when people WANTED HIM TO TAKE THE MONEY AND USE IT. As an adventure game fan, I don't see any reason for this to "sicken you". Tim Schafer is the lead of a small company, and this 3.4 mil is barely a scratch compared to the budgets most professional games require nowadays. He's not the devil.
Yea, I'm just saying, If you gave me 400k I would spend 10 hours a day for the rest of my life developing entire series of games, throw me 3.4 mill and ill do backflips and build you a fkn rocket that will get you to the moon.
This is what all who have donated get:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L6R86SXL1pI
Have you played Grim Fandango? Full Throttle? Psychonauts? Costume Quest? Are you judging based on the graphics alone? Because the reason we're nostalgic for Grim Fandango isn't the graphics. It's because it was one of the best written, engaging, immersive stories ever told in adventure game form.
And the graphics, though they might not be up to the snuff of modern games, worked well for the story being told. The world created through them was consistently rich and imaginative. Plus, there's the voice acting, which on GF was superb.
This isn't meant in offense to you, because the same would be true of myself, but even working ten hours a day for the rest of your life, you'd be hard pressed to come up with anything near as good as Grim Fandango. If all you're focused on is how detailed the graphics are, you're kind of missing the point.
Yea, I heard the story was great and unique like no other, Never played it and certainly didn't mean any offense to the fans of it. Think back on my comments they are pretty rude and snide
so I'm sorry for that.
I've just lived a life of extreme poverty and it hurts me to see so much money thrown at something when I've never been able to get paid for any of my creative works.
I guess you could say I'm jealous that the man is going to be set for the rest of his life for doing the same thing I've been doing for 15 years and never received a penny, I guess in all reality i need to just get over it and start my own kickstarter.
What makes you say he'll be set for life? You do know all this money is going to pay his employees and probably hire new people, get new tools and such. I'm sure he doesn't much quite as much as you're assuming. := Anyways Tim Shafer has climbed up the ladder and become a respected developer in the games industry, so what's wrong if he did make a lot of money? If you want to get paid for your creative work either sell your work or become employed by a game company, I make games for free because I like making games and I want people to see what I make, I don't want to swim in money. It just sounds like you're whining really. :-X
Also I wish I could have donated. But I don't have a credit card. :'(
From Wikipedia:
QuoteAn average development budget for a multiplatform game is US$18-28M, with high-profile games often exceeding more than $40M
Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development)
As far as I can tell, this does not include things like marketing and distribution, but I can't say for sure. Normally this would be covered, at least in part, by the publisher, but hopefully this model bypasses the need for a publisher, instead getting the product from developer to consumer directly.
Granted, this isn't a thoroughly comprehensive and researched post, but I would hope it shows how "some fatass getting paid 3.4 million dollars to sit on his ass" is a silly comment to make.
ANOTHER POINT: Initially the $400k was to be split thusly: $300k on the game and $100k on the documentary - I wonder if the split is being kept the same or not? Very interested in seeing the documentary.
Quote from: GrimReapYou on Wed 14/03/2012 05:48:32
Yea, I heard the story was great and unique like no other, Never played it and certainly didn't mean any offense to the fans of it.
I'm not offended at all, just I probably wouldn't be here if I hadn't played Grim Fandango, you know?
As has been posted, the three million seems like quite a bit until you actually start working out the budget. It's not a matter of Schafer being rich for the rest of his life, it's a matter of him being able to keep his company afloat for a year without soliciting work from one of the bigger publishers. The budget for the company's previous biggest hit, Psychonauts, was $13 million, so the Kickstarter is still well short of that, and that was released in 2005. Costume Quest from two years ago cost two million, and it's scope is smaller than what I foresee coming from this adventure game. In other words, I doubt anyone's salary will even increase that much, if at all.
Quote from: veryweirdguy on Wed 14/03/2012 11:26:29
ANOTHER POINT: Initially the $400k was to be split thusly: $300k on the game and $100k on the documentary - I wonder if the split is being kept the same or not? Very interested in seeing the documentary.
Tim said somewhere (maybe the reddit Ask Me Anything) that they'd increase the documentary budget a bit, but that most of the additional money would go to the game.
Even granting that this is not a huge game budget by modern AAA standards, in effect the game budget is going to be more than ten times what the initial target was! I hope they can make something cool with all those additional resources.
