Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[Bonnie]

BAGEL IS AN AMAZING PAINTER. SO STFU.

 

[toro]

BAGEL IS AN AMAZING PAINTER.

Nope. He is not amazing ... and even if he was amazing, he still cannot code, animate, design or produce the game on his own.

The guy really likes the entire palette of brown (Edit: and shitty green). Mediocre at best.

 

[toro]

As far as I can tell, you're angry because you fell for marketing doubletalk.

I will not deny the fact that I'm angry about this shit. But in this case, I would call this the sane behavior instead of parroting "Everything is fine", "Everything is following a plan" ...

I'd understand if this was actually related to DFA, but The Cave is a budget title released by a major publisher. It's not any worse than Stacking or the other dumb post-Psychonauts Double Fine games.

Fair enough. The Cave just happened to be around for a beating. Nevertheless my main complain is about the DFA campaign ... I guess I really wanted to believe in something like Grim Fandango. But shit happens. Probably DFA game will be just another budget title.

 

[Bonnie]

he still cannot code, animate, design or produce the game on his own.

He can design!

http://www.doublefine.com/games/my_game_about_me

 

[toro]

he still cannot code, animate, design or produce the game on his own.

He can try to design!

http://www.doublefine.com/games/my_game_about_me

Fixed.

 

[toro]

Project Update #16: Reds Status Update and Sidequests

Hello backers! I'm not sure if you realized, but today is a very special day: it's the one-year anniversary of us launching the Kickstarter project that started this whole crazy adventure! It's truly been an amazing year. Having the opportunity to work on an adventure game and make it in such a creatively stimulating environment with all of you guys by our side has been a wonderful experience.
It's pretty incredible to take a look at the Double Fine Adventure Table of Contents page (http://www.doublefine.com/dfa) and see the multitude of documentary episodes, Sidequests, and forum posts we've already released. We look forward to sharing many more details on the game as it continues to take shape, both with you guys and soon with the broader public!
For those of you anxiously awaiting the next amazing documentary episode from 2 Player Productions, I can assure you it's in the works right now. (But we do have two Sidequest videos! See below.) As with us, 2 Player's attention was focused on Amnesia Fortnight for pretty much all of December. However, they just finished shooting their footage for the next episode and should have something ready for you by the end of the month! The whole team came out of Amnesia Fortnight really energized and we've staffed up a bit in all disciplines, so you can expect to see a lot of progress being made. And it will address all those icky money issues that came in the last episode.
Speaking of! We were totally blown away from the reaction to that last episode. The issues that episode touched on are all too common to the game development process. It was great to see that you guys reacted to it so positively and retained such strong trust in us. I can assure you we've been through these kinds of things before and have always managed to come out on top.
What we didn't expect was the tremendous number of people asking to lend more direct support to the project. That is honestly incredible. For you kind souls out there, we've put together a few ways that you can help the Reds team and the studio as a whole continue to do what we do:
REDS PRINTS

You met our super-talented art intern Majus in the documentary. Then you un-met him, because he went back to Germany. Well, get ready to meet him again, in the form of Art. Because we're selling high-quality prints of his Reds team portrait! All proceeds directly benefit the Reds project. You can even pitch in a few extra bucks if you want to--and you can see the total sum we've collected to date from Slacker Backers, print sales, and tips:
http://www.doublefine.com/dfapay
AMNESIA FORTNIGHT

Since Amnesia Fortnight ended, we've been working on a way to make the whole bundle available again, and this is what we ended up with: a special edition boxed set, with the 2 Player Productions documentaries in HD on Blu-ray, and all the prototypes on a DVD. There are also custom signed slipcases for each game, created by the teams' artists. We also have a digital-only version, if you don't want the whole box. Proceeds from the AF2012 bundle will go to various Double Fine projects as needed.
http://www.doublefine.com/fortnight
OUYA

