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Tim Schafer revisits Day of the Tentacle
Development studio Double Fine made a lot of money back in 2012 when it ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund a traditional point-and-click adventure game which would go on to be called Broken Age - but then, you already knew that, right? What you may not have known is that, as part of that Kickstarter campaign, 2 Player Productions filmed a documentary focused on the company and legendary adventure game designer, Tim Schafer. On Friday, the company made part of that documentary free and public on YouTube. The footage in question follows Schafer as he revisits one of his classic games: Day of the Tentacle. If you've ever wanted to hear it straight from the creator's mouth as to why this game starred an anthropomorphic tentacle, buckle in for this 40-minute trip down Nostalgia Avenue. There's plenty of other information and interesting soundbites to enjoy as Schafer plays through the game. For instance, did you know that Schafer once acted as a tip line for the son of famed film director and producer, Steven Spielberg? "When most people need a hint they call the hint line, when Steven Spielberg needs a hint he calls Lucas directly and - 'I wanna talk to the guy who made this game!'" Schafer says in the video. As Schafer recalled, Spielberg's son Max needed help getting through a particular portion of the game, so Schafer instructed him how to beat the troublesome puzzles over the phone. "He said thanks and that was my brush with greatness from this game, was giving a hint to Max." [Image: Double Fine]
Last Life's first episode, voice acting funded on Kickstarter
Now that sci-fi noir adventure Last Life is funded on Kickstarter, players will be able to investigate the murder of protagonist Jack Parker on PC, Mac and Linux sometime next year. Yes, Jack is still the protagonist despite being murdered - using a freshly 3D-printed body initially made for an annual Dead Man's Party, he'll slink through the streets of MarsTopia in a point-and-click-style search for his killer. Thanks to backers helping developer Rocket Science clear one of Last Life's stretch goals, players also won't have to imagine what Jack would sound like - voice acting for "all speaking characters" will be added, along with interactive flashbacks to when Earth was still inhabitable. Did we mention that, in Last Life's universe, all life on Earth was ended 11 years ago? It's worth noting that the $103,058 gathered on Kickstarter will only fund the development of Last Life's first episode, with Rocket Science planning on three episodes total. Anyone that chipped in $15 or more will receive a DRM-free digital copy of the first episode, though they'll also have the option of swapping it for a Steam key. [Image: Rocket Science]
Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash GOTO Steam, PRINT now
Hackers of the world unite, 'cos Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash is available now on Steam Early Access. It'll cost you $20 to hack the planet early, or $25 if you want the soundtrack too. The Early Access game may star a familiar-looking elf hero and his sprite friend, but Hack 'n' Slash looks to twist that trope with its code-breaking gameplay. While the basic idea is to alter in-game variables and make your through puzzles, Double Fine says players have enough freedom to genuinely break the game. "You're hacking the game for real!" exclaims the store page (perhaps from the back of a police car). "You can totally break it. Roll back in time to change the rules so the bugs don't cause the world to fall apart, whether they're yours or ours!" [Image: Double Fine]
Humble Mobile Bundle 5 explores The Room 2, The Cave, and more
Humble Bundle is back with another serving of high-profile Android games, featuring Double Fine's The Cave, Fireproof Games' The Room 2 and other standout apps in the newly launched Humble Mobile Bundle 5. Pay at least $1 and you'll get Crescent Moon Games' action-RPG Aralon: Sword and Shadow, Hidden Variable's grocery-bagging puzzler Bag It!, and an Android port of Irem's classic arcade shooter R-Type 2. The Room 2, The Cave, and Carcassonne are available for buyers who beat the bundle's average purchase price (currently under $4), and more games will be added at a later date. Humble Mobile Bundle 5 will be available through April 29. [Video: Humble Bundle]
Double Fine Presents Last Life, a mystery about your murder on Mars
Last Life is the second game in Double Fine's new indie publishing program, and it has a bit of a different vibe than the first game, Escape Goat 2. Last Life is a dark, sci-fi noir adventure inspired by Kentucky Route Zero and Telltale's The Walking Dead. One difference from both of those games: It takes place on Mars. In Last Life, you investigate your own death – you're Jack Parker, private investigator, and you're dead. You're 3D-printed back into the living world for four hours to hunt your killer by shaking down a lineup of shady characters, using "charm, bribes or something less pleasant." Developer Sam Farmer sets up the premise as follows: "Eleven years before our story opens, all life on Earth was ended. Now, only a few million humans still exist, scattered throughout the remaining civilized colonies of the solar system – forever exiled. "P.I. Jack Parker was one of the lucky few to have escaped Earth's tragedy. "On that infamous day, he just happened to be working a case on MarsTopia, the crown jewel among these colonies on the red planet. He survived on that destination resort development, but half-wished he hadn't. The echoes of the life he left behind on Earth ... a life lost forever ... grew louder every hour. Until, that is, the day 11 years later when he was gunned down and killed." Last Life is looking for $75,000 on Kickstarter. With 28 days to go, it's raised $19,000. It's in development for PC, Mac and Linux.
Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash gearing up for Early Access soon
Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash, the developer's code-breaking puzzler, is "just weeks away" from its release on Steam Early Access, the Broken Age and Psychonauts developer announced. The game is in development for PC, Mac and Linux and will cost $14.99. The developer also issued a funky new trailer that shows some of the game's hacking options. First announced in December, Hack 'n' Slash has players guiding a young elf and modifying the game by toggling options in its menus, affecting the environment to their benefit to advance the story. The game came about during one of Double Fine's internal game jams, Amnesia Fortnight, and was funded thanks to a collaborative effort between a slew of parties, including Indie Fund and Humble Bundle. [Image: Double Fine]
Double Fine COO wants to keep indies premium with consistent pricing
Double Fine chief operating officer Justin Bailey expressed a desire to maintain premium status for indie-developed games in a recent interview with USgamer, explaining that a continued "race to the bottom" in terms of pricing could prove disastrous for the developing marketplace. "I think what indies really need to watch out for is not becoming the new casual games," Bailey said, referencing a looming indie bubble and casual gaming's free-to-play shift. "I don't think that's a problem from the development side. Indies are approaching it as an artform and they're trying to be innovative, but what's happening in the marketplace is indies are being pushed more and more to have a lower price or have a bunch of games bundled together." In an effort to stave off marketplace dilution, Bailey says that Double Fine will encourage its publishing partners to maintain consistent pricing without spurring sales through bundles or deep discounts. "Double Fine wants to keep indies premium," Bailey stated. "You see that in our own games and how we're positioning them. We fight the urge to just completely drop the price. That's one of the things we want to encourage in this program. Getting people to stick to a premium price point and to the platforms that allow you to do that." Double Fine recently kicked off its indie publishing initiative with Escape Goat 2, providing creator Ian Stocker with "promotional assistance and distribution" at launch. "Our biggest interest is to have a vibrant indie ecosystem," Bailey said. "Our thought is the best people to provide that are going to be the indies. We'd like to help make other indies successful, keep them independent, and have a place where they can go and in turn, help out other indies. That makes the ecosystem stronger." [Image: Double Fine]
Double Fine to publish indie games, starting with Escape Goat 2
Double Fine may be known for creating games like Psychonauts, Brutal Legend and Broken Age, but it's expanding its efforts to add indie game publishing to its repertoire. Its first act as an indie publisher is to provide "promotional assistance and distribution" for MagicalTimeBean's Escape Goat 2, COO Justin Bailey told Game Informer. "Our goal is to help indies build their own community and empower them with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed on their own," Bailey said, adding that multiple indie developers have approached Double Fine to ask for publishing assistance. "They all had a unique request and that's where we started to see there was a real need for the knowledge we've gained over the last 14 years on how to prototype, fund, develop and publish our own games." Double Fine's publishing ambitions boil down to the efforts of two individuals: Bailey and senior publishing manager Greg Rice, who will offer advice for crowdfunding hopefuls as well as development feedback, platform porting advice and promotional assistance. "We're open to working with each developer and figuring out how we can help make them successful," Bailey added. Double Fine recently teamed up with MagicalTimeBean to create a quirky promotional video for Escape Goat 2. The game launched yesterday on PC, Mac and Linux via Steam, GOG and the Humble Store for $10. [Image: MagicalTimeBean]
Costume Quest 2 comes knockin' on Halloween
Costume Quest 2 is due out on October 31 for consoles and PC, courtesy of a partnership between developer Double Fine and indie publisher Midnight City. There's no word on which consoles Double Fine is targeting, specifically. Costume Quest 2 stars Wren and Reynold, heroes of the original Costume Quest, plus an improved battle system and new costumes. The game is in full development right now, and once the team decided to go for it, work "got up and running really fast," Double Fine co-founder Tim Schafer tells IGN. This is Double Fine's first sequel. Double Fine regained the rights to the Costume Quest IP in November, after losing them to Nordic Games when Costume Quest publisher THQ went under and held a bankruptcy auction in April. We reviewed Costume Quest when it launched in 2010, and found it to be charming and "kind of magical." [Image: Midnight City]
Broken Age on sale for 33% off, game contains 15 minutes of credits [Update: Sale over]
The first act of Double Fine's Kickstarted adventure game, Broken Age, is currently on sale for its lowest price ever on Steam. For $16.74 you can get the game, or for $20.09, you can snag the game as well as a copy of the soundtrack. Hurry though, because at the time of posting, you've only got two and a half hours to take advantage of the deal. The release of Act 1 existed partly to fund the development of Act 2, so the back half of the game isn't ready to go just yet. Those who purchase ahead of Act 2's release will be given the conclusion as a free update, according to Double Fine. Double Fine also announced a slew of statistics regarding Broken Age's production, in case you're the type who was ever curious about just how many lines of code go into creating a game like this. (Hint: it's a lot.) It's also been a time-consuming project: over the course of 22 months (or 339 man-months), the team has created 1,181 cutscenes, recorded 4,417 lines of voice, and consumed more than 680 gallons of coffee. Broken Age also takes 15 minutes (at a resolution of 1024x768) to show off 12,846 name strings during the credits. Broken Age: it's kind of a big deal. Update: The sale for Broken Age has come to its conclusion. The game is $24.99 once more. [Image: Double Fine]
Schafer: Broken Age split release a success, second half now funded
Broken Age, the Double Fine adventure game too big for its $3.3 million Kickstarter campaign, released its first half last month. Now, studio founder Tim Schafer tells GamesIndustry International that the release has been a success, and that part two has been successfully funded. "We've made enough that we can make the second half of the game for sure," Schafer told GamesIndustry, before noting that he believes the first half isn't quite done yet, since it has yet to release on iPad like the studio promised it would. Still, Schafer seemed upbeat. "We've shipped enough that people can see we weren't kidding, and that's a big relief. Because I think there's a lot of pressure on Kickstarter projects, especially the really big Kickstarter projects, to just not screw it up for everybody else. It's such a great, positive thing for us, and being able to be funded by our fans opens so many doors for us to do original, creative things that we just wanted to live up to [expectations]." The decision to break Broken Age into two parts was not one met with overwhelming enthusiasm by some backers (just take a look at the comments). It would seem that the wallet speaks louder though, and the wallets want a conclusion to Broken Age. [Image: Double Fine]
Watch Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight game jam right here
Amnesia Fortnight, the annual two-week internal game jam at Double Fine, is fully underway. This year includes three game ideas from Double Fine developers and one pitched by Adventure Time scribe and Broken Age voice actor, Pendleton Ward. In Dear Leader, players guide the development of a post-revolution country as its tyrannical leader. Mnemonic, a first-person noir adventure game, explores the fragmented memories of a man searching to find out who killed the woman he loved. Steed is an open-world action game set in medieval times and centered around a horse-for-hire stuck in a world full of inept heroes. Finally, Ward's Little Pink Best Buds is a game centered around little pink characters who all wish to be your best friend. Everyone can purchase and play the finished prototypes through the Humble Bundle store. Purchase also guarantees copies of 2012's prototypes, including space station management sim Spacebase DF-9. Double Fine will be streaming portions of Amnesia Fortnight through Twitch, starting at 1:30pm ET (10:30am PT/6:30pm GMT) today. We've embedded the Twitch player past the break, so feel free to join us here to watch the festivities go down. [Image: Double Fine]
Chris Remo leaves Double Fine to join startup dev Campo Santo
The Cave co-writer Chris Remo is no longer working at Double Fine, having teamed up with Idle Thumbs co-stars and Walking Dead designers Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman at the recently formed Campo Santo studio. Remo was formerly editor-in-chief at Gamasutra and a community manager at BioShock studio Irrational Games before he joined Double Fine in 2012, where he also prototyped the upcoming Spacebase DF-9. He also recently served as a freelance composer on Joystiq Top 10 of 2013 entry Gone Home. Remo joins the growing line-up of talented developers at Campo Santo, including Mark of the Ninja lead Nels Anderson and industry artist Olly Moss. Campo's first game is in the works with the backing and collaborative efforts of Portland-based app Dev Panic. Inc.
Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight game jam includes Adventure Time creator
Double Fine's annual game jam, Amnesia Fortnight, is upon us once again. Over the next two weeks, small teams within Double Fine will conceptualize new games and create working prototypes that will, through the power of internet voting, be made into full-fledged games. This year's festivities include a special twist: Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward is participating as a special guest project leader. Ward will head up his own team and create a working prototype based on one of his four designs, as voted for by the fans. A list of Pendleton Ward's prototypes are available over on the Amnesia Fortnight Humble Bundle page. Mathematical! The pitch video above shows Double Fine is full of ideas - we kind of lost count after the eighth game idea - but there are individual pitch videos for each idea over on Double Fine's YouTube page. There are games about cats, space exploration, fantasy wars, karate troopers, turning Tim Schafer into a pocket monster, something about a ghost dog (not that Ghost Dog) and Bad Golf 2 Bad Golf 2 Bad Golf 2 Bad Golf 2. A documentary from 2 Player Productions will chronicle the whole event. You can head on over to the Humble Store page right now and contribute some cash for the right to vote on which prototypes move on. Doing so will grant immediate access to 2012's prototypes, which include Amnesia Fortnight 2012 winner Spacebase DF-9. [Image: Double Fine]
Broken Age Act 1 now available, have a launch trailer
The first half of Broken Age, the latest adventure from Grim Fandango designer Tim Schafer and his crew at Double Fine Productions, is now available to the general public. As Ludwig points out in our review of Broken Age Act 1, the game is clearly the offspring of the classic point-and-click adventure games that Schafer had a big hand in popularizing, though the archaic elements of the genre are mated with more modern, user-friendly features, resulting in an enjoyable, if staid, adventure. "The lack of challenge and a dearth of branching dialogue (sorry – these dialogue trees resemble bamboo shafts) disappoint, yes, but Broken Age always elicits a smile and a desire to continue," our review states before awarding the game 4 of 5 stars. Whether you prefer the PC, Mac or Linux platforms, you'll find Broken Age Act 1 now available on Steam for $25. Broken Age Act 2 is slated for release "later this year" when it will become available to owners of Act 1 as a free downloadable addition.
Broken Age Act 1 Review: To Part
Financed by a Kickstarter army of fund-it pundits to the tune of over $3 million, Broken Age is a bespoke graphic adventure like no other. And yet the point of this old-school clique, of course, was to guarantee a game that was just like all those others – old adventures in the grand LucasArts legacy. It should have been nostalgia, made on-demand by Double Fine, but there's more to it; a modern personality. The delta between what should have been – and what is – lies right in the middle of Broken Age, a sincere story of a boy and a girl breaking free of expectation and tradition. Shay and Vella exist in separated worlds, but you can visit either at any point, funneling your curiosity into the regular point-and-click mold: relaxed exploring, conversing with the locals, and collecting odd inventory objects that are sure to have some weirdly sensible use later. These are the old, uncluttered ways, paired with truly new-feeling art and an irresistible optimism that simply can't be found elsewhere, today or yesterday.
Peter McConnell's Broken Age score available Jan. 28
Peter McConnell's original orchestral soundtrack for Double Fine's Broken Age will be available for download next week. McConnell's previous work can be heard in Double Fine's Brutal Legend and Psychonauts, as well as in classic LucasArts adventure games Grim Fandango and Monkey Island. The full soundtrack will be available for download on Bandcamp when the game's first act officially launches on January 28. Samples of select tracks can be heard right now over on McConnell's Soundcloud page. Broken Age is an adventure game about two teenagers, Vella Tartine and Shay Volta, living separate lives in their own distinct worlds. The two are linked by their coming-of-age predicaments, and players can switch between each teen at any time. We streamed a good chunk of the game yesterday, so feel free to give our archived video a peek.
Here's how you activate Broken Age's pixelated retro mode
Hidden within Double Fine's new adventure game Broken Age is a special aesthetic option that coats the game's colorful graphics in a heavy sheen of thick pixels. Though Double Fine hasn't publicized this feature, YouTube user "The Phawx" provides a simple, step by step guide to activating the mode in the above clip. Simply enter the game's options menu, crank its resolution down to 640x480, assign a button to the new icon you'll find in the game's "Controls" menu, and voila, that button now enables retro mode. Even better, once you've activated the hidden feature you're free to return the game to a higher resolution, but will still be able to toggle retro mode on and off with whichever button you've selected. This isn't a true aesthetic makeover, as much as a video filter overlaid on top of the game's default graphics, but at the very least it does give players an excuse to use the game's 640x480 resolution setting - an otherwise largely pointless holdover from the days when computers were all beige rectangles and the Intel Pentium 2 was considered amazing technology.
Explore Double Fine's Broken Age in these two new trailers
Double Fine's Broken Age is nearly upon us, available to general audiences on January 28. Kickstarter backers, however, get in early and start playing the game's first act today.
Broken Age goes public on January 28, taking pre-orders now
The first act of Double Fine's graphic adventure game Broken Age will be available to the public on January 28 for PC, Mac and Linux. The game will launch two weeks after being made available to Kickstarter backers today. Broken Age is available for pre-order on Steam at a 10 percent discount ($22.49) until it launches. Double Fine earned over $3.3 million on Kickstarter in March 2012 for its "Double Fine Adventure" crowdfunding campaign, which was given the name Broken Age one year later. A backers-only update on the game's Kickstarter page revealed that the game will skip Steam's Early Access program and launch in full on Steam with season pass support. While Broken Age will land on iOS, Android and Ouya at an undisclosed date, the concluding second act of the game will launch as a free update to owners later this year.