One worry could be that the game has already tapped most of its potential market: There might not be a lot of additional sales above and beyond the people who've already paid, so if they spend all of the money on the game there might not be any profits. (Of course, it's not uncommon for development studios to get no profits from the games they develop, but they might at least want to have a chance to do so.) I guess they could bank some of the Kickstarter cash as in-advance profits, though I don't think most backers would approve.
I should imagine a large portion of the Kickstarter money is probably going to go back into printing and shipping all the thousands of posters, t-shirts and what-not. That is going to prove quite costly, and I can't see that being paid for by anything other than the KS money.
But Grim... assuming you're not deliberatly trolling... people have pledged money to this project because they trust Schafer, Ron and DF to come up with a quality adventure game. It's not like the whole fund is going straight into his back pocket (despite these incriminating photos) (http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/08/this-is-kickstarter/).
They only ship you physical stuff at the $100 reward tier (and above), and I imagine that when you print t-shirts, posters, DVDs and game boxes in runs of 12'500, you can get a pretty good deal. Assuming that they can sort out the infrastructure to actually handle that many shipments without too much trouble (outsourcing, I'd guess?), I would highly doubt that the total cost would come to more than $10 or maybe 15 per unit. The hardcover book would obviously cost more, but that's at the $500 level and only runs to about 250 copies.
So yes, it's going to cost them some, but it's not going to be a "large portion" of the money. Maybe $5 out of every 100 raised.
GrimReapYou:
Maybe I'm being Captain Obvious here but Tim Schafer didn't get a lot of money because he financed his project using kickstarter, he got a lot of money because he financed his project using kickstarter after having built a great reputation as a designer and developer of several great games for over a decade.
See the difference?
Yea, It's true, I guess i just over-reacted a bit..
I wasn't contradicting you Snarky, I was actually just trying to add to yours and VWG's posts by mentioning the fact that some of the unexpectedly large amount of money will have to be used to cover the unexpectedly large number of rewards as well as just the game and documentary (as opposed to being used to line Tim's pockets).
So Wasteland 2, eh guys?
This is it now, this is the new games industry! I like it better than the old one already!
Quote from: Eggie on Wed 14/03/2012 22:05:53
So Wasteland 2, eh guys?
Do we have any assurance that it won't be another generic brown fps with some shallow rpg elements tacked on?
Yes.
I'm fairly sure it's going to be top down like the original.
Quote from: GrimReapYou on Wed 14/03/2012 04:09:05
Yea, I'm just saying, If you gave me 400k I would spend 10 hours a day for the rest of my life developing entire series of games, throw me 3.4 mill and ill do backflips and build you a fkn rocket that will get you to the moon.
This is what all who have donated get:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L6R86SXL1pI
Are you saying that you'd make better use of that money than Tim Schafer?
I don't see the point of your post, really.
He's saying he's prepared to work for (by my calculations) $1.5 per hour. That's a pretty competitive rate!
In GrimReapYou's defence, he has admitted over-reacting and said sorry. And he brought the Willy Wonka rap to my attention.
On Topic: Tim Shafer's so cool.
I do have to argue that 3.4 million is actually a gigantic budget for a game like this. Assuming they work on the game for 2 years with full time employees. Even at an above average salary per year of $100k per employee (subtracting $200k for the documentary and $200k for voice actors), that could easily employ 15 people for two years.
This of course doesn't include advertising or anything of the sort, but this game was already talked about quite a bit before it was ever even started. I'm sure it will get quite a few heads turned the moment it finally gets released.
Two years? Didn't they say they want to release for October?
Ship dates for the reward tiers have been changed to March 2013.
Quote from: Armageddon on Thu 15/03/2012 04:16:29
I'm fairly sure it's going to be top down like the original.
Awesome news then. Although I'm still interested too see how the lawyers at Zenimax react to developments (i.e. shadowclaws).
On a more general point, I'm still wondering how long will it be before people get burned?
- Say there's a well known game designer who talks big, but delivers small (and often late), someone like the recently unemployed Peter Molyneux. Fans could be driven away from funding projects in this manner if the designers let them down.
and of course there's the marketing goons. I wonder how long it will be before some bright spark in PR realizes that they can abuse this for their own ends. - Get fans to pay for games, or even just 'additional features' (DLC) for games, before the publisher has even released them.