We also recently worked out a very exciting deal: Reds is coming to Ouya, the upcoming Android-based console that had its own big Kickstarter last year. Lots of our fans have requested this, but we weren't able to commit to it until now. We've worked out a deal with the makers of Ouya that will actually result in some extra money for the Reds budget, so it worked out well all around. We're also planning on bringing The Cave, our most recent release, to the system. We'll have more details about this down the road.
SIDEQUESTS

Even though we don't have a new full episode just yet, there are two Sidequests to tide you over. (You can't watch the videos from your email--you'll need to view this update on the Kickstarter site, or watch the videos on the backer forum.)
Brandon Dillon: "There Are Potentially Some Legal Issues"
http://vimeo.com/57156391
Reds programmer Brandon Dillon discusses his early love of adventure games and his career leading to his current role at Double Fine.
Ray Crook: "I Think It's Okay That I'm Still Here"
http://vimeo.com/59265764
Longtime Double Fine lead animator Ray Crook talks about his origins as an artist, and how he has weathered more than a decade at Double Fine.
(N.B.: To follow the forum content links, you must have a Double Fine forum account registered using the same email address that was associated with your Kickstarter account when you pledged. Our system only runs the verification process once every two hours, so give it a bit of time. If you're still having problems after a few hours, send us a Kickstarter message and we'll get it figured out.)

Edit: The last two videos are locked. Only for backers

 

[MRY]

In my limited experience, there seems to be a huge jump in cost when you go from amateurs who are working for free to professionals expecting a salary (or per-item commissions). Obviously, going from 0 to anything is going to be an infinite percentage increase. That's not what I mean. I mean, like, to find someone as good as Victor (the artist on Primordia) who you'd hire on salary wouldn't be like a $5,000 affair -- even though Vic didn't make anything during Primordia's production (none of us did). It would be like tens and tens of thousands. And you'd need contracts, so you'd need lawyers, and you'd want to be a corporation, so you'd have corporate taxes, and so on and so forth.

Now, that doesn't get you to $2 million, let alone $18 million. I have no idea how/why games cost so much to make now. But what I was disabused of was my notion that because I'd worked on a really cool games that were made for free (or a couple hundred bucks to host a website or something), it should be possible to make a splendid masterpiece for $20k or something. At that kind of budget, your backbone is always going to have to be free labor, or the exploitation of people who don't realize what their labor is worth (like people with no finished games to their credit). But that latter category introduces significant unreliability, and huge management challenges. So your cost would go up a fair bit, either way.

And none of this really works for a "real" company. We're talking about something that works in a context of no one being a salaried employee and there being no physical office space. If you want a real company -- which is what we're talking about with Obsidian or Double Fine -- you have costs like rent, utilities, support staff, insurance, benefits, etc. I guess a lot of that is generically called "overhead" (I have no head for business type things), so whether it's properly paid for through Kickstarter is anyone's guess, but it does add up.

Again, still not to $18 million.

But the idea that because we made Primordia for pennies and Vogel makes Spiderweb games for $20k (if you treat his income as profit, rather than cost; not clear which way you should count it), DoubleFine should be able to make a Monkey Island quality game for $200k doesn't seem right to me. Whether it should cost millions, I don't know. But I wouldn't beat up on industry professionals too much for not just working out of their basement or whatever.

The thing that's sad about the Notch / Psychonauts 2 affair -- well, a lot is sad about it -- but it seems to me like you could make the sequel for not a crazy amount of money if you leveraged the existing engine, existing art assets, fan support, stuff like that. I imagine you could make it at a budget Notch would pay. It might not be a cutting-edge AAA game, but that's not what anyone was hoping for when they fantasized about a Pyschonauts sequel, I don't think. (Incidentally, I don't think the game should have a sequel; it stands alone just fine.)

 

[Dexter]

My only big concern is that Tim Schafer has "lost his mojo" since becoming a father and rather wants to produce games for his little daughter (Sesame Street, Kinect Party, Happy Action Theater...) than do any game in the style he loved to do back in the day, although Stacking and Costume Quest weren't bad/were pretty good.

