Kickstarter Thread. Everything Goes Here.

[AvatarIII]

I'm surprised there isn't a thread for this yet because it's made the news and such by being incredibly popular on kickstarter, and it seems like a lot of the xkcd crowd would be interested.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667 ... e?ref=live
Double Fine (home of adventure game legend Tim Schafer, and now also home of adventure game legend Ron Gilbert) decided to fund their next game (a classic point and click adventure game no less) via kickstarter, their original goal was $400,000 to fund the game's development as well as a documentary based around the process, at the time of posting they are close to 5.1x their original goal ($2,039,348) with 21 days of fund raising still to go.
They have said the more money they make the more money can go into the game and doc, $400k would have probably been a pretty basic game with no voices and only on PC, as it stands the game will be fully voiced in English, with text translated into EFIGS, DRM free and available on PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, I believe this is all guaranteed at this point, any more money will just go towards making the game better, I've heard a lot of people requesting the game in Portuguese and Swedish and other languages so they may be next.

Nothing will be announced about the game's content until the kickstarter thing is over.

I personally donated $30 (~£18) and I'm really looking forward to finding out more about it. I've loved every Double Fine game I have played, and as a fan of the old LucasArts adventure games where my gaming life and Tim's and Ron's gaming careers began, I'm not sure I could be any more excited for a game I know barely anything about.

[Koa]

I'd guess it wasn't here because there's nothing to discuss.

[Scotto123]

Why wouldn't there be something to discuss? Schafer is bringing back the old point and click adventure genre!!! I for one am super excited about this.

[AvatarIII]

Ok, so only 2 people are interested in this, but here is a video of Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert interviewing each other for half an hour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_LWmRJK-g

[SecondTalon]

It's not that I'm not interested, it's that there's literally no information on it yet. Is it Psychonauts 2? Is it Brutal Legend 2? Is it a completely new IP? Is it Monkey Island:Rhythm Game Edition?

We don't know.

All we know is that Double Fine is making an Adventure Game.

There's not a lot to talk about yet.

*edit* I mean, we could talk about the Point and Click Adventure genre, and how it killed itself via failing to remove Moon Logic from the genre, and an overemphasis on single-use items rather than allowing for item classes to work.

Made up example - I need the Wooden Plank (found in the game to be of the height of the protagonist) to reach over a pit and shove the ball. I cannot use the bamboo pole (in-game height to be two feet more than the presumed 6 foot even Protagonist) because the bamboo pole is to be given to the Panda Bear. What should be done is that both the pole and the plank belong to the item classes of [long], [rigid] and [one-hand usable] or something, and allow the ball to be shoved by anything that is [long], [rigid] and [one-hand usable]. So yes, presumably this gentleman could also assist. /crudehumorhaha

Or this real Was-Actually-In-A-Major-Adventure-Game-No-I'm-Not-Kidding, where you have to use cat hair to make a fake mustache, use maple syrup to attach it to your face, and use your cunning disguise to impersonate someone who is clean shaven. [Read the Page 3 Synopsis for the quick version]. That's a real fucking example out of the Adventure Game Genre.

Point and Click Adventure games didn't die. They threw themselves in the path of a bullet train.

[AvatarIII]

It's not that I'm not interested, it's that there's literally no information on it yet. Is it Psychonauts 2? Is it Brutal Legend 2? Is it a completely new IP? Is it Monkey Island:Rhythm Game Edition?

We don't know.

All we know is that Double Fine is making an Adventure Game.

There's not a lot to talk about yet.

That's fair enough, but we do know it's a new IP, that's confirmed. I just thought it would be fun to speculate and make somewhere to keep any news sooner rather than later.

[Okita]

SexyTalon, amusingly enough there's an interview between Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer that involves the supposed death of the Adventure Game.

Ron Gilbert makes a good point which is that he didn't think Adventure Games died as much as the rest of the game industry completely ballooned and Adventure Games didn't keep pace. So basically the same # of people who enjoy Adventure Games exist but is a much smaller subset of people who enjoy what games are like now.

