Messages

I appreciate the compliment!

Your keyboard sounds really cool and customized.  I'd love to see a picture of what you're working with.

Looking forward to the next Tune Contest.  Hopefully I'll write something that will 'surprise' next time.

Any Sandman art is far superior to what he's going for here.

I prefer option 2, where I can choose when I am ready to proceed to the next line.

I don't like getting distracted and missing dialogue with option 1 (and 3), and I often encounter the accidental skipping issue with option 3.

He's a very talented writer, and I'm sure the story will be good.

Unfortunately, I'm not keen on the art style used.

That's a good point, Snarky.  Stacking and Costume Quest each cost about $2 Million to make.  The low (for them) cost could be related to the process of development, as those 2 games began as projects in their Amnesia Fortnights.  There is no information (on Wikipedia, at least) on the budgets of any later releases.

And if they didn't have a design, then the question becomes: Why design a game that goes beyond the scope of your budget?

I'll reiterate the point, however, that they ultimately answer to the fans who helped back the game.  As long as the game is eventually released, and is a quality product, then the fans in this case are satisfied.  That's one of the benefits of crowd funding, especially for a well known developer like Double Fine.  I wonder if the crowd would be as forgiving with lesser known developers.  From what I've seen, backers on Kickstarter are generally much more forgiving than traditional publishers.

Those are both interesting reads.  It's fascinating to read about how other companies are handling things in the wake of this experience.

I was curious, so I started to read up on other Double Fine games.

Psychonauts cost $13 Million, and Brütal Legend cost at least $15 Million.  The budget of $400K seems unreasonable after that, and so does $3 Million.  Double Fine seems to have consistent issues meeting deadlines and satisfying their publishers.  In fact, they had asked for additional time and $7 Million more to finish Brütal Legend.

They always seem to make quality products, though.  Really, that's all that should matter in the end.  I believe that going to Kickstarter was a smart move for Double Fine, because the crowd that supported them there is more likely to be sympathetic than some big company like Activision Blizzard.  The backers are more concerned with the end product than they are with the production costs and delays, and that makes all the difference.

Congratulations, Pinback!

Good jobs all around.

Thanks for the critique, Problem.  This was fun!

@dactylopus: For the tune contest the host picks a winner, and the winner will host the next contest. So tomorrow I will listen to the entries, comment on each one and pick the winner.

Good to know!  Thanks for the clarification!

Pinback, that's a really cool track!  Circuit bending always produces such interesting results.

About the contest:  How are winners chosen?

She did look rather creepy before, but you've made improvements.  I like the new portrait, it's a step in the right direction.

Overall, everything looks very nicely rendered!

Personally, I use MuseScore for my music.

This program allows you to create sheet music, which made it a bit difficult for me to learn over the past year.  My previous history with music is writing on guitars and keyboards, I hadn't been able to read sheet music since playing trumpet in 7th grade music class.  That said, this is a versatile program that can output your music to MIDI, WAV, and OGG (among other formats), and can even save your file as a PNG or PDF.

Good luck, I hope you write something nice!

I managed to whip up a little something for this competition:

Adventure Tune, July 2013

It feels somewhat empty with only one instrument, but I'm happy with my results.   

I've been hoping to hear more about this one!

Thanks for posting this update, everything is looking great!

Definitely anticipating the release.

Really tough to vote here, but I'm going to go for:

Eric
Gameboy
Kastchey

Good work all around!  I would definitely play a few of these if they were made (so get on it).

It's been in my signature for ages. I should take the old one out. In fact, I will.

Actually, I had seen this, but I didn't realize it was your current blog.  Lots of good posts.

I mostly use this tumblr now due to the lack of spambots and malware warnings that my blog seems to have accrued...

Ah, thanks for the link!

Every shot looks great, Ben.  I just wish I knew more about each project.

Maybe you could get back to posting about them on your blog? 

I swear it wasn't the broken green glass everywhere!

I noticed that the image Ben posted in the "Release Something" thread contained similar art:

[imgzoom]http://i41.tinypic.com/ineupz.png[/imgzoom]
Am I correct in assuming that this image may be part of the project?

This is really exciting, guys.  I really enjoyed both of these games, and I'm eager to see what else you have in store.

This looks great!

The shadows are less dramatic and more natural and the colors are cleaner feeling.

Also the foreground tree looks much better.  Good job!