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Double Fine's Broken Age now on Ouya
Double Fine's adventure game Broken Age is now available on the Ouya microconsole, bringing two of Kickstarter's highest-earning gaming projects together at last in holy crowdfunded union. Broken Age earned over $3.3 million when it turned to Kickstarter's crowdfunding platform for support, later expanding its scope for a split release. The Ouya met with similar success, earning more than $8.5 million by the end of its Kickstarter campaign. Broken Age backers who pledged $15 or more toward the project will receive a free code for the Ouya version via the Humble Store. [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 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.
Double Fine's Broken Age goes to Steam Early Access for additional funding
In order to make the version of Broken Age that it has planned, Double Fine needs more capital than the $3.3 million it crowdfunded in March of 2012 through its historic Kickstarter campaign, founder Tim Schafer has said in a backers-only update on Kickstarter. "Even though we received much more money from our Kickstarter than we, or anybody anticipated," Schafer said, "that didn't stop me from getting excited and designing a game so big that it would need even more money." Thus, a new plan was formed: Double Fine will release a refined version of the first half of the game through Early Access in January of 2014, which is expected to generate enough income to sustain production until the rest of the game is completed. Development costs will also be offset by the profits made from other Double Fine games. Folks that backed the original Kickstarter campaign will be given beta test access before the Early Access launch. They'll also get the first half of the game through Steam Early Access and a copy of the full game once it's completed.
Double Fine debuts trailer for Broken Age
Double Fine has shared the first footage of Broken Age, the studio's upcoming adventure game starring a girl who is to be fed to a giant monster, and a boy living on a space station with his only companion, a computer.
Double Fine Adventure unveiled as 'Broken Age'
Double Fine Adventure, the adventure game whose progress has been a secret to all but Kickstarter backers, was revealed as "Broken Age" at a PAX East panel today. The website for the game is now live, offering art and plot information to the rest of us outside of the privileged Kickstarter class."Broken Age is a point-and-click adventure telling the stories of a young boy and girl leading parallel lives," the website explains. "The girl has been chosen by her village to be sacrificed to a terrible monster--but she decides to fight back. Meanwhile, a boy on a spaceship is living a solitary life under the care of a motherly computer, but he wants to break free to lead adventures and do good in the world. Adventures ensue."Pre-orders are still available on the site, and provide access to the backer-only forums, as well as all past and future episodes of the documentary series about Broken Age's development, by 2 Player Productions.
Kickstarter game projects earn $83 million in 2012
Most recall Double Fine's conquest of Kickstarter in 2012. It's the drive that initiated "The Year of the Game," a year where some of the biggest and most successful Kickstarter campaigns were attached to video game projects. In a 2012 retrospective post, Kickstarter reveals a total of $83 million was earned for video games through successful Kickstarter drives, the most out of any category on the crowd-funding website.A total of 2,796 video game projects asked for funding on Kickstarter in 2012; 911 projects successfully reached goal thanks to 561,574 backers. Compared to the stats found in other categories last year (we're looking at you, Dance!), it's difficult to argue against 2012 truly being "The Year of the Game" on Kickstarter.
Minecraft documentary building towards December 7 release date
2 Player Productions is laying the foundations for a December 7 release of its Minecraft documentary. Speaking to Eurogamer, Minecraft: The Story of Mojang director Paul Owens said that while an exact date hasn't been settled on, December 7 is the aim. After getting the documentary funded on Kickstarter back in March 2011, 2 Player also committed to a similar production for Mojang's upcoming Scrolls. The Oregon-based production company has a strong history of gaming documentaries, having made videos for Double Fine, Sony, and Penny Arcade among many others.
Kickstarter declares 2012 'the year of the game'
Seven of the eleven Kickstarter projects to surpass $1 million in funding belong to the games category. In a post entitled "The Year of the Game," the crowd funding site reveals that games have gone from the eighth most-funded category in the site's three-year history to the second.This year has seen over $50 million pledged toward game projects on the site, with film and design several million behind at $42 million and $40 million, respectively. In 2011, games only had $3.6 million in funding and in 2010 it was at a mere $519,885.The great change began in February, when Double Fine Adventure surpassed a million dollars in 24 hours and concluded with $3.3 million pledged. The most recent game to surpass a million was Uber Entertainment's Planetary Annihilation. Head on over to Kickstarter for "the year of the game" breakdown.
