Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight 2012

[Chris]

But actually only 1 is going to get made into a full game? Is that how previous (closed) amnesia fortnights also worked? Did Stacking, Costume Quest etc. all come from different fortnights?

It has nothing to do with making a certain amount per fortnight or anything like that. It's purely based on what games can find funding and what games are feasible for Double Fine to turn into full experiences. If that's true for all five of these games, we'll make all five. (That has never been the case before, so it's unlikely, but it's theoretically possible.)

[voxn]

I was just wrapping up some planning for a game of my own (solo; hobby style). Its awesome that this project started when it did. I'm really excited to get some perspective - and see what pros can create - in such a limited time frame. Maybe I'll throw together a quick thread and document my progress alongside theirs

As far as the DoubleFine game ideas go, I voted for all the winners (minus Bragging & Fighting which I thought was a rad & concrete concept :<) except hack 'n slash. Admittedly, Black Forest snuck a vote primarily on the back of that amazing concept art, but hearing more about it got me more interested, and something about 'the hunters daughter' as a character strikes a chord with me. A slightly nebulous title prefaced by 'the' conjures images of the kinds of almost abstract storytelling concepts that I love so dearly, and my game(idea) primarily uses that same nomenclature to refer to characters; the blue sun oracle, the bone-sea witch, the blind siren, the clockwork archon, etc. and appears in many of my favorite games/lit, ie: the torturers apprentice, miralda the executioner, the lady of pain etc etc

something odd to get hung up on, I suppose, but I'm really holding my excitement in check till we see how some of the ideas talked about today start to flesh out. As a budding programmer (who is primarily an artist) I have a much greater appreciation of the difficulties involved in translating your hazy ideas into hard mechanics

[brkl]

I wonder if everybody at DoubleFine is happy about taking this to the internet. Now instead of Tim Schafer, you have to think about what internet dudes will like. And not everyone will like pitching unfinished ideas to the entire world. I would definitely play it safer, but then again I'm not double fine.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'd imagine they're really happy. This is the first time so many people in the company have been able to pitch.

[elmuerte]

I wonder if everybody at DoubleFine is happy about taking this to the internet. Now instead of Tim Schafer, you have to think about what internet dudes will like. And not everyone will like pitching unfinished ideas to the entire world. I would definitely play it safer, but then again I'm not double fine.

First rule about creating anything: there will be people who will not like it and announce it, loudly

[Chris]

I'd imagine they're really happy. This is the first time so many people in the company have been able to pitch.

That's not the case--pitching has been open to the whole company for every Amnesia Fortnight. People are definitely happy about it though!

[melmer]

First rule about creating anything: there will be people who will not like it and announce it, loudly

I DO NOT LIKE THIS POST

[I_smell]

GiantBomb dot com (a computer gaming website available through the world wide web) is streaming the game Brazen with Brad Muir today. ...Is this game actually getting made? I can't tell.

I wonder if everybody at DoubleFine is happy about taking this to the internet. Now instead of Tim Schafer, you have to think about what internet dudes will like. And not everyone will like pitching unfinished ideas to the entire world. I would definitely play it safer, but then again I'm not double fine.

Yeah there's a thread on the Double Fine Action Forums challenging whether or not this was a good idea. Kinda harsh to have that conversation right in the same subforum, but WELP- someone did.

I said that I think it's a big crazy risk, and they didn't have to do it. Leaving fate to a giant cloud of redditors is terrifying, they could've just voted for whoever made the funniest video, or people they recognise from the documentary, or anything. When it's an internal process, you can look passed who has the best concept art or "It'll be like Minecraft meets Skyrim meets Halo", but regular people don't think about game pitches.

The vote thing is a big can o worms, but at least we can say all the game pitches are super interesting and I'm sure Double Fine will make something brilliant either way. Also I think it was posted on the forum that everyone within DF is super happy about it.

OH and I forgot to mention, DF live-streamed something, I've not watched it yet, but here's the link. PRETTY LONG!

[Chris]

GiantBomb dot com (a computer gaming website available through the world wide web) is streaming the game Brazen with Brad Muir today. ...Is this game actually getting made? I can't tell.

We hope so!

Yeah there's a thread on the Double Fine Action Forums challenging whether or not this was a good idea. Kinda harsh to have that conversation right in the same subforum, but WELP- someone did.

I said that I think it's a big crazy risk, and they didn't have to do it. Leaving fate to a giant cloud of redditors is terrifying, they could've just voted for whoever made the funniest video, or people they recognise from the documentary, or anything. When it's an internal process, you can look passed who has the best concept art or "It'll be like Minecraft meets Skyrim meets Halo", but regular people don't think about game pitches.

The vote thing is a big can o worms, but at least we can say all the game pitches are super interesting and I'm sure Double Fine will make something brilliant either way. Also I think it was posted on the forum that everyone within DF is super happy about it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with people having those discussions in public.

We also figured that by requiring at least a nominal payment, people would be more likely to take their votes seriously; I think that bore out.

[Frenetic Pony]

Predictions based solely on my own experience:

Space Base and Black Lake get the nod towards most likely to come out as something able to be made into a game. Their concepts seem realized, solidly "game" like, and have the most obvious path towards what has already been established as "fun".

