Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[AstroZombie]

Just the usual, Double Fine ran out of money, people are mad this time because it is their money wasted instead of EA/THQ money.

Now they know how it feels like to publish a Double Fine game.

 

[villain of the story]

All of a sudden, publishers being evil and wanting more than a little share of profits for actually seeing a game through to completion and then marketing it, ie. making something out of a bunch of guys who don't know what to do with their talent, doesn't sound so bad and unfair.

Very curious about how WL2, Torment and PE will turn out in the end. I guess InXile is in a particularly good spot about it; they've got the Torment budget as a buffer zone for WL2 which they could hopefully substitute with WL2 sales after release should they ever need to.

 

[RPGMaster]

All of a sudden, publishers being evil and wanting more than a little share of profits for actually seeing a game through to completion and then marketing it, ie. making something out of a bunch of guys who don't know what to do with their talent, doesn't sound so bad and unfair.

Very curious about how WL2, Torment and PE will turn out in the end. I guess InXile is in a particularly good spot about it; they've got the Torment budget as a buffer zone for WL2 which they could hopefully substitute with WL2 sales after release should they ever need to.

I'm not worried about PE, from their updates it seems like they've got their shit together more than DF (not hard, tbh).

 

[Cowboy Moment]

All of a sudden, publishers being evil and wanting more than a little share of profits for actually seeing a game through to completion and then marketing it, ie. making something out of a bunch of guys who don't know what to do with their talent, doesn't sound so bad and unfair.

Very curious about how WL2, Torment and PE will turn out in the end. I guess InXile is in a particularly good spot about it; they've got the Torment budget as a buffer zone for WL2 which they could hopefully substitute with WL2 sales after release should they ever need to.

I'm not worried about PE, from their updates it seems like they've got their shit together more than DF (not hard, tbh).

You know a studio has problems when Obsidian looks well-organized in comparison.

 

[Metro]

How funny that Tim bashes publishers on his newspost, when people like him are the reason publisher exists... if with 800% of your budget you can't make one fucking game, then clearly you are incapable of handling money and must work under a tight leash, controlled by people with an actual sense of how managing stuff...

And I think it's time for J_C and Dexter to send their resumes in to Double Fine. With their wasteful spending I'm sure they're willing to hire a couple of lickspittle community managers at $75,000 a year plus health benefits and lattes.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

How funny that Tim bashes publishers on his newspost, when people like him are the reason publisher exists... if with 800% of your budget you can't make one fucking game, then clearly you are incapable of handling money and must work under a tight leash, controlled by people with an actual sense of how managing stuff...

And I think it's time for J_C and Dexter to send their resumes in to Double Fine. With their wasteful spending I'm sure they're willing to hire a couple of lickspittle community managers at $75,000 a year plus health benefits and lattes.

The real question is, would they be willing to wear fedoras to work?

 

[Metro]

 

[PlanHex]

So what happens when they release the first part of the game on early access and just a handful of people buy it?
Throw the rest away and give up?
Go back to Kickstarter?

 

[DalekFlay]

So what happens when they release the first part of the game on early access and just a handful of people buy it?
Throw the rest away and give up?
Go back to Kickstarter?

That will never happen because he's Tim Schafer and his shit is awesome and publishers backers just don't understand.

 

[AstroZombie]

So what happens when they release the first part of the game on early access and just a handful of people buy it?
Throw the rest away and give up?
Go back to Kickstarter?

Hopefully Double Fine goes under :D

 

[RPGMaster]

So what happens when they release the first part of the game on early access and just a handful of people buy it?
Throw the rest away and give up?
Go back to Kickstarter?

Hopefully Double Fine goes under :D

Yes, let's hope another independent game studio goes under so all that's left making games are the big majestic AAA+ studios.

 

[MRY]

In before "no second chances."