Double Fine Kickstarter backer rewards now shipping
Are you a proud (or otherwise) backer of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter project? If so, you could be in for some good news very soon, as the Kickstarter rewards have begun shipping, reports VG247.Rewards include T-shirts, posters and art books, and lunch with Tim Shafer and Ron Gilbert themselves. Shipping time on that last one probably depends on how long it takes Double Fine to find a box large enough to house Tim, Ron and a reasonably sized table.
You can still buy into Double Fine Adventure through PayPal
The Kickstarter may have ended, but you still have a chance to throw money into Double Fine's impressive coffers, and guarantee yourself access to both the game and its ongoing documentary. Double Fine has opened up a PayPal account to which you can contribute now -- you can find it on this very slow-loading page.For $15, you get a Steam code for the PC or Mac version (when it's done), beta access, backer forum access, and HD streaming documentary videos as they finish. Double Fine graciously released the first episode of the documentary, which we've placed at the top of this post so you can have something to do while the PayPal page loads.
Rise of the Fund-it Pundits
You're reading Reaction Time, a new weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word "zeitgeist." It debuts on Fridays in Engadget's digital magazine, Distro. In 1998, Tim Schafer asked the world to buy his darkest, funniest and greatest graphic adventure, Grim Fandango. Players planet-wide gave a big ol' shrug, despite the impassioned clamor of genre buffs and the constant yelling of critics, who could only find so many synonyms for "masterpiece."In 2012, Tim Schafer asked the world to give him $400,000 for a new point-and-click project, which had yet to be designed, documented or even described. This time, he got over $3.3 million.This stratospheric level of success on Kickstarter, a venue for crowd-sourced funding that's now being directed at unconventional games, is not the norm. Tim Schafer and his Double Fine studio are in the midst of a perfect storm of publicity. The designer's cherished legacy, and his perceived role as the charming genius who just can't catch a break in a harsh industry, are the components of a great underdog story. And maybe lifelong Grim Fandango guilt is the glue that holds it all together.
Double Fine's Kickstarter kick-started funding for video games
Double Fine raised almost $3.4 million in its Kickstarter campaign, shattering records and publisher's hearts worldwide, but with all that attention on a single project it seemed impossible for any others to get a penny of funding. Not true, Kickstarter says, and it has the stats to back it up (Back that stat up).Double Fine Adventure catalyzed the entire video games category on Kickstarter: The month before Double Fine's project, video games averaged 629 pledges per week; after its launch, video games received an average of 9,755 pledges per week, excluding those to Double Fine, Kickstarter says.Similarly, in the first two years on Kickstarter, the video games category raised $1,776,372 in total. In the six weeks after Double Fine, it generated $2,890,704 without Double Fine's contribution, $6,227,075 with it. Before Double Fine, only one video games project had exceeded $100,000; now nine have.Double Fine brought 61,692 first-time backers to Kickstarter, and they have gone on to pledge almost $400,000 to Wasteland 2, another successful, million-dollar project. Kickstarter offers a more detailed run-down of these surprising statistics right here.
Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter concludes with $3,335,265 amassed
"It's been an amazing experience," Tim Schafer said as the last bit of funding rolled in for Double Fine Adventure. "So much love."And so much money! The Kickstarter project, which aimed to collect a mere $400,000 for a new, classically designed adventure game from Schafer's San Francisco-based studio, concluded with a total of $3,335,265 in funding -- after just over a month. An accompanying documentary will capture its creation, step-by-step."I don't want to say this is the end of the whole game industry as we know it ... it's not, it's not!" Schafer joked, surrounded by festivities in the Double Fine office. As the Kickstarter clock counted down, the visibly grateful designer said fans no longer had to accept no for an answer when it came to their favorite "niche" entertainment. "You can choose."