Other than that, the documentary part (so far) has been the best thing about this project and I'd have kinda hoped that more devs do this sort of thing And Amnesia Fortnight was pretty cool in itself. From what I've seen so far I'd likely increase my pledge even if they offered an option to do that, like the Wasteland 2 guys, but they don't.

 

[tuluse]

Doing some napkin math, I think 18 million should be about enough to pay 45 well paid developers to work full time for 2 years, or 30 for 3 years.

 

[almondblight]

But the idea that because we made Primordia for pennies and Vogel makes Spiderweb games for $20k (if you treat his income as profit, rather than cost; not clear which way you should count it), DoubleFine should be able to make a Monkey Island quality game for $200k doesn't seem right to me. Whether it should cost millions, I don't know. But I wouldn't beat up on industry professionals too much for not just working out of their basement or whatever.

But the argument isn't that DoubleFine should be able to make a new Monkey Island game for $200k; it's that they should be able to make a decent game for $3 million. I don't think that's unreasonable. And keep in mind that being a Kickstarter might mean a lower salary at first, but companies won't have to share their revenues with publishers, so they stand to make much more.

My guess would be that there's a lot of bloat in the larger projects. Instead of paying a freelancer $15k for some music, they end up hiring the person full time for $70k. Likewise creative consultants, artists, secretaries, etc. Money is spent on downtown offices instead of cheaper offices in the suburbs. Expensive elements that don't add much, such as cutscenes and voice acting, are put into the game.

Keep in mind that DFA pulled in more money than the budget for Full Throttle, even adjusted for inflation (~75% of Grim Fandango's budget, adjusted for inflation). Is it more difficult now to make such a game than it was in 1995? We also see situations such as the Coles, who said they couldn't make a Quest for Glory type game for $400k - yet Quest for Infamy is doing just that for $60k. Maybe there's just some huge developmental doughnut hole between indies and veterans, but from what I've seen, it looks like a lot of developers just can't manage their budgets. If Double Fine is running out of funds after making 8x their goal, why not give the money to indies instead?

 

[tuluse]

Does it help at all to know the actual budget for the game was only 2.2 million?

 

[J_C]

My only big concern is that Tim Schafer has "lost his mojo" since becoming a father and rather wants to produce games for his little daughter (Sesame Street, Kinect Party, Happy Action Theater...) than do any game in the style he loved to do back in the day, although Stacking and Costume Quest weren't bad/were pretty good.

Well the three Kinect games are the only ones that fit to your description. The others are not like they are made to his daughter. Custome quest, Stacking, Iron brigade are on par with Psychonauts and DOTT in terms of theme (not story or quality). They are lighthearted stuff with humor and occasinal dark elements.

 

[Pyke]

I completely agree that when you run a company your costs go up exponentially, but a company like Double Fine has clear advantages that usurp the disadvantages.

The company has a set production line where they are doing other work which is paid for by publishers. They aren't hiring a team of artists per project, they are hiring s team of artists to work at Double Fine. The Kickstarter money should be going to augment those existing artists salaries to work on DFA, while working on the other projects.
One major advantage of having a full team of artists is that you can juggle resources around, and get MUCH more out of them.
You other management costs, software, hardware, etc get spread around ALL projects in the company. That's why companies run multiple projects at the same time-it saves money.

An Adventure Game also doesn't NEED a full team of artists and programmers. Infect, I think that the more people you add to an AG, the slower it actually gets developed (feature bloat becomes a massive issue). 5 experienced developers should be able to get out the game in a year. They had more than enough money, and time, for that.

 

[Irenaeus]

Custome quest, Stacking, Iron brigade

Of those games, only Iron Brigade doesn't look like it's for children. However, it's a shooter, not an adventure game.

 

[Aeschylus]

But the idea that because we made Primordia for pennies and Vogel makes Spiderweb games for $20k (if you treat his income as profit, rather than cost; not clear which way you should count it), DoubleFine should be able to make a Monkey Island quality game for $200k doesn't seem right to me. Whether it should cost millions, I don't know. But I wouldn't beat up on industry professionals too much for not just working out of their basement or whatever.