I guess I find this neither super surprising nor super offensive. History is replete with examples of solid people of everyday means who are ruined by winning the lottery. It seems like some of that was what happened with Broken Age. The money they got so far exceeded their budget that it's not like they could have just tried to make a $400k game while using the extra money as a cushion in case they ran over-budget. The $3.3M (or whatever it wound up, after every took a cut and they covered the rewards -- $2.6M or something?) carried its own imperative: spend me. And while I'm sure some of the money was wasted in pure selfishness or vanity, my guess is that like other lottery winners who wind up bankrupt, much of the money was spent on noble acts: paying people what they ought to be paid in some ethical sense, not the lowest price the market will bear; treating them humanely; providing a working space that is bright and pleasant and full of fancy coffee and organic snacks; taking plenty of time to consider and develop ideas, rather than settling for whatever can be worked up quickly; operating by consensus and not fiat; etc. etc. All those things cost money, or they cost time, which means money. But when you have over eight times the money you thought you were going to get -- money you got for nothing! money that is earmarked to be spent on this very project! -- I'm sure it's hard to say, "Let's not make things better for our staff; let's not do the game the way we always dreamed a game should be done; let's crack the whip and drive the slaves."

And then, poof, the money is gone, not because people were bad but because they were good.

Even then, though, it seems pretty weird. With high overhead and generous salaries, $2.6M should've been enough for 20 man years on the project. Primordia was something like 5 man years, but we had no idea what we were doing -- I would think that a team of experienced industry veterans would work at a much faster clip. The other weird thing is that while I'm not per se hostile to the art style, it's not some hyper-detailed resource-intensive approach. It looks like the kind of art that, once the artists grasped the style, could be produced quickly.

Anyway, I really hope the project works out, and I hope it doesn't cast a cloud over Kickstarter. I look forward to buying it when it's done.

 

[Blackthorne]

Documentary-schmockumenary. If I wanted to watch a video of a trainwreck, I'd put on "The Fugative". Or maybe "Ishtar".


Bt

How many games would you be able to make with the 400k they've set aside for the documentary?

In all honesty, that could probably fund two adventure games from my crew. At least - maybe three depending on how creative and frugal we get with our funds.


Bt

 

[AstroZombie]

In all honesty, that could probably fund two adventure games from my crew. At least - maybe three depending on how creative and frugal we get with our funds.


Bt

 

[RPGMaster]

The other weird thing is that while I'm not per se hostile to the art style, it's not some hyper-detailed resource-intensive approach. It looks like the kind of art that, once the artists grasped the style, could be produced quickly.

It could be but they are doing it in 3D, even though the art style certainly doesn't demand it and the benefits so far seem fairly minimal.

 

[DeepOcean]

Documentary-schmockumenary. If I wanted to watch a video of a trainwreck, I'd put on "The Fugative". Or maybe "Ishtar".


Bt

How many games would you be able to make with the 400k they've set aside for the documentary?

In all honesty, that could probably fund two adventure games from my crew. At least - maybe three depending on how creative and frugal we get with our funds.


Bt

Man, if those millions got to you instead and you decided to make 10 Quest For Glory style games, I would buy all of them. That is how I miss those games. How much it cost in terms of time to make a room in your game?

 

[MRY]

It could be but they are doing it in 3D, even though the art style certainly doesn't demand it and the benefits so far seem fairly minimal.

Even in 3D, it seems easier to construct than the characters and environments in, say, Telltale's various games.

 

[J_C]

Sure they can. Because they actually manage whole teams of people and coordinate work between them while constantly checking the milestones against deadlines and financial constraints. That's actually a dictionary definition of a "producer" (one that produces). A really good manager is *always* involved in the design process coordinating work of the designers and understanding what they are talking about. In many respects he is a designer, but the one who represents "the voice of reason" rather than "the voice of artistic inspiration" or whatever.

You are talking about managers, who are also designers. When I say managers, I think of the money guys, who don't have a clue how to design a game, they just know how to run a studio financially.

I thought being able to switch between the characters was confirmed. Tim talked about how a flaw in many PnC adventure games was that you had to focus on a single puzzle and he wanted a mechanic where you had more than 1 at a time so if you were stuck on one you could work on the other. (holy run-on sentence batman)

I don't recall that it was ever confirmed. The two characters exist in separate worlds (at least in the first act), they can't interact.