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Thu 15/03/2012 15:12:01
I do have to argue that 3.4 million is actually a gigantic budget for a game like this. Assuming they work on the game for 2 years with full time employees. Even at an above average salary per year of $100k per employee (subtracting $200k for the documentary and $200k for voice actors), that could easily employ 15 people for two years.
You're forgetting that Kickstarter takes 5% and Amazon another 5%. Then subtract something like $150-200k (?) for the rewards, as well as the things you mention, and you're down to about $2.4M to actually make the game.
And then you have to remember that company cost per employee are significantly higher than just the salary. There are taxes, of course, and also things like facilities (office space, electricity, internet access...), equipment (computers, office furniture, software licenses), service staff (HR, janitorial, payroll, cafeteria if the company is big enough) and additional management (either more managers or more attention required from existing managers). Usually there are additional perks like free or subsidized health insurance that need to be budgeted for, plus bonuses. A manager I know used to say that you should double the salary to get an estimate of the employee's true cost.
So assuming they're budgeting in the appropriate fraction of DoubleFine overhead and fixed costs into the game budget, that would be about 12 people for a year. Certainly not bad, but not huge, either.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 15/03/2012 16:06:32
You're forgetting that Kickstarter takes 5% and Amazon another 5%.
Right. I forgot about everyone's cut.
You brought up some fair points. Although it already looks like they have an office and appropriate furnishings and equipment. As for property costs and taxes, that's likely already covered by the earnings of games they've already completed and released. But even assuming it's not, they're still looking quite good at the moment. You couldn't make Gears of War with that budget, but you could easily make a Monkey Island type adventure game with updated graphics.
I have to agree on all points here really, There is an obvious overage, but how much the overage actually is cannot be completely determined.
My view of it is that I can accomplish a complete game design on an old dell/hp/emachine hybrid i made out of a bunch of junk computers in my home without requiring a team or studio. Not saying having a team doesn't speed things up, but when using an engine such as ags you can only have 3 team members. An artist a coder and a writer, none of which can actually work on the game at the same time. Being how the engine saves games only 1 person can work on it at a time, leaving svn and gits rendered useless which is another point I want to bring up when we finally get through this future of ags ordeal.
But in the end I say that I'm glad that tim has gotten an overage but my main concern is his fidelitity to the PNC industry as most of his games are 3d microsoft driven games, Not saying that those games aren't nice, they just don't feed my personal nostalgia.
Quote from: Babar on Thu 15/03/2012 15:27:43
Two years? Didn't they say they want to release for October?
Was that right at the beginning? The Update #2 on the Kickstarter project back in February:
"This project has really grown into something much larger than we were expecting, which is-scientifically speaking-awesome. Many of you have been asking if this means we’ll be taking a bit more time with the production, and the answer is yes. This is not a cute, quick little game anymore. This is the real deal. This is a capital-G Game."
Quote from: GrimReapYou on Thu 15/03/2012 16:47:39
But in the end I say that I'm glad that tim has gotten an overage but my main concern is his fidelitity to the PNC industry as most of his games are 3d microsoft driven games, Not saying that those games aren't nice, they just don't feed my personal nostalgia.
Psst, hey, secret information! Tim Schafer has worked on:
# 1990 Maniac Mansion (NES port), tools programmer, SCUMM (LucasArts)
# 1990 The Secret of Monkey Island, co-writer, programmer, additional designer (LucasArts)
# 1991 Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, co-writer, programmer, additional designer (LucasArts)
# 1993 Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, co-designer, co-producer, co-director, co-writer (LucasArts)
# 1995 Full Throttle, project leader, writer, designer (LucasArts)
So I don't think you have anything to worry about. The only reason he has a lot of 3D action games under his belt is because
that's what publishing companies will publish. Monkey Island is a pretty neat, little-known game, you should play it sometime, get to know this obscure guy's real flavour.
