Tim Schafer's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[Marvin]

Tim Schafer, of Double Fine (Brütal Legend and Psychonauts), wants to make an old-school point and click adventure game. Unfortunately, publishers in this day and age aren't interested, despite having Ron Gilbert of Monkey Island fame on the team. So, in an interesting experiment, they've turned to online funding site Kickstarter to see if they can crowd-source the funds they need.

The higher the donation from the public, the better rewards they get (up to a wining and dining from the team and your name in the credits). They're seeking $400,000, only $300,000 of which is for the game - the rest is to produce a professionally-made documentary series detailing the entire production from conception to release. This will be available to backers too.

So, if you're keen to help a relatively indie developer and skip the production middleman, head over to the Kickstarter page. After watching that hilarious video, it's pretty hard to say no. In the four hours since the announcement was made, they've already raised half (over $200,000) of their goal. Get it while it's hot, and maybe, with Notch's help, you'll see Psychonauts 2 next.

Update: Double Fine have met their goal and even exceeded it! Over $1 million has now been raised, all of which will go toward making the game even better, and producing a high quality documentary of the game development process.

[admeister]

Sounds like a pretty good idea, the game gets made, and the fans are happy. I reckon they'll get that 400k, and it'll be interesting to see how the game turns out.

[nshady]

I think it's really exciting. The idea that studios could go, "we have a really cool idea, what do you think" and get immediate feedback from fans and their financial support and emotional involvement from the get-go, is exciting. It could be an insurance policy in these times when things seem to be getting more and more expensive for the studios and less certain about their successes.

[admeister]

Exactly. It looks like they've met their goal already, never underestimate the gaming community.

[admeister]

Ok, so they've completely gone over their goal. Over $1 million raised by 27,569 people!

[Napoleon Insists]

Yep, I've backed it! Genius idea by them. I'm sure they're kind of blown away by what they've done. I think most people who've been in to games for a long time really love Schafer and Gilbert's stuff. While Double Fine doesn't always have mainstream appeal, this is a kind of targeted sale. No need to advertise the  out of it, the Kickstarter is enough really. They'll be making news everywhere. Not to mention they start off with a huge amount of sales. Rather than painting with a wide brush - advertising to a whole bunch of people, and rather than shipping in lots of brick and mortar stores (the costs of these two things would kind of contribute to a few of their old games flopping pretty hard) it's  a very directed and cheap way for them to make and sell the game.

Ummm... what I'm trying to say is 'cool'

[Batman]

I donated to the cause, even though I'm not sure I'm interested in a point and click adventure game. The video content should be worth it, at least.

[admeister]

That's true, and you never know, you might even like he game as well. It's certainly a good cause.

[nshady]

They just hit $1.5 million. In two days. Pretty crazy. They're talking all kinds of SKUs now - Mac, PC, iOS, and maybe Wii U according to Schafer.