But the argument isn't that DoubleFine should be able to make a new Monkey Island game for $200k; it's that they should be able to make a decent game for $3 million. I don't think that's unreasonable. And keep in mind that being a Kickstarter might mean a lower salary at first, but companies won't have to share their revenues with publishers, so they stand to make much more.

I think their biggest problem has been that they were trying to make a $3 million game when they only really had about $2.5 million.

 

[J_C]

Custome quest, Stacking, Iron brigade

Of those games, only Iron Brigade doesn't look like it's for children. However, it's a shooter, not an adventure game.

I don't know if you have played those games, but Stacking is not a sweet little children game, like Sesame street for example. Custom Quest is more lighthearted, but still not Kinect Adventrue category.

 

[almondblight]

I think their biggest problem has been that they were trying to make a $3 million game when they only really had about $2.5 million.

So it took them 6 - 9 months to figure out their budget?

 

[Dexter]

So it took them 6 - 9 months to figure out their budget?

No, they had that figured out pretty early on:

Spoiler

Hello backers! One of the key themes of this project is TRANSPARENCY. We really want to share the whole process with you, and that includes something that is usually a big secret on a game: Where does all the money go? Sorry if you don’t talk about money in your family, because we’re going to talk about it here. As you may know, we recently raised quite a bit. $3,446,371 to be specific. But that money has to go towards a lot of different things, and that’s what we’ve been working on figuring out over the past couple weeks. In order to schedule out and staff this game, we first had to actually figure out what the game’s budget would be. And now we can share a bit of insight into that process!

Fees
The first thing to be deducted from our total was Amazon fees. For every payment made through Kickstarter, Amazon took 5%. After that, Kickstarter took their 5%. There were a handful of failed transactions that were never corrected as well, leaving our final total after fees and failed transactions at $3,099,660.

Rewards
The next step of this process was figuring out how much it would cost to make and ship all of the physical rewards we offered. It was important that we set aside all this money up front so we could deliver products that live up to our high standards (holy cow you guys are going to be so stoked when you see this stuff). We also wanted to make sure the process of getting this all shipped out had as little impact on the team as possible, so we hired the amazing folks over at Fangamer to handle manufacturing, storing, packing, and shipping all of the rewards. Here’s the breakdown on where it landed:

It may look like a lot of money, but hey it’s a lot of rewards! These numbers were actually all being run while the Kickstarter project was still underway. Each time we prepared to add a new reward we ran the numbers to see how much it would cost to offer the new reward to existing backers. For each new reward, that amount was covered within hours of adding the item to the project, so this amount paid for itself and then some by enticing more of you lovely backers to sign up.

Documentary
After Kickstarter, Amazon, and rewards had been accounted for, we were left with $2,626,429. At this point we were ready to split the money with 2 Player Productions. Originally, 2PP was asking for $100,000, but just like us they were asking for a bare bones budget and their production has expanded quite a bit in reaction to the unexpected amount of support and interest in the project. It meant not just following us for 6 months, but for an entire year. It also meant covering a lot more travel (they’re in Portland, we’re in SF), buying new equipment, and paying for an amazing score from Terrance Lee. Taking this all into account, we agreed that a fair split would be to give 2PP 15% of the money after fees and rewards. This put the documentary budget at $393,964.

Game
Using the modern miracle that is math, that means we can now deduce that our game budget is $2,232,465. That’s way higher than $300,000! And will most definitely ensure that this game is suuuuuuuuuuper awesome!

It might be surprising for some people, but shit changes during a games development and there can be complications or delays. As of their last video update they had most critical systems implemented and even had working gameplay for one area/world, although it still looked kinda rough, but were over budget and behind schedule.

