Fund Tim Schafer's next game YOURSELF!

[Salka]

You heard me! Go here and be a hero!

I'm so excited I could vomit.

[Roderick]

There are now three topics worth of Tim Schafer excitement at the top of this forum. It is truly a good day.

[thorn]

The speed at which this has been funded boggles my mind. This morning, when I hit the 'Back This Project' button, funding was at $15,000. In the time that it took for me to give them my details and submit my money, it had already reached $22,000. And now it's completely funded and more in less than a day.

*boggle*

[pabosher]

I pledged $30, because I really like HD quality video. /sigh.

[Forbin]

How are you getting around Amazon payments? It seems to be locked to US citizens.

[pabosher]

Nope, I used my Amazon UK account no hassle.

[Raff]

God I don't even much care for adventure games but this makes me so happy.

Amazon UK worked for me too.

[ThunderPeel2001]

How are you getting around Amazon payments? It seems to be locked to US citizens.

You can't buy anything from Amazon? Weird.

I saw the higher levels of donation on the DF site, too:

Pledge $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!)

Oh to be rich!

Also: They've done it.

The game will be made.

[Thrik]

Someone just pointed out that Kickstarter actually takes a 5% cut, so don't let the fact they've hit their target put you off throwing more money at Double Fine! Empty your wallet, your savings, and your home!

[Nappi]

I guess some percentage will also cancel their funding before the deadline. In any case, holy shit they are scooping money fast!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Someone just pointed out that Kickstarter actually takes a 5% cut, so don't let the fact they've hit their target put you off throwing more money at Double Fine! Empty your wallet, your savings, and your home!

FAQ

Q: What happens if you go over the goal?

A: The extra money will be put back into the game and documentary. This could result in anything from increased VO and music budgets to additional release platforms for the game.

[Thrik]

Yeah, that's great. I'm hoping someone like Notch will just drop by and throw $1m in for the sheer hell of it. Most over-produced adventure game ever! And almost at $600,000 now.

[Nappi]

Now it seems that time might be a bigger issue than money. I don't know how long it usually takes to finish a game of this scope (what scope?), but October 2012 seems quite soon. And now that reaching at least, what, 4 times the original goal seems entirely plausible, I hope the scope and the schedule of the game will be rethought.

At least there is this:

Q: When can I expect the game to be finished?

A: We’re aiming to finish in October of 2012, but making games is hard and we’ll give the project as much time as needed to ensure the it meets our standards.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think that's the best thing that could be said... If the money means they end up with far more than they anticipated, then surely the scope would be increased?

So does the money have to include a profit, or are they trying to factor that in afterwards? Hmmm.

[Jake]

Yeah, that's great. I'm hoping someone like Notch will just drop by and throw $1m in for the sheer hell of it. Most over-produced adventure game ever! And almost at $600,000 now.

Full Throttle probably had a budget 4x the size of the Double Fine Adventure, in 1995. $400,000 is a lot of money, and with modern tools you can stretch it pretty far, but even a $1,400,000 full-length adventure game is tiny by all non-super-indie standards.

Anyway, budget hypothesizing completely aside, I'm super excited about this. Double Fine has been super awesome the last year or so, and this pretty much tops all of it for me. Watching them go from $0 to $350,000 before I went to bed was pretty incredible.

[pabosher]

Full Throttle probably had a budget 4x the size of the Double Fine Adventure, in 1995. $400,000 is a lot of money, and with modern tools you can stretch it pretty far, but even a $1,400,000 full-length adventure game is tiny by all non-super-indie standards.

Anyway, budget hypothesizing completely aside, I'm super excited about this. Double Fine has been super awesome the last year or so, and this pretty much tops all of it for me. Watching them go from $0 to $350,000 before I went to bed was pretty incredible.

Although I guess you probably don't know, and probably wouldn't want to say, how much (ballpark) does it cost to produce a TellTale series?

[Thrik]

I suppose a nice thing to consider about Double Fine's project is that they already have pretty much everything required good to go, and the majority of the development time will presumably be pure production.

They've already got an experienced team, a fantastic engine, and basically loads of hurdles that'd otherwise require a fair bit of money to overcome have been dealt with already. I'd imagine their indie games have given them a very effective pipeline too.

Also, it just jumped up by like $25,000 since my last post. Where have all these people been hiding?!

[ThunderPeel2001]

It's worth remembering that Braid cost $200,000 to make, and that was just two guys. I guess Jake is right to point out that this isn't going to be an adventure game that rivals Grim Fandango in size... although at this current rate, the budget could be $30,000,000

Note: To hit Full Throttle's 1995 budget in 2012 money would be $2,000,000. I guess if they hit $3,000,000 (which doesn't seem unfeasible) we might actually get an adventure of similar size and quality with today's graphics?

[Jake]

I suppose a nice thing to consider about Double Fine's project is that they already have pretty much everything required good to go, and the majority of the development time will presumably be pure production.

They've already got an experienced team, a fantastic engine, and basically loads of hurdles that'd otherwise require a fair bit of money to overcome have been dealt with already. I'd imagine their indie games have given them a very effective pipeline too.

Also, it just jumped up by like $25,000 since my last post. Where have all these people been hiding?!

Yeah I'm excited to see what they make given how familiar they surely are with their studio's tech. After using the Brutal Legend engine on the five smaller games, they are probably crazy masters of their own tech.

[Salka]

Man, the global response to this has warmed my heart so much.

[elmuerte]

Awesome. I'm in.

Looking forward to the documentary.

edit: oh... there will be a game too? excellent.

[castorp]

(It is getting a bit scary, no? I mean, that much money, that fast, and now all the attention, the snowballs, the whole avalanche, what will happen to The System, change, waaaaaaah!)

I mean: AWESOME!

[syntheticgerbil]

Pledge $30,000 or more:

Picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.

Pledge $35,000 or more:

Undoctored picture of Ron Gilbert smiling.

Best part.

I finally sleep for like 13 hours last night and so much Double Fine stuff just continued onward. Lovely everyone is so into this company. Awwww.

Anyway, I don't have money, so broke right now. My next paycheck is coming next week though, so I think I can donate $30 and get all that making of shit. But I don't know if there's a time limit on Kickstarter. Anyone know?

[Lu]

So the way shit is nowadays, what's stopping fans from paying for the development of some games?

The answer is: NOTHING!

[Udvarnoky]

Bearing witness to Double Fine's goal being met within eight to nine hours was like absorbing a hail of bullets from the machinegun of love.