Double Fine turns to fans (and Kickstarter) to fund new video game

by: Chuck - posted: 2/8/2012 9:11:00 PM

In the interest of being open, I've already contributed to this Kickstarter.

If you're and old school gamer you remember classic Schafer and Gilbert adventure games like Maniac Mansion and Grim Fandango.  While these games were popular back in the late 80's and early 90's, they are also the kind of games  that are not going to get funded or published in the current risk averse game industry despite a lot of pent up demand for the games.  

Well the folks at Double Fine have announced that they want to do another one and to do so they are turning to the general population to fund the game via a Kickstarter campaign.  Their goal is to raise $400,000 over the next 33 days to fund the development of the game.  Depending on the funding level you'll can get everything from frame able posters to lunch with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert and a tour of the Double Fine offices.  As of 10:20 they've already raised around $61,000 and the campaign is just a few hours old.  

We've seen Kickstarters for other games in the past and I'm interested to see how this one does.  Again, I've already got some skin in the game but I'm hoping it's a success as it will help get this and other innovative games developed without developers having to sell their souls to a major publisher.

DOUBLE FINE ANNOUNCES NEW KICKSTARTER PROJECT TO FUND OLD-SCHOOL ADVENTURE


February 8, 2012 – San Francisco, CA – Double Fine Fans have requested many times over the years for Tim Schafer to return to his roots and make an old-school graphic adventure. This has only become more frequent with the arrival of adventure game legend Ron Gilbert at the Double Fine offices. But finding traditional funding for an old-school adventure game is not the easiest thing to do. Okay, actually, it’s impossible.

At Double Fine we try to be as creative with our business and funding ideas as we do with our games. So we are happy to announce that we will be using the crowd funding innovators Kickstarter to fund an honest to goodness adventure game.

Double Fine will use Kickstarter to gather funds for the game, offering the project’s Backers rewards in exchange for their contribution. Rewards include advance access to the game, original art from its development, and a bowling night out with the team.

2 Player Productions, creators of the Kickstarter-funded documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, will be filming the team throughout the process. They will create a unique, serialized documentary available only to Backers. The 2 Player crew has been granted full access to the Double Fine studios, and their documentary will provide never-before-seen look at the real game production process at Double Fine.

For further information, see http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure