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I love the look and feel of old school top-down RPGs-- the exploration, the use of tiled graphics to map out huge worlds, secret paths and caches. I love it as a medium for storytelling.
But I just cannot stand the constant grinding, fighting and leveling up. To me, it's a repetitive, artificial waste of time that brings gameplay to a halt. I've never finished an RPG, because the mechanics are just so uninteresting to me. Even something like Zelda's fighting just feels like a distraction from more intriguing stuff.

Does anyone know of any games that lack those elements and instead focus on exploration, interaction with the environment, and more nuanced problem-solving? Basically, an adventure game with a more open world? I'd really love to try that. Most adventure games' locales are rather constrained by the challenge of individually painting each background. The freedom of a tiled system would really seem like an adventure world-designer's dream. So why is the best example I can think of, uh... Yoda Stories?

I think people just wanted a new adventure game from the guy who made some of the best adventure games. If anyone's interested in Kickstarter as a revolutionary new model for indie game development, maybe they shouldn't be looking towards a company whose previous budgets have been multiples of what was raised.

Double Fine has worked under larger budgets. I'm sure they've had to negotiate larger budgets. This is just negotiating with themselves.

Crowdfunding? Or alternate revenue from other products' sales?

But creating art has nothing to do with spending money without moderation and solid planning.

Considering they identified the problem long before they would run out of money, and they have a plan in place that's pretty well founded (they've already, on two occasions, subsidized the game to the tune of about $1mil) I wouldn't exactly deem it THAT irresponsible. Yes, it's not the safest path to getting a game made, but a huge part of this project is not having a publisher breathing down their necks and forcing them to always take the safest path.

It could also negatively affect all future games crowd-funding (particularly that of adventure games), and Schafer knows this.

Worrying about his own game is probably enough work for him. Why should that be his burden?

I'm not saying DF didn't make a mistake, or that it was unavoidable. But it's definitely not the devastating mistake people are making it out to be. I'm seeing a lot of armchair accountants, going off based on misunderstandings of one-liners from the documentary.


When I see so many gamers scoffing at Tim's desire to make this as big and good a game as possible (and holding that as a higher priority than being utterly practical, business-wise) I think to myself, "This is why people don't see games as art."

[can]

4. Schafer still comes across as incompetent because of overestimating the budget to such degrees. The studio would be already out of money if not the additional KS, the humble bundles and the Indie Fund (All focused on marketing, PR and business negotiations and almost zero real new content).

5. I'm not sure making one single game should be this expensive, unless it's REALLY huge and offering incredibly complex interactions and system-based processes. Otherwise it feels like a waste of money.

6. I feel they actually didn't divide the money for the game from the rest of their expenses. Partially it was sunk into additional marketing. Which is a bit of unfair to their backers.

That's the thing, all the backlash comes from a very intangible place. It "comes off" as incompetent, it "feels like" a waste of money, it seems "a bit unfair." But is it actually anything that will matter once the game's out? Or does it all just amount to people "feeling weird" about there being a hitch in the production?

I see this as an interesting, possibly good thing. Double Fine are going over budget with this game. But that's not necessarily bad. They're in a unique position where they can go over budget, with the freedom to solve it using their own resources. It's no skin off anyone's back but their own, and if they weren't willing to make those compromises, Tim wouldn't have over-designed the game. This didn't blindside them! They just didn't want to make this call until they were sure they had to.

I think it's terrible for the backers to act like investors or publishers. For one thing, they're not going to be hit up for the extra money. It's going to come from non-backer sales of the game, which DF was always going to get (hopefully!)

As for AGS, most of us do it because it's a dream to make a game. We'll do it by ourselves, unpaid. Expecting DF, a professional team of career game-designers, to work unpaid is not quite unethical. AGS is wonderful, but it's sort of like an 8mm film camera. There's nothing invalid about the art it creates. It just wouldn't translate well to a major theatrical release.

Double Fine saw an opportunity to expand their small project into something on a grander scale-- with a bigger audience, and they're taking it. I don't think they've ever canceled a game. Nothing's going to be lost here.

Also, 3 million is NOT a huge amount for a game. It's a huge amount for a Kickstarter. It's low for a game at this level. Psychonauts was $12 million. This is multi-platform, voice-acted, globally shipped content.

Sorry, comparisons to AGS are silly. I love AGS, but it doesn't even work correctly on modern monitors.

[haven't run out of money]

Schafer just screw the budget, and now theres the possibility that the game might never be released. And we know about this only after their second Kickstarter finished. That's another budget they can screw up, and theres also the Indie Fund, so it should be a fun year for Double Fine! Maybe Gilbert did the right thing when he got out of there.