Even more obscure than Monkey Island is the strange console once known as NES, published by a now even lesser known company called "Nintendo" of all things. I'm also sure that SCUMM couldn't have been all that important...I mean, none of the Call of Duty games ever used it. You know, real games like Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty World at War and Call of Duty Black Ops. Not stupid pointless ones like "Full Throttle". 8)
Slightly OT but Ron-lated to this discussion - is Monkey Island a work of art? The Smithsonian art museum says yes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17373879
I'm curious as to whether any of you are taking part in the secret DFA backer forums. There have been a few interesting threads there on aspects of game creation, but the forums strike me as being filled mostly with users who seem to be showing off their zany senses of humor, or trying out to be best buds with the Double Fine creators. I'm hoping that as the process rolls on, some of the zanies will fall by the wayside and there will be more nuts n' bolts discussions.
Is it just me?
There are already some "nuts and bolts" discussions, although considering the timeframe and the stage they're currently at, it is obviously mostly about budgeting and equipment and stuff right now.
I'm not so sure that at any point there is going to be a "Hey backers, what do you think should be the theme of the game?" or "Hey backers, what sort of colour palette should we choose?", i.e. there probably won't really be much DISCUSSION with the developers about the direction of the game (aside from maybe the a vote once in a while on something), just them giving information of what is going on, and then the community discussing it. There is all that extra backer community discussion going on, but personally, I get all my forum community needs fulfilled here ;D, so I just stick to the Game/Documentary Development Announcement forum.
Yeah, sorry I wasn't being clear: to clarify, I didn't mean discussions with the developers. My nuts n' bolts needs from them will likely be met by the documentary.
I'm thinking more that there's a great opportunity with however many of the 80,000 something backers have actually signed up for the forum to get into what makes the adventure genre work. There has to be some sort of wisdom to be gained from concentrating a niche group into one area like that. But the discussions so far are running very shallow. There's a nascent thread about verb coins there that's four pages in and hasn't really gotten deeper than "Interaction is good, maybe?"
And in other promising threads, a few quality posts are quickly followed either by the "I"ve written Tim Schafer's name on my Trapper Keeper" crowd or the, "What this thread needs is another shoe-on-head joke," mob.
I think I'll follow your lead and stick to the development sub-forum, but access to these discussion groups was one of the things I was excited to plop my money down for.
I should've made a donation to AGS instead. There were some quality posts once upon a time that I think were intended to be a multi-author discussion series on game design -- I'm having trouble finding them now, but I think Vince Twelve's 'Why Your Game is Broken' posts were among them. And this recent post on detective games (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=45616.0) is a fantastic roundtable of knowledgeable creators and players weighing in on some specific difficult aspects of design.
Those are the kinds of things I'd hoped the masses of backers would be discussing over at DF, and I'm still hoping they get around to it.
I don't know if you've been around long enough to remember the Game Theory Discussion threads? I seem to remember they were archived somewhere, but you can always search 'GTD'. I remember there being a few quite interesting subjects.
(Sorry to go off topic!)
Most of them are currently in the Rumpus Room (page 2). I'm planning to make a post that links to all of them and then move them to ART&C.
Quote from: Eric on Tue 17/04/2012 08:15:01
I'm thinking more that there's a great opportunity with however many of the 80,000 something backers have actually signed up for the forum to get into what makes the adventure genre work. There has to be some sort of wisdom to be gained from concentrating a niche group into one area like that.
I wouldn't assume that the DFA backers are necessarily the greatest experts on adventure games or the finest minds in fandom. Skimming the forums, I noticed one thread that offered an idea for a novel game mechanic... which turned out to be Maniac Mansion. ::) I think they're more likely to be people who played and liked a few LucasArts games when they were kids but haven't kept up with the genre lately than dedicated adventure gamers, much less theorists.
BTW, I noticed that someone from DF has answered a discussion we had earlier in the thread.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 15/03/2012 16:06:32
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Thu 15/03/2012 15:12:01
I do have to argue that 3.4 million is actually a gigantic budget for a game like this. Assuming they work on the game for 2 years with full time employees. Even at an above average salary per year of $100k per employee (subtracting $200k for the documentary and $200k for voice actors), that could easily employ 15 people for two years.
You're forgetting that Kickstarter takes 5% and Amazon another 5%. Then subtract something like $150-200k (?) for the rewards, as well as the things you mention, and you're down to about $2.4M to actually make the game.