Anyway, I have read tweets and other words that imply it will not be Psychonauts 2 (mostly due to cost and design). Probably won't be any kind of sequel to a current Doublefine game. Won't be Monkey Island because I believe that IP is tied up too. And Brutal Legend 2 as a point and click adventure game would just be...terrible in my opinion.

I'm hoping for something completely completely new.

[Endless Mike]

I'm interested, but only so much as that I'll wait for it to be $5 on Steam. I'm not a huge adventure game fan, for, basically, the reasons the genre largely died.

[Jorpho]

I'm interested, but only so much as that I'll wait for it to be $5 on Steam.

Yeah, pretty much.

My first concern is that both Psychonauts and Brutal Legend were nearly swallowed by Development Hell. I think it is not unlikely that the documentary will turn out like Terry Gilliam's "Lost in La Mancha", or "Startup.com".

My second concern is that Mr. Schafer is far from impeccable. Have any of you played Full Throttle to the end? Did you like playing through that arcade sequence over and over and over again with no clue as to what you were doing? Don't tell me you liked the last part of the Meat Circus.

[Amnesiasoft]

My second concern is that Mr. Schafer is far from impeccable. Have any of you played Full Throttle to the end? Did you like playing through that arcade sequence over and over and over again with no clue as to what you were doing? Don't tell me you liked the last part of the Meat Circus.

I never had any trouble with the end sequence to Full Throttle OR the Meat Circus...

[Vaniver]

Don't tell me you liked the last part of the Meat Circus.

I literally quaked with rage because of the Meat Circus (though I managed to beat it, after far too many attempts).

I funded the project because I enjoyed Psychonauts and I want consumer-funded game development to become a larger thing. It's not clear to me that the documentary / open access is a good idea, though. If the central element of gameplay is puzzles- especially puzzles difficult enough to stump players- then having a lot of people watch the development means the puzzles will be way more user-friendly, but also means they'll be spoiled. As well, some ideas are going to get proposed and then cut- which isn't a problem if the ideas die quietly, but is a problem if you've got a fanbase excited about those ideas (They cut out the matrix inversion puzzle? Lost sale- wait a minute, I already paid and can't get my money back!). As well, creative endeavors tend to be better if there's a unified creative vision at top- and so it seems likely that the more creative decisions the funding community has say in, the less unified the game will be.

There doesn't seem to be much benefit to playing through an adventure game twice, and I imagine seeing a game made and then playing it would be similar, so I don't intend to pay much attention to the funder forum and so on.

[tjohnfranklin]

So Kickstarter sorts its posts so that you can only see exciting projects that are likely to make their goals (or have already made them). And it hides the archives of unsuccessful projects completely, although they're still online somewhere. There's no visible face of Kickfailure.

I'm interested in finding out: does anybody have links to unsuccessful Kickstarter game projects? Are there any really, really good game concepts out there that fell hideously short of their funding goals? Did you fund something that died at the 11th hour, or did you rave about a game that still stayed inert in the funding stakes?

[Jessica]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns

So, it seems that the original creators of the shadowrun game have finally received the rights to make another one of their games. Which, honestly, is pretty awesome in itself, if you've seen some of the history of this series.

I'm gonna wait a bit before buying in, as I don't have the money right now, but I want the book, and the game.

Thoughts? Do you remember shadowrun?

[Jesse]

$30 GIVEN!

Wish I could afford to get my name in the credits. I love seeing my name in stuff I love.

[Xeio]

Thoughts? Do you remember shadowrun?

<_<

>_>

<_<

I liked the 2007 video game. Does that count?

[bigglesworth]

The video says no.

But yeah, I'm in on this. I never played anything, but I liked reading the 4thEd book.

