New Double Fine Adventure Game

Double Fine Productions is a video game developer that was founded by one of my heroes, Tim Schafer. He used to work for Lucasarts back in their heyday mostly making adventure games. He was the primary writer on Grim Fandango, which happens to be one of my favorite games (I play it once every year). It focuses on Skeletons in the land of the dead and it just so happens that the main character shares my name. If you haven't ever played it, I highly recommend that you do.

Grim Fandango is a game that everyone should play at least once.

In 2,000 he left Lucasarts to form his own studio known as Double Fine Productions. He went on to create the cult classic Psychonauts, which is about a summer camp for psychic children. There's something about the humor and look of his games that I really enjoy. I make it a personal point to buy every Double Fine game available to me, because I want them to be able to continue the great work that they do.

Double Fine has been all over in the ways they publish their games. They've partnered with THQ, and more recently Microsoft. In order to make more recent PC ports of their games they have accepted money from XE.com co-founder Steven Dengler. Within the past week, Notch the creator of the popular indie title Minecraft has offered to personally fund a sequel to Psychonauts 2.

There are many people in the world like Notch who claim that they would willingly fund a Double Fine Project. Most of the time people want any type of point-and-click adventure game. If Double Fine went to a publisher and pitched an adventure game they would most likely be laughed out of the meeting. The simple truth is that point-and-click adventure games don't make the kind of money most publishers are looking for in a game.

Look at this man! I'd certainly give him my money!

In order to skip the troublesome pitch to a publisher Double Fine has given fans the opportunity to put up or shut up. Tim Schafer put up a Kickstarter page yesterday evening. Kickstarter is a way for people with ideas to ask for money from anyone willing to fund that idea. Double Fine's idea was to create a new point-and-click adventure game and all they needed was $400,000. Just $300,000 dollars for the game's development (An extraordinarily small budget) and $100,000 dollars to film the entire development process for backers to see. They were hoping to raise the money in just over a month,with the timer set to 34 days.

This video explains everything you need to know about the project.

Turns out that Double Fine fans want to see a point-and-click adventure game really bad. In less than 24 hours the Double Fine Kickstarter page has amassed around $872,000 dollars, which is well over the target amount. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet, but it is already the highest amount of money any project on the site has gotten in a day, and it has the most backers of any project ever. There is no doubt that people will notice this amazing achievement. If things keep going the way they have been then Double Fine will have $1 million dollars before the day is up.

For just $15 dollars you will get a copy of the game when it's released and you'll have an exclusive look at the development. The page will be open for another 33 days, so I hope that everyone will continue to donate. I've donated $15, because this is a game that I can't allow myself to miss out on.

     -Manny