I wouldn't particularly worry too much about it, since I'm pretty sure they will get the game done but it might be late. A thing I expect(ed) to happen to about 80% of the KickStarter projects and which isn't particularly rare in "normal" game development either. For instance, even though Project: Eternity has a April 2004 delivery date, I'm rather sure it'll be a few months later than that at least.
Not sure why people decided to pick on the Double Fine KickStarter specifically either, since it looks to be one of the most promising ones so far and the Documentary episodes alone would've been well worth the money, might have something to do with it being the project that started this "KickStarter craze" I guess.

 

[MRY]

Expensive elements that don't add much, such as cutscenes and voice acting, are put into the game.

I don't think you can really make an adventure game without voice acting at this point. And if you're going to do it, you need to do it right -- basically all those gorgeous European adventure games are ruined by crappy voice acting, whereas good voice acting has spun gold out of solid but not great scripts (Sacrifice and Soul Reaver pop to mind, and the Blizzard games' stories benefit hugely from this). Great voice acting on top of a great script can be amazing -- take Psychonauts. Likewise, cutscenes done well can make a game feel like an extension of childhood fantasy of a playable cartoon. I still think a huge part of why Primordia works -- to the extent it works -- is that the introductory cutscene that Victor did feels like it could be a Don Bluth cartoon.

Keep in mind that DFA pulled in more money than the budget for Full Throttle, even adjusted for inflation (~75% of Grim Fandango's budget, adjusted for inflation). Is it more difficult now to make such a game than it was in 1995?

I was going to cry bullshit, but damn, you seem to be right. I have no idea how they made Full Throttle on that budget! That said, they were leveraging an existing engine and a team of artists and designers who had lived that genre for a while, which probably pushed costs down. Full Throttle is also on the short side of adventure games -- not compared to Primordia or something, but compared to classic commercial games. It's also 320x200 (I think). One of the things that we got most heavily criticized for regarding Primordia was the screen resolution. Maybe DF could get away with it because they have more of a right to be retro, but they probably figured that they had to up the resolution. Higher resolution art requires a lot more frames of animation, which increases the art load.

We also see situations such as the Coles, who said they couldn't make a Quest for Glory type game for $400k - yet Quest for Infamy is doing just that for $60k.

That's because (I assume) much of the team on Quest for Infamy isn't getting paid (except in residuals), they're using an existing engine, I think (AGS), built on top of their existing scripts for that engine, etc. Incidentally, AGDI made a Quest for Glory type game (in fact, they made Quest for Glory 2!) for zero dollars. But that doesn't mean the Quest for Infamy team is being greedy on inefficient. It means that different tiers of developers have different things they can leverage in terms of free labor. I don't think the Coles are prepared to have unpaid volunteer work -- my guess is that they're concerned it would lend an air of unprofessionality to the whole endeavor and also make the legal issues more stressful.

Maybe there's just some huge developmental doughnut hole between indies and veterans, but from what I've seen, it looks like a lot of developers just can't manage their budgets. If Double Fine is running out of funds after making 8x their goal, why not give the money to indies instead?

Both are probably true. I just think people shouldn't be so quick to assert malice or malfeasance when it comes to how projects are handling their budgets. All the time I say to myself, "Doing X should be really easy." Then I try to do X, and realize it also entails doing A, B, C, D, E, F, G, none of which I realized. That's why Vic and I thought we could do Primordia in a fifth the time it actually took. Not having been on paying side of a commercial project, I'm reluctant to criticize them too much.

Also, it seems to me that all of this criticism is predicated on DFA being a lousy game. If it's a lousy game, then, to me, that says less about the budget than it says about the team. My feeling is that the DF team should be able to make a great game at any budget. If DFA sucks it will because I overestimated their ability, not because they had too little or too much money. (The core aspects of writing, setting, and visual look can be done at any budget, really.) If the game is awesome, then $3 million was cheap because, really, how often do we get awesome games, at any budget?