Double Fine Kickstarter hits 3 million, drive closing on Ustream [update: corrected time]
The allure of t-shirts proved irresistible (also, we assume, the continued allure of new video games, etc.) The "Double Fine Adventure" Kickstarter, on its last day of availability, has crossed $3 million in contributions. As of writing, the developer has $3,018,892 to put into both a new adventure game and a documentary about its development.If you think this is exciting, just wait until 3pm PDT/6pm EST, when Double Fine will begin broadcasting the final two hours of the drive live on Ustream. Watch Tim Schafer rake it in in real time!
Ask Tim Schafer anything this Sunday
Double Fine has raised well over $2 million on Kickstarter, and in exchange it's given you these minutes of unintentional amusement. Well, you'll eventually get a video game and stuff too, but enjoy these bloopers from the developer's Kickstarter pitch video for now.For amusement of a more informative variety, studio head Tim Schafer will host an "ask me anything" thread on Reddit this Sunday from 1-3pm PST (4-6pm EST). Don't ask him about all his hilarious bloopers, though, just in case he's really embarrassed by them.
The Schafer stigma: How his successful Kickstarter went to your head
I first heard about Kickstarter at San Diego Comic-Con 2010 in an early morning panel about black writers and artists in the graphic-novel industry, titled "Nappy Hour." I was there to secure a seat in the following panel -- which was a Dark Horse feature and may have included an appearance by the wonderful Gerard Way, writer of The Umbrella Academy and singer in this amazing band you probably haven't heard of (don't judge me) -- but "Nappy Hour" turned out to be one of the best presentations I saw that weekend.Throughout the panel, author and performer Pam Noles mentioned Kickstarter as an underground, free-spirited way of funding creative projects, and said she had used it to fund a few of her own endeavors. I imagined an online co-op of artists and philanthropists holding hands and running through rich, green fields together, composing sonnets about how wonderful everything was, and supporting only the most remarkable of projects. When I got home and checked it out myself, I found a site similar to Etsy, but where the items for sale were half-finished, semi-formed ideas from people who seemed dedicated to carrying them out.I thought it was wonderful.
Double Fine Kickstarter adds new rewards, Schafer and Gilbert talk it out
Double Fine's fundraiser for its point-and-click adventure title exploded on day one and has currently raised almost $2.1 million, and there are still 18 days left. To celebrate, reward its backers and entice even more, Double Fine has revamped its rewards for denomination-specific donations as follows: $30 tier: Digital Soundtrack of the Documentary $60 tier: Double Fine Adventure Book (digital PDF) $100 tier: Special edition box set with the game disc and DVD/Blu-Ray documentary $500 tier: Double Fine Adventure Book (physical copy)As standard for Kickstarter projects, hitting a higher reward tier gets backers all of the rewards from previous tiers as well. For extra incentive, the 35-minute discussion between Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert -- filmed before the Kickstarter began -- demonstrates the passion and thought that will be fueling Double Fine's game; check it out above.
Double Fine Adventure surpasses $2 million on Kickstarter
So, that Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter. You know, the one you contributed to. With 22 days left on the campaign, the total sits at $2,005,826 -- 501 percent of the developer's $400,000 goal.When the project hit its goal (in about eight hours), Double Fine studio head Tim Schafer said the extra money would go into more production values for the games and accompanying 2 Player Productions documentary. The result of that, so far, has been multiplatform, multilingual development of the game.How many of the world's 6,909 known languages can Double Fine translate into, if the money keeps rolling in like this? Think of all the populations who have never experienced an adventure game!
Kickstarter-funded Double Fine Adventure game coming to Mac, iOS
Double Fine's CEO Tim Schafer, who made almost two million dollars last week through Kickstarter for his next game, has announced that thanks to all the extra donations (the project was originally budgeted at just US$400,000), Double Fine will be able to put all sorts of extra features and compatibility into the title. Most important for us, the game will be available on the Mac and iOS right away. Originally Mac support was listed but not confirmed. Now Schafer says that yes, Mac users will get a native version. The game will also include voicework, and get translated into several languages. Buyers who've already picked up the game through Kickstarter will get access to a closed beta, a DRM-free version of the final product and codes for the title through Steam. Presumably, that Steam version will include the Mac port through SteamPlay. It's not clear how the iOS versions will be distributed. At any rate, this is all great to hear. Double Fine got a tremendous show of support from fans and this is the first sign that the company is ready to get to work. The stil unnamed game is due out this fall, so look for it then.
