Double Fine made headlines in March when its Kickstarter project to design an old skool point-and-click adventure game blew past its $400,000 goal and hit one million dollars in less than 24 hours. When the Kickstarter project closed there were 87,142 “Backers” and $3,336,371 raised.The initial response proved adventure games still have a rabid fan base (with deep pockets!) willing to support the genre.
Founder of Double Fine, Tim Schafer, is no stranger to adventure games. As a LucasArts alum, he worked on titles such as Maniac Mansion and Grim Fandango. Ron Gilbert, aka “Grumpy Gamer,” of Monkey Island fame is also a designer at Double Fine. A strong team and a lot of capital are great starter ingredients but Double Fine is also doing something unique with the development for the fans.
Full Transparency to the Development Process
As part of the Kickstarter, Double Fine announced they would film a behind the scenes documentary showing fans every step of the game’s development process. The episodic documentary will be released to Backers of the project. The first episode was recently made public. It’s a great behind the scenes look at what goes on at the studio and I’m looking forward to more antics in future episodes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMbQRnoxZ2E&list=UUf7SLiNsDj_RCe_WEjUM3Rw&index=3&feature=plcp
The other unique idea was to open a forum exclusively for all the Kickstarter Backers. The forum provides updates on the game’s progress and even takes feedback and suggestions from Backers! To date there have been updates on the art and early programming work. The good news is there is still a chance to get in on the project!
Slacker Backers
Double Fine announced that they are still accepting $15 donations from “Slacker Backers.” Slacker Backers get a DRM free downloadable copy of the game for PC, Mac, Linux or Android, a Steam code for the game on Mac or PC, access to the Steam beta, the streaming documentary series and an account in the private Backer forums to follow along with the game’s development. Details can be found here:
http://www.doublefine.com/dfa/
Impressions From a Backer
I am a Backer and so far I am pleased with the transparency. Schafer is a riot in all the videos and Double Fine sure seems like a great place to work with all the antics and colorful characters. I can’t say too much about the behind the scenes reveals as its private for Backers only but the game is definitely shaping up to be really cool and I can’t wait for the beta!
