Earlier this week beloved game development studio Double Fine Productions announced that their next project would be an adventure game that would be solely funded via Kickstarter. The studio set a deadline of March 13 to raise $400,000 to develop and document the game. It turns out the studio got much more than they needed, much faster than anyone expected.
Double Fine Productions is the development studio helmed by beloved adventure game developer Tim Schafer. Schafer has been making games for a very long time and is well known for adventure games like Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle.
Schafer clearly wants to make more adventure games but instead of doing things the old fashioned way, he decided to use the power of the Internet to accomplish his goal. Double Fine Productions posted up a Kickstarter project to raise funds to create another adventure game. The goal was $400,000 by March 13 to make the game and document the process for all backers to see.
Part of the Kickstarter description read,
"The world of video game design is a mysterious one. What really happens behind the closed doors of a development studio is often unknown, unappreciated, or misunderstood. And the bigger the studio, the more tightly shut its door tends to be. With this project, we're taking that door off its hinges and inviting you into the world of Double Fine Productions, the first major studio to fully finance their next game with a Kickstarter campaign and develop it in the public eye."
The description goes on to say that the game would be developed by a small team at Double Fine within a six to eight month period. The goal is to release a completed game on Steam in October. Donating $15 to the game will net you access to beta test the product, a copy of the game when it comes out, and access to the video series documenting the development process. There are a number of other tiers of backing that all offer other goodies on top of that.
The program did manage to raise the $400,000 needed to get the game made. What's amazing is that it raised that much money overnight. Within 24 hours of starting, the project had raised over $1 million. As of this writing the total is over $1.3 million with 32 days left. That kind of funding broke a Kickstarter record.
That extra money is going to be invested in making the game available on Mac OS X as well as iOS.
"All money raised will go to make the game and documentary better. Additional money means it can appear on more platforms, be translated into more languages, have more music and voice, and an original soundtrack for the documentary, and more!"
It's amazing to see how many people want to support Double Fine in this endeavor especially to make a game in a genre that has largely been written off. Did any of you guys back this project? Are you interested in another adventure game from Tim Schafer? How do you feel about Kickstarter being used for game development projects? Let us know what you think in the comments.