All of a sudden, publishers being evil and wanting more than a little share of profits for actually seeing a game through to completion and then marketing it, ie. making something out of a bunch of guys who don't know what to do with their talent, doesn't sound so bad and unfair.

ITT people suck up to publishers, just because DF delay their game because of money problems. Fuck the publishers, and fuck those who favor them opposing to indie studios, whatever problems the indies facing.

So what happens when they release the first part of the game on early access and just a handful of people buy it?
Throw the rest away and give up?
Go back to Kickstarter?

Hopefully Double Fine goes under :D

So you can have more AAA games from your favourite publishers, amirite?

Documentary-schmockumenary. If I wanted to watch a video of a trainwreck, I'd put on "The Fugative". Or maybe "Ishtar".


Bt

How many games would you be able to make with the 400k they've set aside for the documentary?

In all honesty, that could probably fund two adventure games from my crew. At least - maybe three depending on how creative and frugal we get with our funds.


Bt

How many people are there on your team? Are you guys working in fulltime game development, or you have other jobs? Do you have an own office, or you work from home?

 

[ghostdog]

Even in 3D, it seems easier to construct than the characters and environments in, say, Telltale's various games.

I would think that adding 3D models in the 2D background would be pretty easy and with low cost. I believe that most of the budget for the visuals goes to the handpainted, unique hi-res backgrounds that should cost more than the last-gen budget 3D of telltale. But still, claiming that this was one of the main reasons they inflated their budget by 200% is ridiculous.

 

[tuluse]

I don't recall that it was ever confirmed. The two characters exist in separate worlds (at least in the first act), they can't interact.

I think you can switch between them as you wish too, not that they interact. Though it's p obvious they're going to meet at some point.

 

[evdk]

I think you can switch between them as you wish too, not that they interact. Though it's p obvious they're going to meet at some point.

Well, that would be a fairly useless mechanic, only good as a frustration management tool. Certainly a far cry from the games of old, like everything in this project.

 

[buzz]

http://www.doublefine.com/games/host_master/
Why couldn't Tim just make something like this again but a bit bigger? I would've been more than happy with those graphics and animation (which are not far from Broken Age anyway)

 

[Pyke]

I think that the biggest issue is that they are treating this like a AAA title, and its not. They didn't need to bring in Peter Chan to do concept art. They didn't need to specifically score live music for the trailer, or score live music at all for the game.

You can find INCREDIBLE musicians online who can create full string orchestral pieces by themselves (Stasis will have a fully orchestral OST) at very reasonable prices.

Double Fine has some amazing artists in-house who are MORE than capable of creating the concepts and the pieces of art required for the game.

I think that attacking a bootstrapped project with a AAA mentality is ridiculous. And sadly, they missed out on an opportunity to really bring in some incredible NEW talent on an amazing project.
Its the equivalent of shooting an indie movie with your friends, and hiring a catering company and location trailers, instead of ordering pizza and sleeping in cars (both of which I've done when shooting short films!).

That said, the game does look very nice from what I've seen. There are some thing which I think are little acts of genius, such has having walking speed controlled by the distance of the mouse click in relation to the character. I like the pseudo 3D stuff for the parallax, and the 'smoothness' of the game in general (although the art style isnt really my cup of tea).

The game will end up being released, weather they go episodic, or pre-alpha...or whatever option they choose to pursue, and I have no doubt that it will be a fun game to play. But I dont think it will be the 'original vision', or the game it SHOULD have been if they really looked at it as an independent production - which is very sad.

 

[felipepepe]

There are some thing which I think are little acts of genius, such has having walking speed controlled by the distance of the mouse click in relation to the character.

That's not new or genius at all, plenty of games had it before...

 

[Pyke]

Maybe 'new' and 'genius' are too strong, but what I'm saying is that they are clearly putting a lot of thought into how the game plays, and the controls...and that's something that I really appreciate. Its those small things (little puffs when she walks on the clouds, having the boys posture change throughout the story, etc) that are the rays of hope that this game will be something special.