About seven or so hours ago Tim Schafer announced on Twitter that Double Fine wanted to make a point a "downloadable "Point-and-Click" graphic adventure game for the modern age". A kickstarter page went live asking for donations with a big $400,000 target at the top. There's still 33 days left if you want to throw some money in the pot but, astonishingly, the target has already been passed.
The project had already received $100k in donations after just a couple of hours. On twitter , Schafer expressed his appreciation in typically muted fashion. "Holy smokes, we just hit $100k!!! I think that's higher than the budget of Monkey Island! Adventure gaaaaaaames!!!"
Two hours later, another landmark had been reached. "300! 300! 300! 300! 300! 300! 300! 300! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!" he said .
At this very moment 9,123 backers have contributed $415,066 to the game's development. The money will also fund a documentary that will aim to provide an honest, "in-depth insight into a modern art form" by following the game's progress from start to finish. Double Fine say that they're aiming for a Steam release in October.
Kickstarter is commonly used by small indie teams to fund development, but the rapid funding of Double Fine's new adventure game shows that bigger studios can use sites like Kickstarter as a way to skip past publishers. Double Fine say that publishers "fulfill an important role in the process, their involvement also comes with significant strings attached that can pull the game in the wrong directions or even cancel its production altogether."
"First and foremost, Double Fine gets to make the game they want to make," says the post. "Since they're only accountable to themselves, there's an unprecedented opportunity to show the public what game development of this caliber looks like from the inside. Not the sanitized commercials-posing-as-interviews that marketing teams only value for their ability to boost sales."
The minimum contribution is set at $15. For this, you'll get access to the Steam beta of the game, as well as a download key for the full version when it's released. You'll also get access to the documentary. If you've got $10k lying around, you'll get to have lunch with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert and a tour of the Double Fine studios.
Schafer mentions that everything they receive beyond the $400k target will be put into the game and the accompanying documentary. "If we surpass our goal, we'll use the extra money to localize the game into many languages! And not just with Google translate!
"Let's keep funding this thing until it becomes a monster. All the money goes into making the game and documentary better," he adds.
You can do just that over on the Kickstarter page . Since I started this post, the donations have shot up to $433,061. Wow.