 

[Alex]

I don't think you can really make an adventure game without voice acting at this point. And if you're going to do it, you need to do it right -- basically all those gorgeous European adventure games are ruined by crappy voice acting, whereas good voice acting has spun gold out of solid but not great scripts (Sacrifice and Soul Reaver pop to mind, and the Blizzard games' stories benefit hugely from this). Great voice acting on top of a great script can be amazing -- take Psychonauts. Likewise, cutscenes done well can make a game feel like an extension of childhood fantasy of a playable cartoon. I still think a huge part of why Primordia works -- to the extent it works -- is that the introductory cutscene that Victor did feels like it could be a Don Bluth cartoon.

I thought the point of the kickstarter was to try something a little less mainstream, so to me it sounds like no voice over would fit right in. Though, to be honest, voiced games always rub me the wrong way. So I would much rather have the game with no voice at all.

I was going to cry bullshit, but damn, you seem to be right. I have no idea how they made Full Throttle on that budget! That said, they were leveraging an existing engine and a team of artists and designers who had lived that genre for a while, which probably pushed costs down. Full Throttle is also on the short side of adventure games -- not compared to Primordia or something, but compared to classic commercial games. It's also 320x200 (I think). One of the things that we got most heavily criticized for regarding Primordia was the screen resolution. Maybe DF could get away with it because they have more of a right to be retro, but they probably figured that they had to up the resolution. Higher resolution art requires a lot more frames of animation, which increases the art load.

I understand you just mean to explain things from their point of view, but for people who care about older games this is more inflammatory still. I mean, not only did those 320x200 games look way better than higher resolution games of today, but they also are cheaper to make. Why the hell don't developers just go back to the old tools and ways?

 

[tuluse]

DFA isn't using traditional animation. They created 3D skeletons to do movement, but have 2D images on top of them.

Also the game is designed to scale to different resolutions, it's not pre-rendered.

I understand you just mean to explain things from their point of view, but for people who care about older games this is more inflammatory still. I mean, not only did those 320x200 games look way better than higher resolution games of today, but they also are cheaper to make. Why the hell don't developers just go back to the old tools and ways?

I think that was actually their initial plan for 300k, but once they got 3 million they assumed people wanted more flashiness.

 

[MRY]

Bickering in defense of a project that doesn't even really excite me seems like a squander of my 100th post, but so be it!

the point of the kickstarter was to try something a little less mainstream, so to me it sounds like no voice over would fit right in

A couple things. First, the point of Kickstarter is to crowdfund projects where conventional funding isn't available. That sort of means more or less mainstream, but not necessarily. In this instance, I'm not sure any adventure games have been able to secure significant conventional funding in the United States in a decade outside of the Telltale games, which almost exclusively rely on licensed IP. So any adventure game is going to be outside the mainstream, especially when it is not leveraging an existing IP. In any event, it's not clear to me why "retro" has to mean retro to 1990 rather than retro to 1996 -- by which point 320x200x256 was more or less over and done with. Second, even assuming that in some respects the project should be outside the mainstream and that that means retro sensibilities, that doesn't mean developers must maximize non-mainstream-ness or retro-ness. I mean, EGA would be more retro than VGA, a parser would be more retro than a pointer, keywords more retro than dialogue trees, etc. Cutting VO would push you back to, I dunno, early VGA era?

I say all of this being someone who loves the 320x200 era of adventure games. But DFA isn't my vanity project or yours. It's Double Fine's. If this is the game they want to make, then it's their prerogative. They were deliberately evasive in the KS pitch: "Other than that it will be an old school adventure, we're not sure. That's the beauty of it! Everything will unfold in front of the cameras with help from you!" In my view, all that really means is that it has to resemble some adventure game prior to, say, 2005. There's a huge range of stuff there. (I haven't seen any of the development videos, as I'm not a backer, so if their game were truly not an "old school adventure" but rather, say, another Trine clone a la The Cave, then maybe there would be an argument that they're not delivering.)

I mean, not only did those 320x200 games look way better than higher resolution games of today, but they also are cheaper to make. Why the hell don't developers just go back to the old tools and ways?