[Gelsamel]

I really liked it on the SNES and I backed Double Fine for the hell of it, Wasteland 2 because seems really interesting... I'll probably back this too. But I'll do it when I have money spare.

A fear I have is that the mechanics and interface of this game will be mutilated for the PC version due to being developed for tablets. There are a lot of indie tablet developed games out there who are really lazy with their ports... I suspect whether this will be the same or not will be a function of how much money it gets.

[bigglesworth]

Given that they're going to be giving all of the backers a PC version first, I'd imagine that it wouldn't be the case - otherwise they'd be shooting themselves in the foot when it came to selling tablet versions to people due to word of mouth.

[bigglesworth]

Well, they've broken $400k. Onwards to a Mac release (yay?).

[VectorZero]

Brilliant setting, and the gameplay sounds like it'll suit well. Sold.

[bigglesworth]

They stated that $425k will mark the point where a Mac release will happen, but that's now already been reached. Tomorrow there should be some gameplay goals set.

[Jesse]

I cannot fucking wait for this game. So excite! Feel like running a Shadowrun tabletop to celebrate.

[VectorZero]

This could be awesome.

Also, Westeros Raven social media. Love it

[Gelsamel]

This could be awesome.

Also, Westeros Raven social media. Love it

Really like to see the improved editor and kickass music.

[bigglesworth]

Yeah, good music is so important to a game. I've commented on the kickstarter page that I'd up my pledge in return for a digital copy of the soundtrack.

I'm personally more excited about the possibility of a second setting than the editor.

[Gelsamel]

A good editor creates infinite settings.

[The Utilitarian]

Eh, shadowrun will always be a tabletop setting for me. I'm not sure a video game can ever capture the kind of free form experience I like.

[bigglesworth]

Good old Steve Jackson

Also Shadowrun seems like the least free-form type of RPG, of the TTRPGs. At least the way I've heard it played mostly. If any tabletop setting stands a chance, it's this one.

[The Utilitarian]

Good old Steve Jackson

Also Shadowrun seems like the least free-form type of RPG, of the TTRPGs. At least the way I've heard it played mostly. If any tabletop setting stands a chance, it's this one.

Evidently you've heard it played very differently from my experiences then.

[bigglesworth]

Note that that's a comparative, rather than an absolute or objective judgement.

[Dauric]

Good old Steve Jackson

I contributed at the $100 this weekend without having seen Steve Jackson's post. Now that I've seen his contribution and that there's likely to be an "Evil Stevie" roaming around I can't wait to see the final product.

[VectorZero]

New pack at the $125 level looks like a good deal.

[Soralin]

Ooo, new update: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/161 ... urns/posts

One of the recurring themes in the stories we hear is how the music of the Sega and SNES Shadowrun games stays with you after all this time. Whenever we read your comments and whenever the team talks about it, the conversation always comes back to, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get the guys who wrote the original music?”

So we did.

Today, we’re incredibly excited to announce that Marshall Parker, who wrote the music for the Super Nintendo game and Sam Powell, who wrote the music for the Sega Genesis game, have agreed to COLLABORATE on the music for Shadowrun Returns.

Nice.

Doc wagon card concept:


Also, good news for the shirts:

Reading through the comments about the Backer T-shirts, we see lots of fans for all three designs, so we’ve decided NOT to survey backers about which shirt back you want most. INSTEAD, backers at the $60.00 level and above get to choose which shirt they want!

New pack at the $125 level looks like a good deal.

Yeah, the USB tags look good.

[Dauric]

I love that the picture on the Doc Wagon is from Gitelman's "apology" bit from the first video. If there's anyone that needs armed medical response...

And yeah, I upped to the $125 level.

[Gelsamel]

Finaly got around to backing this, I didn't have money for a while but I'm glad I did because actually out of Double Fine/Wasteland and this... this is probably the one I'd most likely enjoy. I just want to fund this effort to enable non-publisher releases.

