Status of the Double Fine Adventure

[Stupot]

I'm starting to wonder what's happening with the DFA.  There have been no real updates for months and the last couple of videos were pretty depressing.  They had managed to go overbudget!  I must admit, I didnt see that happenning, considering they got 8 times as much as their target amount.  I think maybe the fact that they had literally not even started designing the game might have proven to be a bad idea, because they then started embarking upon a 3+million dollar project when we had in fact backed a 400,000 dollar project.  Obviously with that much extra money, you would have thought they could make a bigger and better game than planned, but of course they didn't have a game planned in the first place... so what should have been a lovely financial cushion, has just been a bigger budget nightmare.

Also, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I'm a tad disappointed that Ron Gilbert has not appeared to have had any creative input on the DFA at all.  Obviously he has been busy working on The Cave, which I haven't played yet, but looks great.  But I think many people in the early days of the DFA Kickstarter campaign had been fantasizing about a Schafer/Gilbert adventure.  That's partly why I pledged (though I'm sure I would have anyway).  It was only at the KS countdown party, when Gilbert literally poked his head into the room, put a shoe on his head and then left the party to go back to working on The Cave, that I started to wonder what his involvement in DFA would be.  Once The Cave's release (and all the PR that comes with it) has blown over, Gilbert might actually join the DFA team.  I really hope so.

[AGA]

The lesson from this is that you should spend your game's budget on making the game, rather than on making a TV series about making the game...

[Ilyich]

Well, to be fair, the budgets for the documentary and the game are supposed to be separate, and filming of the development was an important part of the original pitch. And the game itself wasn't supposed to be that big a deal - just a short lovely exercise in nostalgia. Obviously, getting all that sweet cash changed the situation quite drastically, and we can't really be too upset about the fact that they've decided to spend all the money on the game instead of writing off everything above 400K as profit. They've been overbudget many times before, so I'm sure they'll manage somehow.

[Ghost]

The lesson from this is that you should spend your game's budget on making the game, rather than on making a TV series about making the game...

Agreed- I just hope they get their stuff together and make a game instead of swimming in money and disappointed donators.

In all fairness, though, The Cave is wicked cool.

[Azure]

I went to the DF Cave livestream, and it seemed that Ron Gilbert wanted to rest for a bit after The Cave. There's an archive of the stream up on the DF Game Club page.. The lack of updates can seem frustrating, but we wanted to see real game development and this is what it's like.

[Stupot]

Hehe, I tweeted Tim and some others asking if they had any news/clues.  And got a response from the man himself.
Not a very useful response, mind you, but who care's! Tim Schafer replied to me. That'll do.

[Armageddon]

I think they ported Brutal Legends to the PC to make some extra cash, I think it's selling well, it was top seller on Steam for a while so that's good news.

[Anian]

Hehe, I tweeted Tim and some others asking if they had any news/clues.  And got a response from the man himself.
Not a very useful response, mind you, but who care's! Tim Schafer replied to me. That'll do.

I know that probably a lot of people have been asking him about DFA, but there has been a lack of updates, so the impression I get from these replies makes him sound like a bit of a douche.
Not to mention how two of his minions joined in on what I can assume is immature mocking. 

[Stupot]

Which two minions, Anian? I can only see Anna's and Tim's responses.
Anna kindly informing me that we will be able to click on things.  Thanks for that.

I sometimes have a hard time knowing whether or not people are taking the piss out of me, especially online, so I try to assume they're not, and just being playful.  But it does make me wonder if they actually do have anything new worth telling us about.  Anything would do: 'we have implemented 5 new rooms', 'we have designed the title screen', just give us an idea that you've actually been working on it.

Also, notice how Tim seems to be subtley blaming 2PP (the team making the documentary) for the lack of updates.  He says 'Look 2PP, you're literally killing this guy'.  Well, Tim, I actually don't care too much about the documentary.  I mainly wanted an update from someone on the actual project.

Oh well, if they have been working on porting Brutal Legend to the PC in order to help fund the DFA, then I guess you can't argue with that.

[Anian]

Which two minions, Anian? I can only see Anna's and Tim's responses.
Anna kindly informing me that we will be able to click on things.  Thanks for that.

Ah sorry, noticed Greg Ricey (DF programmer) there as well. Maybe that's actually Tim poking a DFA assigned producer to work quicker. This is an interview from a year ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YAaEA6XOz0 (they planned on making it in 6 months, of course it'll be bigger than that since they got a lot more money, but still shows how much time they planned) so if there's still nothing made, it seems weird.
But in any case the tweet is oddly written and draging in 2PP just makes it confusing.