The White Birch: I don't know about this. I voted for it, but he seemed really vague about what it was he wanted to do. "Something like Ico or Journey" isn't something I imagine is easy or direct to pull off. It's not like a resource/people management game where you can just say "oh, I know a lot of what I'm doing!" And his extreme vagueness on it makes me wonder how it'll turn out. Still hope it does turn out well of course, definitely wouldn't mind more Journey/Ico type games in the world.

Hack'N'Slash: This sounds, terribly ambitious, which is why I didn't vote for it. If you are given tools, how do you make sure they just don't break the game entirely? How do you continue to make the game fun for more than 15 minutes? I played with coding and even a friggen game genie just like this guy. Infinite health, deleting stuff by accident, the actual "tools" are going to need to be very specific. But my biggest concern is how it would actually appeal to a mass audience. I'm certain there are enough people out there who might enjoy the concept to make it a niche, cult game. But I'm wondering how you make it accessible enough to make it even a small scale commercial game. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, and that at least I'm interested to see!

Autonomous: I... this stuff has been done before. And never really turned up well. Pulling from my memory, there's definitely been "build your own robot/AI/machinery" type games, plenty of which have come before and none of which I can remember having been terribly fun or successful. Can anyone correct me on this?

[Erkki]

Hack'N'Slash: This sounds, terribly ambitious, which is why I didn't vote for it. If you are given tools, how do you make sure they just don't break the game entirely? How do you continue to make the game fun for more than 15 minutes? I played with coding and even a friggen game genie just like this guy. Infinite health, deleting stuff by accident, the actual "tools" are going to need to be very specific. But my biggest concern is how it would actually appeal to a mass audience. I'm certain there are enough people out there who might enjoy the concept to make it a niche, cult game. But I'm wondering how you make it accessible enough to make it even a small scale commercial game. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, and that at least I'm interested to see!

His ideas may be a bit crazy (I haven't looked at the Q&A or anything besides the pitch & PDF), but keep in mind that he is not making it by himself, but has a whole studio (or a part of it) to support him. I'm sure the group as a whole can figure out how to keep the game a game and not just some programming and hacking exercise. I predict that the hacks will probably be more discrete than the pitch promises, and not quite the situation where you can actually change anything you can think of.

Autonomous: I... this stuff has been done before. And never really turned up well. Pulling from my memory, there's definitely been "build your own robot/AI/machinery" type games, plenty of which have come before and none of which I can remember having been terribly fun or successful. Can anyone correct me on this?

Can you name some of them? I'm curious to try them. Cargo: The Quest for Gravity was building machines, but not automatons. I have vague memories of games that had you building robots, but those could as well been weak games for other reasons.

[Forbin]

Autonomous: I... this stuff has been done before. And never really turned up well. Pulling from my memory, there's definitely been "build your own robot/AI/machinery" type games, plenty of which have come before and none of which I can remember having been terribly fun or successful. Can anyone correct me on this?

I agree, but I think the key difference is that it's being directed by a senior artist with a lot of experience. A lot of those games are programmer driven crazyness, where they try to capture the experience of development into game form and fail. It's the reason why i was pessimistic about hack n' slash. I hope he pulls it off, but you're right it's terribly ambitious.

I do think it's going to be interesting to go through the whole experience publicly, but I think the pure democratization of voting will have an effect on the processes. Tim mentioned he's used it in the past to test out people who want to lead game teams, and given that he's no longer part of the decision, I can't see that being directly replaced. The public is focused on what games it wants made, and someone who may be in the prime position to be given a chance to lead may not have gotten it because someone else's game had a better pitch. It's a cool experiment though, and it might help me build support for something similar at my studio.

[Chris]

I do think it's going to be interesting to go through the whole experience publicly, but I think the pure democratization of voting will have an effect on the processes. Tim mentioned he's used it in the past to test out people who want to lead game teams, and given that he's no longer part of the decision, I can't see that being directly replaced. The public is focused on what games it wants made, and someone who may be in the prime position to be given a chance to lead may not have gotten it because someone else's game had a better pitch. It's a cool experiment though, and it might help me build support for something similar at my studio.

It's the same in the other direction, though. Tim isn't an impartial robot--he's affected by the quality of pitches and the particular aesthetics or goals of a given project. (For a related example, consider Scott Campbell mentioning in the Double Fine Adventure documentary how, when he wants Tim to gravitate towards a particular character design, he gives that design the coolest pose, because he knows that will give it an edge with Tim.) In the past, there might have been ideas that would have been great, but didn't strike Tim's fancy like some others.

The thing that's different about this to Kickstarter (or other crowdfunded/crowdsourced models) is that it's a totally closed system. At the end of the day, pitches and teams are going to be made up solely by and of Double Fine employees, and there are a fixed number of Double Fine employees, and each employee was hired because he or she possesses certain concrete skills that can be relatively easily quantified within the studio by our production team. It's not an infinite pool of people and ideas being thrown out onto the internet; it's a finite event with a fixed timeframe and resource pool. I think that really mitigates a lot of the risks of relying on crowd wisdom.