[VectorZero]

I really like the Doc Wagon card concept art, nice touch. Might have to stick it on my hospital ID

I'm told the QR code links here

[evandy]

I've seen a couple of mentions of the Tex Murphy games here in the past, so I thought I would put a little plug in for the Tex Murphy Kickstarter.

For anyone who hasn't seen the Tex games, you might want to go on over to GoG.com and check them out. For anyone who has, you've probably been waiting for the cliffhanger at the end of Overseer to get resolved for the last 13 years. Well, the time is nigh! view the Kickstarter over at texmurphy.com

The Tex adventure games were like nothing else: real-time 3D rendering. Full-Motion-Video acting (done right). They consistently won Game of the Year awards, even beating out titles like Space Quest. Sci-Fi. Mystery. Noir. There are some great kickstarter videos over there; take a minute and check them out.

Thanks for reading.

[Felstaff]

As a Tex Murphy fan,

I'm going to allow this.

[evandy]

Thanks for allowing the post.

Since there has been some question, here's a quote from the creators: Tex will be DLC-, DRM-, and DDT-free. Safe for the whole family.

If there are any fans of the Bioware conversation wheel and multiple story paths based on your choices... you should really check out Tex. He had them back in 1994, and he will have them again with Project Fedora. Come on over and check us out!

[darkwombat]

Kickstarter for this has finally gone live!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70755535/dead-state-the-zombie-survival-rpg?ref=live

I am so excited! I've been following this game's development for quite a while. It's really the first zombie-themed game that I have ever felt had a shot at capturing what I really like about the zombie genre -- that it's not about the zombies. It's about us reacting TO a world with zombies. That's what make Romero's movies so timeless. That's what makes Walking Dead a hit series instead of a televised version of a Left 4 Dead fragfest. And that's what Dead State is bringing to the CRPG table.

The lead on this game is Brian Mitsoda, formerly of Black Isle studios and Troika Games, who did the story and writing for Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. I've always enjoyed his writing, and he's promising that in Dead State, the player is going to have to make hard choices -- the ragtag band of survivors who shelter with the player are never going to all be satisfied by your decisions -- and there lies a lot of the appeal of the game for me. Here is an example, from Brian himself, of a typical scenario you might encounter in the game:

The Setup

Several people in your shelter have the infection. The antibiotics are rarer all the time and it’s getting harder to supplement the supply with homemade versions. A doctor and scientist in your shelter think they have an idea on how to slow the rate of infection with a non-antibiotic approach. The only problem is that the medical equipment is very specific and can only be found in a hospital. Hospitals were ground zero for infection and are still crawling with the undead.

Only someone with advanced medical training can identify this equipment. If your character specialized in medicine, they could retrieve it themselves, but this is not the case for your current character setup. To fetch the medical equipment from the hospital for this experimental procedure, a doctor will have to go in with you. That leaves space for you and two other people – the doctor has no combat skills. It’s a big risk and not necessarily going to work. There’s a chance you could lose your only doctor, which would surely hurt morale, yet if the procedure works, it would boost morale in the shelter. The doctor knows the risks and wants to take them to help people.

The Decisions

Do you:

Option 1 - Decide it is too risky and deny the operation. A few may die from the infection and the doctor and other leaders will lose some respect for you. Continue business as usual.

Option 2 - Risk it, knowing you could lose a doctor and others for the sake of helping your infected allies. Success is higher morale, more time for the infected, and respect of the doctor and other leaders.

Option 3 - Convince people to stick to antibiotics and step up the production to counter any shortages. This will slightly hurt respect with doctors, but leaders will support it. You will have to put most other projects on hold while all resources and ally hours are spent on increasing antibiotic stock."

Add in tactical combat with zombies and human raiders (noise is a factor -- shootouts draw the zeds, etc) , shelter upgrades, and it's everything I ever wanted in a zombie game. So, SO, excited.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with DoubleBear Studios or the Dead State project, and do not speak on their behalf. I'm just a very excited fan.