The folks at Double Fine have successfully funded a new adventure game through crowd-souring website Kickstarter. As of this writing, the project has over 38k backers who pledged more than the targeted goal of $400,000 dollars.
Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and the development team at Double Fine stated that $300,000 will go towards the cost of developing the game and $100,000 to 2 Player Productions to document its progress. The project was launched 6pm PT on Wednesday and reached the $400k mark nearly eight hours later. While extra money continues to funnel into the project, Double Fine has stated that it “will be put back into the game and documentary. This could result in anything from increased VO and music budgets to additional release platforms for the game.”
The Double Fine Adventure will occur “over a six-to-eight month period, a small team under Tim Schafer’s supervision will develop Double Fine’s next game, a classic point-and-click adventure. Where it goes from there will unfold in real time for all the backers to see.” Its expected for release in October 2012 but as with all things, development takes time. Double Fine’s reputation in the adventure game genre holds serious weight as studio head Tim Schafer was responsible for Lucasarts adventure games back in the early to late 90’s such as Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, as well as Day of the Tentacle, and the Monkey Island games. Ron Gilbert, the crator of Monkey Island, and co-creator of Maniac Mansion, is currently employed at Double Fine.
Tim negotiates publishing rights
For a $15 pledge, Double Fine promises access to the game when finished, as well as beta access via Steam, in addition to the video series. Rewards build up if you choose to throw more money at Double Fine listed here including lunch with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, being an actual character in game, and one of Schafer’s last four remaining Triangle-Boxed Day of the Tentacles “in original shrink-wrap.”
Crowd sourcing is becoming a popular model for independent game developers in funding their ideas to become reality. Double Fine’s high-profile entry may serve as the precedent for others who want to bypass the publisher middle man and tap directly into their fanbase, and just as well, as Double Fine certainly has a lot of adventure game fans!