This is ridiculous. Am I the only person who thinks Tim knew they might run into this trouble down the line while he was designing, but knew that there would be options and deemed it worth the potential for compromises? I think he knew what he was doing when he over-designed the game, and never would have if it were truly a no-win scenario.
They haven't run out of money. They're planning ahead to make sure they don't. These were their options: 1. Cut the game down, which will make it feel rushed and disappointing. 2. Stretch out the money they have by cutting down the team, taking much longer to finish the game. Or 3. Figure out ways to subsidize it. Be creative.

Under a publisher, 3 wouldn't even be considered as an option. This project is about what can be done under an unconventional model. It's an experiment. And its their own money.

Grim Fandango wasn't exactly an indie. It was a multi-million dollar project. It was delayed. It still had content cut. 2001: A Space Odyssey was 4 million over budget and over a year behind schedule. If it's good, no one will remember or care about the budget and schedule.

2 million a year to keep a decent sized team employed isn't that crazy. Especially if they're talented-- they have to be paid decently or some other company will lure them away.

It's easy for a bunch of AGSers to say we could stretch that money out forever. But we're used to making half-hour games for free. And not having health insurance.

Grim Fandango was 4 million, adjusted for inflation. Keep in mind that after Kickstarter's cut, the documentary budget, taxes, and reward fulfillment, that $3M is probably closer to $2M (which, for a full-length game made by a full team, isn't much these days.)

I keep seeing crazy numbers thrown around. Do they actually clearly state in the video what the total budget they need is? I thought it was 6 million total.

They probably figure they're gonna run out of money early next year and have to work less hours, or with fewer people, thus taking longer. Revenue from Part One would let the full team work full time and finish Part Two.

Still don't get why they're releasing Part One as a "pre-release beta" on some Steam offshoot, or whatever it is. Is that going to make enough dough?

Maniac Mansion had an art style??

In the same way five year old kids have an 'art style'.

Well, I wouldn't put it so harshly. MM's art is charming with its big heads, but otherwise everything's got that plain-and-functional realism typical of most 80s PC graphics (see also: Sierra.) I like that era of art, but there wasn't a lot of art direction until the 90s. Even Monkey Island 1's artwork is pretty straightforward, with only hints of stylization in some of the backgrounds (did Steve Purcell do any of those, or just the cover art?) Things only really kicked into high gear with MI2's scanned artwork, and aside from Fate of Atlantis and maybe The Dig, every LucasArts game after that had its own unique look.


To bring it back around, I think LSL5 was one of Sierra's first heavily-stylized games, right?

[To anyone who's reading this thread but didn't back the Kickstarter:]

Side note: Despite the troublesome stuff, this was one of the most thrilling updates so far, for me. See, up until now I was worried that the game was going to be a bit small...

Spoiler

They've only focused on two environments (cloud town and the spaceship) so the game felt a little bit limited. But in this update, there's a bit where they talk about other locales: sandcastle town, forest, pyramid...

[close]

The budget and scope issues they're having seem to indicate that this is going to be a full length, proper adventure. Like the old days.

To anyone who's reading this thread but didn't back the Kickstarter:
I wanna stress that the documentary is wonderful, and very honest and fascinating. I always drop what I'm doing when a new episode comes out. You can still get in on it (and the game itself, of course) for $30, and it's worth every penny: http://www.doublefine.com/dfapay

I don't understand the backlash. The game's not getting significantly cut down, nobody has to double-pay, it's just getting Kill Bill'd. Backers will get both parts for what they've already paid. The release of Part 1 will attract sales from new people who were never backers, hopefully enough to fund Part 2 to its completion.

What I don't understand is the assumption that it's going to be an preview-release of an unfinished game. Wouldn't it make more sense to release it as the PART ONE OF A THRILLING ADVENTURE to attract as many new sales as possible? Isn't this model already established in other episodic games, not to mention comic books, films and books?

Maniac Mansion had an art style??

Yeah, I kind of prefer good pixel art over good higher-res art.

Here's an AHK script I'm working on to display low-res games optimally without changing resolution.

I wish AGS supported custom resolutions. Modern monitors could fit 455x256 at 3x or something like that, it might be interesting to do a low-res game with a somewhat bigger canvas.

"Don't Shit Your Pants" is one of the all-time greatest adventure games, so I see no problem.

Make sure the GameCfg variable is correct too. I'm not sure about AHK's compatibility with Win8, it might have some issue with IniWrite and WinSet. I only have 7, so I can't test it.