All I can say is that, having just gone through the process of releasing Primordia, the market for old school adventure games isn't what you think it is. Almost every review, even the good ones, criticized the game's low resolution and low frames of animation. Almost all of them asserted the puzzles were too hard (which seems incorrect), or involved pixel hunting (which is just factually untrue). A great number of them said there were too many inventory items (you seldom have more than five or six and cap out at like 15, and then only if you're metagaming to max out inventory) or too many puzzles (what else do you want in an adventure game? it's like complaining about Medal of Honor because it involves too much shooting). All of them praised where we removed classic adventure tropes (removing "adventure game logic," backtracking, deaths, impossible situations, and writing stuff down); if people overlooked the ways in which we eliminated these tropes, they tended to criticize them. Several criticized the game for requiring you to write stuff down, which the game doesn't (it has an autonote feature).

If these criticisms were coming exclusively from young reviewers on IGN and GameSpot, it would be one thing, but we got them from even sites dedicated to adventure games and reviewers who are steeped in classic adventure gaming.

Now, I think DF might do a better job designing their graphics to accommodate low resolution, and -- as I said -- the mere fact of classic designers being involved would get them a huge amount more slack. But I'm pretty sure they've read the tea leaves correctly if they've concluded that even hard core adventure fans no longer like traditional adventure games.

Possibly I'm just traumatized. Who knows? (Incidentally, our reviews haven't even been that bad!)

In any event, it's altogether possible that the DF team would just rather work in higher resolution. Again, it's their prerogative! I don't think "old school adventure" entails low resolution given Curse of Monkey Island, Broken Sword, King's Quest VII (yech), Grim Fandango, etc.

They created 3D skeletons to do movement, but have 2D images on top of them.

Yikes! I've yet to see that look good. The most depressing instance was in Aquaria, and otherwise gorgeous game done by a guy I went to high school with who is a phenomenal artist. The sprites lost so much character with this method. But, maybe DF will make it work. . .

 

[Alex]

Bickering in defense of a project that doesn't even really excite me seems like a squander of my 100th post, but so be it!

This is the Codex, man! Bickering is what we are here for

A couple things. First, the point of Kickstarter is to crowdfund projects where conventional funding isn't available. That sort of means more or less mainstream, but not necessarily.

I actually meant this project in specific, not kickstarter as a whole. Sorry, I should have been more clear.

In this instance, I'm not sure any adventure games have been able to secure significant conventional funding in the United States in a decade outside of the Telltale games, which almost exclusively rely on licensed IP. So any adventure game is going to be outside the mainstream, especially when it is not leveraging an existing IP.

True, but I meant mainstream as relative to adventure games. I mean, I imagined that without kickstarter, Double Fine would be able to at least match the kind of thing published by Tell Tale.

In any event, it's not clear to me why "retro" has to mean retro to 1990 rather than retro to 1996 -- by which point 320x200x256 was more or less over and done with.

It doesn't, but if the result is uglier and more expensive, why the heck use it?

Second, even assuming that in some respects the project should be outside the mainstream and that that means retro sensibilities, that doesn't mean developers must maximize non-mainstream-ness or retro-ness. I mean, EGA would be more retro than VGA, a parser would be more retro than a pointer, keywords more retro than dialogue trees, etc.

I just assumed that stuff would be too much to ask for. I certainly would have preferred a text adventure.

Cutting VO would push you back to, I dunno, early VGA era?

I didn't expect no VO. I just would prefer it if they did that. Specially if that allowed them to make a more expansive project.

I say all of this being someone who loves the 320x200 era of adventure games. But DFA isn't my vanity project or yours. It's Double Fine's. If this is the game they want to make, then it's their prerogative. They were deliberately evasive in the KS pitch: "Other than that it will be an old school adventure, we're not sure. That's the beauty of it! Everything will unfold in front of the cameras with help from you!" In my view, all that really means is that it has to resemble some adventure game prior to, say, 2005. There's a huge range of stuff there. (I haven't seen any of the development videos, as I'm not a backer, so if their game were truly not an "old school adventure" but rather, say, another Trine clone a la The Cave, then maybe there would be an argument that they're not delivering.)