And yes they've been busy porting Brutal legend, but I seriously doubt they need that money for DFA, I'd rather think it was the other way around.

[selmiak]

Well, Tim, I actually don't care too much about the documentary.  I mainly wanted an update from someone on the actual project.
Anything would do: 'we have implemented 5 new rooms', 'we have designed the title screen', just give us an idea that you've actually been working on it.

why not tweet this?!

[Azure]

Stu I don't think they were making fun of you I think they were just being playful. Pretty good you got a reply, even if it's not the one you were looking for.

[stu]

Well, Tim, I actually don't care too much about the documentary.  I mainly wanted an update from someone on the actual project.
Anything would do: 'we have implemented 5 new rooms', 'we have designed the title screen', just give us an idea that you've actually been working on it.

why not tweet this?!

I imagine Tim wouldn't want this sort of info out there on Twitter. It should be restricted to the DFA backers-only forum I guess.

DF haven't hid from the fact that this game could completely flop. So having the documentary is actually a great idea. If it does fail, heaven forbid, we'll be sure to have an interesting and insightful film witnessing the whole thing.

Of course like everybody else, I want it to succeed and to have a great adventure game to play. I trust Tim, he's a proven game writer and he looks to have a good business head on him. I'm sure he'll deliver.

[Igor Hardy]

To be honest I purchased DFA mostly to be able to watch that production documentary and I feel like I got my money's worth already.

I really loved listening to Tim's insights about the designs of DOTT, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, as well as seeing how the ex-Lucasarts/Double-Fine artists live and work. The production and planning problems that the project suffered through so far were also incredibly interesting. For example, the way they didn't anticipate how making a game of such and such size and such and such budget will suffer from having one very particular lead artist (Beagel).

The docs are excellently made and have great humor to boot. The game itself might end up being super fun as well, but it's difficult to desire something that wasn't even a concept back when the kickstarter campaign started.

[DrJone.s]

I couldn't pledge in that project, but after getting interested in the subject, I've read a few forums and it looks like they really aren't over budget.

It looks like in one of the videos, Tim Schafer made a projection and concluded that their current design document had too many things, and implementing all of them could cause them to get over budget before the game could be finished. So, he cut off some features, and mentioned he was going to look for other sources of funding to keep the cuts at minimum. So, there is no reason to worry here.

[Babar]

Well, Tim, I actually don't care too much about the documentary.  I mainly wanted an update from someone on the actual project.

Isn't that partly what the documentaries are for? Giving the constant updates so that the actual dev team can concentrate on development? They seem to be giving updates in those regularly enough- until the last month, when they mentioned beforehand that that month's documentary would be skipped out because they were all working on Amnesia Fortnight, and now a new episodes is expected soon. From the documentary episodes themselves, I think I have a vague picture of how things were (in terms of like you said, "this many rooms, this many areas completed") at least up until January this year.

The individual team members were also giving specific updates on stuff they were working on, which has somewhat slowed now (last one in November?), I guess that means they're too busy working on it to write about it?

Like Ascovel, I feel like I've almost made my money back with the documentary episodes alone .

[Stupot]

One of the chaps from 2PP has just posted this in the Double Fine forums

Hey guys, I don't have the ability to update the official Doc Status post from this account, but I just wanted to address something about episode 8 real quick:

First, sorry to have missed the initial release projection. It's a fluid process and we needed to wait for a certain event to take place before we could tie up the episode in a meaningful way. We just wrapped shooting a little over two weeks ago and the episode has been cut. It's currently being color corrected and having its audio mixed this weekend. Typically, these are the last two things we do just before an episode airs so an update should be coming very soon. For what it's worth, this installment is nearly 40 minutes long and covers a lot of ground. We think it will have been worth the wait. Thanks for understanding. Back to color correcting I go.

That's good to know, and it sounds like it might be worth the wait. I'll shut up about it for now, but I do think the occasional briefest of hellos once in a while wouldn't hurt, regardless of the status of the documentary.

[Snarky]

Feel better now?

[Stupot]

Feel better now?

Much
Just finished watching the new episode. It does seem that they've managed to get a fair bit of game-making done during the silent period. Consider the gagging thing cured (for now).

I do still hope we get more in the way of art/technical posts from the dev team, though. They have been really fascinating. Although, it's possible they won't do any more, seeing as they were mostly about the 'lumberjack' test game, which I guess they're no longer wasting time on at this stage.

[stu]

Well, Gilbert has left Double Fine now. Looks like he was only really there to make The Cave, now he's off to pursue other avenues to create games. I guess it looks unlikely he'll be involved with the DFA project now, but you never know.

http://grumpygamer.com/2304836