Just as Double Fine Productions did in 2012, it's opening up this year's Amnesia Fortnight 2014 to the public. Not to be confused with either Amnesia or Fortnite. An "Amnesia Fortnight" is when Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine, hands the reins over to his various in-house teams and leaders so they can pitch him game ideas. You select which ones you want Double Fine to produce, then they take the ball and run with it, having two weeks to deliver a playable prototype of their game.
According to Schafer, it's a "lawless, unforgiving, creative supernova...It's not easy or fair; but it's exciting."
Amnesia Fortnight 2014 is being held in conjunction with Humble Bundle. You hand over $1.00 or more to vote on which three prototypes Double Fine makes. Ten finalists will be announced February 10. Right now, there are 29 pitches to choose from. Choose wisely.
Pay more than the average of $6.72 (at the time of this writing) and you can additionally vote for one of four more pitches coming straight from Pendleton Ward, creator of the cartoon series Adventure Time. Ward will be project lead on that winning game. His ideas are preoccupied with fat protagonists and iOS touch controls. They're funny ideas, too.
As usual with any Humble Bundle, you choose how much of your money goes to the Child's Play charity, and how much goes to the developers, Double Fine.
Previous Amnesia Fortnights brought about Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade, and more. Spacebase DF-9 (currently on Steam Early Access) and Hack 'n' Slash (aiming for a first-half-of-2014 release) specifically stem from the last Amnesia Fortnight in 2012.
Visit Humble Bundle for 30-second pitches of each game. Here are three catching my attention; but seriously, so many of them are totally great.
Double Fine kicks off Amnesia Fortnight 2014 game jam
Gaming public to vote on ideas from Double Fine staff and Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward
San Francisco, CA—February 6, 2014—Double Fine has launched Amnesia Fortnight 2014, the latest iteration of its two-week internal game jam, on Humble Bundle. Amnesia Fortnight has generated many of the studio's game ideas over the past five years, including Spacebase DF-9, Hack 'n' Slash, Costume Quest, Stacking and more.
Members of the public can now pay any amount for the chance to vote on dozens of ideas pitched by Double Fine staff members, with the top-ranked choices becoming two-week PC prototypes playable by contributors. Contributors decide the percentage that will go to charity.
Buyers who beat the pay-what-you-want average will also get to vote for their favorite idea contributed by Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward, who will be serving as a project lead on site at Double Fine over the course of the two-week jam.
The whole jam will be chronicled in a video documentary created by 2 Player Productions, the team behind the Kickstarter-funded Double Fine Adventure documentary as well as 2012's Amnesia Fortnight documentary.
All of the video pitches, from Double Fine staff and Pendleton Ward, are now available for viewing and voting at: https://www.humblebundle.com/doublefine
Contributors who spend $35 or more will also receive a pre-order for a two-disc Amnesia Fortnight 2014 set including all newly-developed prototypes on DVD and the full 2 Player Productions documentary series in HD on Blu-ray.
To further celebrate the occasion, the Humble Weekly Sale featuring Double Fine is currently live at https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly allowing gamers to name their price for Psychonauts, Costume Quest and Stacking. Buyers who pay $6 or more will also receive Brütal Legend, and those who pay more than $16.74 will also gain access to the alpha build of Spacebase DF-9 on Steam.