I don't mean to say the Double Fine managed their money badly. It is theirs to do as they see fit. What I mean to say is that they seem to have spent it with stuff I couldn't care less about, and I think they could have used it more wisely. Still, the real test of whether they wasted the money I gave them or not is whether the final product seems worth it. I still hope that is the case.

All I can say is that, having just gone through the process of releasing Primordia, the market for old school adventure games isn't what you think it is. Almost every review, even the good ones, criticized the game's low resolution and low frames of animation. Almost all of them asserted the puzzles were too hard (which seems incorrect), or involved pixel hunting (which is just factually untrue). A great number of them said there were too many inventory items (you seldom have more than five or six and cap out at like 15, and then only if you're metagaming to max out inventory) or too many puzzles (what else do you want in an adventure game? it's like complaining about Medal of Honor because it involves too much shooting). All of them praised where we removed classic adventure tropes (removing "adventure game logic," backtracking, deaths, impossible situations, and writing stuff down); if people overlooked the ways in which we eliminated these tropes, they tended to criticize them. Several criticized the game for requiring you to write stuff down, which the game doesn't (it has an autonote feature).

If these criticisms were coming exclusively from young reviewers on IGN and GameSpot, it would be one thing, but we got them from even sites dedicated to adventure games and reviewers who are steeped in classic adventure gaming.

Now, I think DF might do a better job designing their graphics to accommodate low resolution, and -- as I said -- the mere fact of classic designers being involved would get them a huge amount more slack. But I'm pretty sure they've read the tea leaves correctly if they've concluded that even hard core adventure fans no longer like traditional adventure games.

Possibly I'm just traumatized. Who knows? (Incidentally, our reviews haven't even been that bad!)

Which is exactly why I want Adventure games outside the mainstream of Adventures. They became something so sad that hardly resembles a game at all! Maybe it is impossible to make an adventure game that is both good (according to my own tastes) and a commercial success. I don't know. What I do know is that it is impossible to make one that is similar to the newer ones that were released and that is good (again, according to my own tastes).

In any event, it's altogether possible that the DF team would just rather work in higher resolution. Again, it's their prerogative! I don't think "old school adventure" entails low resolution given Curse of Monkey Island, Broken Sword, King's Quest VII (yech), Grim Fandango, etc.
(snip...)

No, but that would be a very nice bonus!

By the way, congratulations on your work with Primordia. It is, I think, the best Wadjet Eye game to date. It also seems to have the most old school vibe among all adventure games I played that were made this century.

 

[FeelTheRads]

what else do you want in an adventure game?

Cinematic experiences, obviously. Duh.

but we got them from even sites dedicated to adventure games and reviewers who are steeped in classic adventure gaming.

Yeah, most likely people that just like with RPGs, don't really like the genre they're reviewing. And they'll criticize anything that doesn't fit with their backwards idea of what that genre should be, which in most cases revolves around cinematic experiences and clicking on "continue" to get to the next scene.

 

[Infinitron]

All I can say is that, having just gone through the process of releasing Primordia, the market for old school adventure games isn't what you think it is. Almost every review, even the good ones, criticized the game's low resolution and low frames of animation. Almost all of them asserted the puzzles were too hard (which seems incorrect), or involved pixel hunting (which is just factually untrue). A great number of them said there were too many inventory items (you seldom have more than five or six and cap out at like 15, and then only if you're metagaming to max out inventory) or too many puzzles (what else do you want in an adventure game? it's like complaining about Medal of Honor because it involves too much shooting). All of them praised where we removed classic adventure tropes (removing "adventure game logic," backtracking, deaths, impossible situations, and writing stuff down); if people overlooked the ways in which we eliminated these tropes, they tended to criticize them. Several criticized the game for requiring you to write stuff down, which the game doesn't (it has an autonote feature).

Yeah, I've read some of those sites and they're pretty horrible. Sad to say, but RPG grognards are better adventure game fans than adventure game fans.