[Forbin]

Yeah if you hire creative and capable people, there's a fairly good chance that it's going to be successful even if things get crazy. I was thinking more about the opportunity to test people who show leadership potential. While I imagine most of the people that would make strong project leads would also be able to present a compelling pitch the public, there's still a chance that we're overlooking someone that can really drive a project because some other pitch was flashier. But I agree it could also go the other way, someone who seems like they wouldn't be capable may get the chance to prove themselves because the public didn't have the same perception that Tim or other senior staff may have.

[Frenetic Pony]

Yeah if you hire creative and capable people, there's a fairly good chance that it's going to be successful even if things get crazy. I was thinking more about the opportunity to test people who show leadership potential. While I imagine most of the people that would make strong project leads would also be able to present a compelling pitch the public, there's still a chance that we're overlooking someone that can really drive a project because some other pitch was flashier. But I agree it could also go the other way, someone who seems like they wouldn't be capable may get the chance to prove themselves because the public didn't have the same perception that Tim or other senior staff may have.

So the world isn't perfect, and neither is this. The point I believe is that Tim and the senior staff have picked it before. It's worked out alright, but it would be hard to say if it's actually better than this without trying it. It's not just about who might be best to lead, there may be a whole host of subtle affects that will change how these prototypes vary from past years. Knowing that the public, or the section that voted anyway, supports you has to be encouraging even over and above knowing your boss does. This might not be THE BEST way of going about things, but it might be BETTER. So it's worth trying at least once.

[brkl]

I wouldn't worry about Hack'n'Slash. They are going to be prototypes, and if they don't find a way to make them fun, it's only two weeks and now they know.

[Forbin]

So the world isn't perfect, and neither is this. The point I believe is that Tim and the senior staff have picked it before. It's worked out alright, but it would be hard to say if it's actually better than this without trying it. It's not just about who might be best to lead, there may be a whole host of subtle affects that will change how these prototypes vary from past years. Knowing that the public, or the section that voted anyway, supports you has to be encouraging even over and above knowing your boss does. This might not be THE BEST way of going about things, but it might be BETTER. So it's worth trying at least once.

I agree. I don't want people to get the impression that I think this is a bad idea at all, I'm actually really excited to see they've opened the doors to us.

[Merus]

Oh nice, they're making Black Lake as well. That's one I really wanted to see a prototype for.

I am interested in all the successful prototypes, so let's hope they come together! Not watching the livestream because livestreams are terrible.

My livestream experience: they always start when I'm asleep; I have a look, coming in on the middle of not very much happening, I have to sign up to use the chat or participate in any way, and I can't do anything else with the computer if I intend to watch it and also not be bored, so eventually I go play a game instead. Cricket test matches are all the fun of livestreams except they play it on TV so I can still do something interesting.

[K-bohls!]

Anyone find it weird to see Double Fine asking for money in exchange for the promise of a game again? I mean, they are going to deliver without a doubt so I am not afraid of being scammed, but it still feels wrong. I haven't heard anything about the Double Fine Adventure (although I never backed it so I don't see the progress videos). Either way, excited to see what becomes of Spacebase.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I think asking for money in exchange for video games is pretty much why Double Fine exists as a company. Seeing as that's what video game companies do. I suppose if you're sketchy about the idea of preorders in general then yeah this might look bad but Double Fine is hardly the first game to ask you to pay for a game before it's done. The latest XCOM unlocked 3 tiers of rewards based on how many people preordered it!

[TheLastBaron]

I think he might mean it's weird because DFA (and The Cave) is still in progress and they're already asking for money for something else that may not happen for a while. He might not mean that, but that's how I interpreted it.

[jeremywc]

Anyone find it weird to see Double Fine asking for money in exchange for the promise of a game again? I mean, they are going to deliver without a doubt so I am not afraid of being scammed, but it still feels wrong. I haven't heard anything about the Double Fine Adventure (although I never backed it so I don't see the progress videos). Either way, excited to see what becomes of Spacebase.

The progress videos in the backer forums do a good job of showing how hard they are working on DFA. You should consider doing the Slacker Backer thing, I think there's a lot of value there.

To anyone who keeps up with Double Fine's culture, it's known that Amnesia Fortnight is something they are going to do every year no matter what. The only difference is that we get to participate in some small way this year. I would say that a casual observer of the company could get confused on that point, but I think it's been pretty clearly explained in the Humble Bundle video and the press coverage of it.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I think he might mean it's weird because DFA (and The Cave) is still in progress and they're already asking for money for something else that may not happen for a while. He might not mean that, but that's how I interpreted it.

May not happen for a while? Won't they be finished in a few weeks?

[jeremywc]

I think he might mean it's weird because DFA (and The Cave) is still in progress and they're already asking for money for something else that may not happen for a while. He might not mean that, but that's how I interpreted it.

It should be noted that they aren't asking for funding for another full game. You're purchasing 8 prototype games at whatever amount you feel they are worth to you.

[elmuerte]

You're purchasing games? No... you're buying an entry ticket to witness their Amnsia Fortnight, and with this entry price you get a goodiebag filled with prototypes.