And then you have to remember that company cost per employee are significantly higher than just the salary. There are taxes, of course, and also things like facilities (office space, electricity, internet access...), equipment (computers, office furniture, software licenses), service staff (HR, janitorial, payroll, cafeteria if the company is big enough) and additional management (either more managers or more attention required from existing managers). Usually there are additional perks like free or subsidized health insurance that need to be budgeted for, plus bonuses. A manager I know used to say that you should double the salary to get an estimate of the employee's true cost.
So assuming they're budgeting in the appropriate fraction of DoubleFine overhead and fixed costs into the game budget, that would be about 12 people for a year. Certainly not bad, but not huge, either.
DF has asked not to leak info from the exclusive forums, but I guess I can say that I was almost on target. They have a little less money and therefore a
slightly lower number of people working on the game, but the cost per employee per year is pretty much exactly what I estimated.
Ali, those threads are exactly what I was talking about when I wrote...
Quote from: Eric on Tue 17/04/2012 08:15:01There were some quality posts once upon a time that I think were intended to be a multi-author discussion series on game design -- I'm having trouble finding them now
...Except now I can find them thanks to you (and Snarky)!
Quote from: Snarky on Tue 17/04/2012 11:01:45I think they're more likely to be people who played and liked a few LucasArts games when they were kids but haven't kept up with the genre lately than dedicated adventure gamers, much less theorists.
Yeah, I don't know why I expected otherwise.
I went on the foum for a few days after I was registered (it took about a week to get me registered, for various reasons), tried to take part in a few discussions, but soon realised I was reading a lot of the same stuff over and over again, none of it very insightful. And at one point there were WAY too many polls, 50% of which were "Do you think there are too many polls?" polls... I think there was even a "Do you think there are too many 'do you think there are to many polls?' polls?" poll, or something like it.
And I was getting annoyed with everybody saying things like "This is OUR game!", "WE get to decide how it turns out!" etc... No we don't, fuck off. You're not that important, you just bought a pre-order. You MAY get to vote in the occasional poll which MAY have a tiny bearing on the finished product, but shut up and let the experts get on with making their game.
That IS something I've noticed about Kickstarter - there will still be people that have the mindset of a producer even though they've given $15 and have a sense of entitlement over the project. Handling the fans seems to be one of the trickier aspects of the process so far, and something that has intrigued me with Shadowrun Returns.
Lots of people backing that project are saying stuff like "If there aren't any Adepts I won't back this" others insisting everything from a specific sourcebook. There have been good things to come out of it - a lack of interest in some of the pitched ideas like PvP ability and an expanded multiplayer game have seen the developers react quick. But then there are things like the project lead expressing doubt about the viability of the Linux port which resulted in, from memory, about 30k of funding disappearing in protest.
All in all I'd still say Kickstarter's good, but giving fans any more reason to a sense of entitlement than they carry with them gives them a lot more reason to backlash. And has been seen recently, fans can backlash HARD when they feel a lack of return for their investment (*Cough* ME3 *cough*)
Society needs a slap.
In this case the sense of entitlement is a little stupid when you consider that it's a donation, not an investment\loan to the studio.
Some people just want to go back to design by committee (providing of course, they're part of it).
Seeing as the people on the Double Fine forums are mostly players and not designers or players with serious interest in design, I wasn't expecting anything more than requests from idea guys sprinkled with a couple of knee-jerk reactions against Telltale latest design choices and "deaths are bad" debates, not serious questioning about the typical Sierra or LucasArts GUIs there, in fact I think lot of people will request for it to make a come back.
And since I:
1. Much rather discuss these serious questioning here with you,
2. Don't see a need to voice my opinion in hope to steer the game design in one direction,
3. Fully trust Ron and Tim on the design,
4. Want to see a Ron and Tim's game, not a game designed by a 80 000 persons committee,
5. Have a huge problem in discussing adventure games with people who knows squat about indies,
I'm not interested in posting there.
I suppose part of my issue is that, when I first donated to the DFA Kickstarter and was excited to join those discussions, I didn't know about AGS or this forum, and was just eager to see some discussion about ludic v. narrative structures that seem to be unique to the adventure game genre.
A random comment on their Kickstarter page brought me here, and if that's the only positive I got from the DFA campaign, it was well worth it.